Ok, I’m caught up and I have some thoughts.
1. From when I started reading to getting caught up just now, I never got the impression that she was sending a vibe that she had true confidence your marriage was salvageable. I really, really didn’t. You and your peers are hanging your hat on “well if she wanted to leave, she would have,” but the fact is... She’s wanting to leave. By sending you the letter, speaking less optimistically of the marriage, pulling away emotionally for 3+ weeks before the letter, all of that lines up with somebody getting closure in the demise of a relationship. Even the thing you took as a victory (she would have been long gone if it wasn’t for spiritual conviction saying to give it a shot) was, in my mind and from my vantage point of being divorced and seeing my now-husband’s divorce play out, you were in the extreme, extreme, “it’s ending soon” red zone. I think your pastor sensed that because when you reached out for the “things are good, huh?” ego injection, you were told to be patient. That’s a cautious answer that really runs counter to things going great.
TBH, I’ve seen a lot of cases where wives who feel abused ease their partners into the process because they’re worried about what would happen if they approached more directly and more speedily.
2. You are very, very, very, very, very, very, very self-focused and look for high rewards with minimal invested time. Through this whole thread, we’ve heard about what you learned about you, what you did for you, what you feel, what you interpret what she says to a way that suits what you want to hear, what your pastor thinks of you, how far you drove for this amazing therapist you always wanted to try since about a month ago when you realized you were in danger of losing your marriage. We are throughly up to date on what you have done, how you feel, what you will do, what you want, and how changed you are.
So... Now... How about your wife? What does she need? Does she need you to work on trauma eggs and 2 hour trips to therapists? Or does she need something else from you to feel like you’re making an effort. You showed up at her employer to give her a Diet Coke (?!?)... Is that what she wants from you? Because you can do allllllll these activities until you are blue in the face. If it’s not what she needs to feel like changes have been made, all these things are not you proving to her you’ve grown, it’s actually the opposite. It’s things you are doing to make you feel good about you, not things you are doing for her or the marriage.
Like, take the Diet Coke example... What did you think she’d do? Gush over the gesture? Be flattered? Show affection? I mean... She’s at work. Considering she’s debating ending the marriage and has settled on having you move out so she doesn’t see you daily, here’s guessing you popping by her job to give her a $1.50 drink wasn’t welcome, appreciated, or seen as any sort of gesture. More likely she thought it was strange, reinforced your lack of boundaries with her needs, and put her in a weird place with her Co-workers. Here you are adding it into your “I am a good guy” list, and she’s like “what the heck was that about?” That was a move purely for your ego, not your marriage or her.
Another sign of not getting it... You say you had sex Easter weekend. Great. But sex is sex. It’s an action. I can say I ate today. I can say I went to the movies. I can’t say that what I ate was something meaningful or especially poignant or wonderful and I can’t say the movie I saw changed my life. Sex? Same thing.
So you had sex... When was the last time you had meaningful, connective, emotional sex... For both of you? Have you asked her? Here’s guessing the answer she will give you isn’t Easter weekend.
3. Stop with the self-martyrdom. It is not endearing. It is not constructive. It is not a tangible change. It is self serving. It is attention seeking. It is ego serving. It is pity shopping. It is highly, highly manipulative. Like, if it were me, I’d have lost my noodles at how you presented moving out to your son. Your letter about snooping through her journal? Patronizing, manipulative, and passive aggressive. Don’t tell her how she feels. She knows. Tell her your understanding of what you did wrong and why it was wrong and what you will change.
If you truly, truly believe this is your fault (for the record, I don’t think it’s 100% only one spouses fault when a marriage fails, nor do I think it matters if it is or isn’t), do the work. The work you need, the work she needs, the work your marriage needs.
4. Your expectation of the degree of change and the rewards you get for it after just barely a month of work is unrealistic. It’s like those memes that say “I ate like crap for 20 years but exercised every day this week, why am I not skinny yet?” This takes time, true change, and possibly accepting that to show you’ve truly changed you can lose everything and still not revert to old behaviors. And, TBH, I’ve seen a lot that shows maybe you haven’t changed as much as you’d like.
For example, you spoke of having to carefully pick your words to make sure you don’t accidentally revert to your old behavior. You also, in a post where you were self-martyring for being such a bad guy, you said you were abusive in your words... But you don’t think you are. You didn’t know how bad things were... But you’ve always had that sense of humor but “she chose” to marry you and have kids. It’s all your fault... But she enabled you in your abusive behavior by tolerating it. That’s all blame shifting, and if you believe you’re abusive (and you said you don’t), saying somebody enabled you to abusing them is... Um... Gross. It’s not indicative of real change. She has every right to see a month of you-focused Work and worry based off of these comments that it might not stick.
To be honest, I feel like if you really thought you couldn’t get her back, these changes wouldn’t stick and your sarcastic humor would only escalate.
5. Some of your behaviors are overbearing at best, stalkerish at worst. Reading her journal? Showing up at work to give her a can of soda? Reading a book she’s reading then panicking it’s filling her head with ideation to leave you? Passive aggressive comments about her friends/family who don’t agree with your behavior? Praying over her bed? Anointing windows? Investigating her via friends? The Pastor incident?
Dial. It. Down. I’m not even involved in this but reading all that made me want to run.
6. When doing custody changes, park the car, get out, knock on the door, and properly receive your child and their bags. You are picking up your flesh and blood, not a package. Treat them with dignity and respect in this process, it will encourage him to do the same. You are a gentleman who’s raising a gentleman. Unless she has specifically told you to not approach her or the Home, which seems unlikely, do not act like a bad date when picking up your children. Act like a gentleman, raising gentleman, showing his children that just because he doesn’t live there anymore he’s not treating them any differently. He is not announcing via horn to the neighborhood that he’s driven into their lives for a few hours and they should come running. It implies it’s too much of a hassle to come out and get them properly, or they need to scoot because you don’t want to wait. It shifts the emotional burden of exchange into Kids.
I have two boys from my husband’s first marriage. No matter where he gets them from or drops them off to, no matter the weather, no matter the time, he parks, gets them or drops them off, and gives them proper greetings and goodbyes. It’s one of the thousand little things he does to show that they are in a two-household family, but are not treated like a scheduled obligation on a checklist. Their mother does the same and it is an act that reinforces unity and stability, not to mention compassion and understanding in a dynamic that is foreign and at times uncomfortable.
Watching parents do the curb exchange or the honk-and-wait make me bonkers. The looks on the kids faces as they scurry out, heads down, a cross between embarrassed and anxious... It’s terrible. Don’t be that guy.