My husband has a habit of walking out of any conflict without wanting to hear me, over the years this has become very triggering for me. He promised to change many times. And there have been some improvements but it seems like he has avoidant style of conflict handling but not avoidant in other aspects.
For a long time, after a conflict, he would stop contact for days, weeks, at times hint at separating calling our marriage bad, other times he would be very affectionate, supportive, caring, helpful at home or in other matters, he would tell me how lucky to have me in his life, can’t picture his life without me, etc. We both have childhood trauma and dysfunctional families so very little support.
He is in a high skilled, high income job. Over the years this instability has caused me a lot of anxiety and depression, we have also changed country for his job soon after lockdown in a country which is very difficult to make friends and create social life, partly because of the language issues. I am in mid 40s.
Recently over a minor issue, he got very upset ( he gets irritated easily and then gets quiet and a bit sulky) and when I tried to explain how depressed I am, he got further upset and said he wouldn’t want to continue our marriage. He said he would help me financially. He is generous with money. I have not been working for last few years and don’t have kids. Reason I am not working, I have had caring responsibilities towards my family and also for a while I had to support his family through medical emergency, so I tried to do a small business to allow flexibility but it has not gone very well and my mental health is very poor for last few years.
He locked himself in the second room for most part of the day for almost 2 weeks. I tried to talk to him a few times but it didn’t go anywhere. It was very stressful so I packed my bags and left ( to my home country to sort my head). Now it has been over 2 months, we barely had any contact. I messaged him many times - in this period spoke 2 times on phone - last time he told me he has 80% made up his mind about separating but we will talk again. But he was annoyed with me on the call and since then we haven’t spoken. It has been over 2 weeks. He has gone to his family for Xmas, the family with whom he was not in contact for a year and was upset that his own mother didn’t text him once in that year.
But it seems like they are all together enjoying holidays while I am so worried about future and depressed. Usually I get a message from his family during holidays but this time I didn’t. So most likely he has told them about us. Though before he said they didn’t deserve to know.
I sent him a message again asking if we can talk when he is back but he hasn’t responded. I have started to feel I need to accept that he has checked out. So I want to understand what I should be doing. Should I contact a lawyer. How much is the fees usually?