Marriage break up

[smb494]

Looking for advice and hope! My husband left the family home just before xmas last year for 'some space'. He told me after 4 months he wouldn't be coming home and I have tried to remain friends with him for the sake of our 3 kids. It's all becoming too difficult now to the point I'm getting angry and upset the whole time. As much as my friends and family have been great I do feel so alone. I work full time and don't ever seem to have time to myself between getting them organised for school and making lunches, dinners, doing housework etc. He is still living with his parents (10 months on!) so finds it difficult to take the kids. He is only now looking for his own place and maybe this is why I'm feeling so down again.

We were always seen as good together and yeah I agree we stopped communicating a few months before he left but it was nothing major which would warrant a separation. He is just so distant and I have asked numerous times if there's someone else and I'm maybe gullible but I believe him. I think there's signs of depression but he's seen a doctor and they haven't identified anything. Maybe I'm just looking for a reason. He just seems like a different person and yet if I change tactics and be friends again it's like we're still the same, him coming to the house most days to see the kids, the only thing different is he doesn't live with us! I'm so confused and don't know where to turn. Don't know whether I can be tough enough to get through this.

Any advice from someone that has been through a similar situation might help. Thank you x

Hi. I think to help you realise that it isn't still the same is to have clear boundaries and routines re contact with dcs etc. if he is coming to the house all the time it's not creating that distance for either of you so he seems to be having the best of the dcs whilst do all the running around. I would say he needs to have them at his parents not at yours and that to be separate contact to yours.

It is hard but you can do it. Don't try and look for why he went you will beat yourself up over and over and it gets you no where. What's done is done. If he has chosen for it to be so then so be it.

You need to break away if you are to move forward. I work full time in demanding job. I was in similar situation. I had to make that break. And I did. It's tough and some days now I meet myself coming back but you can do it.

Agree with PP, you need to stop him seeing the DCs at home as it will just confuse them. Do they know he's not coming back?

I would think that all the time he's been at his parents you've had this subconscious thought of "maybe he'll see sense and come back" but now he's getting his own place, that last hope has been squashed. I'm sorry, it's so painful when that happens :(

Have you seen a solicitor? What is the financial/housing situation like?

Thank you. The kids (10yrs and twins 5yrs) know that dads not coming home but as you say it does confuse them. It's been so awful and doesn't feel as though it's getting any easier. I think you're right I have always hoped he'd come home and still do if I'm totally honest. Can't imagine him not being in my life. It wasn't a bad relationship I think this is why I'm finding it so hard to move on :( I've started to look in to taking the house on, on my own. I've also looked in to seeing a counsellor. We did have marriage counselling at the start but he wouldn't open up so he signed up to individual sessions of which he only attended 2!

So he left you and three kids to have space, what a loser and I bet you anything there's OW involved, sounds like he is having it all his way, stop enabling him to have such a cushy life, he's basically walked out on all his responsibilities and you make it nice and cosy for him to drop in when he feels like it, fuck that, sorry but you wont start to feel good about yourself until you start actually getting on with your own life, you are not there to aid his.

He has shown you what he thinks of you, OW or not, time you put yourself first, arrange proper visits, preferably away from your sanctuary, the cheek of him expecting you to carry on as normal is astounding, time to build that back bone OP and be your own person.