Feel like I am in limbo don't know what to do

[needsahug]

My husband left me a few days ago. He had an affair and although we agreed to try & rebuild things have been tough and he has not shown a lot of commitment to me. He is also depressed and has started to take ADs. We have 3 young children. He is now saying he needs time to think but won't talk any further. He won't give any indication of how long he needs, just says a while and won't say whether he wants a break but will then consider rebuilding or wants a break to then formally separate. In the meantime I am having to keep everything going for the kids, the house etc. I don't know what to tell our friends, kids school etc etc and I also work so am trying to keep that going too. On top of that there is all the Christmas stuff to sort out. I have tried to talk to him on the phone & in person but he will not discuss anything just says I am pressuring him. He still wants to see the kids when it suits him & then just plays big daft dad tickling them & laughing - then goes leaving me to answer their questions & comfort them. I am exhausted and just don't feel I can do this anymore. I do still love him, not the way he is behaving now, and don't want to give up on things prematurely. I just feel in limbo and can't move on either to think about rebuilding or to separate. I also don't know if all this is down to his depression. Any advice really welcome!

You haven't really said what you want... Do you want him back and, if so, is this because you still love him? Perhaps you need to think carefully about how you want your future to be and then you can try to work towards that?

You don't really have a direction at the moment and he is calling the shots.

I would like us to consider if / how we can try again. We have been together many years and I do love him very much. But unless he is willing to give me some indication of what he wants it is so difficult for me to know what to do - should I start taking steps to separate or just wait & see what happens? How long do I wait?

Perhaps you need to tell him this is what you want but if he is not prepared to let you know what he wants, then you will be forced to separate?

Having said that, there's no reason why you can't "wait and see" but also have a contingency plan in place in case things don't work out. I'd find this very hard but forcing the issue is unlikely to get you what you want, I think.

I would also need to be very certain that he wasn't still seeing the OW. Obviously, if he is, I'd make plans to move on as this would be a clear indication that he wasn't going to try again.

I hope that wasn't too brutal.

I really sympathize with you. It's so hard to keep things going when only one of you seems to want to put any effort into it or even to communicate.

The trust that you had in your marriage is gone forever I'm afraid, once it's gone, it's gone. I also loved/probably still love my husband but it is very hard to let go. We separated in March due to the non communication (after husband blew my world apart last August by leaving temporarily and telling me he had had a one night stand when I was pregnant with DD - although now he says he made it all up!?!). I couldn't cope anymore and asked him to leave. And by May June he was seeing someone else. I feel like I want him back but what I want is how it used to be and that isn't going to happen. I have been all kinds of crazy. We were together 14 years.

Only you can decide what you want from hereon in and if you want him to stay, it will be tough and if you want him to go it will be tough. Everyone says it will get better and it will (even I know that but I'm not quite there yet). I think it's because everything you know has been yanked from under you and you start to question everything and you don't want things to change....but they have.

Men unfortunately, can just leave and they go back to being single. Women continue with all the same responsibilities of before.

I hope I haven't been too miserable, it will get better. Things will work out - for you. However that will be.

Thanks for your message - you sound like you have been through a really tough time. I still feel like I am just living day to day - sometimes hour to hour - but am feeling better than I was and am calmer. Difficult time of year doesn't help.

Glad you are feeling better. It's tough. I'm 8/9 months down the line at separation and I still have my down days and everything is so new to you so no wonder you are floored.

A few weeks after my soon to be xh left, I remember taking some bach herbal remedies, one for letting go of the past or such, and instead of taking 2 drops as instructed, I took too major squirts. I'm not sure if it was that but I spent about 2 hours just absolutely howling not long after!

Some days I feel great, like today, and other days I can't believe my circumstances and what has happened. I can't believe the husband I loved did what he did. And I get no honestly, believe me.

I hope you can work through things. Maybe give it a few weeks and try and talk to him again. Unfortunately, my husband is an extreme non communicator so that's been our major issue.

I think how he is behaving is completely unfair because it leaves you unable to plan or look to the future in any meaningful way. That said, I think when someone is behaving like this you have to look at how they are acting rather than what they are saying. At present, I'm afraid he is acting like he doesn't want to be with you.

I was with my now ex for 21 years and I still can't believe he threw it all away - he still makes out that it was me who was impossible and made the relationship unworkable but I just have to hold onto the truth as I see it.

With the benefit of hindsight, the great mistake I made was in believing what he said over how he acted. If I had my time again, I would have set clearer deadlines and stuck to them. The real downside of waiting for as long as I did was the levels of emotional exhaustion I felt when we did finally separate.

Needsahug - I'm not sure why secrets has pulled up this thread, it's a few weeks 'old' now ...

How are you getting on? Do you want to talk anymore or are you ok?