Excuse the long, negative first post but didn't fancy posting where people might know me.
My husband and I have been together over 20 years and generally got on well. Over the last couple of years, though, I felt that he was showing less interest in me or family life, and little enthusiasm in anything apart from work. He works until 8 pm most days and is away completely about seven days a month.
A year ago his mother died and since then he's more distant. He says that he is not depressed, just "normally" sad. As the months went by he started spending a lot of time on his own. Stopped initiating sex and responded unwillingly. Kept his phone in front of his face when together.
I asked him about the change in his behaviour and eventually he admitted that he does not know if he loves me any more. This is a big change as he was aways more romantic than me. He hopes his feelings will return, he says, as we have been together a long time and he doesn't want it to be this way. But for now he sleeps on the settee.
Now for the last few months we can hardly have a conversation. He smiles and talks normally to neighbours, etc. but with me his face drops and he snaps at me. If I say that he is snapping at me he complains that I am nagging. Then it just turns into a conversation about who is snapping at who.
When we met he said you have to work on a relationship for it to be successful. He says that he is still willing to work on our relationship now. But we can't do it, as we've got in this rut of not being able to talk. He'd be willing to do couples counselling, but they don't offer that after 8 pm when he comes home from work.
There's a lot I appreciate about my husband; he is / was a thoughtful, gentle, intelligent man and attractive with it. We liked the same activities. I thought I'd made a good catch. I don't want to split up with him when a lot of his behaviour must be down to the death of his mother. But I don't know what to do to improve things. Has anyone else got out of an impasse like this?
Excuse the long post, again, but I have literally no-one to discuss this with.