I’m 33 and my wife is 32. We met in college. We were both virgins when we met. We have been married for 6 years, and we have a kid together and another one on the way (she is due any day now).

She used to be madly in love with me for the first few years of our relationship. Super affectionate, wrote me love letters, cuddly, etc.

Then we drifted apart as life got more stressful and bad things happened. She lost her father unexpectedly, I was chronically overworked and stressed by medical school and being a doctor. She resented that I was addicted to weed and porn (I have since quit both)…

We argued more and more. Resentment built up. She had a medical issue that made sex painful for her for a long time so we rarely had sex, and then she further lost sex drive after giving birth…

I developed an anger issue along the way while she became less and less affectionate. She would never say “I love you” unprompted or initiate hugs or kisses. She developed insomnia, which she blamed on me waking her at night, and eventually we just slept in separate rooms every night. We had some major fights.

It all came to a head four months ago when we had this one really big argument about money. Note that I am the sole breadwinner and money manager/investor (and have done quite well), while she is a stay at home mom. She grew concerned over how much I was investing and she worried that our joint account was running too low and we would run out of money for basic needs, so she opened up a personal checking account and withdrew a few thousand dollars into it from our joint account. I got really upset and demanded she put the money back. I yelled a lot and kicked a door. We cooled off (or so I thought)…but then police arrived later that night and arrested me, as she had secretly called the cops. This was the third time she had called the cops on me during arguments but it was the first time that they arrested me. She says she didn’t intend for me to get arrested for what it’s worth…

Shortly after my arrest, she filed a restraining order and filed for divorce.

I was completely devastated. I begged and pleaded with her, and ultimately she agreed to freeze (but not outright withdraw) the divorce and work on building back our relationship. She modified the restraining order to allow us to meet up, which we have been. She says she agrees to cancel the restraining order when the court date for it comes in 3 months. Meanwhile I have been going to therapy as mandated by the court.

It seems like we are working towards getting back together, but she refuses to frame it as us just having a really rough patch and working through it because we still love each other. When I ask her it she loves me, she says something like “I don't know if I will be able to love you again after all that has happened,” which is super depressing and frustrating to me. She says the marriage we had is dead and that we need to basically pretend like we are starting from scratch and dating each other to build trust and maybe love will come back…

What am I supposed to do in this situation? Feels like I am expected to audition for my own life. I feel powerless, hopeless, and humiliated.

What should I do?