Hello everyone,

This is my first time posting here, and it is a difficult thing to have to post on the divorce section.
Here is my situation:

My wife and I have been married for 4 yrs and we have been seperated since Jan 08. I am currently living in an apartment, while she is in our home. We have a three year old daughter together and she has two girls in a previous marriage. I get my 3 yr old 3-4 days out of the week, but I have no contact with the other girls. These girls mean the world to me especially my three yr old daughter. My wife notified me the first of Feb that she wanted a divorce from me a week after she told me and my parents she was not going to file a divorce on me. I did the the typical desperate move by begging her not to divorce me, but I stopped that a while back, and have not spoke about our relationship. We have very little contact, and it is by text messaging about our daughter.

I have been in a ton of pain because I love my wife with all my heart, and I know there is a way to work things out. I have been trying to get myself better and making sure I am being a great dad to my little one. I have made mistakes in my marriage as well as my wife. She points the finger at me for everything that went wrong in this marriage. I admit that I made mistakes, but I know she has as well but I am moving on from the mistakes in order to save our marriage. I was diagnosed with major depression disorder, and ADHD. I am not making excuses but my depression did cause our marriage to struggle. It's like an addiction it is something you deal with everyday, and try to put yourself in the best possible scenario to help get through it.

My wife has not filed for divorce yet. She will not go to counciling. I know it takes two to make a marriage work, but what can I do to help possibily put my marriage back together or for her to see that we can make it work? I do truly miss my wife and she is at a state where I can't do anything right even if it is, or she takes negative shots at me in an email even if the email is on a different topic.

I have been putting my faith in God, read a couple books,therapy and have done a ton of research on how to save a marriage. Most of the advice is for couples who are still under the same roof. I am just hoping that I can get the opportunity for us to save our marriage for us and for the girls. Please respond with any advice. I truly appreciate all comments, and especially you taking the time to help out. Thanks Again!

It sounds like your wife is really angry with you, and she doesn't trust you to be different.

What is her biggest grievance against you? Tackle that one and really knock it out.

Right now she is blaming everything on me. At this point I am just trying to make myself better, and I hope that will change her perspective on me and life.

She was married before and divorced him as well.

Yes, but if you seriously want to fix the marriage, you have to look at the specific issues, and address them. Just saying she blames me for everything doesn't allow you to make any specific changes on your end. What does she say you have done?

I am dealing with the issues such as depression, poor communication, stability, and procrastination. These are the things that I have done wrong in our marriage, and I am focusing on improving all of these, and gaining knowledge on how to be a better husband. My wife has a lot of hurt and I have come to accept that and I understand.

Those sound like really...vague reasons to divorce someone. Are you sure she's not having an affair? Kinda sounds like it. Even if it's just an emotional affair (even a crush) with someone she works with, they can make really weird decisions.

See what you can find out. Call all your family and her family. Call her friends. Find out what she's been saying to them. Ask them if she's seeing someone already (good indication of an affair).

You don't have to make the divorce easy for her. Tell her that you will only agree to a separation, and then only if she goes to marriage counseling with you. Stand up for yourself. Unless you were a much worse husband than you've been describing, it sounds like you may be getting railroaded.

I agree. Those reasons sound vague at best. Depression is not a reason to get divorced. The way depression manifests itself is. For example, people suffering from depression are very self-absorbed and have difficulty relating to someone else. So, have you isolated yourself from you wife for a long period of time? Have you committed lovebusters like selfish demands?

Procrastination... Have you totally slacked off on the domestic support or the family commitment or the financial support?

If I were you, I'd come up with some very specific changes to make. For example, cut the lawn on a regular basis, or fix the leaky sink--these fall under domestic support.

If you've been withholding affection, figure out how she likes affection, and do it. Flowers once a week, sweet notes, whatever she'd welcome and appreciate.

If she's looking at divorce number 2, it could be that she didn't learn much from her first marriage, and either picked someone who had issues (you) or she didn't know how to handle the problems marriage brings, or a combo. Either way, she may be more motivated to save this marriage since it will be the second one.

Use that little light to build on. Have you read LoveBusters? the VERY First thing you need to do is to elminiate all LBs. You need to be SAFE for her. Then, you can start rebuilding the love bank.

Thanks for all the advice. We have been seperated for about 3 months. She was in no hurry to get a divorce, and she even explained to myself and my parents that this was going to be about a 6 month seperation. Then in Feb she sent me a email that said she wanted a divorce. I know that she has a guy friend that she just recently met in Feb. She could be dating him even though she denied it, and said he was just a friend. She did kiss a guy last May and she told me about it. We were having trying times then as well as she was going out with her friends a lot.

The thing I don't understand is that she doesn't think she did anything wrong in our marriage. I know that I have accepted my mistakes and I am working on them and trying to make myself better.

Also, I would love to send her nice things once a week, but I know that would make her upset. I am just trying to get through to her that I am making change.

Dude, she's playing you. She's been having an affair. She's in a fog, which is why she says she has done nothing wrong; they rewrite your history so that you're the bad guy, there was never anything there, something like that.

You really need to snoop.

And if you get back together, do NOT let her go out with her friends like that. That is exactly how affairs start.