My wife and I have been separated a little over 5 months. We lived in LA at the time and my wife left and moved to New Orleans right after New Year's. I moved out of LA back to Austin to be closer to my family to get support going through this difficult time.

Our marriage started out with a heavy dose of tragedy with my mom passing away in a car accident 5 days after our ceremony - this led to me being very depressed and withdrawn from our marriage both physically and emotionally. We didn't get to go on our honeymoon because of the accident and moving around so much.

I started off the separation completely wrong calling, writing her letters, soliciting advice from her family, calling her, etc... I even flew down to New Orleans for a couple of days to see her over Easter, which was emotionally draining for both of us - I went down there with the full intention of courting her, but it just turned into us talking about how much damage we've done in the 4 years we've been married. Since Easter I've had little communication with her. She has been traveling all over the world with friends and I've been cleaning up all of our finances, stuff, etc... Her parents have been supportive in us trying to work it out, but I know I'm not married to them so at the end of the day it really doesn't matter. I've mostly been working on myself or trying to for the most part. I haven't reached out to my wife since Easter besides some causal, "how's everything" texts.

Our 4th anniversary was on the 9th and she called late at night balling for me to call her back and texted me a couple of times afterwards. I called her the next day because I thought having an emotionally heavy conversation again with her would just push us further apart(I don't know if this was a mistake)... I talked to her briefly the next day and just mentioned everything was great and I was doing well - nothing about our relationship was mentioned... She texted me on my mom's car accident anniversary a few days later as well and said she was thinking of me. Her mom called me as well to check on me and mentioned she thought I should've done something magnanimous for her on our anniversary.

She's currently traveling to Iceland and then to a music festival in Croatia with her best friend, which whom would obviously like her to single.

I'm having trouble finding a way to reconnect and cannot make sense of her recent communication. She has no intention of leaving NOLA anytime soon, at least of what I've been told from friends of what's she's been posting to social media. She left all of her things in LA, which since I've moved them to Austin in storage - clothes, pics, jewelry etc... I miss her dearly and want to win her back, but we have so many pieces to put back together, I don't know even where to start. I've been reading your post and was wondering if you had any advice that would help me piece back my marriage.

I'm leaving to Ireland for 2 weeks with family, because, mainly, I need to get away and to show her I can travel too, because we have been greatly lacking this in our relationship. I must mention we had holistic therapy with a couple in LA where I made agreements about booking our honeymoon, changing careers, and getting in a healthy routine, which I failed to meet in the 3 month time period- I've corrected all but planning a honeymoon, because of the obvious.

Please help!

Thanks in advance

Hi Caddie, welcome to Marriage Builders. I am unclear about what has happened here. Why did your wife leave you? And why all the travel?

Welcome to MB.

Why did you separate? Whose suggestion was it, and what was it designed to achieve? Was it explicitly spoken about as a break up of the marriage, prior to divorce? If not, what?

Our separation was only to last 30 days, which is was advised by our therapists . She promptly moved to NOLA after 30 days with no discussion about where that leaves us. She has never told me specifically she wanted a divorced, just we need to both be independently happy before we can try to make things work together and that if filing allowed me to move on that's what I needed to do. The separation came down to she felt like we were roommates and she wasn't fulfilled in our relationship - emotionally and physically. There was no mention of whether the separation was going to lead to divorce or to gain clarity and try to reconcile. My wife is very conflict avoidant, but this is over the top. I don't know what to do... I've been going dark to see if that creates a vacuum in our relationship which she's called me for the first time in a couple of months so I guess that's progress, but everything has gone back to complete white noise. She's traveling, I guess , in spite of our relationship because we were so busy working, moving, etc... We haven't took a trip in 3 years.

Who is her best friend that she is traveling with?

I am so sorry to hear this. This is another example of how bad advice can destroy a marriage. You obviously can't fix a marriage if you are not there. It sounds like the problem is your wife fell out of love. Instead of giving her the appropriate steps to fall back in love, they made the problem worse by telling you to separate, making it much more likely you will end up divorced. Separation is only appropriate when there is abuse of some type; as it will only cripple an already crippled marriage.

Do you think your wife was having an affair?

A girl she's know since childhood. I don't know if she's having an affair - wouldn't be a surprise.

Well, I'm sorry to say that separating was the worse move you could have made. You cannot rebuild your relationship by not seeing each other. All that happens is that each spouse has the freedom to build a new life, and if they like that life, they will stick with it. There is no romance or love left to bring them back to the marriage.

Your "going dark" was also a mistake. The signal you have been sending out is that you are indifferent to her absence and you are getting on with a new life without her. That message will not bring back a spouse who wanted to get out because they were not fulfilled in the marriage.

Her talk of not being fulfilled "emotionally and physically", and the prompt way in which she moved on in her life, strongly suggests that she is having an affair, and was having one before your separated - hence the separation.

What does she live on while she is travelling to Europe for months on end? How are these trips being financed?

What probably happened is that she wanted to separate because she was having an affair. It is very, very RARE that a woman wants to leave a marriage otherwise. A normal response would be to work on the marriage. But when a wife is having an affair, she won't want to work on the marriage, she will want to separate. A tactic to achieve this is to go to a marriage counselor [who usually recommend separation because they do not know how to save marriages] so she can say she "tried."

Your wife probably checked out of the marriage because she fell out of love and had a new point of comparison. Do you think this could be the case?

We separated our finances, so she's using the money that she has plus she just sold her car so she's using that money as well. From what I hear is she is staying at hostiles with her friend but don't really know anything else besides that.. The therapists were definitely a determinate. If she's having an affair she's being very skilled at it, only she knows! Where should I go from here?

I totally disagreed with the separation, basically told my therapists they're sabotaging our relationship. She left while I was at work, packed up everything and moved out.

I wish I could give you some hope, but this situation is so far gone that I don't see a way out. You have a very short marriage with no children and sometimes it is easier to just move on.

It is a long shot, but the most you can do is stay in contact with her and look for opportunities to be with her. Stop with the cold shoulder treatment because that only causes more detachment. You won't make yourself more attractive at all. Send her little cards and notes, try to go for visits. As her affair crumbles, you can be an attractive place to land. If she does not come around in 2 years you need to get divorced and move on.

They destroyed your marriage.

She had no intention of working on the marriage or ever coming back. What MelodyLane said is what happened: she got a therapist to make the "obvious" (but marriage-wrecking) recommendation that you separate, so that this action would have the stamp of professional authority and expertise. She probably told the therapist that she needed a separation, and that she would be more likely to go back to you if she got that, and that she would have to end the marriage unless she got some space. Lo and behold, that was the advice, and she got her wish.

She was probably having an affair, and even if that has ended, she plans never to go back to you.

Who came up with the 3 tasks you agreed to?

Did you tell your wife you were going to plan a honeymoon trip with her?

How would it benefit your wife for you to spend 2 weeks in Ireland with your family?


Was her mom blaming you by saying this or was she trying to help you meet her daughter's needs?

We both agreed to the tasks with help from the therapists. It doesn't benefit my wife at all me being in Ireland, just helping me get away from the stress of it all which really isn't working - I know now this isn't geographical. I did say we were going to take our honeymoon, but we planned on moving out of LA after Feb. so I assumed we're in agreement we would take it then. Her mom wasn't blaming me at all she just wants to make it right between both of us, but, clearly, has no control over that.

I need some closure with this. I talked to her over the 4th and she mentioned she wanted to sort through some of the storage and sit down face to face and figure out the next step in this. I'm assuming she wants a divorce but I don't really want to sit down with her in a couple of weeks when she could just tell me over the phone so I can organize the storage, have her pick up her things, and she can file... Need some advice on whether to just call and ask flat out or play the waiting game for a couple more weeks. This has been total hell! Having a very difficult time coping with all of this, but I agree I don't know how we would be able mend all of this even if she was willing to work on things... To be honest, I'm done with the limbo either way.

We have never said that you would not be able to mend all of this if she was willing to work on things, so you are not "agreeing" with us.

What we have told you is that everything she and your counsellors pushed you into doing so far has been marriage-wrecking. We have told you that she is very probably having an affair, and that the separation that you agreed to gave her absolute freedom to abandon her marriage and live as a single woman.

What it would take to "mend" this would be a reversal of this situation. She would need to agree to live with you right now, or at the very least, agree to a plan to achieve that, soon. If you could be certain she was having a affair, she would need to end it completely, giving you the identity of her affair partner and allowing transparency over her life, so that you could see that she had nothing more to do with this person.

You would then need to integrate your lives; no more separations or living apart, no separate holidays...living together as a married couple, for ever.

If she would agree to that, then your marriage could easily be restored and rebuilt - but if she would agree to that, you wouldn't be in this situation right now.

It sounds from what you wrote as if you have never really ascertained what she wants to do long term. You haven't even asked her if she wants a divorce, despite her calling to ask you about separating her things. Why is that?

Have you asked her whether she is willing to rebuild the marriage? Could you ask her that now?