I have posted about this before under this name, although it is not my usual name.
Dh and I have been in the same situation for the last 18 months. He has said he does not want to be married any more, but thinks that we can live tgether in the same house. We have a very small house. We also have two small children.
The back story to his decision was that we, and particularly me, had a very rough time for about four years, since, coincidentally, we got married. We had been together for about four years before that, very happily. We had two children, moved house, I had a very serious illness, both my parents died and my brother had a psychotic breakdown. DH says that through this time he supported me, while working very hard, but was neglected. I am too sick and tired to go into the rights and wrongs of this, suffice to say, I have apologised for him feeling neglected or criticised for working too hard and undertaken to do anything to put matters to rights.
To no avail. He refuses ay kind of way forward, but is furiously angry with me at the idea of him not being with the children every day. It is me who wants, or has wanted, to work on the marriage, not him. Anything constructive on my part has been met with anger, or rejection.
He goes away for work a lot. I have never suspected him f being unfaithful, and those who know him well agree with me. However, he follows a patter which has begun to make me suspicious. It goes like this: we start getting on wuite well, even very well, he goes away (to his native country, by the way which is not unimportant), he surprisingly affectionate emails home, and then when he gets back he si cold and angry. This time, I checked his phone when he came home (he often does this to me, so I don't feel bad. He is repeatedly interested in whether I am having an affair. I'm not). There were texts between him and someone I don't know, quite tame but very friendly. They could have been innocent. Then he sat in front of me with his phone for a long time, doing something. This is odd as he has nothng to do with his phone: I charge it, find it when he needs it; put money on it. So, I checked it again and he had deleted all the messages just fro that one person.
Now, I'm not really concerned that he is having an affair. It is an inevitable consequence of the way we are I believe, which is why I told him ages ago that his plan will never work, for us to be friends. I am sick of being treated coldly, shouted at and sidelined in front of my children though and I want an end to it. I am going to speak to hime toight and I need some encouragement that I am doing the right thing.
Thing is, he is penniless at the moment as he is owed a lot of money from work. He is also extremely depressed and disappoitned with work. I feell this is an insensitive time to have this converstaion. On the other hand, I could have written those last lines at any time inn the last three years.
I am also quite frankly terrified of being a single parent. I have no support around me where we live, friends but not incredibly close ones. I have three very part time jobs (two are seasonal, full time about four months a year, one is ten hours a week), havng recently gone back to work after being a SAHM. I will make between £9 and £10 000 this year. Clearly not enough.
Give me some good advice please. I sorely need it.