How do you know if your marriage can last?
I'll try to keep this concise. My wife & I are in a tumultuous time right now. A huge fight happened recently and divorce is on the table. She is hurt and is saying things I've never heard her say before about me. It feels like she truly hates me and does not love me anymore. She's hasn't worn her ring or initiated affection in 2 weeks. She had me sign a separation agreement essentially dividing our assets in the event of a divorce "for her own protection", as if I'd ever try to screw her over like that. She took all of our pictures down off the wall. Every single one. Friends and family have come over and made comments about it. It's embarrassing & also incredibly difficult to be going through this. I do not want to end things. I know this all sounds like it is over already, but we still live together. Some days she interacts with me more and is nice to me and let's me do things for her and hug her. She will still tell me she loves me if I say it first. Still texts me when we are away from each other. But the next day she could go cold or be mean even. She tells me she basically wants to be together but separate for now and that I need to earn her back. I'm prepared to do the work. I've been working on myself in therapy for quite sometime now, and trying my best to showup for her and not cause conflict between the two of us. I just want to be the best husband I can possibly be, but it feels like I'm never enough if I'm being honest. I guess my question is, how do you know when a marriage is truly over? How do you know if it is possible to recover from a difficult situation? I would love for this to be nothing more than a bump in the road when we look back in several years. But I wonder if I'm holding on to something that is already dead and gone. We are legally still married, so I've been holding on to that, thinking that is she truly wanted divorce she would do that. I would also like to add that we've have experienced a recent death in the family from someone very near and dear to us both. She was the caretaker for a while while they were very sick. It has been extremely difficult on her and devastating to lose them. I honestly don't feel she's been herself since this started. I wonder if it has anything to do with wanting to end our marriage. I really don't know.