dont know what to do

[broken1]

I am new to MN although i have lurked now and again & i need some advice/support. I apologize in advance if this is long. I have been with my husband for 11 years and married 5yrs we have 2 children who are 4 and 1 .
We have had almost a perfect relationship up until about 6-7 months ago when, after a little row, he told me he didn't know how he was feeling about "us" anymore.
for a bit of background he is self employed and has always worked long hours. Recently his business hasn't been doing great and had made cut backs on staff to save a bit of money but it means he has been working 7 days a week. I recently went back to work (part time) to a new job after a career break to be a sahm to my girls- i had 3 years off in total (1 year was mat leave) and we lived on DH money (bills and mortgage) and my savings (holidays, outings etc). Things were going fine. My job pays very well for a part time role and have gone back to splitting the house hold finances and mortgage straight down the middle.

since the day he told me didnt know how he was feeling things have been very very up and down. we have gone from a couple that hardly EVER argues to one that argues all the time. He is locked in his own little world, he hardly speaks to me, (not a man of many words at the best of times) but it really is a struggle to get any kind of emotion/convo out of him at all.
One min he says i do love you i dont know whats wrong with me, i just cant show it at the moment i hate myself for doing this to you but i cant snap out of it" etc the next hes saying i dont know if i love u anymore.
he went to the docs who said it was depression and gave him tablets, he took them for a week before saying they didnt work and stopped taking them. He refuses to consider councilling.
ive told him if he doesn't love me then to go but he doesn't want to- he wants to stay and "try" but we must have had this conversation a million times over and it goes back to being practically strangers.

We haven't had intimacy for 3 months. Ive had "affair" go around in my head a million times and asked him but he denies anything and it just doesn't seem possible as his business is family run so they are there with him and he comes straight home from work, doesn't stay out or get home late and no suspicious calls or texts etc

He said he feels like i didnt appreciate him when i wasnt working and that i "always" get my own way, am always right etc. He brings up ridiculous things like "oh i asked u to rub my shoulder for me when i hurt it at cricket but u said no". i dont even remember this happening but im sure i wouldn't of said "no" it was probably because i was in the middle of doing dinner, changing a bum etc!

im just at the end of my rope. I feel like a single parent at the moment as hes never around and the way we are now i feel that my life would be no diff what so ever if he wasnt there. (emotionally and physically).
Do i tell him to go and call his bluff in the hope that he will realize what hes got in-front of him or do i do something else?
I don't want him to go cause i love him from the bottom of my soul and i cant live without him (well, the man he used to be). i just want my husband back
:(

Reading this, I thought "affair" too - are you sure there is no opportunity at work to sneak off/make up appointments etc? is there a female colleague at work?

Picking petty fights, withdrawal, lack of sex, the fact that he says he does not love you (or isn't sure) are all red flags. The ambivalence is also telling.

If there is no OW, it could be that there is a possible OW in mind or that he is thinking of having an affair.

It could be depression but I am not convinced.

Your only option is to force the issue by asking him to leave to give you space to reconsider your options given his shitty behaviour - if it is an affair, then it is likely to be revealed.

Sounds a bit like my other half. Do you want to make it work? I know what its like to get a man into a counselling session but how about about doing it together so relationship counselling.
I know what its like for them never to be around too. Mine works 70hours some weeks. What about spending the day together without the children take a flask of tea and try to have a good long chat about whats going on.

There are several affair warning signs in your post.

First, there are the relatively sudden changes; working 7 days a week, a declaration of lost feelings out of the blue, the withdrawal of sex and intimacy.

There is also the retrospective blame for you not showing affection and your memory that he tended to ask for that affection when you were otherwise disposed and unable to respond. This is the 'setting you up to fail' behaviour that is very common in affairs. Many women recall that their partners asked for sexual affection at inappropriate times, such as when the children were around, they were getting dinner out of the oven and even kneading bread with floury hands! The request for affection is not genuine - it is made knowing that it will be met with a refusal and when that comes, the unfaithful partner will add it to the justifications for infidelity.

It is also common when in denial about these things not to think laterally i.e. whether there is an alternative phone, whether 'work' is always work. The fact is that if someone is working 7 days a week and has reasonable autonomy over his time, there is scope for an affair.

I imagine the reason he abandoned his anti-depressants and rejected the counselling is because he knows what the problem is and he doesn't want it to be solved just yet. As he doesn't want to leave, this often points to the OW not having her own accommodation/being in a relationship herself.

Regardless, once someone has said that their feelings have changed, the best way of bringing things to a head is to part. It is enormously sef-destructive living with someone who is holding this threat over your head.

The discovery of an affair often has the same effect of bringing things to a head, because these things tend to thrive on being illicit and once discovered, often wither and die. But a discovery like that might also crystallise your feelings too, leading to the end of the marriage.

there aren't any women he works with other than his mum! He used to work 6 days a week and had to up it to 7 because he is a chef and his other chef left so there is literally no one to cook the food? im not being naive but i just cant see how he would fit in an affair!
i badly want to make it work- i do love him i just dislike him at this moment in time for making me feel this way.
its catch 22- he cant have any time off work because he literally has no one to cover for him at the moment but he badly needs time off. He has a sister who occasionally goes in to cover but hes very much "no one can do it as well as me" mentality. male pride and all that.

From personal experience, I'd say the warning signs mentioned by others for a possible affair could and can equally apply to depression.

If it is the latter, then it takes much longer than one week for anti-depressants to kick in, no matter which sort his doctor may have prescribed.

If he's not the communicative sort at the best of times, it may be tricky to bring this to a head either way.

"he went to the docs who said it was depression and gave him tablets"

TBH it sounds like he could be depressed. I wouldn't diss it if the doc said so either. Happy pills can take up to 4 weeks to take effect properly. Perhaps he needs to give them a proper try before writing them off? He sounds like a man under a lot of pressure to me.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Teeny

i told him it will take longer for them to kick in but it was a job to get him to go to the doctors in the first place as he said he was "scared he will get dependent on them" or something similar so he was very reluctant to take them. I think hes scared of being labelled.
I mentioned counselling both couples and individual and he just says "im not doing any of that shit i don't need it its not me".
I think hes frightened of looking like a failure if he admits to depression or does go to counselling?
I just want to help him :(

It shouldn't be discounted entirely but I'm not seeing an affair - I'm seeing a man who's burned out by the stress of working 7 days a week in a demanding environment, coupled with the pride of being a man with exacting standards insofar as his skill as a chef is concerned.

Albeit it may be unreasonable of him, I suspect he feels or felt some jealousy that you were able to stay at home caring for the dc and then move seamlessly into a p/t job while he works all hours to keep a business afloat in these hard economic times.

I find mention of his hurt shoulder particularly telling; he's crying out for a bit of babying, a bit of soothing, and a lot of being told he's the man you adore.

Try soft words and soft lights. We all need our homes to be our havens at times and I'm guessing this is one of those time for your dh.

And encourage him to keep taking those anti-ds - his doc should have told him they take at least a month to kick in.

He sounds like he is in danger of burning out - his family needs to know that he is showing symptoms of depression and that he needs to cut back on his hours?