ok, so now that I have been on here for a bit I guess it's time to tell my story.

I met my wife about 20 years ago, around 1989 when she was working at the same factory as I was. She was very pregnant at the time and married to a bum who, at the time I met her, she said she was very much in love. Months later I found out that he had cheated on her, was an alcoholic, and could not hold down a job and they had trouble maintaining an apartment because of this. So they ended up splitting up early 1990 and she from the get go was sort of fawning over me but I was somewhat complacent. Months later after the breakup we got together socially for going to the mall and WWF wrestling since we both were fans and then approximately a few months after the breakup we were hanging together and we just, by accident, kissed. The rest is history.

While dating her she told me that her parents were divorced and how much of a hard time she had coping with that. She married the first husband because she needed someone and thought she "could change him" (big mistake) She was having a bad time paying for bills seeing as her ex always did not want to pay his child support. So we started dating and I waited awhile to make sure she wasn't on the rebound. We started dating in 1990 and were married in 1994.

Now a few things about me. I am by nature obsesive compulsive but it doesn't really bother me, but when I was in high school I did routines. years later I went to a mental hosptial to get rid of the routines mostly because I would not have a life with her with my routines. So I did well getting rid of them and had to stay on medical off and on for years after. Things were great (I thought) until 2006 when I think serious problems developed many for which I did not realize were there.

In 2006 I left my factory job and my OCDs went nuts. REalize that I went from making over $15 per hour to making only $10 so fears of not being able to pay my bills etc. were there although there was nothing to worry about really. But I had that fear nevertheless. I also had self esteem issues in that I felt I could have done more with my life to make more money to do things like major repairs with the house etc. I had trouble sleeping etc. and I leaned on my wife during this troubling time calling her and my Mom. From May to later Sep. of that year it was difficult but eventually I went to the job I'm at now and things have been better since. I made more money and also did not have to pay for as much gas to drive long distances. in essence, a lot of my "demons" were quieted.

I was on Fluoxotine like Prozac during that time but shortly went off of it because I felt I could be fine without it (big mistake) Gradually over the years some other problems surfaced. The fact I had left friends behind in the factory and had to reconstitute my social structure bothered me and in fact I tended to lean on her too much by wigging out when she went to visit her sister in a neighboring town for a few days. That was a bad mistake but was sort of exacerbated by self esteem problems that I had not mastered yet.

Also I found out just this last year that the romantic feelings were gradually waning and she was faking "the big O" I had no idea nor did I realize that my change from the factory job was so hard on her. She never told me either of these things. She seemed so ok.

So this year it played out this way: In June she said she was going to a counselor and I said "why." She said she couldn't tell me. In July she finally broke down and cried on my shoulder and she told me the truth about faking it these years. It bothered me of course. We talked about it and had discussions at the park about it and everything seemed to be getting better and was a work in process after the end of July. Then in October she announced that she had trouble coping with these demons in her head and she had to move out to either vanquish them or make peace with them. So she moved out the end of October tellin me in person and online that she would only be gone for one year's time (the length of the lease) to help us deal with our differnces.

right after New Years' she emailed me she was not coming back home. So she went from "it's you and me together agains tthe world" in Feb. to "I don't want this marriage to end" in July to "I"ll only be gone for a year and then I'll be back and we'll work on our problems together" in October to "I'm not coming back" in the next January. I continue to be flabberghasted by how it changed this quick.

The nice thing about all this is that I have ripped apart the problems in my skull to uncover what the root of my head problems are. I figured out why I did OCD routines in high school and thought it was because of co dependency. Then I asked why I was codependent and came to the conclusion it was from the self esteem blows I took when I was a kid being picked on by other kids and how I coped with it, having my dad sometimes do damage to my self esteem, and so forth. I basically toar the mask off my subconscous to help our marriage and hoped we could talk about those things.

I told her that I wanted to do counseling yet and she said " you can drag me to counseling, I won't talk. I tried marital counseling last year and it didn't do any good." I said "when did you do counseling? You're supposed to do marital counseling with me" and she said "I won't talk any more than I did last year with another person in the room." So her answer is "NO" and so I have given up the fight since she's unwilling to meet me halfway.

Now I won't blow any smoke up any body's butt and say it's all her fault because a lot of it was me and remnants of prior chlidhood problems never solved. Deep down I think a lot of it is her old coping skills also, but she's unwilling to talk over them with me in front of a counselor. So what can I do.

She said in her email that she can't be the "mother, friend, confidant, husband.." any more, she just wants to be just "me" and that's it. So she takes our youngest son every so often but otherwise she has abandoned all responsiblity to me.

There were things that we could have done better. For instance, during our time together I took over too much of the finances mainly because the bills needed to get paid and it turned out that she had very litle say in how the money was spent such that at the end she said "I might as well just sign over my check to you and you give me an allowance." Now I didn't purposely do that because I wanted control over everything but it just happened by, for instance, her not paying a gas and electric bill and I took it over just so that the bill would get paid. It just turned out that way. I thought when we got back together we would junk the old system of finances, come up with something new, plan our debs together, communicate more, but she wants nothing of it.

now one thing that we did not do that I have learned "the hard way" is cope directly with differnces in our marriage. I avoided them because in my mind if you are arguing then the next step is you have irreconcilable differnces and the marriage is over. So I avoided things. So did she. Big mistake.

So anyway that's a reader's digest version. It was a little of me, a little of her, a little of us that ruined it.