Thanks for all the input. I am taking medication for my depression and anxiety;, furthermore, I am seeing a therapist and he is helping me, but sometimes I feel desperate and that is why I come here. I wish my wave of emotions would manifest themselves only with my therapist, but that is not the case. Open eyes, you have a lot of wisdom and understand my situation well. I appreciate your valued insight and input.

Often when sitting with a therapist and trying to cover so much in only an hour can leave someone walking out the door still feeling
the weight of the challenge and emotional frustrations.

I believe you ARE a better parent than your own parents were. You are intimately aware of the behaviors they exhibited that hurt you and you will not want your own child to struggle the way you did.

I had a therapist that helped me a lot and he explained to me one day that he had experienced a breakdown himself. He had gotten overwhelmed with frustration because he felt such a need to "fix" his patients and he had to learn that he cannot actually "fix" his patients, all he can do is listen and help his patients learn how to "fix" themselves.

First of all ((sarc)) there is nothing wrong with feeling bad about what you are experiencing with this relationship. You have every right to have your own desires to do well in a relationship and try to be a good person. However, sarc, you really have no control over what your wife is going through right now. I believe you did try to do nice things for her, but her void is not going to be filled by your actions. Your wife did miss a lot of her personal years of having a chance to focus on herself and enjoy experiencing different things on her own terms. Your wife had that child so young and because of his disabilities and special needs, you wife's life revolved around him. Your wife is weary and bored of her life, she cannot change her child's constant needs, or that she has yet another young child. What she decided to change was her relationship with you.

You shared that she seemed to be happier with this separation. This is actually fleeting and it's simply due to her doing "something" she can change about her life. She did "something" that brought her some sense of relief, some kind of freedom. This "I need some excitement" she utters, this is really not about you or even that you failed, it has more to do with her trying to figure out some way to escape this trapped feeling she is experiencing.

I have often struggled with very low self esteem and lately there has been a tremendous amount of pressure. Trust me, I think I am doing better as a parent than my own parents. I often found it very tough to fight my battles head on and now, I must do it for my daughter's sake. I will try to think of her and her need for a daddy.

Well, it's not JUST for your daughter's sake, it's also for your own sake too. Your daughter is powerless to change anything that is happening with her parents or any of the changes your wife chooses to make in her life right now. This means your daughter will need to learn how to develop her own identity and self esteem despite these things she has no control over. Given that your daughter is only four years old, she is at a very impressionable age. Since you are separating from your wife, it's important that you do not separate from your daughter.

You have not lost your daughter, and what you can do NOW is plan on doing things with your daughter that can expose her to lots of adventures with you together. Look around for different activities you can do with her. Take her to a near by children's museum, take her to a nice child's movie, take her to a small fair as often this time of year there are lots of little fall fairs. You can take her to a nearby farm to see horses and perhaps get a pony ride too. There are a lot of things you can do with your child where she can have a life away from her older brother and all that she has to contend with while her mother is all about caring for him.

If you live separately from your wife, make sure you have a place set up for your daughter so she knows she is welcome, a part of your life and has a place WITH you. When you have plans to have her with you, make sure you have some nice books ready that you can read to her, so go to the library and you can even do that with her too and pick out books together that you can read to her and have cuddle time with a nice story. You get to heal your own inner child when you help your own child feel loved and be able to explore and have her daddy there CARING about her. These years that are important, and we never get a redo, so it's important that while you are not happy with this change, that you make sure it's not so hard on your child too.

The questions that plague me are, how can I be strong for my daughter, when I feel like I have lost everything? How do I support her when I feel so sapped of power? How can I be there for her, when I am barely struggling to keep afloat myself? This probably seems very selfish, but they are truly what is going on in my head at the moment.

Do what I have suggested above ((sarc)) remember that children are not set up to carry their parent's problems. Now, you do know this from your own mother and your own childhood experiences where your mother did things that created unhealthy feelings in you and also created this challenge with low self esteem. You can never change what you mother chose to do, but you CAN change what you can choose to do with your own child that is good for her, and that part of you that had long ago needed some positive adventures and attention too.

If your daughter talks about "why is mommy this or that" just answer her with how mommy needs some time to do things for herself too. That's really the only thing a little child is capable of dealing with and are ok with it as long as they are experiencing a nurturing caring presence that is helping them develop their own identity and exploring and doing and seeing holding the hand of a caring parent.

It would probably help your wife if you had plans to take your daughter to do fun things while your wife has a break from her disabled son so she can do things for herself. I am sure you love your wife still which makes this especially hard for you. Yet, loving another person means respecting their space and even need to distance where they find something to fill their own void which is really what your wife is trying to do right now. Keep in mind that some of your wifes choices may be hard for you to see, yet you are dealing with a woman that is going to make some strange choices in her effort to retrieve whatever she feels she missed all those years that she was trapped being a caregiver. Often people say things, behave in ways that "feel" like they are blaming you, when in reality, they are not happy and are at a point where they have a very strong desire for some kind of personal "freedom". IMHO, the only thing your wife could change was her attachment to you and that's not YOUR failure either, this is something your wife needs to fix, you can't fix it but just do your best to understand it. Hopefully, if your wife does find some relief, she will be a better mother, and that is very important for your daughter. If your wife starts to slip in her caring time with your daughter, then you can be there to make sure your daughter can still feel loved and have a parent that she can do things with that are fun.

--sarc