Husband doesn't love me any more

[Heartshattered]

I'm a long time lurker, but have never posted before. My heart is utterly broken. I am married to a wonderful man. We have been together 18 years and have DD9 amd DS6. We had (I thought) a fantastic relationship with shared values, life outlook, personalities and interests. He couldn't be a better father and we are very good parents together.

Two nights ago he told me he was very unhappy. He feels I control and micromanage him amd make him feel undervalued, that I dismiss him and contradict him and make regular sarcastic comments that have eroded our relationship. I was not aware i was doing this, have had no insight into my behaviour but I believe him. Whether it was intentional or not doesn't matter as the effect is the same. Tonight he told me he does not love me any more, and thinks we should separate. He feels numb and empty. He agrees to try couples counselling first.

I am in complete and utter shock that we have reached this stage without me being aware. Our DD has been very ill the last few months and is now recovering. He said my behaviour towards him at hospital etc demonstrated the sharp end of the way I treat him - dismissing his views, contradicting him etc.

We have had huge strains with significant family caring responsibilities, job losses, house moves, relocations, bereavement and my illnesses over the past number of years, and our daughter's illness has now been added to the list of difficult life events.

I can't believe I have caused all of this. I can't sleep or eat and am working and trying not to burst into tears in front of the kids ll the time. I love my DH so so much amd he has treated with nothing but kindness, love and patience throughout our marriage.

I don't know what I'm asking for....a hand hold I guess.

But aren't they his children too?! You write: "DH was the other adult there to help get all the jobs done!". Well, with the children, house etc, they are surely just as much his jobs as yours.
With caring for your mother, I see that you'd be most affected and responsible maybe.
But where your children/house/joint life is concerned, you are not treating him like a servant if he is doing some of those things - they are your joint responsibilities (unless I've missed something).

She's saying she just saw him as another adult there to do adult things. There was no affection, consideration etc. No relationship because she just needed practical assistance.

How on earth is it despicable? No more despicable than those posters who are determined to persuade OP there is another woman, deliberately ignoring OP’s drip feed that his feelings were not actually out of the blue.

Yeah, my ex husband claimed to be blind sided too and I’d been telling him I was unhappy with his behaviour for a lot less time than OP’s DH has.

The predictable “must be an OW” replies are so lazy and stupid. They don’t make you look wise or insightful.

He’s miserable because she’s been treating him like crap. Assuming the stuff she’s admitted to isn’t the full picture I don’t blame him for having hit his limit. He’s repeatedly tried to address the issues and it’s suited her to ignore it.

It takes 2 to keep a marriage strong but only one person to ruin it with selfishness or taking the other for granted.

Just because he’s a man doesn’t mean he’s a cheat. Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she’s a blameless victim.

Men leaving when life gets tricky is not unknown. Some expect their wives to do all the emotional work for them and when the wife is sick or takes her eye off the ball because of caring for others they get all huffy and hurt and either look elsewhere and/or leave.

Where you are now is not all your fault. It is neither all his fault. However he is well ahead of you in terms of planning to leave. Counselling may help you talk through how you split well. It may lay the foundations to start again but for now start getting your financial ducks in a row. For a long marriage 50/50 is a starting point. You both need to be housed. What is there in the pot in terms of pensions, savings, property etc? Can you evidence it?

This is a huge shock. Being told you are the problem is not fair. There will be some truth as no one is perfect but there is likely to be a fair bit of blameshifting and projection as it is common for men to want to be the hero in their story. 'I'm bored and frustrated and tired' is not a good story. Neither is 'I'm getting old and I want to sleep with lots of women to prove I'm still young.' Blaming the wife is soooo much easier.

I'm the other side of a divorce and the single life is good. A really good family lawyer does help.

I'm getting angry now - when didn't he leave me years ago if he is so unhappy?? Before we had kids or when they would have too young to have bene so hurt by this??!!! Young children are still affected by break ups. And I assume he didn't leave because he wants the marriage to work hence suggesting counselling.

Why are you angry when you've admitted you're at fault too? Because you're listening only to posters who either haven't read your drip feeds or posters who seem to think men don't have the right to leave an unhappy relationship ot that there must be another woman.

I would suggest counselling both separately and together. You made a commitment when you got married and owe it to yourselves to try everythingyou can before calling it a day. Obviously there could be another woman but you both need to take responsibility for your parts in getting to this point in your relationship.

I’m really sorry you’re going through this it must be beyond awful but I’m afraid I agree with this 100% with bells on.

If he’s been with you for many years and he honestly hasn’t once mentioned or said he felt like this before especially recently it’s an enormous red flag for cheating. People don’t just decide to wake up one morning in a seemingly great relationship and walk out with nowhere else to live for no reason. Men who are guilty make up enormous lies like this and re write the dynamics of your relationship to gaslight you into believing you’re the monster and it’s you that’s caused this. This is so he can get away guilt free and make you feel less inclined to ask any awkward questions; because you feel so guilty that it’s all your fault you’ll believe you’ll already have all the answers you need. It also gives him manipulation to further control the situation if things go pear shaped with the OW. Ie. “I’ll come back if you change YOUR behaviour and stop controlling me and let me go out whenever I want” or come back and use you for sex when he feels like it or make you relent to his terms during a divorce if you choose to go down that route. It’s raw and horrendously painful and I know you’re devastated right now but you need to try and channel your hurt into motivation to investigate what’s been going on behind the scenes. There will be evidence somewhere.
Don’t let him break your heart and walk away scot free. You don’t deserve to be treated like this, there are millions of men out there and someone will realise what he can have with you and treat you like the queen you are.

Interesting on the time scale, it took about 7 years for me too, finally just seperated from emotionally abusive stbxh. I could have written OPs second post but from the other side. Stbxh would say he had no idea too, despite me very clearly telling him exactly what the issues were multiple times over the course of 5 years.

There's all sorts of possibilities here, the truth might lie somewhere between the 2 view points or he might just have had enough, or he might be being truthful or having an affair or trying to manipulate you. I think it would be really unfair and not the actions of a good man to wait till the love was gone to tell you OP, but it seems like he did try. All the blame and rewriting could be another woman or an attempt to manipulate. Stbxh did this once, said he didn't know if he still loved me, it had the desired effect for a while of making me try to win back his love, till it got too damaging for me to go on. Basically the pick me dance minus the OW. It may be a combination of things. None of us know either of you to say. I wouldn't jump straight aboard the it's all your fault train, partially because abuse aside its unlikely it's all on you, but I would be trying to think about this carefully to see if he might have some points. Taking at face value that he's the person you believe he is doesn't mean he will speak the unvarnished truth. Good people can still verbally lash out in the wake of a broken relationship and some people aren't capable of recognising their own role in a relationship breakdown.

Why do people at least not read all the posts by the OP before commenting?

Firstly, I’m so glad your dd is better, OP.

This happened to me 5 years ago. It’s a brutal experience. The book Runaway Husbands was very helpful, there’s a website https://www.runawayhusbands.com/ and a private Facebook group. It may not be useful to you now but keep it in mind.

The fact that your H has agreed to counselling is positive. Mine did not. No one can say for certain that there is someone else but I think it’s very likely. I was convinced that my H had not met someone else and believed that my marriage was over because of all the reasons he gave me and they were all my fault. Some of the reasons were absolutely ridiculously trivial and dated back years. I couldn’t even remember these things he accused me of being marriage ending behaviours. His marriage ending announcement came out of the blue to me. On an ordinary day whilst we were doing everyday things. He denied OW. But with hindsight I could see that there had been signs. Hiding his phone, long periods spent out alone etc.. He never admitted it but eventually I realised there had to be someone else. He’s married to the woman I suspected now. They met at an art class my ex would attend when we were married.

I now have a few years of hindsight and I think he made the right decision. I am now in a new, much healthier relationship and am much happier. I’m on good terms with my ex.. We loved one another, we still do. We lived through all kinds of tough life events (as you have) and we stuck together. But we changed and grew apart.

When he told me our marriage was over, I thought my life was over. I was terrified and my dreams (our dreams) of things we had planned for the future were shattered. I never felt angry, just terribly sad. I decided to stay strong, I focused on our children, I sat quietly at home and took up craft hobbies. I healed. My children were amazingly supportive. You will heal too, I promise. I work harder now than I have done in years but I wouldn’t change what happened despite how I felt at the time when I desperately wanted it to not be happening. You’ll be okay. Better than ever, even in time.

You are currently it the middle of the storm but the storm will pass. Just hang on in there for now.

They are like OP, they refuse to read or listen properly! That is is why OP is in the situation because she isn't listening properly and then comes and starts thread hiding the truth.

No wonder her OH said he will be seen as a villan because the truth won't be presented first and by then its too late to drip feed in the truth

Pretty much this.

I suspect she's taken him for granted, and assumed that he'd absorb all and any short temper, distress etc from her arising from her life

I note he had councselling for bullying - I'm guessing her behaviours, his inability to stand up for himself for years, and his tolerance for being treated poorly are linked to his childhood

And he stopped going to counselling to address his "childhood bullying" and his reactions to that, because there was growing discomfort for him as he became more aware of the OPs behaviours and his tolerance of that and how unhealthy that was. He stopped counselling because if he'd carried on them, it would have been too painful.

‘as soon as I returned to work I started treating him badly again....
The first I hear of this is 2 nights ago.’

This really stands out to me as typical history rewriting/Script. Familiar to anyone who has experienced this. Listen to him but please don’t be too hard on yourself, OP. If he wants out, he’ll say anything. If his head’s been turned by someone else he’ll say anything - absolutely anything - but that. He’ll make it all your fault. It isn’t all your fault. Stand up for what you believe is the truth. Don’t allow him or anyone else to crush you with blame, shame and cruel words.

If you're the sort of person who thinks that a man having to pay his fair share towards his children equates to being taken to the cleaners, you deserve all the "incoming" you get

I'm sorry this has happened OP but in fairness it does sound like it was on the cards. You talk as if this has totally blind sided you, get talk of counselling, on line marriage guidance courses etc. This isn't the first time the state of your marriage has been brought up, its been going on for years.
I'm going against fhe grain here, I don't necessarily think he has been having an affair. I do however think he has imagined a different life for a few years and toyed with the idea of hypothetical relationships. Now he no longer loves you. As hard as that sounds it's likely true. I cannot imagine for the life of me what would make someone say they didn't love you if they did. It's true I'm afraid.
This isn't all on you. Life throws things our way, and sometimes they can destroy relationships. Your fault was not listening and acting.
I'm so sorry

If you choose ‘see all’, at the end if the OP, you get to see all of their posts. I useful as you can see how the conversation is developing, what new information has been introduced. Things often do change from the very first post.

I love a bit of marriage counselling but he has been saying he is unhappy for years. I think let him go. If you let him go and he doesnt come back then he was never yours. Reality of single life will be a shock for him but sadly men rarely initiate a split without another woman to fall back on. Sorry X

@JudgeRudy ’your fault was listening and not acting’ not necessarily. Very hard to gauge without OP giving more context.

For me, him helping lots when she was seriously ill, rather rings alarm bells & a few other things besides. Does he not generally pull weight & if so, practically how? A paper Valentine is nothing & his love & support doesn’t feel concrete so far. All very ‘crumbs-from-rich man’s table ish’.

OP sounds very self aware & caring to me, kids & mother, & a man on brink of resigning from ‘big job’ (we don’t know if jumped before pushed for example) suggesting everything about accommodating her needs while she’s sharp tongued & unreasonably & continually snappish, well yes ‘maybe’…

So you think men never leave when they are just plain unhappy? They only leave when they are having affairs? What tosh. People leave unhappy relationships all the time. If a man was micromanaging/controlling, sarcastic, patronising and dismissive of a woman, what would you be advising the woman to do?

It does seem ‘it’s the script!’ is its own handy script that dismisses the possibility than a man could be unhappy with their being an ulterior motive. It also alleviates women of any responsibility they may have in the breaking down of a marriage.

it does sound like he has been communicating his unhappiness to OP, but now he’s at the stage where he just wants to move on.

He raised the issue 6 years ago. He raised it again 3 years ago. He has been struggling along and raising the issue for a third of their marriage. I'm not sure what more he could do. The fact that the OP feels blindsided when he's raised the issue before is telling. It's been obvious but she has ignored it But yeah yeah. Of course. The script. Another woman. Couldn't possibly be that he is sick of being in a controlling marriage where he is being patronised and dismissed all the time.

So I guess that makes it all ok.

Makes what ok? There is nothing wrong with the post you complained about, nothing wrong at all!

Another woman would be my guess sorry