My friend, your wife is having an affair. That is why she wants "space." When one has marital problems, they don't need SPACE, they need to be together to SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

Lets use some simple logic here. If my car is broken down, would I park it back of the house and leave it? Or would I stay with the car and FIX IT? Which tactic do you think would result in a FIXED CAR?

It is the same logic with your marriage. A marriage is not repaired by magic osmosis when you are APART. It is repaired by being together and working on the problem.

"space" means one thing and one thing only; AFFAIR. Don't take my word for it.

signs of an affair:

1. wants "space"

2. has been unhappy for "years" although the BS has evidence otherwise

3. "I love you but am not in love"

4. trots out every grievance, no matter how trivial, going back YEARS. you never had any idea she was bothered by these issues

5. demands undeserved TRUST while carrying on a secret single life

6. very attentive to her/his appearance

7. sudden interest in new music

Hi Greg, fellow Aussie here in the south.

I know this is such a confusing time, and you are trying to assess and process a lot of information at once. As hard as it may seem to believe, I think you should seriously consider the possibility that your wife is having an affair. If most of the signs mentioned by MelodyLane are present in your wife's behaviour then I would be keeping my cards close to my chest, and quietly investigating her movements and communication histories. If she is having an affair and knows that you suspect it, then she will just cover and hide her actions and make it more difficult for you to find evidence.

If I had known what these signs meant, then I would not have been so naive to my H's affair and totally blindsided and shocked on the day I discovered it. In hindsight, all the signs were there.

As well, if she is having an affair, as devastating as it will be for you, it is still not the end of the world. You will survive and, if both parties are willing, you can make your marriage better and stronger than ever. That is where my H and I are at the moment. Nine months ago I discovered his 2.5 yr PA with a co-worker, and the discovery was the catalyst for us to face our problems in ourselves and our marriage, and work together towards something better.

You have been doing a lot of reading here which is great. Don't expect immediate action and changes on your wifes part, this will be a long process for you. If she is having an affair, then you will have to deal with that first, you will both have a period of recovery from the affair, and then with time you will be able to move on to rebuilding the marriage. There is no quick fix in this situation and you will both need a lot of energy and committment to each other to get through it.

I have only been on this site for a week or so, but some of my other posts may also help you, so just click on my link to access them.

Best of luck to you.

The night time system hasn't been started yet. I think she mentioned it initially because she wanted to avoid being confronted by me trying to change her mind. Perhaps that won't be an issue now that I have stopped trying to engage her on the subject at every turn.

Then in a weeks time she will be going to visit her dad, with the girls, he lives 4 hours away. They will be gone a week. (this has been planned for some time)

Having her away from me at that stage might wreck what ever progress I make between now and then.

It should not cause your progress to go backwards. No contact means no LB's. Certainly no chance for love bank deposits but no LB's.

Just PLAN A buddy! It can work!

Greg - I agree with Mel - she's having an affair and at this point you are enabling it.

You must snoop and find the OM. I bet you already know who it is.

No idea - the demand to seperate didn't come out of the blue. I had a tantrum by leaving house on saturday morning after she said she had to get up to go and take car to her inlaws instead of staying and making love to me. The weekend before I got angry at the kids when they were wanting to interupt my wife and I making love on fathers day morning. I mean - [censored] - what an [censored] - fathers day and the kids just want to show me that they love me and I get angry because they're interupting my precious time with my wife.

11 years of me wasting my liesure time on computer games!! Financial troubles due to interest rate rises and having to sell house....blah blah blah - she's had enough and I don't blame her and now it's probably too late to save our marriage and family.

Melody - what if the in her eyes the car is a wreck and cannot see anypoint in wasting more time and money on fixing an unreliable piece of crap that has never gotten her to where she needed to go and always breaks when she needs it the most?

Would you fix it?

She's not going to no matter what i do. She has aleady asked me to stop doing things for her a number of times. She would have left with girls if she could afford to. There is nothing to save in her eyes. She doesn't want space - she has said "I don't love you" and that she can't see any way she is going change.

What traits would she want to see in you? Can you assume those traits?

How is your Plan A going?

I have read Plan A - my understanding is that the first step is to find proof?

At the moment I have not proof - other than the symptoms and bahaviours. In the mean time I have been trying to eliminate all love busters.

No anger or arguing.
Removed computer from house.
Stepped up to undertaking more household chores and care of kids.
Tried to help her with anything I can really.
Tried to spend time with her - not welcomed but i tried

I have perhaps caused defenses to raise by trying to introduce MB print outs to her and talk to her about how if given time we could rebuild our marriage and that I'm 100% focussed on not giving up even though she says she wants me to accept it.

I think talking to her may have been a mistake but I am busting inside to stop our pain. Knowing how we ahve gotten here and how to repair is a curse and a blessing.

You don't have to have proof of an affair to go to Plan A.

You need to know about The Love Bank

You need to implement Plan A - - - now. In cases where there is no affair (and, remember, a lot of what your wife has said is typical affair fog talk), the betrayed spouse is the one fighting for the marriage and the wayward spouse is the one who wants out. (This means some waywards are not cheating they just don't want to stay in the marriage for some other reason - such as abuse or neglect.)

So does that mean just keep doing things that I know would make her happy, elliminate all the things I have control over that make her unhappy and ignore her indifference?

Greg - there's an OM in the woodpile here. Until you identify him and expose the affair, pretty much nothing you do will work.

By all means Plan A her but it will be largely ineffective if she is having an affair.

You need to snoop and get to the bottom of this.

Telephone records, co-workers, see where she goes at night when she is not at home. You can't beat this until you expose this.

Has she told you she loves you but she's not IN-LOVE with you?

There's no love expressed - she has said she doesn't love me anymore.

We Have had house on market for a while - this is an obvious point at which to attempt to seperate. If she is having an affair then she had nothing to gain by bringing up wanting to seperate - she could have just waited until house got sold.

Her main concern would be protecting the girls which is why she hasn't suggested telling them. She couldn't have known how I was going to react so that's why I think the blow up was the last straw. She snapped, other wise she would have planned it better.

grego

Denial is not a river in Egypt. Denial is the fantasy land that you are living in.

"she has said she doesn't love me anymore."

"If she is having an affair then she had nothing to gain by bringing up wanting to seperate - she could have just waited until house got sold."

Red flags do not come bigger than these.

Because she loves someone else.

Because WW's has an EA and now wants to go PA, if she has not already gone there.

Most likely it is a PA arleady and sneeking off for a moment here or there is no longer enough.

WW wants the OM for the whole night every night.

Have you used a key logger, voice activated digital recorder in the home, her car? Checked phone bills? Get a cell phone with GPS to place in here car to know where she is at?

Thanks for the advice - but there is an equally plausable explanation for her behaviour as can be evidenced in the Q&A letters section on this site. My attempt at being suspicious and trying to make it harder for her to have time to herself made her very angry.

Yes if it was OM this could explain it, but equally if she is angry and hurt by years of my neglect her love bank is in negative and wants to remove herself from the situation causing her pain and Me pressuring her doesn't aid in her feelings of saftey with me.

If I try to encroach on her while I'm trying to fix myself then she will keep trying to get away.

I have been to doctor and am on AD
I am getting a refereal to a psychologist
I am going to start an anger management course
Hopefully "His Needs / Her Needs" and "Love Busters" will arrive shorlty.
And I've started a diet and exercise to lose a few pounds.

I just hope that I can stay strong long enough and have long enough before the house sells for her to give me a chance.

Maybe you can get started early by checking the books out at your local library. Meanwhile, read all the info here.

Yes - I am spending a lot of time on site - it's my crutch at the moment. I need to read that people have come through this and worse to keep myself sane. Otherwise I'll give up hope and do something stupid again.

I checked on her scheduled gym session after work tonight - dropped of No1 daughter to Karate and then carried on over to where my wife goes to her exercise / diet centre - she was there.

Strange thing was I was kind of hoping she wasn't!

Had that issue with sleeping arrangements last night - she wanted to go and stay at her friends' (the poisoning [censored] friend with two kids from different fathers)because she felt pressured by me. TO be fair - I had tried to introduce some more Dr Harley to her but she obviously felt hassled so I won't be doing that anymore.

Keep you posted

I lean a little toward bigkahuna's thinking. May be only an EA and she may not even understand an EA is actually an A. The bottom line is that people usually don't bail on a situation unless they believe they have found something better.

She could also have a female friend who divorced and went on to a "better" life and is being influenced by that. I have believed for a very long time that divorce is contageous. I have worked many places where a worker getting a divorce would soon be followed by coworkers in close proximity because they talk. Nobody ever gets a divorce for another partner and then talks about what a stupid mistake it was. They always say they should have done it years sooner and how it was the best decision they ever made (even if a lie).

Unless you are abusing your W, she is wanting to leave because she believes she has caught a glimpse of something that is better than what she has with you. Most people are too afraid of the "unknown" to take that leap into nothingness. It is more logical that there is a somethingness she believes will cushion her fall.