Warning!!! Long post
I am currently 33, my wife 32, We don't have any children. We were married in 1998, during our graduate school training. At that time, we had known each other for >7 years but only dated for ~2 years.

Marriage was exciting, but as we moved closer to our family and friends, during more of my postgraduate training, we began having some arguments about time spent with my family and friends.

At some point she felt her emotional needs not being met by me. As much as I wanted to assure her that my love and devotion was only for her, my needs to spend time occasionally (~2-3 times a month) with family and friends were seen as my lack of emotional need for her or lack of romance in our relationship or my loss of attraction for her (I don't know for sure).

She tried to set rules and restrict my time with family and friends I felt "Trapped" and didn't know what to do so my response was to pull away even further and argue. Over 1-2 years, because of these fights, she moved back to her parents' home (15min away) temporarily several times out of anger but at the request of her parents I always apologized and asked her to return home after 2-3 days.

14 months ago however, she moved home and I didn't apologize nor did I contact her. 1 ½ months later she filed for divorce. It crushed me. I begged her to give us another try and that I will change.

Over the past year we saw a marriage counselor ~8-9 months ago for a few months. But my mistake was still expecting her to change as well.

I also reduced my activities with friends and tried to be more romantic but she doesn't recognize it. I have never asked her to limit her activities with her family

During the past 14 months of separation without our divorce finalized, we continued to have 2 battles with her refusing to talk to me for weeks at a time and her threatening to finalize the divorce.

The latest, however, was different. 2 weeks after hanging up on me at the end of August 2005, with no contact between us, she moved away from the area ~6 hours away. I did not find out until 2 wks after the fact through her BIL

Again this crushed me; I immediately tried to contact her through phone and emails with no response. Only an email saying: "We've been through all this before. We're not a good match. I have moved on and hope you have as well. It's better to not have any contact so we can both heal from our wounds. Please don't call me about this."

There was no final "I'm moving forward with the divorce", nor did she remove any of her possessions from my apartment (eg. furniture, appliances). It was simply a move away to an area where she has only one guy friend that she talks to occasionally and no contact with me.

In my panic I drove up to SF where she was staying with a friend and pleaded with her to talk to me. She finally agreed and spoke to me for ~45min. I lay out that I'm willing to do anything. She stated that these were just words to get back together again and she does not want to get back together because she is not putting herself through this again.

Since then, in the subsequent 3 weeks, I sent 2 emails to her, writing about my understandings and new realizations. She has responded only once to an email about a marriage seminar weekend that "she can't do this to her self anymore".

After many emails detailing my improvement and no response from her I get call at 1:30AM on 11/14 asking me to let her use some equipment in my office. This 2AM encounter lead to dinner immed. she’s still telling me to "Move-on". Then 3 nights later, I decided to leave her a Voicemail with: "Ever since you’ve moved to SF, your words to me are very clear; to move-on with my life. No matter how much I want to make this marriage work, I have to accept what you’re telling me and move-on just as you have. A large part of that moving-on includes your possessions moving-on with you so that I can have some closure. So I’ll pack them up and put them down into the garage. Please contact me to arrange a convenient time to pick them up this weekend. At that point, I would also like to ask that you return the keys, garage door opener, and the parking pass to the apartment."

30min later I get a call with enraged tone about throwing her possessions out and being unreasonable about the time frame.

I eventually calmed her down to be able to talk to her about all the things I have learned but have gotten no response back and seeing her few nights ago reassured me that she was indeed happy and in a "better place" now, that I must not resist and let her be happy by following her wishes for me to "move-on". Therefore I must have some closure.

She expressed that she hasn't finalized the divorce because she wanted to give me time to be ready. I thanked her for that and said if she still feel the same way then I'm ready.
Long pause and then I press her for an answer, she showed discontent for the pressure I'm giving her. Then she said she can't talk to me anymore on the phone because it causes so much confusion and makes her lose her bearings, but we can email. I left it at that and we went to bed.

Next AM she called and was very angry about my "tone of voice" last night; causing her anxiety again, accusing me of throwing out her possessions again. I tried to explain that this is my way of "moving-on" She hung-up on me and when I tried to call her back, she screamed into the phone something about "throwing out her things".

I didn’t contact her for ~1 ½ wk. Spoke to Jen Chalmers-decided to go back to Plan A, then I emailed her with 2 more letters, 1. to apologize for the anxiety I caused and 2. to say our differences don’t make us incompatible and to apologize for trying to show my love with the wrong efforts. 1 day later she emails me back with this.

"My brain has completely blocked out a lot of what has happened between us. All this talk is a constant reminder of the pain. I can't do it anymore. Too much damage has occured and you're pouring salt on the wound. I am not going to change my mind. Don't do this anymore. You should move on."

I haven’t emailed her since 12/1/05.

12/11/05 She sent her sister to come by with movers to pickup all the large items in the garage. Didn't take any of the smaller items. Still some books and photo albums left.

I am so afraid that this is a lost cause. I just don't know what to do???

I think you need to make up your mind. Either you're going to reconcile or you're going to move on. And then start working towards one or the other.

You're sending out some mixed signals, which is antithetical to clear communication, which a relationship in stress seriously needs.

Is your STBX right in yelling an dscreaming at you? Probably not.

So make up you mind, and then start working towards the thing you *want* to happen. If you want to reconcile, stop threatening her stuff, what possible purpose would it serve? Instead, look at the ways to actually meet her needs and such in any way you can, even if it's a very small way.

Or decide to move on, don't call her, just put the stuff in a storage unit, fedex her the key, and go out and find a date. But don't torture the girl, just be a mensch and move on with some class. Regardless of her response.

Thanks for your thoughts JM,
the truth is I don't want to move on. Even if we finalize the D, I don't think I would move on for awhile. I want to revive the marriage. I now realize that it was probably a bad thing to do to threaten her stuff. It was an advice I got from my local counselor (more along the line of "Tough Love" philosophy). I haven't gone back to him since then...
Right now I haven't contacted her since her last reply on email (which was 12/1/05). Was advised by Jen C to just back off and do nothing and wait to see if she contacts me. If she does, don't talk about the R/M. Just be polite and do reflective listening, don't correct anything she says and don't imply anything. For now I'm just hoping that she contacts me again, ever...

The other thing I would encourage you is to be in it for th elong haul. If you're going to work on your relationship, then you gotta work on you, because that's the only thing you have control over.

That means embracing BC, and eliminating LB's, and generally making sure that you are the best that you can be.

Even when it gets tough, or it doesn't seem like it's working.

Thanks JM,
Well, another bad day today...
She's still out of town, but sent her sister with movers to come by pick up her large items from garage to put in her house that she co-own with her sister (one that I was supposed to buy with her). Still some small stuff left over to go through, eg. books, photo albums... I don't know if I should've asked for the garage door opener back? I didn't

I really feel like calling her but afraid to...

I would take this question over to the GQII (General Questions) section and ask there. More people read it, and more veterans of similar circumstances...

it's your call as to whether or not you call her. No way for me to know.

But sometimes a brief interval for things to cool off a bit, and the wounds to heal a bit isn't a bad thing.