It's not you. It's the person you became attracted to and fell in love with. Your situation was my situation until my wife walked out one day, she typed me a letter took the kids and left. Great father, lousy husband were words she used.

I've since learned that I can't have a successful relationship with anyone - but I'm drawn to and attracted by woman who have even less of a chance of having a successful relationship. Much of the story in your post parallels what happened to me over the past ten years. Little by little I took over everything - housework, groceries, kids, worked 12 hours a day. Toward the end I became a single father - I would come home from work and she would leave. She began to hate me more and more each day - would not talk to me, refused to be in the same room as me. I would ask her to please tell me what's wrong - never an answer just would leave.

She didn't have anyone else while we were together but she found someone else within a few weeks of leaving.

And now she's gone and I don't miss her at all - I do however miss my children terribly and only get to see them every few weeks - they moved a few hundred miles away. At least yours says she doesn't want to destroy the kids - mine decided that children are resilient and they'd get over it, but they really never will.

It's really not you. She's never going to be happy but she'll most likely make you miserable. And that's not your fault.

I'm really sorry for writing some of these things but your post is just one terrible trigger for me, the similiarities between our situations is uncanny. I hope somehow, someway yours can have a better ending than mine.

Please, you and the kids just be ok and happy with each other.