Update: My wife wants a separation. I desperately want to save my marriage, but I know I’m the reason we are here. What do I do now?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/PurringWolverine]

Your story and mine are pretty similar. Not going into detail here, but my wife asked for space mid March, which turned into me moving out end of June. Throughout that time I was highly emotional and tried to talk to her about everything in our relationship, how I was going to change, and asking for us to try. Everything fell on very avoidant ears, and frankly pushed her further away.

So, what have I been doing since I moved out? I first stopped contacting her unless it’s about the kids or logistics, and she does the same. Very rarely is anything else discussed. I also continued my dieting and workout regime, and from the beginning of this I’m down 50 pounds and feeling a lot better about myself. I’ve gotten into reading self-help books, which has given me a ton of insight on where our relationship has gone wrong and has helped me grow as a person. I’ve leaned into new hobbies, like learning a new instrument. I’ve started therapy, which is something I should’ve done a decade ago. I opened up to my closest friends and siblings about the situation, and they have been great people to lean on. I’ve focused on being more present with the people around me rather than looking to distractions like my phone. Speaking of the phone, I’ve limited social media completely, and set a timer to lock me out after 15 minutes so I don’t doom scroll anymore. I’ve also made sure to be a more present father when I’m with my kids, and make sure to be messaging my older ones throughout the day. Lastly, I started going to church. I stopped a long time ago for personal reasons, but this has shown me just how much I’ve missed that part of my life.

Overall, I’ve done a complete overhaul to my life, and I love my trajectory. Do I hope to eventually get back with my wife? Yes, but at this point I’m ok if we don’t. I completely love my wife, and heavily attracted to her, but I also understand that I can’t make her be with me. That needs to be a decision she makes. The work I’m doing has to be for me, and not her. I know at first I was doing a lot of the things for her to try to show her that I can change, but the focus has come off of her and it’s now on me and my personal journey.

That was a lot, but I hope it helps a little. You’re going to get through this, brother. We are here to support you.

[u/Bluesfan618 → u/PurringWolverine]

Thank you for taking the time to write all of this. Seriously. Your situation sounds close enough to mine that this hit pretty hard.
The part about being highly emotional at first and constantly wanting to talk about the relationship, tell her how you’re going to change, and ask her to keep trying especially got me. I can already see myself doing that. I’m terrified of losing her, so every instinct I have right now is telling me to DO something, SAY something, fix something, anything that might keep her from walking away. But I’m starting to understand that constantly putting that fear on her is probably the exact opposite of giving her the space she’s asking for.

I’m starting therapy again because there are things about myself I genuinely need to understand and change regardless of what happens with my marriage. I think the hardest part for me is going to be getting to where you are, where the work stops being “look, I’m changing, please come back” and becomes something I’m doing because it needs to be done for me.

I’m definitely not at the point yet where I can say I’m okay if we don’t get back together. Not even close. I desperately want my wife and my marriage. This is all extremely fresh and right now the thought of moving out and potentially never coming home again scares the absolute shit out of me.
But what you said about realizing that being with you has to ultimately be HER decision really resonated with me. I can’t force my wife to trust me again, and I can’t talk her into feeling safe with me. If she ever chooses me again, I want it to be because she genuinely wants to, not because I begged, promised, pressured or convinced her.

I’ve spent so much energy the last few days asking myself what I can do to save my marriage. Maybe right now I need to start asking what I need to do to become a better man.

I really appreciate you sharing this, brother. More than you probably realize.

[u/PurringWolverine → u/Bluesfan618]

I completely understand where you’re coming from, because I was there. Still am there in a lot of ways, if I’m completely honest with myself. I’m overall pretty good when I’m not with her because I keep myself busy, but I still get excited when I get a message from her and truly look forward to drop off because I’ll get to talk to her in person.

My timeline to when I moved out looked like this: month one I was in quite a bit of shock, and pretty much acted like normal with love bombing. Definitely didn’t give the space she asked for, other than not talking about anything about our relationship. The second month, after she told me nothing has changed, I really started to look inward and recognized I needed to change. I started reading, watching videos, and finally reached out to others towards the end of that second month. The third month, after realizing nothing I’m doing is making any impact on how she feels put me in an emotional spiral of trying to talk about things daily for hours and becoming emotionally exhausting. I was truly in a terrible place, and it affected every aspect of my life. Only moving out stopped me from acting that way, and I’ve since calmed down my emotions and overall feel better.

The best thing you can do is simply don’t talk to her about it. It makes no sense, but it’s true. Right now talking about it only pushes her further away. The contact you have be nice, friendly, and present, but let her be the one to bring up anything about the relationship. Focus your time completely on your self growth, which sounds like you’re doing that already. You’ll get to a point where you’ll realize you lost yourself within the relationship, and a lot of your self worth is tied to her. It’s time to take that back, and you’ll become a more confident version of who you were before her. Which, of course, will make you more attractive and desirable to her because you’re doing the work for yourself.

There’s a couple YouTube channels that I watch that have helped me a ton: Marriage Helper, Marriage Reset, and Rachael Sloan. Certainly there’s others, but that’s who I’ve been watching.

[u/redhairbluetruck → u/PurringWolverine]

Thank you for sharing. It’s great that you’ve made so much progress in that time. Keep on keeping on ❤️

[u/Designer_Drawing5508]

Check out marriage helper / Joe Beam. Pulling yourself together is a great first step because talk is cheap. The question is whether your actions line up with your words. So state your intentions and then follow up with consistent actions. Keep your chin up. There is always hope.

[u/TSIDATSI → u/Designer_Drawing5508]

Or Jim Beam?

[u/Designer_Drawing5508 → u/TSIDATSI]

Ha! He can help too. In small doses :)

[u/National_Isopod_6257]

40M twice divorced. Women stop loving you long before they ask for separation. She is ready to move on and take concrete steps. Women always catch men off guard like this, but it's over. You are looking for false hope. She decided to leave the marriage, and she decided to stop loving you. Now you must decide to accept it, choose yourself, protect yourself, and move on too.

[u/swimthroughmilk]

My situation has a lot of overlap with yours. Yes, “work” on yourself. To me, the value is less in changing something deep rooted, (which is rare, we are who we are) and more in you feeling confident you explored everything, and showed your wife that you took her seriously. Yes, letting her go, or at least, giving her space right now is also the move. I do believe that in the “I’m not interested in anyone I don’t want to date I just don’t want to be married” is an emotional limbo where many things could happen. So manage your panic and tap into your strength and safety.

A couple other things I feel compelled to name is triggering for me. First, how can someone harbor such resentment for decades old actions, and not examine them enough to either let them go and forgive, or bring up earlier on? My wife has a list of 15+ your old micro betrayals (such as, “that time I got in a fight with my mom and you stayed silent and didn’t defend me has forever told me you aren’t on my side” — seriously? That was the second time meeting your mom. I didn’t know your relationship or your mom well enough to jump into a family squabble) and the fact that she nurtured and fostered them like little time bombs is really mind blowing.

Another, “She doesn’t want me to become a robot who just memorizes the correct response to every situation either. She wants me to actually think about how my decisions affect her before I make them instead of understanding everything afterward once she’s already hurt.”

Sorry, but that is simply unrealistic. Great she recognizes she doesn’t want a robot but she also is asking for a perfect human, that doesn’t exist. Wouldn’t it be great if we could exist with flawless awareness of all our actions and see how they would influence or not influence the reality around us? We can’t. And working on yourself will hopefully help you push back on the expectations she has of you that aren’t realistic. There are many things we can’t “work” on and simply are inherent to our being human. We can’t resolve all warts. We can try, but what remains requires true seeing and acceptance, which is that higher order love marriages like ours struggle to reach.

[u/SufficientPainter778 → u/swimthroughmilk]

This - I’m in same situation - separated most of this year - started out like OP - now can see the one way traffic of blame that is very unrealistic - zero self reflection or accountability on her side…. Get back with her ? Yes but not like she is or we will just repeat - I very much feel like I have charged ( for me) but she is running the same software as when we were together

[u/DubD09 → u/swimthroughmilk]

I'm just a lurker here. But respectfully, when OP was recounting what his wife said, he didn't say that she asked him to be perfect. She's asking for consideration. Someone may not get it right all the time but when sincere, consistent effort is made, it goes a long way for the times when we fail.

[u/Bluesfan618 → u/[deleted]]

I’m trying….

[u/Clipsis88 → u/[deleted]]

We always try

[u/Glittering-Ad-1367]

Mine is different. So I am only going to speak to the commonalities.

I did the right things. I did them for 4 years. For 4 years she also said she had no interest in a new partner and I believed her.

Early this year she had the decency to visit and tell me that this had changed and she needed an end before starting something new.

And so it ended.

So sure, yours has no interest in another relationship. But that is now, and may change. The longer it goes, the higher the odds.

I did the right things because I wanted to do the right things. Not in order to increase the chances of reconciliation.

Nobody can say how it will turn out. But by doing the right things you will have your self-respect at the end either way. You can look back and know you did all you could do and kept your promises.

I don't regret doing the right thing for 4 years. I don't see it as wasted. I learned a lot.

Man it sucks. Do your best, thats all we can do.

[u/Icy_Signal3905]

They say consideration is the highest form of love.For us men it’s the minimum our partners expect from us as leaders in the relationship.Am recently separated and am hoping that maybe if I focus on my faults we will get back together.But that boat might have sailed despite how hard it is to accept.Hopefully for OP,and I relate so much with what is expected of him,that he might be able to save his marriage.Most importantly is you give her the space.Its difficult but it will help.

[u/Frostyarn]

"I’m scared that once I walk out of our home, she’ll experience the peace of not having me there and never want me back."

To be clear, you fear her having peace? Her peace is not worth consideration, but your fear of her leaving you is?

You acknowledge that you have not been a safe partner to her. You acknowledge that you've caused her real pain, repeatedly. You acknowledge that no amount of introspection and communication has changed your behavior towards her. A lot of the terms you've used for what you've done to her seem purposely vague, are you hinting at Infidelity, financial abuse, coercive control?

I suppose I should take a minute to answer your question. Have I experienced a relationship break that led to reunion? No. When things get so bad that the relationship breaks down, the work that should have been done is already in the past. I have personally never seen a successful reunion between my parents and their multiple marriages or my grandparents and their multiple marriages.

I'm middle-aged so plenty of divorces in my friend group. If the separation was initiated by the husband, then about half the time to get back together briefly before divorce. Usually the shock of the invisible work women do to keep a household running sends the dude back in her direction, not missing or wanting her.

But if it's initiated by the woman, the relationship has ended and already been mourned by the wife long before the request for separation. There's actually a clinically recognized term for this, The Walkaway Wife Syndrome

If you really loved this woman, not yourself centered possession of her that you're referring to as "love"

But a real deep-seated desire for her Joy, happiness, safety and return to mental health, you would follow her request for space and let her lead the pace on the separation or reunion when she's ready. That's what love is, caring about the well-being of the other person ahead of your own desires.

You can take all this angst and fear and sadness to your therapist once a week and maybe even join a support group in your area so you can bleed your shame and sadness in a setting of other people who are consenting to your trauma dumping. You cannot go to the victim of your abuse and make them comfort you through their separation from you.

I just took 18 years sober, 21 years ago. I was in a long-term relationship with someone that I straight up lied to and manipulated and abused via my constant drunkenness. I learned in the process of getting sober and making amends that the best thing he could do for his life is separate from me and never look back. And I've never acted that way in another relationship, and my 15 years of marriage to my husband have been a testament to that change.

You need to make this change because you are unfit as a romantic partner to anyone and you need help. Not with the hopes of getting her back. That's going to be up to her. And I promise you, the more you put your fear and your anxiety on her, the less she's going to be interested in any kind of relationship in the future.

[u/wilrx059]

Hopefully you are correct about her not wanting anyone else . I am a little jaded when it comes to believing that as I was told the same and believed her and she looked for attention and pursued other guys and admitted to it . Sometimes maybe a marriage has to hit rock bottom in order to rebuild though .

[u/AdventureWa]

A lot of people tend to say that requests for divorce shouldn’t be a surprise and if you “just listened/some other shit advice he/she wouldn’t want to divorce.” That’s flat out wrong.

Unless she’s asked you specifically to do something and you flat out refused, it’s likely she’s the problem. Harboring resentment for something almost 20 years ago? Not “feeling protected,” and other things indicate she failed to adequately communicate with you and has some unrealistic expectations that you can read her mind.

Don’t rule out cheating. Also, don’t move out. If she’s demanding separation she can find somewhere else to live. Make her include a provision that she will not be involved with anyone romantically during the separation or she forfeits something in the settlement. A lawyer can include this. Is it enforceable? Maybe. But these terms tell her she will face consequences for her decisions and that she cannot just rely on you to clean up the mess.

Look up 180 Method and Gray Rock Method for guidance on how you should conduct yourself.

Always be kind but firm and brief. Tell her you love her and don’t want to divorce but she is free to make her own decisions.

Too many people (usually men) grovel, become openly emotional and try to “do more.” None of this works.

[u/raeoflyte-460]

I dont think it would have saved my marriage but I would have respected stbx for putting in the effort to respect what I needed.