Ok, forgive me, but this took take a while to read :-)
I need to DO something and quickly...it seems i've tried for the past 3 years everything i know but it's not working..so i must be doing the wrong things and getting the same results.

Brief history is this...

Married 20 years.
Together 22.
1 child 8 years old.

Currently, my wife is very angry, doesnt see any future for us and is 'treading water' until we can move house to a better area and she can get a job again. Then i think she feels she can separate and pursue happiness.

The start for us wasnt great. I was brought up in a religious home and so when we first got together i witheld sleeping together. This has caused friction ever since. She refers back to it continually. She says the brakes were put on sexually, because of my beliefs. I do regret this and have done for 20 years. Then we seemed to have one pressure after another. We went to marriage counselling a few months into our marriage, as she said she felt more like brother and sister. The following years were bad in regard to any lovemaking....it was occasional at best...very rare. Moving on to a few years ago, we had incredible pressures from having to move back to where she grew up with less money to help look after her father who was ill. This whole scenario took its toll in so many ways. Again, one pressure after another. Then we had our son and both sides of our family didn't ever help us, not even once!. For 8 years, I think we only had one night away with our son being looked after by friends.
3 years ago her father died. She was grief stricken, made worse because her mother completely rejected her and the est of her family at the same time...when we had done everything for them for 10 years or so. We think brothers chasing their parents money is at the heart of this...and also a narcississtic mother (my wife's mother) certainly her mother dislays many characteristics of being a narc.
3 years or so ago i discovered she had what i would term a flirtation online with an ex boyfriend (they went out briefly when she was 19-20). He is in another country and married, but they exchanged flirting online which i discovered after a few months....i was devastated. I am a pleaser and a helper and i was very very hurt by this. I confronted her and demanded it stopped. She was acting like a lovesick 16 year old, but one night after communicating with each other she said he over stepped the mark by flirting too much and she then said sorry to me and said she was flatterred but saw it was wrong. I asked her to write to him to say it should stop, that it was wrong. I thought there was a bit of progress. Then i found out she was still in contact but said that flirting was off limits....to an extent o think this is true. I was vigilant and many confrontations followed. She refuses to have no contact but says it is no longer flirtatious. I have seen evidence it is no longer flirtatious. An occasional message...but i think this man does value his own marriage.

So present day, we are at loggerheads. She says she has never been happy. Didnt want to get married. I never meet her needs. She wants fun not the hard slog we have gone through...and the sex has been non existent for a number of years. When we went on holiday and our son was small, we did sleep together and it was wonderful...and for a few months afterwards still good, and at thentime ahe said she didnt know what the problem was and was happy, but she has since re-written history.....i understand...i get it....she's not happy....
So lots of factors involved. I read much advice the past 3 years. Trying to put it into practice is hard. I had a mini stroke as well 2 years ago as well, which was another pressure. I am 99% recovered, but sometimes i find it hard to think clearly.
So, i need ongoing advice and coaching. I dont have much money, otherwise i'd really like to get marriage coaching (not trditional marriage counselling). I am afraid. Afraid of losing her, but i also feel so emasculated at the moment. She cab be very nasty and hwr words can cut me in two. Constant criticism, shouting, belittling and name calling. Im no weak man, but my heart breaks that we are at this point. And my 8 year old boy is so precious that this is hard to cope with when he sees most of what is going on.
Any advice on getting coaching. Over the phone is fine as im based in the UK. I feel like ive read as much as i can, i need to take action now.
Any advice is very very welcome :-)

Welcome to MB.

Is she still talking with the OM (her XBF)?

Did you tell the OM's BW?

Thanks...

Yes...messaging occasionally...seems innocent stuff now.

No. It was flirting and im pretty sure stopped now.

Do you have spyware on her computer? How do you know for sure she's stopped?

To be honest i dont.
Also Since writing earlier, i have had a complete onslaught from her saying i am a complete disappointment to her and she lost her passion for me very early on. About an hour or so of insults about how sex was so good with others and not me. The fact that i am so boring, have no friends (not true) and killed all the passion early on. Etc etc etc....it has hit rock bottom tonight. Ive read all about spyware and she needs to not have contact etc. She does not want to listen. She is actuvely saying she no longer wants to be married and why am i being so stubborn in trying to carry on. A very nasty and insulting night...but ive had this now for a few months. The ex lives in a other country and i dont think tbis js the problem.....i really dont....it almost seems like a MLC amongst other things as well as a bad start to the relationship.

I'm really hanging on by my fingernails at the moment. She seems to have decided that she has a chance to be happy without me...and the view that all our history together has been bad....im going to pull back and concentrate on building myself up and looking after our son. Very hard as we are all together a lot of tge time (we home school) she is at home and is angry she doesnt go out to work and is stuck at home...we live in an area without many jobs. I am blamed for decisions i made re work..i was fired unfairly 2 years ago and panicked and got a job quickly but without really talking it through with her. I just panicked. This meant for 4 days a week she had to cut short her working day to pick up our son from school at the time. So anyway, lots of anger and a complete list of things ive done wrong over 20 years in a complete assassination last night. Of course some things are true and im finding it very hard to carry on today, but please SOMEONE give me some hope, as i feel pretty hopeless today and what's the past 20 years all been for?
Im usually a very upbeat person but i dont think ive been so low...

Hjm,

Welcome to Marriagebuilders. You'll get a lot of very helpful advice here and , I believe, can help to save your marriage but you'll have to keep an open mind and follow advice. You're going to feel much better when you have a plan to improve this situation and commit to following it.

First, hit the Notify link on the bottom of this post and ask the moderators to move your thread to the Surviving an Affair forum. You'll get a more specific advice there pertaining to your circumstances.

And, DO NOT tell your W about this web site, the advice you are receiving or your plans. To warn her is to shoot yourself in the foot.

And, check out the Operation Investigation forum for instructions on how to install spyware on her computer and/or phone. This is crucial so you know exactly if there is an active affair, how involved they are (if at all) and what steps you need to do next.

Hjm, we know how hard this is and how devastating. Start reading everything you can on this site and get working on your plan. Having a constructive plan feels much better than wallowing in grief and frustration.

If you want to build your marriage, you have to be spending lots of time together meeting each other's emotional needs. Concentrating on yourself and your son tells your wife that she doesn't count and you don't really care.

Your situation will only improve if you commit to 20 hours a week of undivided attention. That means more time together - a lot more time. You need to investigate for possible affairs, but at the same time, you need to step up your game and act like someone who cares.

I am confused.
The very thing she shouts and screams at me is that she doesnt want to be with me..doesnt want to spend time with me..doesnt want to continue with tge marriage...and you're saying commit undivided attention?

She says she wants out. She says she cant stand me and wants freedom...and yet i need to give her 20 hours a week...i thought i was giving so much undivided attention it was having a negative effect...so i'm confused...

Undivided attention is fun time. It is time spent meeting emotional needs. Your wife is in withdrawal and doesn't want you to meet her emotional needs. That does not mean that you should withdraw, too. Doing so will doom your marriage. Rather, you need to win her back. That is a more difficult to do. You will get little help from her, and indeed, you can expect her to fight your efforts.

You should read about the three states of mind in marriage. That will help you understand what she is likely thinking.

Hjm, if you want to rebuild this marriage, you have a monumental task on your hands. Your wife has many complaints about her life with you, and is planning to end the marriage immediately. She may or may mot be having an affair.

If you want to work on recovery, you need to simultaneously find out whether she is having an affair, and work on all the complaints that are in your power to change.

You cannot do anything about the sexual abstinence before marriage, and this is a very strange complaint from her. I cannot work out what is going on in her head. It could be that she is using that situation, about which nothing can be done now - and it wasn't wrong in the first place - to show you how unsolvable this situation is today. Perhaps she is purposely picking on something that cannot be rectified.

Most of the other things you mentioned, though, can be improved, but the at the moment, your wife is withdrawn and will not let you meet her emotional needs, or do anything that makes her feel better, or which suggests that she should reconsider her decision to leave.

It is possible for you, on your own, to work on each and every issue she has identified, and also, to do as MrEureka suggests and invite her to spend enjoyable UA time with you (you alone - no kids or friends). She won't want to spend any time alone with you, but you should think of things to do each day and invite her anyway. You should offer to arrange babysitting so that you two can get out of the house three or four times a week. Are there homeschooling parents who would take your son a few times a week during the daytimes? Do you have babysitters whom you could employ during the evenings, and parents to take him at the weekend?

Your many issues are very deep an difficult to solve, but not impossible. For example: if you made a mistake taking the job you did, you need to find another, with her agreement. If you live in a remote area that limits your wife's opportunities to find a job, you need to move. Those things cannot be done quickly, but unless you do them at all, your marriage stands no chance.

The most important thing I think you could do today (as well as inviting your wife to go out somewhere TODAY) is to write to Dr Harley at the radio show, putting your problem as you have told us. I don't know if the Harleys invite international people to speak on the radio show, but even without that, Dr Harley will read out your email and provide detailed advice on what to do to rescue this marriage. You can listen to the show via the Internet for up to 24 hours after broadcast.

Dr Harley's advice is both free and invaluable. He will also follow up with you, for free. Please write to him, right now.

She is pushing away because you are having a positive effect. As a wife moves through the "three states of mind in marriage," she goes from withdrawal (doesn't want you meeting her emotional needs) to conflict (would like her emotional needs met and is willing to fight about it) to intimacy (willing to meet your emotional needs.

Also, frequently a spouse having an affair will push their spouse away, too.

Either way, you need to spend more time meeting her emotional needs - it will change her feelings toward you. (But not if there is an affair and you don't do anything about that. Address this on both fronts. Either way you have to become so close to her and so integrated with her that she could not possibly be having an affair without your knowledge.)

Thank you! Fun is definitely what's needed....this makes perfect sense.

I really dont think she is having an affair,(i am not naiive) i do think she has withdrawn completely for a number of reasons.

Thanks...it really means a lot to have this support..i cant tell you how alone i feel...you have bothered to write to a stranger...i am very grateful...

Wait, she's still talking to an affair partner? As long as she's talking to him, that's an affair.

This marriage recovery program does not work unless you get so close to her that she could not possibly be having an affair without your knowledge. Snoop and find out the truth.

Markos is exactly right, the affair has not ended. This would be like an alcoholic changing the names of his drinks to "business drinks" and pretending to be sober. An alcoholic cannot magically become a normal drinker. Affairs occur because her lovebank has been filled by the other person. Therefore, they can never go back and pretend to be "friends" because they have already crossed over to romantic love.

Sugarcane....thank you too, i will take the advice....so appreciated.

We dont have babysitters, but i will try to address this somehow and invite her for some UA time (i shall have to look up the abbreviation!)

I'll also write to Dr Harley and ask him to address this as it certainly seems complicated to me. Maybe he will instinctively realise a key to begin untagling this mess.

I will read through the answers here and listen to the show to gain more insights and make a plan and begin some action.

Thank you.

UA = undivided attention

Aka fun date time alone

Just to clarify....this ex flirted briefly with her online. I found out. She said sorry. I asked her to stop communicating. She said no. He is in another country and our lives are interwoven that she has never seen him physically. She was flattered and realised it was wrong. She doesnt use hwr laptop ever. She uses her phone for everything. I will ask the ohone company to send me all message details as i happen to pay the bill and i will follow any other advice on the site....

That's what we call an affair.

Ok...i will take the advice...read up and take action.

UA....got the abbrev now! :-)

Ok, i will read the link about advice given to other men and apply what's relevant..

Thanks to you all...

Will post again soon...

She is definitely in Withdrawal stage. Talks to me like an aquaintance. Finding UA time is going to be very difficult, as there is no one at all really to help look after our son. We are very isolated here so even hiring help is difficult and our home is not suitable to have hired help stay for even an evening (in the middle of trying to redecorate and improve the home). Am feeling very low this morning (not charactetistic of me) as the way she talks to me is like a stranger.The one time recently we did manage to find someone to look after our son for an evening, and my W and i did manage to go out, she was spiteful recalling the time we had there in a restaurant, saying there was nothing left to talk about and she was bored and why are we stuck in such a bad area to live.
I feel swamped by circumstances and how to move forwards and rejected completely by her.
My plan initially is to
-Try to find UA time and have some fun.
-Try to change our living circumstances ie. where we live so our son doesnt have to be home schooled and my W can work again if she wants to.
I think being treated like a stranger, and remembering the words of the last few outbursts from her about how there's nothing left, she never loved me, our sex life has always been a big problem from the start etc etc has cut deep waking up today. I feel so alone and like the mountain to climb is so big....

Also i am going to ask the ohone company for all records on her mobile phone, as i set this up initially and pay the bill (it's in my name). She doesnt use a laptop, only her phone for everything. I did snoop her phone regularly and it caused bug arguements. She says that's why she has put a password on it to stop me looking. So i cant open the contents of any of her android phone. Also i do know she has been using an app recently called 'Telegram' which specifically deletes messages sent and is encrypted for privacy.
Not sure how to find content of any messages if there are any. I think concentrating on UA at the same time and trying to meet her emotional needs is the only thing i can do if the phone records show nothing. I have to drown this 'distraction' out and win her back.

Her putting a password on her phone simply screams "affair".

Most cell phone service providers have online phone records that can be accessed with a web browser. You should go to the company's website and try to set this up.

It is important for you to realize that an emotional long-distance affair is just as destructive to marriage as an intimate physical one. There is no comfort to be had in the fact that they only correspond. Affairs are fantasy, and the fantasy can thrive with each communication. You need to get to the bottom of this, then expose and destroy the fantasy. All the while, you have to maintain a front with her that shows you to be the best husband ever - capable and willing to meet her emotional needs far better than any affair partner ever could.