New to this website and new to this situation. After reading many of these posts it's sad to see how similar these situations are that we are going through. It looks like I could insert my name into many of these posts. So here is my story...Wife of 18 years (20 years together) says in May that she is not happy. First time anything like this had been said. OK...let's get you happy again. I took a lot of blame for everything (wasn't affectionate enough, wasn't present enough, disconnected from her, disconnected from the kids, too controlling with money, etc). I was confused and shocked but did what I could to make changes. She had lost a lot of weight and physically looked her best since I've known her. Clothes became tighter and she started paying a lot more attention to how she looked. We have two wonderful kids, 14 and 11. I initiated changes to our schedule to mix up our normal routine, tried more date nights, spent more quality time together. What it finally all boiled down to was that she loved me but was not in love with me. I don't (and apparently never have) light her fire. She says there are many great things between us but she has a missing piece, this missing piece is overwhelming her, and she can't change her feelings. When she realized this, she said she tried a "3 strike rule" with me which was touching my hand, touching my leg, touching the back of my neck to see if I responded. I remember holding her hand like I would but not these specific times. She finally admitted that she would do this when I was driving or on the phone with a work problem...always when I was distracted with something else. We are great partners, great parents, very compatible, I thought we had a good physical relationship. Although she is not a good communicator...never able to say if something was bugging her. Started marriage counseling but it became apparent that while I was trying to save a marriage, she was trying to get me OK with being out of it. Asked a few times and in front of therapist if she was seeing someone else. She denied it. Found out that she was seeing somebody else (thanks Facebook!!!). Then discovered birth control pills. There was still false hope that things could be saved but now things are moving forward to separation. I was adamant that I was not moving out of the house. She got an apartment but pulled the plug because of second thoughts. I went right back into "saving marriage" mode, but she was being told not to leave the house because it would be considered abandonment. After promising that I wouldn't use anything against her if we ended up in front of a judge, she got another apartment.

This is such a hard ordeal...to lose the one I love, my best friend, the dreams of what we were going to do, and most of all the impact this will have on the kids. Right now we are going back and forth with how to split time with the kids. Living in limbo for the last 7 months has not been easy either. Lost a lot of weight, hard to sleep, and hard to concentrate at work. So we agreed to separate for a year and see what happens, but I don't have any more hope that we get back together again.