In the beginning

As I look back now the signs were all there.....he spent less and less time at home, everything I did was wrong (that is call demonizing the victim--more on that at a later date), he started to care about working out and his clothing "style" and the dreaded "let's go see a therapist --not that our marriage is in trouble but so we can communicate better" (read--"I want to be able to say we tried everything, we even saw a therapist!"). It is not that marriage therapy is a bad thing, it can be helpful if two (very important number) people both want to save the marriage. But it has been my experience that usually the one who wants out is just looking at the therapy as something he/she can check off the list of "I've tried everything." If your spouse wants to go to therapy, by all means go, but realize he/she might not really want any help to stay in but just an excuse to get out. Use the therapy to help you. You should listen attentively to what your spouse is saying and have the guts to call them on their inaccuracies. At the time of my divorce I was so weak that I believed everything he said--even if I knew in my heart it wasn't true. For example: my spouse told the therapist I was "too much of a mother and not enough of a wife." I believed this even though I knew we went out more as a couple than any of our friends, our sex life was better now than before kids and it was hard to be a wife when your husband was out at bars with other people! I never called him on his perceived truth and that was a mistake. Had I been able to verbalize my truth, the therapist might have had something to work with and, at the very least, I would have left the marriage empowered with truth instead of beaten down by lies.