I really wish I would have found this forum months ago. I will post a quick rundown of my situation. Thanks in advance for any advice.

I am 25 Years old, Married my highschool sweetheart in 1999. We have a wonderful 3 year old Daughter.

We spent about 3 months apart due to my job and she cheated on me.

We got back together for about 3 months and I came home to an empty house one day. She packed up and ran off with our daughter.

This is when I almost lost it. I have never felt what I felt when I got home and found out they were gone.

About 2 or 3 weeks went by and I finally convinced her to come back and we went to see a counselor. Unfortunatly my job took me away again only 2 or 3 weeks into the counseling. I was gone for another 2 months.

When I got back everything seemed better than its been in a long time. Its been about 6 months now and my wife has decided it was best for her to leave again. I really want our marriage to work. It seems like she gave up on it way back in February 2001 when she cheated on me.

I don't want to believe its over. I want to try to make this work no matter what it takes. I have agreed to go back to counseling, the issues that pushed her away to begin with I have improved on tremendously. I am still working hard to improve myself. It just seems like its all one sided. I don't feel that she is doing her part, like she wants it to fail. I just feel hopeless and don't know if I should just give up or if I should fight for it.

I am a Wh and my advice to you is to stay in counceling and fix yourself. You cannot make you wife go to counseling if she doesn't want it to work. Do you get to see your daughter. I myself have a 15 month old dughter and one on the way and miss her terribly. I wanted to repair my marriage even though I was the one that seemed to have wanted out. The damage was already done though and got served with papers yesterday. Have you talked to a lawyer. sometimes it takes something like that to wake the WS up. Maybe she needs a real awakening? JMHO.

I'm very sorry to hear about you being served papers.. I do get to see my daughter. my wife just left this week this time and I have had my daughter all week.. She is coming to pick her up for the weekend and I'm hopefully going to have her all next week. I'm very happy about that. Last time she took off she too my daughter nearly 1000 miles from here. She's staying at one her friends house who is out of town. No, I havn't seen a lawer. I thought about it but I feel like if I change my focus from saving my marriage to ending it It will end. That is the last thing I want so I've been just sitting and waiting and trying to spend as much time with my daughter as possible.

IMF,

I know the awful pain you are going through, brother. I am currently going through the hell of unwanted divorce, initiated by my WW. While I hope and pray that you can fix your marriage, my advice to you is to see a lawyer ASAP. You need to know your rights and understand your options.

Seeing a lawyer for a consultation doesn't necessarily mean you are going to get a divorce. What it will do is give you knowledge. For example, if it does end up going to divorce, it may not look good that your WW ran off with the kids without telling you. Your lawyer needs to know this and can advise you on what to do if it happens again.

Work on yourself.
Work on your marriage.
See an IC if your WW will not go to MC with you.
Get the knowledge.

We are here for you.

I know it is not what you want but it doesn't sound like to me she wants to fix this. Since she left you and moved 1000 miles away the judge might not like that? I made the mistake of letting my w have the upper hand and have 2 weeks to come up with $3000 for a lawyer. I tell you this not to be mean but she obviously wants out give her, her ticket. If she truly loves you she will want to fix it immediately, JMHO

The problem with a lawer is neither of us can afford one. I'll find out more Monday or Tuesday I hope. Thursday though we both have an appointment with the MC. I should defidently know by then what we're going to do. Thanks a ton for the advice. It makes it a lot easier to deal with talking to others that have BTDT.

Well she came and picked up our daughter today. I asked her if I could take our daughter to church tomorrow and I would like it if she would come too. I told her she didn't have to sit with me I would just like it for her to be there. Before she left I asked for a hug and I felt a hint of a chance when she gave me a very heart felt hug. I just hope I'm not getting my hopes up for nothing.

I started posting in the Emotional Forum about this so I figured I'd update here too. We all 3 ended up going to Church Sunday. It turned out pretty well. We had a picnic afterwards and talked about a lot of things not really related to whats going on. I thought that was a good thing that we could still hold a civil conversation and not bring up too much about what it going on. I am feeling kind of optamistic right now. We have another appointment with the MC Thursday I assume she will have made up her mind if she is going to come back home or not by then. It hasn't been too bad having her stay at her friends house during this because they have been out of town. They will be home tomorrow though and I hope they don't cause any negative influence on her. I still really want us to work this out, I do hope she comes home but I have started to feel like I should be trying to protect myself in some way just in case. I'm afraid if I go to a lawer though that she will find out and just call it quits. I think I may just wait out the storm and see what happens on Thursday.

IMF:

First of all, you should consider changing your name. It's NOT your fault! Forget about placing blame, and just get to work.

It sounds like your W is nearby. If so, and because you've been able to go to church and lunch together, I think you have good reason to be guardedly optimistic about the future. So, I'm going to say that, if you feel you need to protect yourself by talking to a lawyer now, then do so, but I don't believe based on what you've told us that you need to be doing so right away. And if you don't, she can't "find out" that you've seen a lawyer, and you can continue to work on the positive things you are able to accomplish together.

If you can't afford a good counselor, at least consider reading all about infidelity on this website and get feedback from the people on this forum. Your situation sounds far from hopeless, but to keep it that way (and to make REAL progress) you've got to work on doing as good a plan A as you can possibly muster. Whether she comes home or stays away, you need to do this for now.

Take care,
-Qfwfq