Dear Dan,

My wife told me that she wanted a separation because she was emotionally tapped out. She couldn’t do it all. Be a wife, mother and caretaker.

I went back and read your first post more carefully, and realized that her mother stayed with you only for a few weeks in January. She moved out at the end of January (Her mom had moved out at the end of January), and that’s when your wife asked for a separation.

I can imagine she was felt very burdened during her mother’s stay, however, her mother moved out – so the stress should have been lesser. Instead of feeling relieved that things can now go back to normal, it is then that she chose to end things with you. It’s as if her mother’s stay was just the last drop in her feeling bad about the relationship for some time. It seems she was feeling “emotionally tapped” even when her mother was not there.

The major cause of stress, as it seems, was her son’s resentment towards you. But she didn’t tell you anything about it back in October 2021, when you started noticing it (and asked her about it). She said her son was going through some stuff, but didn’t say what those problems were. You didn’t ask because you didn’t want to pry. So you didn’t know, and she didn’t tell you, that her son’s issues were related to you, not to something else.

During that fall of 2021, the tensions grew (Our house got smaller and smaller with her and I both working from home), and you sometimes went to your mother’s place, because you “knew your wife needed some space”.

Around Christmas – when her mother was still not living with you – you felt that something was off, but again, you didn’t ask anything, and she didn’t say anything (Then Christmas hit and something didn’t feel right but I was kept in the dark.) She “kept you in the dark”.

At the end of January – towards the end of her mother’s stay – your wife started behaving visibly cold with you and it lasted for almost a week (the end of January my wife for almost a week was giving me the cold shoulder). Again, you didn’t ask anything, she didn’t say anything. Eventually, at the end of that week, when no one was at home, she told you she wanted a separation.

The fact that she never set down to discuss things with you, and that she was withholding the information that her son was resenting you – tells me that she didn’t really want to try to mend things. It seems to me that she made the decision to leave you, and was just waiting for the appropriate moment (when her mother left) to inform you about it. Probably that’s why she didn’t want to try counseling either. Her decision was made.

It seems to me that you didn’t try to understand what was going on in her head, even when she was giving you the cold shoulder. That’s why you don’t know what she really felt, what bothered her, why she left you, and why she doesn’t really want to communicate with you now:

When her mom started living with us I was unhappy but I put up with it and didn’t really voice my feelings and she probably sensed that as well. I don’t know.

She’s very independent and I think she just wanted to be a single mom again and not have the responsibility of being a wife as well. I don’t know.

It’s just hard now that she has kind of cut communication and doesn’t want to go see the concert we bought tickets for. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t want to open up, maybe it’s because she finds it too hard to see me. I don’t know.

You don’t know because you never asked her. And she never told you. But maybe she would have told you if you asked her? It seems there was this wall of silence between you, and that both of you were reluctant to voice your concerns. Neither of you wanted to be honest with the other.

It seems to me that she saw herself primarily in the mother and care-taker role, and had lots of guilt about not meeting everyone’s needs. The problem is that you confirmed that role by not really communicating with her, not asking how she was feeling, what was bothering her etc. Instead, you would leave to your mother’s place when your wife felt overwhelmed (and couldn’t meet your needs).

Probably it only confirmed to her that she cannot count on your help in challenging times, but rather, that you too (like everybody else around her) have demands on her. She probably saw you more like another child of hers, not like a partner.

When you gave her a very favorable settlement for the house, she suddenly saw you as a man – as someone who can protect her and GIVE to her, not just ask from her. And that made her fall in love with you all over again! But it didn’t last for long, because the old patterns – both in you and in her – are still active.

Anyway, this is my view of the situation. What do you think? Would you agree that the dynamic between the two of you was more like that of a mother and a child, and not two grown ups?