Help! Has anyone else been through this? Are there any happy endings? My husband and I have been married for 10 years, and have three fantastic children aged 9,8 and 5. We live in a nice house, have a nice lifestyle and lots of friends, and life was soo good for so long. We were the perfect couple, he was so loving, kind and attentive and I was the dutiful supportive wife. I did always like a good night out and a few drinks, and I have had to squash this down in order to be the perfect mother - I went through PND and terrible isolation and he helped me through, but it's been so hard giving up my identity. I never resented it though, and worked hard to create a good compromise. He never seemed to really want to go out, and was always happy to be the one staying in, just being happy that I was enjoying myself. He is a senior manager at a company owned by his family, which he will one day take over the running of, I worked there too until last year. He is very ambitious, which I've always admired, and takes his job incredibly seriously. However, he's very materialistic and always spends according to what he'll be earning in a few years instead of now - we started sliding into debt. In the last few years I and his colleagues (all of whom are matey with him) noticed that he liked to be on his own at lunchtimes, where he used to play XBox footie with them all, and seemed quite stressed. When I asked him about it, he said he needed to be on his own sometimes to relax. I naturally assumed he was stressed at work as he had taken on too much, and everyone else concurred. He started not ringing his parents, lost contact with several friends, and I was so worried about him. After a few months of this eventually he confessed that he felt empty inside and couldn't be happy about anything. A year ago he had a bit of a breakdown at a party, we argued over nothing really, and he vanished overnight, turning up the next morning having stayed in a hotel. We apologised to each other for the row, but things never really returned to normal and alarm bells started ringing in my head. However, he has always been crap at speaking about his feelings if they are difficult, and we never really got to the bottom of it. His mother was diagnosed with cancer not long after, and it wasn't a great prognosis. He was upset about this, I was prepared to be the strong one for us both and support him, but though he cried at first he was never really devastated as you would imagine someone to be. We went on holiday a few months later and I suddenly got the impression he was starting to resent me. This made me worry, which caused more arguments which went round in circles and were never resolved. We realised we were heavily in debt and he decided we had to sell the house (I didn't want to). I had to organise the whole thing, once he made the decision he never gave it a thought. We had over 30 viewings and 10 full-asking-price offers, and I was heartbroken. Only when he realised that the huge loan we had secured against the house couldn't be even half paid off by selling it did he relent and pull out of the sale. At this point his mum was in the middle of heavy chemo, but he hardly rang her. Towards Christmas this year I noticed that he was beginning to look bored all the time, and that he never played with the kids any more, never took a real interest in what they or I did, just kind of "checked out". I started to fully believe he was seeing someone else, and the more I pressed it the shittier he got, until I checked his phone and found...The Message! Nothing particularly suspicious but it was quite affectionate and I didnt know who it was, which was odd. After a fair bit of digging (he didn't want to tell me anything) it turned out to be a woman at the gym who he chatted to, nothing happened, just texts, etc etc. He would never do it again. I stupidly believed him, and he was very loving over Christmas, loads of sex etc, so I assumed all was going to be ok. But we never really discussed anything, so it all simmered underneath the surface. One or two things happened that made me think he was seeing someone else and he was increasingly distant, paranoid about his mobile, and quite defensive. I tried to keep my distance in order to keep things going, and because I could see he wanted space. Also, his mum had a mastectomy so I assumed he was worried about that. Then one day I found him reading a message from Her on his mobile and he confessed he'd been sleeping with her since just before Christmas. She was married too. Obviously I was absolutely devastated. Still am, but I have worked my way through all of that, so proud of how I have turned it all around and not brought it up all the time, or rubbed his face in it, and have pretty much forgiven him because in the tiny bit of conversation we've had about it (he HATES talking about his feelings) it seems as though he felt trapped by me, suffocated by our life, and work, not to mention our HUGE, shameful debts etc, and needed to have some excitement with no consequences. He says he called it off there and then. That was four months ago, and things have been ok but he wouldn't talk about it, got shitty every time I wanted to talk about why it happened, what we could do to fix the relationship and prevent it happening again. He went to counselling on his own because I was so worried that he was depressed or stressed through suppressing his feelings - she said he was absolutely fine. He told her he was happy about his work, ok with his mum's situation, loved the kids, everything is fine, so what else could she do really? I have been trying to find a reason for all this so we can fix it but he keeps blocking me! Our sex life was completely normal, after I found out what he did, he took pains to make me see that he was making love to me, and made an effort to ring me when he left work so I'd know he wasn't meeting Her on the way (he still does that, actually), and did little things to show me I could trust him. After a while, all that started to wear off because his work has just got even bloody busier, and I am still trying to give him space. On the way back from holiday last month, he told me he loved me, but not in THAT way, and said our marriage was over. He got shitty when I tried to discuss this. Am I wrong in trying to find out where our marriage failed? I've been looking back and realise that I was quite possessive of him, I thought of our marriage as my identity, and he felt trapped sometimes, I also can see that we were very very close, not healthy but that is how we were. We are such good friends in other ways (makes his treatment of me even harder to bear), we get on so well, look after each other, he still hugs me and makes sure he kisses me before we go to bed (he won't go to bed without me, we've always gone up at the same time), touches me when he walks past me, holds my hand when we go out, and rings me from work to chat about our day, but says he doesn't fancy me and can't see it coming back. I've said he's hurt me so much, that if he confessed now that he's seeing someone else it won't make a difference but he swears he isn't and anyway he can see his affair for what it was (an escape). However, he is now refusing to have sex with me, because I said a few weeks ago that I hoped he wasn't using me - he said he wasn't . I need the closeness but I'm not forcing myself on him - any hugs or kisses are initiated by him. We finally had the first proper, useful conversation about it all last night and he said that the marriage isn't what he wants - he's conveniently forgotten all the stress of last year that all his friends at work noticed, and he wants to work until 10 every night, and at weekends too, and he wants to be completely selfish and not compromise as he feels he's compromised so much already. Yet also, if he leaves, that he will be a better more engaged father. How??!!!! He hasn't even thought about the money, how we can afford it and where he's going to live! I on the other hand think that we can save this marriage and both get what we want out of life with a richer, deeper, more healthy relationship (including me finding an interest outside Us and not obsessing about it all!). He sometimes says if he could have the relationship back to the way it was in the early years he'd do it. Some psychologists say it's definitely possible with hard work, honesty and commitment. I'm hoping that now we are FINALLY communicating and being honest, we can find a way back to each other. I went through a similar feeling years back, when I was struggling with the reality of being a wife and mother, not an attractive girl going out clubbing all the time, and had to really try hard to find him attractive again. I really want a healthier relationship with him, for our sake as well as the kids'. What does everyone else think? Are you still awake?!!
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Relationships
NotDoingTheHousework ·
08/09/2008 14:54
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