Am I the only one to be left by a husband and feel completely bewildered?

[lotusleaf2]

Six days ago my husband left me and our children. He had been a bit disengaged for the previous 4 weeks but gave absolutely no indication that he was thinking of ending the marriage or that his low mood was a reflection of anything happening in the relationship. He was out of the home more than usual and seemed agitated. Like many people, I thought it was work related stress.

There could be another woman, but I do not have even the slightest idea of who/where/why etc.

Obviously I am struggling with all of it, and feel devastated, lost, betrayed, all those terrible emotions. However the part I have the most difficulty with is that he says he has been unhappy for years and hasn't loved me for a very long time. He really did not show this, everyone who knows us as a couple would say he was delighted in our marriage and very loving towards me. He was his usual loving, kind, protective self towards me as recently as a month ago. I feel as though I am going crazy as how could I not notice my husband was not happy and did not love me for years and years as he is saying. I genuinely felt everything was great.

Am I crazy? A complete fool? Blind? Has anyone had any experience of this kind of thing and if so, how do you manage to turn off the constant buzzing in your mind trying to make sense of such an unexpected and shocking situation? Thank you for any replies, even if they are just to confirm that yes, I must be mad.

I'm sorry that this has happened to you.

If you have spent any time on the Relationships board here, you will recognise this as the script. "I haven't loved you for a long time" gives him permission to see himself as a hero who has tried to keep his marriage going, instead of as a scumbag who has left his wife and children, probably for an OW.

If you go to Relationships, you will get lots of support from women who have been through the same.

Sorry, have just realised we are on Relationships. Well, it is early. That's my excuse.

I'm sure others will be along to offer support soon when they wake up.

Thank you for replying, temporarilyjerry. Is this really a known thing for a husband to say?? Wow. That blows me away. It seems like such a horrible way to leave someone, it has made me so doubtful and unsure of a huge history of memories and events.

I've spent no time on the Relationships board in the past, I will take a look now. Part of me is even sadder that this has happened to other people as it is such an awful way to feel, but at the same time I feel a tiny bit less like I might be suffering from delusional insanity. Thank you.

Yes. Read it here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/a1527705-Midlife-crisis-this-is-the-script

Sorry you're having this experience and I know how distressing and bewildering it is. You mentioned the 'constant buzz' and that's your mind frantically searching back through the last few weeks and months, trying to find answers and getting none. All I can suggest to soften the noise is that you keep as busy as possible, being with people rather than on your own and avoid having too much quiet time where your thoughts can become overwhelming. When it happened to me I found work was a good distraction.

This happened to me too, it is a very cruel thing to say to someone as not only do they have the suddenness of the marriage breakdown to contend with they can feel like they are going mad looking back and trying to figure out when all this 'unhappiness' began.

I would say don't even give it head room if you can and focus on putting one foot in front of the other for now. Be kind to yourself and tell people so that you can get as much RL support as possible. My friends and family saved me from going under more than once.

It will get easier and you will get over this although it is very hard to imagine at the moment. I'm sorry this has happened but if you hang around here long enough you will see that you are not alone.

Oh yes. Sounds very familiar.
MrD moved out on Saturday, having told me at the end of February that he wasn't in love with me any more. 5 days after he said that I found out about OW.

The Mid Life Crisis thread will help you make sense of things, however, that's about him and his process. You have your own to go through now and I'm one of those here who've been through the same. You're not mad, far from it believe me. Prepare yourself for every emotion it's possible to feel (in spades) and for those times when you can't feel anything at all. It's all very, very normal.

At this stage you don't know for sure there's an OW but I'd put money on there being someone lurking in the background. Prepare yourself, if there is one, for that to go tits up too and for your errant H to have an epiphany when he 'realises' he's made a massive mistake. Get to a solicitor for advice as soon as possible. Look after yourself and seek help from friends and family - you will need it regardless of whether he wants to come back or not.

Look after yourself - I know I'm repeating myself but it's so easy to slide into a pit of despair. Don't blame yourself. Eat. Drink. Come here and post whenever you want to. Support your kids and let them help out here and there (they're old enough to do that).

So sorry it has happened to you - it left me utterly bewildered too.

My hand is up - I'm another one who accepted his explanation of his grumpiness as 'work stress', only to find (once the OW was out in the open) that he'd not loved me for a long time, thought we should never have married (11 years previously) etc etc. It took me a long time, counselling etc, to make sense of it - especially as he was the rare case who did stay with the woman he left me for. Lean on supportive friends, use MN (wish it had been there when it was happening to me!) and remember - you will get through this.

To justify walking out he had to invent or exaggerate something. If he has told anyone else he needs to have some sort of explanation as to why he would skip out on the DCs and you.

There is not always an OW. If not though why go to such pains to tell you that the last few years were a sham. Plus, how extraordinary his acting skills must have been.

Any perceived or imagined shortcomings in the marital relationship need not affect his attachment to the DCs. Do you mind me asking how old they are? Has he been in touch with them?

Do you have access to finances? I hope you have rl support.

Yup, been there too.....my exH sent me a Christmas card telling me that he was so proud of everything we had achieved & that he was more I love with me than ever.

6 weeks later he started his affair & then I found out a few months later - he'd apparently been unhappy for years too. It was a crock of shit - he just liked the shiny new, responsibility-free younger woman, who thought he was the dogs bollocks....

Mine has also stayed with his OW - but often tells me that he's almost finished with her as things are so difficult for them, that he's upset her, blah,blah,blah - basically, the grass isn't greener, it's just a different shade of green (also, he's shitting himself about the divorce & what it's going to cost him & OW has been jobless for 4 months now).

Op, your head with be a mess trying to make sense of it - I remember it just felt like I'd stepped into a parallel universe where everything looked the same but it had changed beyond all recognition.

I'm 2 years on now & with counselling & time, I'm more or less back to myself. I do struggle with trusting my ability to judge someone's character & trust as the legacy of what my exH did - it really was a bolt out of the blue (DD2 was only a few months old when he started his affair) & I never thought he was the type.

Look after yourself, get as much support as you can & good luck

The same happened to me OP. Almost identically. He disengaged for a few weeks before (just a little quiet) and then hit me out of the blue with "I don't love you anymore and haven't for ages" literally 48 hours on from a date night where he'd been saying the complete opposite. I thought we had the most amazing marriage. I felt like I was going mad.

Not only had he not given any signs he was unhappy in ANY way, he had actually gone to considerable lengths to convince me of the opposite. I felt like I was in a bad film about to wake up from a nightmare.

Looking back on it family and friends say almost a year on from that it still feels completely surreal. No one saw it coming, there were NO signs.

Months after leaving he was diagnosed with severe depression, which was the explanation in my case for his utterly nonsensical behavior although not an excuse.

I do think however that there is a strong link between the idea of mid-life crisis, depression and the OW. My personal theory is that stress builds, general dis-satisfaction with life starts to appear and perhaps depression and then he begins to think "I am not as happy as I used to be, it must be my wife's fault...if I have someone better I will be better".

It's selfish.

In my stbXHs case he has very severe depression, there is no OW as he simply lacks the ability to function on that level but I've no doubt in his state of mind he would have had one given the chance. He wanted to do / find any way to escape the way he was feeling.

I can recommend a book called Runaway Husbands which explains this phenomenon. I am so sorry you are going through this...I have been there and there is not very much which feels as bad as when the person you love and trust most in the world makes you feel like your life has been a lie.

With hindsight in my case, it was not. He was just a bad coper and had to externalise his pain.

yup - I was utterly bewildered and totally rudderless too.

Absolutely no signs of anything untoward, was very much in love with me - then 4 weeks later just upped and left with no warning - and sure enough OW was later discovered. He had been on sites looking for no string hook ups for a few weeks and had hit the 'jackpot' with her. He is still with her, despite constantly dumping her and sobbing to me that he can't stand her and his new life is hell.

I still cannot comprehend it 3 years later. My advice is don't try and understand or justify his behaviour - just look after yourself. And disengage from him immediately. And I would have bet my life on mine not doing this - he was the last man in the world who would have behaved in such a way - or so I thought....

Something kind of similar happened to me. Although he had always had 'ishoos' I thought he was properly invested in 20 yr marriage. I found he was Online Dating though, and looking back had been for some time. I got him to leave, as in the last few weeks he was messing with teenage DD's head as well as mine. I didn't think he was the type either, but he was just waiting for a Better Offer. He re-married with alarming haste, and has found that the grass he thought was greener still needs cutting... About two years down the line, I still have no idea what REALLY happened. Conversations about it are useless (apparently signed up for OD because I wouldn't go owl-watching one night). So with that sort of logic, I have eventually accepted that it/him/his weird mind are a mystery to me, and shall remain everthus. I do still struggle with remembering 'happy times'. Were they really happy? It is easier to remember the crap, which is sad. I have never wavered from not wanting to be with someone so ridiculous and cowardly and dishonest however, and have moved on a lot with my life, and have another relationship. I do remember the shell-shocked feeling though, and you do get over it.

I'm sorry you had a b* of a DH.

Me too. My ex met OW on a work ski trip in early Feb last year. Told me he no longer loved me on DC1's birthday end Feb (nice!) , our marriage has been dead for years (never mind buying our 'forever' house 18 months previously... ). He moved out in April and was shacked up with her by October and they are still together...

I spoke about this to our mutual friends recently and he never complained about our marriage to them once so no, I wasn't mad or deluded to think our marriage was good till then... Anyway, it's been an interesting year. It was very hard in the first 6 months but things got easier once the dust settled. I have a lovely partner now and we are all very civil on the surface. But I think the OW has been very naive and been fed some lines by my ex. Not my problem anymore! All the best to you. I got some counselling on the NHS in the beginning and that really helped!

I'm so sorry this has happened to you and I hope you find the support on here that you need. I don't know if this will help you but - I left my ex some years ago for someone else and in one of the many very awful, painful conversations we had I told him that I wasn't sure if I had loved him for some considerable time. Looking back in hindsight it was exactly for the reasons outlined above - it seemed to "justify" why I was prepared to jump ship for someone I had known for a very short time and also (in my head) helped to prevent him from trying to persuade me to stay. I know now that it wasn't remotely true and that 99% of the time we had spent together was genuinely happy. Whatever happens now, it is very unlikely given what you describe that you and he have been 'living a lie' for years and he will in time come to realize that, regardless of whether it is in fact over for good. I wish you well.

It's called 're-writing history'
It's something they all do to justify being a lying, cheating, scumbag.
Do NOT let him take away any of your memories or your happy times.
Do not try to understand it. There is no sense to it.

Contact him only to discuss access to the kids and get some legal advice quick sharp.

The most important thing right now is looking after yourself.
You won't be able to eat properly.
But drink sugary tea. Orange juice ice lollies were my saviour and bananas.

The other thing you will need to access very quickly is real life support. Tell people and get them round to help you and support you.
Do not keep his dirty little secret, because there is another woman.
You will need your family and friends more than ever right now and they will want to be there to love and support you.
I really don't know how I'd of got through it all without my support network.

I am so sorry you are going through this, but as you can see from this thread and many others, so many of us have been where you are. It's bleak and it's horrible right now but you WILL get through it and you will be OK. It will take time. So make sure you grieve for the life you thought you had that has now been so cruelly taken away.

Keep posting for support on here. So many wonderful women can help you.

He hasn't been unhappy for years.

He's just re-writing history so that he can not wake up at 2 am in a sweat knowing what a cunt he is.

Here's the truth: He's a weak man. Who was perfectly happy for all the time he was with you, right up until someone else turned his weak fluffy little head. Having no moral code or ability to understand that the grass is never greener, he's bailed.

Be prepared for Mr. Weak to turn up with tail between legs when he does (very likely) realise the thing about the non-greener grass. I hope that if this happens, you'll have the strneght to realise that you will be better off without him.

Thank you for replying, everyone. I am so grateful. I thought I was going absolutely crazy. I read the midlife crisis script that temporarilyjerry linked to with my mouth wide open in shock. He said all of those things! And did all of those things!

And yes, like everyone has mentioned, he did say that we should never have got married (10 years ago), he's always been unhappy and he has "really tried" to make the marriage work anyway out of some kind of dutiful responsibility. It is so utterly insulting. He was a devoted, happy, loving and invested partner up until the last couple of weeks. No one we know would recognise how he spoke to me, it was like a different person. Thank you, each of you, for understanding this feeling of bewildered shock. That has been like a hug of sanity.

Cogito: yes, the buzzing in my mind had me awake at 2am and trying to think back over every memory of our marriage to see if I could incorporate this new image of an "unhappy husband". I will certainly heed the advice here to stop trying to understand it.

The grief of what I thought was my (and my children's) life being over is very difficult and is darkest at night, and first thing in the morning. Thank you everyone for sharing your advice with me, I am thankful.

I feel as though I must be behaving so predictably as well, or maybe it is just a normal response. You are all right, the idea of eating is just abhorrent to me and I have lost weight and look dreadful from it, gaunt and like some kind of ghost. Sleep feels impossible. Even just small tasks like laundry seem insurmountable. This bit must be temporary, I hope. I've never felt such an absence of motivation.

My friends and family are being very kind, although they are also all in shock as he seemed such a loyal person.

I am sad and sorry to hear that so many others have been in this awful position. You all must be very strong.

yes me, op. It's 9 yrs on and in my brain there is a little place that still feels this.

i have just ordered the book suggested.

just sending you love, and strength. xxxxx

Me!

3 weeks today, my husband filed for divorce - going so far to select my solicitor for me, complete the paperwork stating we had been separated for two years, and file for divorce. All within 24 hours of him announcing he was leaving.

Has been all rather shocking.

Still in a state of confusion/panic/distress but a little bit of me is determined to regain some composure and self-respect. Lord knows I have snotted on enough people's shoulders in the last week, when I started telling people.

Sometimes I think my whole married life has been a lie, other times I see him as the duplicitous one. I read 'Detach and Survive' which I found quite helpful.

I also got a SHL!

It's so sad how many of us are currently going through this right now though. A hug for all of us, and a thanks to those who are further down the path for their support.