Marriage seperation

I have been married to my wife for 10 years. Total, we've been together for 16. We have 2 children 7 and 4. I will try to make this make sense. I am in public safety and have worked 2nd shift for the past 9 years. Shortly after our first child was born, I went to a friends bachelor party and got really drunk. We had a stripper come to the house and she gave lap dances in the bedroom. I fingered her. I kept it a secret for 4 years. About 4 years ago I had an anxiety attack and got real bad anxiety to the point I couldn't work or be alone. My wife supported me through it and while I was getting better I told her about it. She was mad of course but recently she told me she felt she couldn't get really mad because she thought my anxiety would get worse. At the end of 2013 I found she was texting sexual things to other guys. I was mad and we agreed to work on it so I could trust again. It didn't goes as quickly as either of us wanted. Before March 2015, for several months I was better about it, not getting suspicious and trusting her again. About 4 weeks ago I had eye surgery. While in the waiting room she told me she was nervous about it because I could lose my sight even though it was a routine surgery. While waiting I was looking at the Internet on the phone. I saw she was sweating pale and looked sick. At first I thought it was just the surgery but then I started to think suspiciously like I used to. I asked if she was hiding something and she said no. I felt like an ass for thinking that. After that I got really insecure and worried she was going to leave. For the next week, I sought reassurance numerous times. 3 Sunday's ago she told me she couldn't do it anymore and wanted a divorce. I felt so hurt and sick. We talked a week later and I found out she resented me because she didn't go to college even though she wanted children and to start a family. I even promised her when I finished school and got a job that she could go but she wanted a family. She also feels everything revolves around me because of my shitty work schedule. She also felt she always had to worry about me and if I was happy or anxious and like she had to take care of me even though I never asked her to. She tells me she has to find herself and needs space. She now wants a seperation so we can work on ourselves and then us. She said she wants us to work. She also told me last week she wants to be able to do what she wants when she wants ie no responsibility. I know I'm not perfect but I think she thinks she should always be happy and there should be no problems. I am getting mad and feel she is being selfish. I am trying my best to give her the space she wants. I haven't called of text her. Only contact have been about the kids. I want her back more than anything but feel she has all the power right now. Also she said she needs to work on her away from me otherwise she will want to take care of me even though I don't need it. She says she is depressed. She had her tubes tied in December and is off birth control for the first time in 16 years except for our kids. She isn't seeing a counselor and not really doing anything to help herself. I just want my wife back. I know the things I need to work on and I'm doing that. Anyone deal with anything similar or any advice?

- Six years to get around to proposing marriage. - Second shift (what a prettified term) just one year into marriage. - Blow-out in reaction to a real live baby entering your life, including a pre-provision by which to get fired if ever you needed it. - Needed it 4 years later, whereupon you used your cover of being anxious as a preventative/censorship shield/buffer against what would otherwise have been her full-blown reaction and in addition a tool to push her away some more when you could see you being laid under made her give you greater attention rather than less. - It worked so she started to seek an eventual replacement to phase-in as she phased you out. - You got mad because you didn't want rid, just less commitment and closeness, but here she was, 'over'-reacting. News for you: you were cheating on her long before she started cheating on you. Cheating is just a symptom - a tool for (your case) creating a certain amount of distance or (her case) for making redundant or engineering constructive dismissal on your part. Or, with that the case, was she cheating on you first, meaning, your wanting greater distance had been in reaction, including the pre-proviso a defense and retaliation weapon at the ready? I'm thinking not...Because her action back then was to have your baby whereas yours was trying to un-avail yourself, through your worklife, as a parental supporter and hands-on dad. There again, she might have been gagging for a baby regardless, meaning, you're both to 'blame'. Ignore her nonsense about having wanted to go to college but having sacrificed that goal for you and your little family, it's just her trying to give you reasons because the real ones aren't yet within her psychological awareness and articulations reach. But the 'shitty job schedule' is real. She's for too long felt partner-less in terms both of physical presence and emotional closeness, instead having something more like an extra 'passenger'. Also, don't believe this claim to want space SO THAT you two can self-improve with a view to reconciling. Were that the case, she'd want you to stay in the same house while attending counselling together every week. Think about it: what she's proposing is that you two self-coach separately in order to improve your doubles tennis game yet simultaneously making the tennis court out-of-bounds as prevents applying those supposed lessons (Error - Does Not Compute). It's to let you down/get rid gently. She obviously didn't ever cease the secret cruising and has found someone else - the thought of you becoming (no offense) even *less* useful to her than ever before, due to deteriorating eyesight, posing as her impetus to finally make the decision to leap from you to him. Either that or she intends to search for 'him'. In case it turns out she's wrong, i.e. the new relationship falls quickly flat, she'd prefer to keep you warm and waiting on the side under the illusion of pending reconciliation, whereas if by then you'd known all along she'd spent that so-called reconciliation run-up time having a relationship with another man, you taking her back would no longer be her option. In which case, she *would* say she wants the pair of you to work, wouldn't she. The fact of the matter is, she's open to EITHER scenario/outcome (highest bidder wins). ...Hence she doesn't see any need any help in learning how to fix the situation (counselling). No, she doesn't think she should always be happy. She thinks she should be less constantly miserable. Your two's adult development was never in synch. She was ready for marriage and family long before you were. You've gradually *become* more ready, culminating in now, but meanwhile she was becoming fed-up and detaching. Weathervane couple. Very bad timing. Conclusion: not soulmates. Shame there had to be kiddies caught in the middle. "I am getting mad and feel she is being selfish." Yup. Because it's her turn to be. "I want her back more than anything but feel she has all the power right now." No you don't. You sense already what I've just spelled out. You want to win the male-male wrestling match *and* not to be the one to be rejected... hence 'she has all the power' and only 'right now'/at this point (until you manage to succeed in winning it back). She had her tubes tied because as she sees it, sprogging kids was the cause of her falling into vulnerability and powerlessness. You do not want your wife back, IMO. You were never suitably attached to her in the first place (and for good reason that back then you ignored) - hence it took you six long years to propose or finally give in to getting married. You just don't want to be divorced and alone and starting again, now that you're finally ready to engross yourself properly into marriage and family, and nor do you want some other man getting one over on you by winning your wife off you. You can't want back something you never really wanted to begin with (think about it). This is a blessing in disguise for the pair of you because in a piddly year or two you'll end up far happier with better suited partners. However, the same cannot be said for the kids because there ISN'T any replacement when it comes to ones one-and-only live-in parental unit of two. So please just trust what I've said about this being a godsend (albeit that it's painful while at the time in the thick of it), and instead grit your teeth for a while and focus on helping those two little innocent victims scrape through with the least injuries and scars possible. You'll be okay, anywhere between slightly or light-years better off, regardless, but the near and far future of those two relies wholly on your attention and support, the pair of you. I don't think you're going to have liked reading all of this, but.. that's the trouble with more powerful medicines - they don't tend to taste very nice. "Soz" about that.