My wife (38) and I (38) have been married for 7 years, together for 9. We have no kids, other than a fat lazy dog. We are incredibly compatible, have so many similar interests/passions, and have always been great at communicating and working through our issues. I have always felt that we truly are a great team. However, things have recently reached a breaking point where my wife has serious doubts about our future together and is considering separation.

Some background:

My wife is an incredibly empathetic and loving person. She lost her father two years ago, somewhat unexpectedly. I was not totally absent during this period, but I know I did not support her well at all, from an emotional standpoint. I have also never dealt with the loss of a parent. This has been the biggest wound to our relationship, but it is coupled with a "death by a thousand paper cuts" of years of emotional neglect: not asking about her day, not asking about her family, not checking in on her emotionally, not planning things for us to do (date night, etc). On top of that, we both got a terrible case of COVID last year (first time getting it) and I handled the stress of that situation miserably as well.

Our sex life has also been lacking for years. I think she is absolutely stunning, and I am still incredibly attracted to her, but for some reason I struggle to initiate intimacy and to convey that feeling to her. We would go weeks, or even a few months without sex, which wouldn't change until she'd be the one to bring it up (even though we were both unhappy about it). This is something we have also talked about repeatedly, and something I haven't been able to consistently improve on. Our relationship has clearly been lacking passion for quite a while and I am majorly to blame for that as well.

These failings of mine have been brought to my attention repeatedly over the last few years. She would bring it up, I would vow to be better, to change, and I would for a little bit. I recognized I was hurting her, she wasn't getting what she needed, and that I needed to put in more effort to the relationship. But after a few weeks I'd return to my old patterns, and the cycle would repeat. I care deeply about my wife and I absolutely love her to the ends of the earth. Any "difficult" topic is also always brought up by her, and I've begun to recognize my tendency to simply avoid conflict/hard conversations. None of this has been intentional on my part, and it has been a really startling realization that I have been causing her this much pain, haven't been able to break this cycle of taking her for granted, and that she has felt "alone" with me for a while.

Where things are at right now:

A few weeks ago, things came to a head again and she broke down. She basically said she was done trying, done being the only one to put in effort, and done being emotionally available for me. She has been doing a lot of thinking about us, and our future together, and is incredibly scared that I am unable to change, and that if she stays she will be unhappy/dissatisfied for the rest of her life. She has seen a lot of red flags in the way I have handled some very major life events so poorly, in my lack of emotional response/support, and doesn't feel like she can count on me in the future as we face even bigger life challenges. She also brought up that she has been having thoughts about seeking sex/attention outside our relationship (she has not to this point) just like she has had to seek emotional support outside our relationship, due to me not supporting her needs.

I am now in individual therapy, but it took me way too long to realize that I was unable to make a change in myself without outside help. For her, I think this feels like a case of "too little, too late" and that my intentions at this point are still just selfishly motivated and feel disingenuous (only doing this now because of the threat of divorce). I don't blame her for feeling this way, because I clearly could have done more before now to try and fix things, and be better. I do want to be better. I want her to be happy. We are entering into couples therapy as well, with our first appointment next week. I am hoping that this can help us begin to heal, but I am terrified that it really may be too late. Regardless of the outcome though, I truly want her to be happy.

This post is not sympathy seeking. I am 100% the guilty party here.

I am curious of those who have experienced emotional neglect like this from their partner or were guilty of this themselves, was your partner/were you able to make a change? What did that process look like for you? What was your experience with couples therapy?

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for the responses.