My wife says she needs space but it feels like she's gone

Hi, I'm writing this because I don't know what's going on. I'm probably going to use this as some kind of journal with hopefully some supportive feedback on what to do to fix my marriage. I'll try to be as complete as possible so as to not miss out on facts that could lead to a solution. Please know that even writing in a forum is terrifying to me and makes me feel like I'm too weak to solve my issue, but I'm more afraid of losing what I have than I am of being weak. So... My wife and I knew each other for a couple of years previous to our getting together. Her brother was my best friend at the time. We both played an online game and her brother thought it would be great if we started chatting. I looked her up in the game and we did just that, started chatting. After less than a week of this I had plans to go out with a couple of my friends to throw darts and have a few drinks, so I invited her to come along. We hit it off that night. We took our time easing into the relation ship for a few reasons; my last relationship ended terribly with my ex cheating on me multiple times, and the fact that I knew her family (some in good ways some not so much) we didn't want to jump right in and then have it all fall apart. But it grew, fast. My wife is beautiful, smart, kind, generous, creative, and has the most ingenuity of anyone I've known. All of these aspects attracted me to her and still do very much to this day. My family loves her very much a nd welcomed her immediately and completely. In short order I had a new job (having been happily unemployed for a year, living off of money I earned from a business I ran previous) she had a new job (working for a greenhouse nursery, something she loved very much) and we had a small but comfortable apartment. We worked opposite schedules but made time to spend together a lot. During this time my grandmother died and left some money to my family. It was decided at the time to focus this money to my mother so she and my stepfather (great guy) could buy a home and start flipping houses to build for a future for the family. Also as part of this deal we could buy the place they were living in for an amazing deal. We talked about it and she was all in. We moved in and all was well, soon after we decided to remodel the inside on a loan from my parents that would just be added to the amount of the home. Around this time my wife became pregnant. We were in heaven. During the remodel w e lived at my parents place and my stepfather did most of the work himself on the house. That was really hard because the house didn't get finished before my daughter arrived and we didn't have our own space. Certainly harder for my wife than me as I was just happy to have all my family together, but I also looked forward to getting our core family in our own space. Some problems arose during this time because I didn't make myself available to help with the renovations... My stepfather quit doing all the work in order to get me to finish up some details. I understand where he was coming from but it did upset my wife that she was living in a home with no dishwasher and some other finer details left out, but she was glad to be home. As far as I know the next couple of years were great! Then my mother told us she had cancer. She spent a lot of money trying to bond during this time and this all happened about the time the housing market was crashing. We all took a trip to Disney World and had a great time, though I was really depressed at the thought of losing my mother. She died when my daughter was 3. (just started crying wow, not healed yet) (10 minutes later back) This hurt both of us dearly. My mother had been a great sense of love and nurturing for my wife, as her mother is very self involved and at times has been very hurtful to my wife. At the time I was so consumed with my pain that I became upset when my wife needed me to help her trough her loss because it seemed to me that my need was greater. I was wrong and shouldn't have ever made her feel this way. I know that now, but how does one apologize for being so selfish. (I'm sorry if you ever read this) Around this time I started throwing myself into work. I didn't work more, I just gave more of myself to the job. I became a manager and took on more responsibilities in order to increase my income so I could provide for my family. My wife had two jobs while she was pregnant and when my daug hter was born we both decided she could stay at home as it would cost more for daycare than she could make starting somewhere new. She remained unemployed until my daughter was about 5 and started kindergarten then she took on a part time job to help alleviate some of the financial burdens we had. Money was sometimes a point of discontent. For some reason the job she had didn't take out enough in taxes and we got screwed at the end of the year. Then the year after it happened again. We had very little money beyond our means and after December had basically nothing so we really counted on the tax returns. This was at the time one of our biggest arguments. For a while I was extremely discontent. Our home is a double wide, the inside is beautiful but the siding and roof aren't the best and we live in a sorta rural area so mice can be a problem etc... I was actually considering giving up at this point (there was more in my head than this but I can't seem to remember details anym ore) I worked graveyard shifts and was tired all the time. I wasn't able to spend enough time with either my wife or daughter (though I did stay awake long enough each Thursday to go to her school and help all her class with reading) The arguments were very much one sided and my wife showed me the value in what we had together (so glad she did). When I started to get "better" shifts 7pm to 3am I felt a sense of accomplishment that I had escaped the dreaded issue of no time for each other. I would be awake when she was on my days off... sadly 2+ years of Graveyard shift made it terribly difficult to adjust so I ended up sleeping right up until work and then staying up at night to play games or what ever. In one aspect this was nice, because we both had our own time alone. She could have her own personal time while I was at work and I could have my personal time when I got home. But we were losing time together and when I had days off she was staying up way to late to hang out with me (I think this is a point of contention for her) and losing sleep because of it, as she still had to wake up and put our daughter on the bus, and still go to work for a couple hours during the day. This has pretty much been our routine for a long time. I'm starting to get slightly earlier shifts now, but that's really just less time with my family... though I didn't notice because I had already made the mistake of giving so much attention to work. Around this time she ended up finding another part time job that she was really jazzed about. Working 1 day a week. This was in December so her training hours really helped pay for Christmas etc.. after about 2 weeks after the training period she was having a very hard time with the job. It required almost a 12 hour day for which she was only being paid for 8 and she felt that she wasn't able to do that job she was hired to do so she quit. She got very upset about this as she was so proud when she got the job. At the time I felt I was being supportive, but I don't think I knew how much this effected her. We are sorta caught up as not a lot else has changed for a long time. We've had our ups and our downs as every relationship does. So now we finally (sorry want to be thorough) reach the problem at hand. About a week ago I noticed that my wife was being distant. This worried me. I started thinking about this and I noticed that she had actually been distant for a while, nothing major, just less romance in the bedroom so to speak... (this was a major issue a few times over the years as well) Then she went to spend a weekend at her sister's house. Her Father had just come back into town after a 20 year absence and is living with her sister so it was a family get together. The next night as we were playing games with some friends we have over weekly (when possible) she received a text message from a person that was listed only by last name. I happened to see this as I handed her phone to her saying something along the lines of "Are you hung over?" This most definitely piqued my curiosity (You should know I've NEVER felt any distrust in my wife) She told me that he was some guy she knew from a long time ago that had just looked her up on Facebook at random, I told her that I was concerned and she explained that he was some unattractive "trucker guy" at first I thought nothing of it, but after a while I started to wonder. So after she went to bed a couple nights later I got on my Facebook account and then linked to hers to look at her friends list. It showed this guy racing motor cross. Now I'm worried, because as far as I know my wife had lied to me for the first time... I start to panic and my mind starts making things up over the next few days. So the next weekend she goes over to her sister's again. No biggy, but when I call her so I can speak to my daughter she doesn't answer, I text and nothing. So now I'm really freaking out. The first night she's home she's real ly distant which is making things much much worse and when she went to bed I did the dumbest thing I could do, I invaded her privacy (again I'm sorry if you ever ready this I should have just trusted you as I always have) and found that she had been messaging this guy back and forth quite a bit. So around 4am that night my stomach was in knots and I was sweating and freaking out, so I woke her up and asked her if she was cheating on me. We had a conversation for about an hour and she assured me she was not, and that she had just been feeling distant and "needed some space" after this my mind is a bit fuzzy on details but she ended up going to her sisters after she picked up my daughter from the bus on Friday, spent that night, Saturday and most of Sunday there. She didn't talk to me much and seemed even more distant than before. Monday morning she put our daughter on the buss and went back to her sister's again for my weekend (Monday and Tuesday) returning Wednesday in time to pick up our daughter. So she's been gone for about 5 days of the week. After this she tells me she wants a separation...We talk for a while and she seems to have changed her mind. The next night we spend together watching some of our favorite shows together and really (I thought) enjoying our time together. I haven't been sleeping more than 3 or 4 hours a night at this point as I'm seeing everything slipping away. So when she started to do laundry the next morning it woke me up. I was thirsty so I came out to get something to drink and when I did I just mentioned that if she could do that in the after noon I would sleep later so she could have more personal space (which she has made clear is very important to her right now) she was instantly mad at me (not really sure why) and I went back to bed. I couldn't sleep so I got up and tried to keep busy and out of her way as much as I could, but she just kept getting more irritated until she left for work. --- I'm sorta brain d ead right now, so I'm losing my train of thought. I will add that she just spent the night at her sister's again, when she left I asked her politely to call me when our daughter went to bed so I could say good night to her. When I got home at 10:40pm I texted "did I miss daughter's bed time" and an hour later she texted back 'we were watching a movie and lost track sorry" I replied "okay, love you". The next day I went to work, and did my best not to call or text as I didn't want to be pushy, but I hate not hearing from her or my daughter for any length of time, so at exactally 7:30 I called my house to tell my daughter good night. I'm trying to give her space but it seems the more I give her space the more she runs away. I know I should just be cool and allow things to run their course but this is really hurting me. There's more but I can't think right now... I'll be back for sure to try to fill in the blanks.

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