How to proceed?

My wife (35F) and I (34M) have been married 9 years this year and together for 15. We have two children (1 and 4.5yrs old).

Since the birth of our first child everything changed. All my wife ever wanted was to be a mum and she’s the best mum possible. I cannot find faults in her parenting.

However I cannot say the same for our relationship. I moved countries to be with her, gave up my career and now have an ok job but I will never reach the top of the ladder in this country. I travel quite a bit of work lately and this means I’ve not spent much time at home. I’ve realised just how much I enjoy being alone. How unhappy I really am.

My wife shows no emotion towards me. Apart from creating our son we can probably count on one hand the number of times we’ve slept together since the birth of our first child.

We have different wishes. Different ambitions. We’re no longer in the same page. We exist together purely around our children. I will add that I know I’m a good dad. I cook, clean, do the school run, play with the kids, always do bedtime when I’m not on a business trip etc.

I love my children immensely, although over the past year I’ve struggled a lot with depression and found it much harder to connect with my son than I did with my daughter.

But I also want someone who will touch me. Kiss me. Talk to me about something other than our children.

I also want to move to the US and we were fortunate to be in a position that it could be possible as a family but she outright refuses to even discuss the idea. I can live with sacrificing my career or even my love life but to sacrifice everything just doesn’t work for me.

I have now decided I want to ask for a separation. We don’t sleep in the same room currently anyway because of our kids and my suggestion was that we continue this arrangement just with the understanding between us that we’re not emotionally together and we will plan the longer term over time.

I’m not sure what I expect but I’m just lonely and in need of some kind of emotional support. Even if she suddenly changed her attitude I feel like it’s too far gone. I’ve lost that attraction and love for her because of how I’ve been treated the last few years.