Q&A How Do Handle How My Wife Is Acting?

My wife has separated from me to allow time to work on herself during sobriety and to understand what the affair meant to her and what she wants from our marriage. I am working on me while taking care of my boys. I feel my wife is having a midlife crisis and has simply lost who she is in life. In addition to alcoholism, my wife is also going through menopause. She has changed into a different person seemingly overnight and I am at a loss of how to move forward. How can a loving wife and Mom simply remove herself from the family and distance herself from her children? I am focusing on me and my growth and healing. I know I can’t help her or “fix her.” How do I know what she says is truly how she feels? How do I keep being patient with her when she isn’t doing anything for her own self growth and healing? I am tired of doing all the work, taking care of my family, and trying to put myself back together after she destroyed our lives. How do I wait for the unfaithful when they are lost, in mid-life crisis, and they don’t seem to be making any progress towards healing much less reconciliation? She is still simply distance and cold 9 months after D-Day.