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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

If my h can't love me then its hard to love myself

43 replies

bumbums · 04/04/2012 22:57

I don't know if my h has fallen out of love with me or if he's suffering with depression.

I can see that he might be depressed but I can also see that it could well be that he's simply fallen out of love with me.

I seem to have bought a pack of ciggarettes. And the past few days, once the kids are in bed and I've had a drink I want a cigarette.

The last time I was a smoker I was a wild teen who didn't care about her body.

I can see how there is nothing wrong with me and that I'm very loveable. But my dh doesn't appear to love me and its been this way noteably for at least 18mths.

I'm living a miserable life. punctuated by the joys that children bring.

How can you tell if your h is depressed or just doeesn't want to be married to you anymore?

OP posts:
EggyFucker · 04/04/2012 23:52

is this how he is "getting you back" ?

tell him to go, and find out for himself "what a separation will be like"

does he expect you to take him through it, step by step, like a fucking tutorial

just pack his bags

when he's doing the McDonald's Daddy thang, that should focus his mind on what it's like

bumbums · 04/04/2012 23:53

I've asked him if he's having an affair and he looks incredulously at me and says 'no'.

OP posts:
bumbums · 04/04/2012 23:54

I can tell by your name Eggyfucker that you don't mince your words!! Smile

OP posts:
EggyFucker · 04/04/2012 23:54

would you expect him to admit it if he were ?

solidgoldbrass · 04/04/2012 23:55

What he means is 'Roll over and play dead and let me do exactly what I want. Or I'll leave.' Though he doesn't want to leave his home comforts, he wants you to accept him doing exactly what he likes, including seeking or having sex with other women, just as long as he doesn't make you single.

bumbums · 04/04/2012 23:56

I'm not going to be used by him. I know my self worth.
I just can't get him to be brave enough to be honest with me.

OP posts:
EggyFucker · 04/04/2012 23:57

tell him that his "separation" from you is also likely to entail you finding some other bloke who would love to shag the arse off you, and spend smashing family days with the kiddies

great that, for focussing the mind of a cruel "will I, won't I fuck off and leave you" type

VanderElsken · 04/04/2012 23:57

bumbums, this is so disrespectful and horrible for you. You need to think wether YOU Want to be married to such a detached cruel man. He has made his decision and too cowardly to tell you why. Is he cowardly in his personal life generally? Does he spend time away from home? this is a man who is probably seeing someone else and is looking to test run it. He can't say he doesn't love you because he probably still does somewhere and more importantly wants to preserve the possibility of returning. He is terrified of being away from his kids and how much he will miss them so his focus is on them, not you.

Someone struggling with their partner will either fight and fight until the relationship becomes untenable (do you fight? Or is it more like withdrawal and invisibility?) or agree to couples counselling to do their best to give it a go or the feeling will deteriorate for a long time until sadly someone calls it quits properly.

This sort of discussion of moving out sounds like infidelity to me and he needs somewhere to conduct it.

He would certainly lie to you if you ask. But this is all topsy turvy. You are not going mad. He needs to tell you the truth or sit down with a couples counsellor together because the communication sounds mean and unclear from him.

bumbums · 04/04/2012 23:58

Hmmm maybe! Grin

OP posts:
EggyFucker · 04/04/2012 23:59

ah, he can keep you going for months like this

you already said he has until the end of the year

I suggest your completely revise your time scale and tell him to fuck off by Easter

take control, your self esteem will thank you for it

EggyFucker · 05/04/2012 00:01

be aware his fannying around, and taking his good sweet time over dumping you, is possibly because his crash pad with OW is not quite ready yet

bumbums · 05/04/2012 00:01

Will be a battle to get him to counselling. He is terrified of a professional counsellor unpicking him.

His issues with his emotions stem back to when his Dad died sudenly when dh was just 17. He didn't process his grief then.

OP posts:
EggyFucker · 05/04/2012 00:03

so ?

that's a shame, however

is there a particular reason that him other than all the other people in the world who lost a parent young, should be excused from behaving like a decent human being ?

VanderElsken · 05/04/2012 00:07

I understand that but that is exactly why he SHOULD go to counselling.

bumbums I know it's hard to hear, and I only keep saying it because you seem to have some good self-esteem left underneath, so maybe you can take it, but he also probably doesn't want to see a counsellor because it's very difficult to lie effectively in those situations. He is terrified of that.

I think he is probably involved with someone else. And you need to think about that and the fact that this has been going on for eighteen months and that the man you are married to who claims to adore his kids is seriously saying he wants to move out of the house, rather than go to the relatively soft option of an hour of counselling every week.

This is dodgy. It is incredibly dodgy. And if he really truly just 'doesn't love you enough' to stay in the house married to you, why on earth would someone young and confident and loveable like you put up with that?

Tell him you think he is seeing someone else. Insist over and over he tell you the truth. If he won't, ask why he won't go to counselling. If he won't go to counselling and won't admit to an affair you have to detach and tell him to leave. This can't go on. You deserve better.

animula · 05/04/2012 00:07

Affair or not affair, depression or not depression - refusing to acknowledge you as a human being is abusive. and doing that in the intimate space of a couple relationship is going to seriously mess with your self-perception, your self-confidence and (yes, I know this sounds OTT) but your rationality generally.

I can almost imagine all the strange, contradictory thoughts that run around in your head. And they probably stay there because your intimate day to day reality - that you bounce your perceptions off to see what is "real" and what isn't - is getting seriously messed about with by your relationship with your husband.

An important thing - it isn't you that would be breaking up the family. He is behaving in a way that really has broken the rules of intimacy and trust that make a relationship a healthy and a good one. Regardless of whether he's having an affair or has depression. It's almost immaterial. The way he is behaving, treating you, and what he has turned your relationship into is just wrong. Bad and wrong.

I do think SGB had it earlier. I think he should try a separation, move out. It'll help you get your head together. the selling-point for him, I guess, is that it will help him think about what he wants - and he'll get a taster of what the "alternative to being married" is.

Frankly, I doubt counselling is going to work. He;s had plenty of time to take action about his behaviour - which kind of says he has taken action - and you are currently living with the result of what action he has chosen to take .... It's not nice, is it?

My other suspicion (and it's only a suspicion) is that the longer you give it, the worse it will get - by little, small steps. and the worse your mental health and self-esteem will get.

One life, my dear. You were not put on this earth to allow a mixed-up human being to practise their abusing skills on. On the contrary, I strongly suspect you are a loving person, and this is all going to stand in the way of you living your one life the way you are naturally inclined to do.

bumbums · 05/04/2012 00:13

Even harder times ahead.

You've all given me plenty to dwell on.

I have to be braver than ever before.

I'm not going to let it drag on till the end of the year I've decided. This ball is rolling and it will reach its conclusion.

Scared.

Glad I'm already under a very good counsellor.

Must try to sleep.

Thanks.

OP posts:
EggyFucker · 05/04/2012 00:15

good night, and good luck x

animula · 05/04/2012 00:16

Yes. Good luck. And, do you know, there are a whole load of us on mn who will tell you you're worth it. (And we mean that in a deeper way than the annoying advert. Smile )

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