Husband has turned into a complete loser!

[whellad]

What on earth?
After 17 blissfully happy years together -and 10 years of marriage, my husband has decided that he doesn't love me any more and has left me and our 2 beautiful boys in the family home to get on with it. They are 4 and 5 years old.
We both have good jobs, I work part time so that the work/life balance is right, Husband works full time.
At the turn of the year he had a very stressful time at work, loads of pressure, things going wrong, and I think it took its toll on him. It seems obvious to me that he translated all the crap going on at work into "life's crap, I'm married to you, maybe if we're not married life won't be crap any more" weird logic!!!
He just turned around at easter and said he loved me but wasn't in love with me any more! Out of the blue.
anyway, he has now moved out after a pathetic 2 sessions at relate. He now lives in a flat, sees the boys every other weekend, and I'm left doing all the serious parenting bit - organising everything to do with kids going to school, their learning, reading, activities etc. He just trapses them round his mum and dads and to his sisters every weekend to keep them occupied.
My feeling is that he needs a reality check - everyone around him seems to be tippy-toeing around him without telling him to wake up and realise that he had it just about as good as it gets! Happy family home, lovely kids, amazing wife (so I am told!) good jobs, the means to do (within reason) pretty much whatever he wanted to do.
Since he moved out he has made virtually no contact with me whatsoever unless it pertains to the arrangements with the boys. Until he moved out it was all, "we'll still be friends, still see each other, still have family days out etc etc" - it all went out the window as he walked out the door.
He has done nothing but disappoint me - letting me down, doing unexpected and out of character things.
He rang me the other day - most unlike him - to see how our youngest was getting on at school. I felt like saying to him, "you're just mr fun factory now twice a month, not a real parent, leave the serious grown-up stuff to me you inept loser!" Instead I humoured him by telling him what teacher said etc etc.
All of my friends think he needs a good lump on the head to sort him out! Why is he so happy to walk away from something so precious with so little effort to salvage it? I hear so much of this sort of thing happening, I am beginning to see men in a very bad light - like they're all a bunch of idiots that think with their male appendages! And I think I'm a fool for thinking that I found a good one when in fact he's a loser like all the rest.
Are there any decent men out there willing to go the distance?

whellad Sorry to read your post. It almost sounds like your husband's having some sort of breakdown. Has he any mental health history? could you or his family persuade him to go for therapy?

think it's par for the course ... midlife crisis etc, etc. Yes he is being an absolutely selfish tit and you and your friends are right. However, he needs to see that for himself and whatever is said to him he won't get it until he is ready to listen.
So, be bitter here, rant, rave, complain, cry, scream. But in RL glide like a swan through it all (very hard to do, and I didn't manage it). Tell him what you want him to do with DSs ie one evening a week back from school, tea, reading and back to school ie get him to take on some of the crap without realising it. Next you, you, you. Find whatever does it for you again - not family life, not housework, not the home but get out there and be yourself. If he realises what he's lost and wants it back then you will be in good shape, if he doesn't then you will be on the way to a new you.
How about telling him to provide an au pair if he can't do more during the week, more money for the house etc. It doesn't ahve to be heavy guns as yet, but be selfish - he is being exactly that.

It's horrifically painful when someone wants to end a relationship and the other person doesn't and after 17 years I am sure it will take a long time to recover, but I am not sure that wanting to end a relationship makes him a loser or why it makes you see men in a bad light - women break up with men all the time too. When you know the relationship is over for you, you know and no amount of Relate sessions can change that.

without telling him to wake up and realise that he had it just about as good as it gets!
But he's a grown man who has clearly decided that isn't about as good as it gets for him. No-one but an individual knows how being in a relationship feels to them and no-one else gets to decide whether they think someone should stay or not.

Sorry if this comment seems harsh, but I think that accepting it for what it is rather than you and your friends deciding he's a deluded wanker who doesn't know his own mind will be better for your own recovery and mental health. You had a long successful happy relationship which is a plenty more than lots of people have. It's sad and awful for you (and confusing and upsetting for your children at the moment) that it's over, but it does happen and there is every chance that your life will be better and happier for that in the long run even though it doesn't feel like that right now.

sorry if I'm telling you what you do not want to hear but he hasn't necessarily had it as good as it gets. Exactly the same happened to my sister (now happily remarried). Her dh walked out, got a flat, younger woman etc. He was, and still is, happy to be a part time dad, as and when it suits him, living in his flat with no responsibilities (as he sees it), children when he wants them but only then and a succesion of long-ish term younger girlfriends. Okay he will probably be sad and lonely when he is too old to get the girls but at the moment he is loving it.

I do think that you will be happier in the long run though :)

Sounds like he has probably been planning this for a long time. It's just that it's been sprung on you. Wanting no contact usually shows that he has emotionally detached quite a while ago.

I'm so sorry for you, It must be awful.

How recent is his leaving? You are probably still in shock. What do his family think? Nervous breakdown? Or has he been unhappy for some time and you were not aware?
I would suggest some sort of mediation to help you either resolve and/or move on from this situation.

I could have written your post...right down to the work stress. My other half has even said 'Life is crap.' Mine is living with his mother, causing enormous pain to everyone and yes, we had two pathetic sessions at Relate as well! Ours is terminal.

There is very little you can do....he must realise himself and no amount of persuasion/bullying'talking will make him realise.

I can talk if you want support. I don't understand it either...how men can walk away and then be 'happy'...my DD never wants to see him again and so he has lost his family, as yours has....

Mine was 20 years by the way and all I heard at Relate was 'I feel trapped, caged...I want to be on my own.'

Let him go. Be strong for your children and be the better person. Although when my MIL said 'Be strong and don't let yourself down.' I was close to decking her.

First of all please don't mind me. I am sure he is in relationship with another women,
The best way to deal with man is to leave childrens with him, this will teach that another women a good lesson and your husband will for sure come back to you..
Just try it for 1year I promise you.you will win.

7 year old ZOMBIE THREAD

Zombie thread it may be but there are so many like it, and this offers a chance to make a point without hurting a raw and devastated OP.

I agree with PurplePossum. People are allowed to leave relationships. Over and over again I read that men (and women) are terrible people: selfish, deluded, immature etc because they have decided that they no longer wish to continue in their marriage for whatever reason. What an idiot, we hear. They had a nice home, a lovely spouse, beautiful children... they must be having a midlife/mental health crisis.

Or maybe they genuinely don't want to be in their marriage any more. Maybe they want to leave and as an adult are entitled to do so. Maybe it's healthier for the abandoned spouse to learn to deal with the pain of rejection in a healthier way than lashing out and calling the person every name under the sun and/or pathologising them simply for having the temerity not to want them anymore.

Your husband/wife is allowed not to want you any more. It hurts but they are an autonomous human being. For fucks sake.

So who is the other woman? I guarantee there is one.

But I just say one thing girls... don't take kids with you..my husand left me at my mom and was reluctant to come back to me..what I did I left the baby with him..after 3 days he started calling me again and again.. :)

I think he is also seeing another women

Stop posting read the date... 2011.