Separated

Hello, I am currently married to my high school sweetheart. We have been together since 2005. Got married in 2010 and have a beautiful 3 year old daughter. Through our relationship everything seemed to be perfect. Inseparable as a couple could be we did everything together. Love as I knew it was the most wonderful feeling imaginable. We were always seen as a great couple. I can look back now and address every little detail that may have brought me and my wife to where we are now and I have beet myself up about a lot of it. Over the past two years my wife and I have been separated three different times. She is currently living with her mom and our daughter and I have the house. At the beginning of each separation she claims she wants divorce. Each time I start off a mess but this time it's been three months and I can keep from breaking down but it seems like this is the first time she is actually gonna go to counseling but she says without me at first. She has been sending me mixed signals for two years now and I can't figure out what's going on with her. Every time she splits I get the silent treatment and I start off by blowing her up then by the time I get over myself she is talking to me again in a way that gives me hope. I honestly believe she wants us to stay together, but something is keeping her from opening up to me and allowing us to become a happy family again. Is there anyone who has been separated more than once and survived? Stayed together and made it work?

You should both be in counseling together. Never mind what is going on with her, are you annoying her in any area of your lives Perhaps you are too demanding of her in your sex life. Are you supporting her finacialy or do you sit in front of the tv too much? Sounds like you have a temper. Are you treating your child with patience. Start looking at yourself, stop looking at her. Good luck

Is there some manipulation on either side? It depends on what precedes her asking for a separation/divorce. Does she do this in the heat of a fight? Does she do it in response to any certain stressors, inside or outside of the relationship? It's possible that serious things are causing her to do this, but it could also be that she's threatening or using divorce/separation to end conflicts or "Win", essentially, "Not fighting fair." Fighting happens in relationships but you have to be able to do it in a healthy way that isn't destructive and earth-shattering but in a way that you can grow from it and move on. In this situation it really depends on what her motivations are. But yes there are plenty of people who have separated multiple times and eventually survived. I've seen couples who absolutely hated each others' guts for a few years and now are grateful they gave it another chance, retired happily together. If she repeatedly seems resistant to playing her role in building a healthy family, or possibly sabotaging, then she may not really want to be in the family, or may not be ready now anyway.