We are on a break

[billydus]

So this last week I went on vacation to a location which I was born visiting my family. Upon my return my wife was at her mothers and I wondered why, I had called her asking her why she was there and she told me she went there and did not feel like driving at night. This excuse was not a new excuse because she had a hard time seeing at night when she drove. The next day her and I took my oldest daughter to school only to return to the house and have the conversation that I never wanted to have in our life. She stated to me that I knew that she was unhappy with her self, and that I have noticed that she was being distant; which was in fact a case. She said that she needed a break from the relationship and has looked into getting an apartment, and that she would live with her mom until she figured out the apartment circumstance. Initially I was really mad at her, and I told her that I will fill out the divorce papers, and she seemed not to care. But this was her being strong and hard headed. I finally was able to talk to her mom and found that she had been running at her moms house in the morning before she went to work, she has been dealing with weight issues for a while since both our children were born. This is not because she was working out however, because I had tried to get her to. While I was at her moms house she had told me that my wife was scared to tell me because she did not want to make me believe it was my fault because it was nothing I did, this issue was in her mind and needed to be figured out before she could come back. She had not moved anything but a couple pairs of clothes out of my house, and still is the case 5days later.

 

In the past we have had our own communication problems where I would ask here opinion and she would tell me what ever I wanted, I have been looking up personalities and have determined that my wife is a Passive Personality and needs to know that her thoughts are important but it has been really hard to get her to tell me her feelings. She is a very reserved person and has been like so for a while, she really never talks to her family about her problems either so this was something that had come out of the blue for everyone involved.

 

The last time she came over I let her know I was not mad at her, and that the biggest thing I want to come out of this "Trial Separation" is open communication. Here answer to this was "baby steps", which stuck with me for the last two days and have come to terms with it.

 

This has been since Monday September 9th, and I have yet to be able to actually have a chance to sit down with her to not only set a timeline for this separation. I personally do not know how long this will take to be able to really talk to her and figure out what the timeline is and what is really going on in her head. But I have found that talking to people around me is helping, and I have come to the understanding that my heart says she is coming back, but I am not sure where her head is in the relationship because she is fully into the "break" but I do not believe it is fair that we cannot talk about the future goals as well as the what we are going to do about the timeline.

 

Personally I really need some insight from people who have had to deal with this type of issue in their life. And I need advice on how to deal with the current situation that is putting my relationship on hold with my wife.

[GorillaTheater]

Any chance of infidelity? Worth at least ruling out.

 

Who's going to have the kids? How are they doing with this?

 

She's not blaming you, right? But rather taking ownership of whatever issues she may have?

 

This strikes me as a relatively unusual situation. The good part is that at this point it appears fixable. Give her whatever space she needs for a bit, but at some point I'd say you're going to need some joint counseling. Definitely some individual counseling for her. If she has issues, it's up to her to work through them.