I am brand new to the community, so please bear with me. I’ve read a lot of the posts on the forum and listened to a bunch of the podcasts, and I’m struggling a bit because my scenario doesn’t quite fit with what I’ve read and heard so far. Here’s why. My wife and I have been together for 20 years: dated for 4, married for 13 and had two kids, separated for 3 but dating again for the past two. And it’s those last parts that I’m struggling with. We separated initially because I descended into depression and drinking and didn’t seek help. She tried extremely hard to help me and keep the family together, but eventually realized she needed to focus on our boys and I wasn’t a good influence or acting like a good father or husband, so I was asked to leave. I did, we got legally separated and I got my shit together (counseling, meds, stopped drinking), rebounded professionally and physically, and worked to rebuild my relationships with our sons and with her. After about a year, we started dating again. We set ground rules that we weren’t going to put pressure on the relationship by creating big goals, like getting remarried or living in the same house again. We didn’t tell the boys. All they knew was that we were spending more time together and that also meant we were spending more time together as a family. All good.
 
The past two years have been very good, at least as far as I felt. There were still big conversations and counseling that we should/would need if the relationship was to proceed to remarriage and moving back into the same house, but by this past summer we had at least starting having some of those conversations ourselves. Things got a bit strained between us during the end of the summer (stress at her job, reduced income at mine, kids’ schools going to distance learning at home due to pandemic, not going out for actual dates due to pandemic, etc.). I got quieter and more withdrawn, which has always been an issue with my response to stress. In mid-October, she told me she wanted to end the romantic part of our relationship. A week or so later she told me she wanted to be with a woman and has since begun seeing a woman who has been a family friend for many years.
 
That’s the background, here’s the problem. In so many of the stories I have read and heard here so far, the couples’ relationships were ostensibly good until one partner disclosed or was discovered to be in a same-sex relationship or desiring of one. Almost all of the straight spouses talk about betrayal, feeling lied to, feeling wronged. On the other side, the advice is often that it’s not your fault, they did this to you, you were a good partner and the vast majority of the responsibility for this situation is on them. But what if you weren’t always a good partner? What if your behaviors imploded the marriage before and you were trying to do the work of rebuilding from your own mistakes? I’m taking this new reality very hard, but I don’t feel betrayed or wronged or that I don’t bear some responsibility (if not a lot of responsibility) for the eventual outcome.
 
Right or wrong, over the past two years I had convinced myself we were going to make it. I’m not perfect and still have work to do with being more expressive with emotions, being more affectionate, and not withdrawing into my own head. But I thought we were doing well and going to find a way to spend the rest of our lives together, which is why I feel more like a straight spouse than an ex-husband whose ex-wife started dating someone three years after they split up. I broke the dating ground rules, I guess. I don’t feel betrayed or wronged because I genuinely believe we’ve both been trying to figure out how to be our better selves, and in that process she has discovered that the intimacy she feels with this particular woman feels more natural and comfortable than she’s ever felt with a man, including me. I don’t think she tried to hide anything; I think she is genuinely discovering that she needs to follow a different path.
 
So, I’m confused and feel like I’m stuck in the middle. On one hand I relate to the stories and experiences of straight spouses. On the other hand, our relationship was far from perfect and we're legally separated. I go back and forth between 1. thinking this shouldn’t be affecting me any differently than any ex-husband whose ex-wife started dating someone three years after they split up, and 2. Questioning the things straight spouses seem to question, like whether anything I could have done differently would have changed the outcome if, in truth, she’s gay. Like whether the struggle I’ve always had to provide enough intimacy was really all me? Like whether I’ll be able to find someone else if I couldn’t make it work with a person who loved/loves me and tried so hard, for so many years, to make it work?
 
I know that’s a lot to unpack, but I’d welcome the input from this community.