WAW, not sure how to proceed...

[NTX_Dad]

Have you considered she may be depressed? Just asking.
She isn't doing this to jerk your chain IMHO.

I have considered that...and I think that she probably is. She describes it as anxiety (she has to take xanax occasionally during the day to deal with what are essentially panic attacks that come on whenever she starts thinking about our situation, and also occasionally at night so that she can get to sleep), and I guess anxiety is obviously a critical element...but I think there is a strong vein of depression in there as well.

I guess there's a part of me that feels like "Hey, how come I'm the one that's for all intents and purposes getting dumped, but I'm managing to pull myself together, showing a positive attitude, and taking care of business, meanwhile this is her decision, her choice that divorce is the answer, and yet here she is anxious/depressed, barely doing anything around the house but still maintaining the motivation/ability to do the things that are solely for her?" I know that's probably not the best way to be thinking...but I guess I have to admit to myself (and maybe to her at some point) that it's starting to bother me that she's able to pull it together to work out and do yoga, keep herself looking pretty, socialize and party with her friends, but most of the work and responsibilities of maintaining the household have kind of been taken over by me. I've been willing to let it slide for the past couple of months for the sake of giving her her space and just focusing on me and the kids and getting done what needs to get done...but I guess I'm feeling like there needs to be a discussion/re-negotiation of what needs to get done around here...

Your sitch is starting to sound exactly like my sitch! The similarities are eerie.

May I ask how old your W is? Mine is 37. I wonder if its a case of MLC.

[dearme]

My hugs, prayers and warm thoughts go out to you. Be strong.

Hey, thank you for that. Thanks for everything you wrote--I needed that perspective--but many many thanks for the kind regards. I needed to hear that from someone.

I know a fair bit about clinical depression; suffered on and off from it for years and have been off/on meds... in fact, it undoubtedly contributed to the problems that I brought to the table in my marriage. I guess I should feel fortunate that I'm coping quite well without meds now (although I am in individual therapy). And I need to remind myself that depression manifests itself in different ways for different people...and different people cope with it in different ways...

[NTX_Dad]

I am sorry, I just posted a reply to you which is essentially the same as one I posted on the 16th. I am still moderated so I forget what I have and haven't already said.

I may have replied and told you about our current sitch, I can't see it on here yet so at risk of repeating myself...

I got the ILYBNILWY back in April. She asked for a separation back then as well. We tried to stay together in the same home but sleeping apart since. It started to get better in July and she invited me back to our bed, but then at the end of July she "snapped". She started taking Lexapro and she had severe side effects. But the damage was done... we had a couple of arguments that "sealed the deal" for her. On August 8th she filed for divorce and told me she's moving out September 1st.

TBH, I think at this point some time away from each other might be a good thing. I'm going to hate it, but you and I sound alike in that we have both stopped being "us". My social network is diminished and I have neglected my interests in years, which in return makes me unhappy at some level and probably has caused her to lose respect for me.

[dearme]

Your sitch is starting to sound exactly like my sitch! The similarities are eerie.

May I ask how old your W is? Mine is 37. I wonder if its a case of MLC.

I'm 39 and my wife is 33 (2 kids; Son = 8, Daughter = 5). In our case, I think it's a mix of my wife having some VERY legitimate complaints that she didn't communicate to me very well (because of her issues) and that I didn't pick up on and do anything about (because of my issues) until it was "too late." Even after she told me she wanted a divorce she didn't share much in the way of reasons. It was only through a lot of intense introspection on my part that I started seeing things with clarity, and would come to her with the things I was seeing/realizing, and then she would confirm that they were the things she was unhappy about.

I don't know if the MLC-type stuff that's going on now was a contributing factor, or if it's something that only started to manifest itself once she told me she wanted a divorce. As Queen_of_Swords suggested, a lot of what I'm seeing from my wife right now might be more a sign of how my wife is dealing with her feelings of anxiety and depression.

[NTX_Dad]

That could be as well. She's probably too young for MLC.

One of my friends speculated that mine W isn't having a MLC, but rather she's just running away from the house to escape whatever negativity she's perceiving in the household.

[dearme]

That could be as well. She's probably too young for MLC.

One of my friends speculated that mine W isn't having a MLC, but rather she's just running away from the house to escape whatever negativity she's perceiving in the household.

I'm not sure if I read it in DB/DR or somewhere else, but I was thinking along the lines of the "anytime" MLC...which I guess might be better described as an identity crisis. My wife has just really returned to the exact same place we both were in when we first met 10/11 years ago...she's basically become a regular in the "hip" bar scene where we live, and she works as a server so she's part of the whole restaurant crowd, and they just all see staying out until 2 or 3 am as totally normal. I used to do that too...a lot. But once the kids came along I really started to mellow out some, and my wife did too...although not as much as me. Because she's younger than me, I kind of gave her the freedom to keep doing some of that stuff a little more often than I honestly would have liked, because I didn't want her to feel too constrained by the new "domestic" life we were building. And for a while she seemed to appreciate that. But ever since dropping the bomb on me she's really been immersing herself in it more and more...and trying to emulate the new crop of "hip" girls on the scene that are the age now that she was when we first met...mid-twenties or so.

Some people have suggested the possibility of an affair to me, and I would of course be a fool not to consider it...but I really haven't seen any definitive signs of it. No mysterious texting or phone calls, no lack of explanations for where she is and what she does. In fact, she's been really good about calling me when she gets off work to let me know whether or not she's going out and where she's going. She says she feels compelled to do that because I've been being "so good" to her since she dropped the bomb, so she wants to show me some respect and consideration as far as that goes. She actually said the other day that she's never seen anything like what she's seeing from me right now, the changes and the work I'm doing on me. She said she honestly doesn't know what to make of it.

Personally, I never had any suspicions of my own about the possibility of an affair, or of her meeting/pursuing/being pursued by someone else until this week when she stopped wearing her wedding ring. This weekend she stayed at her friend's place down on an old farm, ostensibly so that she could get some time to herself and clear her head, but I also know that the weekend will include a drive into the city to go dancing at a club...and the thought of her in one of her "club outfits" with no ring on her finger just about sends me up the wall. She's very attractive, very fit, and when she dances it's pretty d@mn amazing. But, before she left for the weekend she sat down next to me and held my hand and hugged me, and told me that for her this weekend represented nothing more than the weekend camping trips that I sometimes take on my own...a chance to do something as her own person instead of as "wife" or "mother"... and that's something that I actually have always supported...I just felt a whole lot better about it when our relationship was secure...and when she wore her d@mn ring...

So I don't know...maybe she's using the weekend as an opportunity to run around with someone behind my back and maybe she isn't. But I think it would take a special type of liar to tell me what she told me before she left, and if she is lying I have to assume she doesn't understand that if I find out, it will ruin the chances of maintaining the friendship that she says is so important to her. She still says that I'm her best friend, and that she wants to make sure no matter what happens that we continue to get along for the kids' sake and because her parents still love me and want me to continue to feel welcome in their home... but I'm not sure I have any interest in being friends with someone who would lie and manipulate me in order to get what they want when I (and her own father for that matter) have asked her point blank if there's someone else in the picture or waiting in the wings, and she has emphatically said "No."

[dearme]

So my wife returned from her weekend away... she called Sunday morning to say she was on her way home, and we had a very pleasant conversation as she was driving. The phone call itself was a surprise, as I expected her to spend most if not all of the day at her friend's place, planning on her not returning until around dinner time. She talked about how she wanted to make a point of going to see live music once a month, and was open to that being something we do together.

She seemed happy to see me when she got home. Without my prompting, she gave me a pretty full account of her weekend, and told me that she wanted to make sure I knew that when they went out to the club she danced only with her friend, and that no men hit on her. Aside from going out to the club on Saturday night, she said she spent the rest of the weekend just being alone, thinking, writing, and hanging out in the fields surrounding the farmhouse.

We conversed on and off the rest of the day, during which she also said she realized she hadn't been pulling her weight around the house and was going to get back into the swing of things as far as that goes. Much to my surprise, she also acknowledged that she was still engaging in some of the same behavior that lead to our marital problems...most notably, her continuing to not express her true opinions about things and not telling me things like complaints about our relationship or things she feels like she wants or needs for fear of hurting me. She said seeing all the changes I've undergone in the last two months is making her question how good her current therapist is, and is considering the possibility of finding a new one. She said she's starting to realize she's still "far more messed up" than she's been willing to acknowledge.

There wasn't any talk of what all of this might mean for us, and I didn't ask. She did tell me that she has more feelings for me than "just friends", but that she's very mixed up and confused right now and doesn't want to lead me on. A lot of other things were touched upon as well, but one of the few things I did say, and where we kind of left things off, is that I was aware I didn't exactly create an environment in which she could feel comfortable sharing her relationship complaints, and that was one of the major things I had worked on in the last two months with my therapist...becoming a man that can be open to and hear her constructive criticism, and the things that she needs to tell me regarding her wants and needs. She said it wasn't just with me that she has a problem doing that, that it's a problem for her with all the people in her life, but that it had the most negative consequences with me because of the nature of our relationship. She said changing that is one of her major goals, and I told her I was open to being and would like to be the person that helps her learn to do that.

From all of that, I would have loved for it to have ended with her indicating she was having a change of heart and that she had decided to hold off on separation/divorce and see if we can't turn things around, but she didn't take that step... I wasn't expecting her to, but I certainly was hoping for her to. She has an independent counseling session tomorrow...and again, I'm hoping the outcome of that will her be telling me she has decided to stick things out long enough to see if we can both make the permanent changes we need to make...but yet again, I'm hoping for that, not expecting it... I also really want to see her put that ring back on her finger...

[dearme]

I have to say... I give major props and accolades to the folks who are able to keep this up...the DB'ing...for months and months...even years in some cases. I realized that today it's been 2 months since my wife dropped the bomb on me, and I'm just so tired. Some days are better than others of course, but I'm just so...tired. I haven't shown a drop outwardly to her of what I'm feeling on the inside, as far as the loneliness and confusion and...misery. But sometimes it's all just right there beneath the surface, even as I go about my business with a smile on my face.

[dearme]

Had a very interesting conversation with my wife last night, initiated by her. She said she was very confused, and wasn't sure what the next step for her or us should be, but seemed to be backing off of divorce as the next immediate course of action.

She said all of the changes she was seeing in me had inspired her to acknowledge to herself that she had some major changes of her own she needed to make; namely, be honest with herself and with me (and the other people in her life) about how she feels about things...honoring her own opinions and values, and being strong enough to state her wants and needs.

She also told me that for the past 3 years she's been much more unhappy than she's been willing to admit, and that as a result she feels drained and part of her just doesn't want to be married anymore because of what marriage has represented for her...a thing that had some beauty and goodness to it, but that was constantly tainted by frustration and unhappiness and unfulfillment. She said her primary feeling right now is that she can't get over those bad feelings, and feelings of having fallen out of love and just not being attracted to the person I had become, but that because we are still such good friends and there are things she really values about our relationship, she's willing to see what will happen when we both enact the changes that we need to make. We're kind of limited by time, because in November we had been planning on buying the house we're currently renting... so that gives us two months to see how things develop and decide if we'll stick to that plan, find some other place together, or find places to live separately.

In the course of our discussion, she made pretty clear the type of man she was attracted to...and it's the man I used to be but, unfortunately, had drifted away from over the course of our marriage. She wants someone strong, independent, who has a life of his own, who is willing to take charge; someone who can fend for himself in social situations, and who people take notice of when he walks into a room. Funny thing is...before we got married, that's the person I was. People used to actually tell me things like that about myself...that I was charismatic, that I was the type of person people wanted to be friends with. But somewhere along the line in our marriage I just became this other person...I don't really know how or why, but that's definitely something to explore in my independent counseling.

So, I've been given a pretty good road map... might not change anything between us, but I know the person that I want to be...the person that I used to be...the person that I want to return to be being. It might not turn things around for "us", but it will certainly turn things around for me, and if there is anything that will save our marriage, it will be both of us enacting the necessary changes, growth, and development.

[NTX_Dad]

That sounds very encouraging.

It's good that you are owning up to some things that you can improve, but also keep in mind a good marriage is a two way street.

My wife had me convinced all summer that it was all just me, but I'm seeing the bigger picture now, and I've also discovered an affair. She says it's only emotional, but I am not so sure.