Hi,
My husband of ten years with whom I have two young children has had a difficult few years followed by a particularly difficult last year at work and it looks like he’s about to lose his job. He’s been diagnosed as having depression and anxiety but refuses to get any help. He thinks he’s just changing as a person. What that change is, isn’t really clear to me. He’s talked about being less of a people pleaser and being more assertive. He’s also talked about seeing people and the world for what they really are (ie everything in life is pointless and everyone is selfish). As a result he is pushing everyone in his life away including parents, siblings, friends and now me. He has asked to separate as he feels unhappy with our marriage. I personally think something like this might be going on: https://www.storiedmind.com/men-depression/the-longing-to-leave-2/
We have had some issues in our marriage but they are things that come up once or twice a year (so we aren’t constantly at each other’s throats or anything). Our relationship had also taken a backseat whilst we had two young babies. We had started making some progress on some of those issues and over 2022 we were actually very happy (just before his work situation became bad).
After I asked, he agreed that he will use the separation as an opportunity to think about whether he wants to work on the relationship and have counselling. He has made promises about looking into individual therapy in the past and never followed through so I’m not very optimistic.
On mumsnet separations are often described as opportunities to explore whether the grass is greener on the other side and to have your spouse as a backup if it doesn’t work out. I absolutely do not want that. I have asked if he wants to see other people during the separation and he has said that he hasn’t thought about it.
I do love him and I do worry about the impact off all of this on my children
I’m not really sure what to