Could you take him back after midlife crisis?

[PaisleySheets]

Just what the title says really.

If your otherwise exemplary and lovely husband had a two year hiatus from being a normal human being, where he got depression, was not sure he loved you or ever did and moved out, would you be able to forgive him?

He wasn't having an affair, there's never been anyone else involved. I am not sure why he did what he did. All he will say is that he felt he had to do it.

One minute I feel really sorry for him. We had a terrible debt problem and he'd been my rock for a long time and just couldn't cope. I also feel sorry for him because he made an awful mess of his life, he's had dreadful depression that's crippled him and he's been through a miserable time on his own. I also genuinely believe he loves me and regrets what he did.

One the other hand, during the worst of this "midlife crisis" he treated me like dirt on the street. The first I knew of any problem was an email to say he didn't love me anymore and was never coming home and to move on with my life. I won't bore everyone with all the details of the last two years, but in the first six months he was really about as cruel and unfeeling as a person can be and I got to the point I was calling Samaritans every week.

We had a happy marriage, losing him like that was the worst experience I have ever been through but I fought through it and made a new life for myself 400 miles away and my career took off.

I hoped for so long that he would "get better" and want to come home, but now he does, I don't know what to do. I am just so angry at him!

I know I love him, and before all this happened I couldn't fault him or us and I felt it was everything I'd ever wanted -but everything that's happened since feels so hard to get over.

I don't want to cut off my nose to spite my face though, and part of me feels like working things through with him is my best chance at happiness. I've dated a few great men and none of them make me feel that way that my husband did.

Has anyone ever let a wayward spouse come home after a long period apart or after them doing wrong? How did it go? I feel like I just can't go through being hurt again :(

I tried to keep this short by not including too much detail but I can also point out that we don't have children, we are both late thirties and neither of us filed for divorce.

I have shown myself and him I am perfectly capable of living without him, and I enjoy life and have filled it with fun and friends and travel and new hobbies and dates but I admit that without him I feel a constant void deep down.

And also yes, always, he said absolutely horrible things that stuck in my mind like knives but he says he never meant them and just wanted to be left alone. Thanks for explaining that, what you have described is just what he describes himself.

He did terrible things to you. How could you be certain he would not do that again? You cannot trust him.
Question. Is he working? In a decent job where he can support himself? Is he debt free and self sufficient?
Lastly, you don't have time to waste more years if you want to have children.

I think I mentioned earlier that we had very bad debt problems to the tune of £50,000 and the pressure of that ground him down over time and led to this happening really. I could not get work that was well paid in the area where he lived, so that's why I took a well paid job at the other end of the country. He also moved back in with his parents for two years so between the two of us we are now debt free and I paid off half of it almost.

I admit it was a huge pressure on both of us, but we had some bad luck. I do understand how stressful it was on him but by my way of thinking you pull together instead of apart when thing go wrong.

Yes, he has a very good job. He was signed of for a few months but his employer was sympathetic of his illness and they eased him back into work as he got better.

We are now both self sufficient as individuals.

It's a very good point that I am scared to waste any more years given my age. I am dating someone right now who I really like (perhaps even love) who I have good fun with, who is kind and supportive, hard working, wants to get married and have children, comes from a nice family background, seems stable and I enjoy being with. I just can't shake the feeling that I don't feel the same way about him as I do about my husband.

When I was so depressed I could see no way out and no reason to stick around and the ONLY thing that stopped me killing myself at that point was because I was a MH nurse and thought if it went wrong, I'd live and be assessed and possibly sectioned by colleagues and my pride and not wanting ANYONE to know how I felt; least of all the people who cared about me and respected me as a bloody good MH nurse over-rode my desire to die at that point.

Luckily, my friend basically marched me to the GP to get help soon after as by then, I was researching how to try to kill myself and make it look like an accident.

I had completely irrationally assessed the impact of my death. Yes friends and service users would be upset blah blah blah but they'd get over it. My Dad would be upset but he's got a wife to support him so he'll be alright in the end.

I saw my Dad cry for the first time in 20 years when I was recovering and told him I'd thought that. He was completely devastated that I could have thought that losing his child would EVER do anything but destroy him.

My Mum never remarried after my parents divorced and I thought that with no-one to support her she'd be more upset than my Dad but I couldn't care enough at that point . I wrote her a suicide note on one occasion and when I found it when I was better I was horrified by how cold and detached it was - basically said yes, you say you love me but if you really do then you wouldn't want me to live like this and if you expected me to then you're selfish and don't know what real love is.

Awful, awful things I believed. I didn't say all of them but I did say some very, very hurtful things and ruined an entire Christmas by a) being so obviously ill but refusing (unable) to acknowledge it or understand why people were concerned and b) being sarcastic, rude, dismissive and generally acting like a complete cunt.

I don't want to hijack your thread or talk about me but these are personal experiences and thought processes that I think are very likely to have been similar to what your ex was going through and may give an insight into why and how he could have behaved as he did and hurt you just as much as he did and not seem to care. to you and him x

Always, please don't feel like it's hijacking because the one perspective I am missing is the one that shows me what might have been in his head at the time, so thank you for what you've said.

Some of your words are identical to his. He also told me six months into it very coldly that he'd been planning his suicide, researching it on the internet as he felt it was the only escape from how he felt. He also said he could not have cared at all about if it hurt me or his parents because he was in a state of mind of being incapable of caring.

I took those words as further evidence he didn't love me to care so little about what legacy he would have left me with or to have felt like he could not come to me. It felt like rejection and it was so hard to understand that he didn't want me around. I couldn't understand why me telling him I loved him didn't seem to have any effect.

I remember when he was diagnosed I thought he'd get better in 4 - 6 weeks when the ante-depressants "worked" but all they appeared to do was to provide him with a platform where living was bearable and he could go to therapy and manage to get into work. He was so detached when medicated that he seemed to barely register any emotion at all over the end of our marriage. I felt completely alone as if he was dead.

Thank for sharing that, I'm going to try and keep an open mind as to what he was going through and I want to listen and hear it from his side. He finds it very hard to talk about or even to remember. He said it was like he didn't know who he was.

I just thought that was what a wife was for...to hold your hand and be with you at times like that.

Oh OP I want to hug you. If he was genuinely depressed then it wasn't that he didn't love you or anything else enough it was that the pain was unbearable and depressive thinking makes you think that your death will probably be better for everyone in the long run and even if you had a tiny thought that was not true, you genuinely couldn't care.

Working in MH I've lost several service users to suicide and it's always said 'but they had a good life, they were loved, I'd have done more if I knew' it doesn't make a difference.

Also lost a colleague to suicide and you can imagine what a head - fuck that was for people who worked with him and socialised with him. How could we not know?. For the same reason that I didn't know when it happened to me; with all my knowledge; expertise and understanding!. It's not like the majority of psychotic or manic disorders - it usually develops over time and you end up thinking it's YOU - this fucking facade of a person that doesn't deserve to live.

I completely relate to his coldness and his calculated plans with no regard for how it would affect others. It was not a rejection of you or designed to hurt you.

I honestly find it hard to explain what severe depression is like to people who haven't experienced it.

There were times that I sat on the kitchen floor for hours because I literally did not know how to get through the next minute, let alone think of days, weeks or more. Overwhelming pain, hopelessness and blackness. And it's always been this way and always will be; all those happy times in your memory are bollocks - fabrications that are invalid (that's how you think when depressed).

I can swear with my hand on my heart that If you told me I'd have to go back to that place for even a month before you'd take it away, I'd choose suicide.

All this however, does not mean you should be in a relationship if it would make you unhappy so don't let pity or sympathy influence your decision even if he fell the same as I did. No-one should be unhappy because they're protecting a partner unless they have full knowledge and understanding.

Why does he want to come to you? It sounds more like he wants you to look after him than the other way around. Why doesn't he invite you to where he is?

If you had done this to him - for whatever reason - would you expect to be forgiven? How would you cope if he did it again? Or threatened to do it again? What if you got back together and then he decided the relationship still wasn't what he wanted - are you willing to get that invested again?

I think it is fair to tell him you are too bitter and hurt about what he did to see him at the moment but that you want to leave the door open to the possibility in the future. I'd certainly make him sweat a bit. Whether or not he ever meant the horrible things he said, he still said them and you still had to feel it as if he did mean them. He can't un-say them, and you can't un-feel them. That's what he has to live with.

From what you say, this isn't a mid-life crisis (in his 30s!), this is/was a very sick man. There is absolutely no guarantee that if you take him back this won't occur again. It's brutal but, if you were my daughter, I'd be telling you that you'd had a lucky escape and to move on.

Thanks always, that's really helpful to hear someone else can explain or understand it. I agree that unless you have had it you can't imagine it. All I would want if I felt bad was him - just him being around would make it better so it's hard to get your head around something that makes you feel like being alone.

Tribot, I'd not travel 400 miles to see him on demand so he bloody better come here if he wants to see me. Your questions are all the same fears and worries I have myself. Yes, what you say is bang on target that even though he didn't mean the things he said or did and was influenced by illness it doesn't mean I didn't experience those things as real and go through the agony at the time.

What I really wish was that he hadn't gotten ill or at least that he hadn't reacted this way to being ill because I would have looked after him and helped him and we'd not be in this position. I wish I had a time machine :(

If you really love him, hear him out. I'm sure he didn't choose to have depression

From what I have heard, many people behave like this when suffering from depression and especially when on antidepressants. There have been many threads on MN with people saying their OH have changed and moved away and not in love with them and behaving just like your OH. There was one in summer. It was a man and his wife changed and didn't want to be with him etc.

The thing is if you love him then isn't it worth talking to him and seeing how you feel. It could be the start of a whole new relationship between the two of you. You could not see him and eventually start a new relationship with someone else but there are never any guarantees that he wont ever have depression or an affair or whatever. So if you really love your OH and decide you want to be with him isn't it worth trying again?

Yes, I suppose it is.

It sounds like perhaps you, and maybe him, need some closure.

I might keep contact with him for a while and eventually meet him to see how we stood and talk things over.

I think it's possible to suffer from a breakdown and turn against the people you love the most, and afterwards realise you've made a big mistake.

However, I'm not entirely sure that that's what's happened here, and I think his behaviour and words may have been too extreme to actually be able to rebuild a healthy relationship.

Either way he may relapse at any point, you have no guarantees his mental health will hold; and even if he doesn't, he will always be depressive.

A big question is whether you want kids. Personally I would not want to have kids with a man with this level of instability. If debt is hard, children are probably the hardest thing you will ever do. He cracked up under pressure once, he may do it again. The man you are currently with sounds a much better bet to have a family with. People you have the most love for aren't necessarily the ones who make the best husbands/fathers.

If you don't want kids then there's nothing to stop you getting back on the rollercoaster: from the sound of it you quite enjoy the ride.

I actually got the impression that you don't want to go back. But there's a what if and the memories of it used to be.

And I think it's hugely unfair to tell the op she "enjoyed the ride". Wtaf?

...how it used to be

*I admit it was a huge pressure on both of us, but we had some bad luck. I do understand how stressful it was on him but by my way of thinking you pull together instead of apart when thing go wrong.

Yes, he has a very good job. He was signed of for a few months but his employer was sympathetic of his illness and they eased him back into work as he got better.

We are now both self sufficient as individuals.

It's a very good point that I am scared to waste any more years given my age. I am dating someone right now who I really like (perhaps even love) who I have good fun with, who is kind and supportive, hard working, wants to get married and have children, comes from a nice family background, seems stable and I enjoy being with. I just can't shake the feeling that I don't feel the same way about him as I do about my husband.*

Your husband sounds like he suffered a profound depression and breakdown - that is an illness not a mid life crisis. But what I would find impossible to get over is just what you said-he didn't pull together with you his wife, he went back to his parents and was cruel to you. Sure it was the illness, but if the illness ever comes back, will this happen again?

If I were you I'd wish him well for the future but I'd stick with the nice new boyfriend and see where that goes. Some of your thinking that you don't feel the same about your husband may be the drama and intensity of what you went through with him has given you heightened emotional memories, if that makes sense. Whereas your new relationship is drama free, nice, steady etc.

I agree with the point that just because I loved him the most doesn't mean he will make the best husband or father, but I didn't enjoy this at all, it was awful.

It's not that I don't want to go back it's just that it's very confusing and I'm scared of all the risks and of ever being hurt like that again.

Canyouforgive her, the reason I see it or perceive it as a midlife crisis was that he dropped this one me out of the deep blue sky and left me and was cruel in doing it. I've known plenty of people who have had depression who would not have done that to their spouse so for me the bit that makes it feel like a midlife crisis. I do agree he had a profound depression and breakdown but never understood his reaction to that being to turn against me. It might be that I don't understand how depression this severe can make you feel or behave but it's not easy for me. I have tried to understand but I suppose that at the time it would have mattered he would not talk to me.

If you still love him, give him a chance but please take your time and guard your heart until he has shown himself worthy of you.

Remember that you owe him nothing.
It may not be his fault the way he acted, but you are also a person with feelings.
It may be highly unfortunate, but it's hard to go back to what it used to be after something this serious.
You probably won't be able to.
But nobody can guarantee that they won't ever be depressed.
But, again, I feel that there are many unresolved feelings on your side, and perhaps his too. Meeting him at some point may be the best way to sort it out. One way or the other.
Try to keep a clear head, though.
What would you advise your friend or sister?

I think machair says it well.

Just to give a bit of clarity here - this experience was incredibly painful and difficult to get through.

The first 8 or 9 months in particular I found it hard to eat, sleep or even watch TV or spend time with friends and I didn't know a person could cry for that long. I wished I could go to sleep and never wake up most days and that lasted a long time. I went through all the phases of grief from shock and denial through anger and depression and finally acceptance and even then the grief is still with me but I have learned to live with it.

It felt to me like he'd died suddenly, but at the same time there was this awful and mean imposter who seemed to not care at all about me or even recognise who I was.

I do have a lot of unresolved feelings because I was pushed away and not even given an explanation that made any logical sense and I was made to feel like I was a bad wife and had done this to him and it called into question my own sentiments that we'd been happy.

I felt for a long time like my happy marriage was a figment of my imagination and going through something this confusing has long term effects on your trust of others and even of your own judgement.

It's a scary thing to risk even speaking to him or even seeing him because I had put a wall up inside where I had told myself he had "gone". I even had a little funeral for him which sounds stupid but it was one way I got closure.

I am weighing it up though and as far as I can figure it, if I do give him a chance then I might end up being hurt again like this but I also might end up being the happiest I could possibly be. If I don't give him a chance then I might end up finding just as much happiness with someone else, or I might end up always regretting it and having a life that wasn't the best one I could have had because it wasn't spent with him.

I think I am just going to take some time to think about all this and give him time to make sure this is what he wants and that he's willing to do the work that he needs to do here. I'd need a lot from him to re-build trust, re-build intimacy and to work through specifically what it was about our marriage that made him react this way.

Cross posted there, I think I'd advise my sister that all that really matters in life is spending it with those we really love and that a life with regrets is no life at all. I'd probably advise her to start communications long distance as friends, then to suggest a course of counselling to talk openly about what happened and why and if all that went well to try going on a date. I'd tell her to not think of it as going back to him, but as starting again with him. I

I also think you put it really well machair and I think this is what I have to do. Probably a lot more will unfold if I at least give him the opportunity to open communication and at worst I might end up with more understanding.

Paisley, if you do decide to do that, what will you tell the new boyfriend?

It wouldn't be fair to be communicating with your husband, with a view to seeing how you felt about getting back together with him, and not tell your boyfriend.

It wouldn't be fair either to explain what you're doing and ask your boyfriend him to hang around while you explore things with your husband.