I don't want to take the next step

[Nige_S_E]

Two weeks after new years eve my wife of 13yrs dropped the bomb on me, "I love you but am not in love with you." I immediately went into all the natural panic reactions and tried to save our marriage, we have 3 kids - 12, 9 & 3 and up until now our marriage had been good. We get on well, rarely fight are compatible on just about everything we do, and all of a sudden this. We spent the next 4 months in limbo, with alternate times of closeness and intimacy switched with times of absolute withdrawal from me, just as she stated she thought we could be ok and make it work she suddenly switched and 4 weeks later it's over. We have been separated for two weeks now and I just don't get it. We are close and she is determined to maintain a very good relationship, it is very confusing, she tells me she loves me, that she can't imagine me not in her life, she calls me darl yet is adamant it's over.

Me, I'm devastated and just can't believe it's over, or understand how or why. It just doesn't make sense to me. I know I need to start detangling myself from her but I just don't want to, we had a good relationship right up to the day it ended and I'm really not sure it's over for good. I want to hold on but probably shouldn't. She has even asked me to stay in the house with the family, we plan on moving up the coast at the end of the year and still will, she wants us to live together and settle into the new town before we separate into different homes, for the kids and to support each other. I know this is a highly unusual situation but i've agreed to try it, in fact I want to do it so I can stay with my kids and be near her - she does still provide me with enormous love and support. I guess I'm lucky she didn't just up and leave but I still have daily crying episodes where it just knocks me off my feet, i still feel like I've been ripped in half and a piece of me is missing, I still miss her even though we're in the same house. I decided my first step needed to be dividing up our financial affairs, she readily agreed (which made me sad because it was more a manipulation tactic I think) and we'll just share costs and in one way I can stop thinking of us as an "us." I don't want to though, I think she's having a mid life crisis and if I hang on we just might fix it all when she comes out the other side, I'm probably deluding myself. How do you make that step, the first one, the one I so badly want to avoid?

[geoff]

dear Nige, well this must have been so difficult for knowing that someone in your life, who still calls you 'darl' has decided that it's time that the marriage has finished, both emotional and physically.

I want thank you so much for joining this site, as pretty well the same happened with me.

There are so many types of what we call 'love', it could mean absolutely being devoted to someone, or to love someone because they worry about you, or perhaps they love you on the service only, or maybe because they care for you, but when the devotion in any love has gone then they feel it's time to leave.

I do wonder whether or not she has shown any signs that she herself has had a breakdown, which maybe difficult to for you to realise because she maybe hiding it, or whether there have been any other signs indicating something else.

When my wife divorced me we both loved each other, but it wasn't with devotion, it was because we still cared for each other, and this maybe difficult to understand because she wanted the divorce, but she didn't want to live with me any more, but when we talk we still call each other 'dear'.

I can understand this because I was depressed and was drinking alcohol to try and suppress my depression, and she said that she couldn't help me any more, and wanted to leave me.

This is not what you are going through, but for a mum to uproot and leave her children it maybe possible that she has had a breakdown and now you having one yourself.

This is an interesting post so please get back to us. Geoff.

[Nige_S_E]

Thanks Geoff, it's amazing what a difference it makes just knowing people have travelled this road before me and are willing to walk it with me and others.

I am very lucky and thankful that my wife hasn't / isn't just uprooting and leaving but is very determined to remain close to me and in fact wants us to stay living together. She is a remarkable woman with a the warmest heart imaginable and I am so grateful that she hasn't just asked me to leave or taken off herself. Of course it's that very remarkableness and beautiful heart that makes it so damn hard losing her.

Thinking on if she may have had a breakdown, I don't think so. We sat and talked for about 3hrs this morning about how much we do love each other and the care and respect we have for each other and how we can be a support for each other throughout this journey. I talked about my hope that we're not really finished and one of my reasons for thinking this is the way she really hasn't been clear headed in her decision making process and that I thought she was having a mid-life crises. I discussed what a MLC looks like outside Hollywood and she actually started to cry, I think I hit on a truth.

I feel heaps better today and only had the one crying episode early in the day, felt almost good after our talk and was able to put it all out of my head for the first time in months. I am trying to just really get the most out of my kids and be very present and engaged with them and appreciate and enjoy my wife as much as I can in the present circumstances while accepting where things are at each morning and recognising that it's only where it is today - who knows what tomorrow will bring. I am really just going to work on myself and see where that takes me and possibly us.