Hello,
Thanks to MB for providing this forum. I know this post is long, but I needed to get my thoughts down clearly so that I can get the best feedback. Thanks for listening and any feedback or encouragement you can offer.

My wife has asked for a separation. We are both in early 50�s and have been married for 24 years. We have four children. The youngest turns 18 tomorrow. The three oldest are from her previous marriage and in their upper 20�s to lower 30�s. Although they no longer live at home, they still monopolize the majority of her time and have placed a great deal of strain on our relationship over the years.

The primary issue that drove her into withdrawal is 15 years of neglect. I let my job, and stressful situations at home keep me away from wife and family. I�ve always been a workaholic, but in the beginning part of the reason I stayed away was poor/deteriorating relationship with her rebellious son. It was an extremely stressful time, so to avoid conflict with her son I began working late nights. Soon that became a habit. As I progressed through my career it became part habit/part necessity. At least I perceived it as a necessity at the time. I felt guilty if I didn�t stay late or work just as hard or harder then I asked my team to work. I should have felt guilty about not being home with my wife.

About 15 months ago she first requested a separation. I was blind-sided. I shouldn�t have been but I was. I knew the marriage didn�t have the same passion it used to have, but that was the new normal. I had no idea the marriage was in this much trouble. We agreed to separate but would start dating each other to try to rebuild our relationship. After two days of raw honesty and open emotional discussions we decided not to separate and instead said we would focus on rebuilding. This went well for a few months but we lacked the tools and strategies to do it. Although I stopped working late, we soon fell back into our old routines. We never followed through on our promises to go on dates and spend more time together.

Last week, she once again asked for a separation. She can no longer make any commitments to me. She�s convinced that not separating before was a mistake and that if we had separated we would have worked harder at it and things would be different. With this separation she is not willing to make any promises, she wants to take things day by day and see how things go.

I�m convinced that our relationship can be saved. Some of the reasons that make me optimistic are:
1. We don�t argue.
2. She still treats me with kindness and respect.
3. We have always respected each other and each other�s feelings. We never attack or belittle each other. It�s probably the primary reason our marriage has lasted this long.
4. Infidelity is not an issue or concern.
5. She�s in emotional withdrawal, but is still very compassionate and is trying to minimize the amount of pain I feel. She cares about me, she just isn�t in love with me anymore.
6. We still sleep in the same bed. She still goes to sleep with her head on my chest and wants/allows me to hold her during the night.
7. SF is probably the only emotional need I fulfill. She still seeks that from me and has indicated a desire/willingness to continue after separation. That�s not to say there aren�t issues in this area.
8. She wants to work on the relationship, but feels the best way to do it is to separate and then try to work from outside.
9. I still love her deeply and am committed to working through this.

I believe separating will be catastrophic to our marriage. She believes it�s the only way to prevent us from hating each other in the future. I believe living separate independent lives will only drive us further apart. I want to be her husband, and she doesn�t know what she wants.

I�ve read through most of the MB site at least once including all the core concepts. I ordered three of the books (His Needs Her Needs, Love Busters, and 5 steps to Romantic Love). They arrived yesterday. I asked her if she would read the books with me. She initially said yes, but is now backing off.

Here are the main challenges I see in front of me.
1) It will be extremely difficult, almost impossible, to get her to spend 15 hours of UA a week. I struggle to get 3 to 4 hours when we are living together and she�s not working. It is difficult to imagine 15 when we are separated and she has to take on a full time job. In addition, with what�s going on in the kids� lives, their demands of her time will ratchet up substantially beginning today.
2) She does not want to plan time together or put together a schedule. She wants to take it day by day and go with the flow. There is a common theme in our relationship. I research, analyze and plan everything. She�s a free spirit who prefers to be flexible. She says I suck the fun out of everything by over planning. She�s usually right, but I think it�s important this time. Trying to get her on the MB plan, and asking her schedule 15 hours, and fill out questionnaires to her is another example of me being too rigid and over planning/ over analyzing everything.
3) We have always been complete opposites. It�s part of what initially attracted us. She expanded my horizons. But now we struggle to find common activities and interests. It makes it difficult to find conversation topics. It is also a big challenge with recreational activities, we struggle to find fun things to do together other than movies which don�t provide for UA.
4) I don�t think she will accept the policy of Joint Agreement. She always has been a strong independent woman. But now she is also used to living an independent life. According to her I�ve made her this way.
5) I have a lot of damage to repair. 15 years is a long time and has taken a large toll on her. I sometimes question if I have the emotional strength to persevere through the walls she has erected. My Taker keeps wanting to take over when she appears unwilling to put in the effort. The reality is she has been giving for 15 years and now her Taker is trying to protect her.

I guess my questions are:
1) Should I agree with the separation, or stay in the home. My gut tells me that separating will be a big mistake, but I don�t want to drive her further away.
2) Should I see if she is willing to delay the separation a few months to try to give MB a chance?
3) Dr. Harley stated he does not counsel couples who can�t commit to 15 hours UA. This issue alone is what makes me the most discouraged. Is this a deal breaker? Are there any couples out there that have successfully increased their UA time by taking things one step at a time until they reached the point where they wanted to spend more time together?
4) Does anyone have any advice on how to overcome the challenges? If I present the whole plan to her at once she will disengage. I fear I�ve already done more damage this week by trying to get too much commitment to fast.
5) Is my best strategy to focus on Love deposits in the limited time we will have available?

Thank You. This post has been therapeutic and has helped me clarify my thoughts.

I forgot to mention. I have suggested we go to counseling but she doesn't believe counseling will help because we don't fight. We don't need help with conflict resolution or anger management. Our issues stem from the neglect, lack of communication, and general incompatibility.

Hello not, welcome to Marriage Builders. Unfortmately, making such an overly long post means you will get less feedback, not more. It makes it very hard to understand your situation.

I made It through about 1/2 of your story but can see the problem and the solution. The problem is that she has fallen out of love and may be in an affair. Your first step must be to rule out an affair. Don't ask, but quietly snoop to see what is going on.

You also need to follow a plan and stop neglecting your marriage. You need 20-25 hours of undivided attention to make a difference in your marriage. Not 15; 20-25. Download the undivided attention worksheet and start scheduling out your week every Sunday afternoon. Start doing this now. Plan at least 4 - 4 hour dates out of the house doing things you both enjoy.

Do you have the book His Needs, Her Needs ? I would get that along with the workbook Five Steps to Romantic Love. That has all your worksheets in it.

If you can follow a plan, and start putting your marriage first, you can save this.

And of course separating is a bad idea as long as you are willing to follow this program. If you are not, we would recommend that she initiate a separation.

Start with this article: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8114_plan.html

Counseling is destructive to marriages and you are more likely to find yourself divorced if you take that path.

Thanks Melody.

I agree she has fallen out of love with me. I do not believe she is having an affair. She is not secretive or defensive at all. I also have access to all her accounts and can look at them anytime. Her Phone is on my business account and I have access to every inbound/outbound phone number she calls or texts on my monthly statement. I feel pretty confident that I can rule an affair out as a possibility, but I will remain diligent.

I just received the books you mentioned and have started reading Love Busters yesterday.

I am willing to put together and follow a plan. When I mentioned scheduling the time to my wife she was not willing to follow a plan. One of our sources of conflict is my tendency to overplan everything. I think she considers my obsessive planning to be an annoying habit. I need to work on getting buy-in for the plan from my wife.

I think my best course of action is to plan 20 to 25 hours of dates and be consistent about asking for them even if she rejects them.

Thank you for your input.

Thanks NOT. Please don't be so quick to rule out an affair until you have actually investigated the facts. And I concerned when you say your wife won't want to plan dates with you. She has said that neglect is a huge problem and planning date nights resolves that problem. These are not "planned by" you but are fun nights planned together. The dates have to be doing things you both enjoy. Once she understands that, I don't see how she could object.

And just so you know, I have been here for 15 years and almost every spouse who wanted a "separation" was having an affair. The reporting spouse usually does not suspect it and will tell us why it can't be so. And perhaps that is true, but it is critical that you diligently rule this out.

Also, do you have the MB radio show app? It is an amazing free resource that will help you immensely.

Thanks Melody. I will remain vigilant.

I am going to keep working on dates. I think she's scared to trust me and be disappointed again. We said we were going to go on more dates the last time. Neither one of us followed through.

As for the app I will download it to my tablet. I have listened to the last three days of MB radio.

We spoke this afternoon about the separation. I told her I did not feel a separation would be the best course of action. We agreed to postpone any decisions on separating until July. We have a cruise planned in June.

Not having a plan is a plan to fail. Time that is not scheduled is easily put off. The best way to do this is to PLAN out you dates using this worksheet every Sunday. Couples who are dating, plan their dates and that is what you need to do. Use this http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forms/FiveSteps_Time_for_Undivided_Attention_Worksheet.pdf




Separation is not a recovery strategy unless there is abuse. You shouldn't agree to it unless you decide to get divorced.

What exactly does this mean?

Melody, You've given me a lot to think about. I came across the following post from you and it really made me sit up and take notice.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/u...in=172387&Number=2872765#Post2872765

It's been a sleepless night. The possibility of an affair was unthinkable yesterday but now I'll always have a lingering doubt unless I know for sure. I've spent part of the night reading the investigation forum. I need to figure out how I want to proceed.

I'm going to go for a walk now.

An affair is more than just a possibility. It is the odds-on most likely cause.

Update?

Did you implement any snooping measures in order to rule out an affair?

Thanks for checking.

I have not implemented anything yet but I have decided on what measures to take. I need to get my plan in place, make some preparations, and then wait for the right opportunity. I know it's a priority, but I also want to be careful.

I have done some manual snooping. Nothing yet.

If you referring to the methods you already mentioned that your W is transparent about such as her passwords, then those are pretty much useless.

Can you be specific what you are referring to?

I guess I am confused about what is taking so long. If you have access to her phone and she isn't being defensive, guarding it, etc, you can easily install a key-logger on to it. GPS and VAR are also good tools to use on her car.

My sister who installed I believe all three of these items herself when it was suggested she snoop by this website w/n a very short time and she was being careful.

Hello?

I'm still here. Please forgive my silence. I'm uncomfortable discussing specific snooping measures on a public forum. I have implemented some measures but they have only been in place over the weekend. Today is the first full weekday that they have been in place.

It's been two weeks. Snooping measures have not turned up anything suspicious so far. The past two weeks were going pretty well up until we suffered a major setback on Friday.

On of the items on our remodel list has been replacing our existing garage door which has a broken spring with carriage doors. We had previously gotten quotes which ranged from $4k to $5K.

On Friday we were putting away groceries and preparing to go out to dinner. She mentioned that she had some flyers for garage door companies and was going to call them to get quotes for the garage door. Immediately my mind started spinning thinking about what the ramifications meant. I hadn't said anything yet, but my wife could see by the look on my face that I was thinking about money. She pre-empted me by saying "Don't worry. I'm not going to ask you to pay for it." I responded by saying
"I'm not sure we should be spending money on the house while our situation is still in limbo". Now all of a sudden money has been thrown into the mix. My wife who had backed off on seeking a job now feels that she has to get a job immediately. She feels like a hypocrite for preaching to our daughters never to be dependent upon a man. She doesn't want to have to depend on me to provide for her. The distance between us is now greater than it ever was and her resolve for independence is stronger than ever.

I know I made two major mistakes. 1) I should never mention the subject of seperation or divorce. 2) I should have asked her what she had in mind instead of racing ahead to the financial and marital implications of what she was saying.

I am concerned that if my wife gets a job, especially one that requires her to work evening hours that we will have limited opportunity for dates. I don't want to be controlling and I certainly don't want to tell her how uncomfortable I am with her working while our marriage is in such a vulnerable state.

What would be the best way to be supportive of her when I'm worried about the ramifications of her getting a job?