Sorry DiscoDiva. As I read your post I am reminded also of the awful things he said to me and I put into perspective the timeframe of how qickly it happenned.
Interestingly, the only "sign" he had given of any unhappiness of any kind was elevated drinking. That was going on for perhaps 6 - 8 months and we had argued about that and only that.
I was a pretty laid back wife and his modus operanda on the drinking front would really be that he elevated to drinking a bottl of wine a night and I would gently remind him it was unhealthy. He'd say "sorry honey you're right, next week I'm teetotal. I do like a drink".
That was a small niggle but 4 times in that 6 -8 month period he got actually paralytic. That was scary for me becase on those 4 - 5 ocassions I felt he was so drunk his personal safety was compromised.
The first time he'd done it was about 5 months before he left and he'd gotten so drunk on a night away that he'd gone to the toilet in the night and accidentaly left the hotel room and been found in bed with an old man a few doors down from us! That was considered a hilarious story at the time but i was concerned.
The second time was 4 months before he left and he'd gone out to a sports night out with the boys and phoned me as he was leaving to tell me how much he loved me and had actually fallen asleep on the way home on the pavement.
The third time was about 3 months before he left and we'd had people over for dinner and he'd been (as always) madly affctionatte and telling them how much he loved me (he'd actually bought me an eternity ring that day) but then he got so drunk over dinner that he'd gone outside for a fag and snapped the washing line and allen off the patio and had to go to A&E for a split eyebrow.
The fourth time was 3 weeks before he left and he'd gone away on business. As I said, I think he was particularly clingy on that trip and kept calling me night and day. He was homesick, he was sounding very depressed and he wanted to Facetime with me constantly -even falling asleep together on Facetime. Then he went out with his business friends one night and was calling me on Facetime with them, saying "check out my hot wife" and saying "I love you so much honey" and he said he was just leaving the taxi and would call me from his hotel room in 5 minutes. 10 minutes passd and no phonecall and I got worried. An hour passed. I was calling and callign and no answer. So after a couple of hours I got the hotel manager to look for him and he was found unconscious in the hallway of his hotel room.
For me, that was the final straw with the drinking and I sent him and email that night and told him we had a wonderful marriage and I loved him beyond reason but could not cope with his drinking anymore and that it had to stop. He got the email and telephoned and telephoned and telephoned but I was too angry to answer the phone. When i finally did he told me he loved me more than anything in the world, that he would die without me and please not to leave him. He said he would stop it, and that he was stressed and going through a midlife crisis and that he was sorry.
He came home from that trip, like I said, with lovely gifts for me, nd he was crying with relief that I hadn't gone and he promised me that his drinking would stop. We were especially loving, especially attached to each other and he was normal aside from being very stressed with work and he took a week off and stayed at home in his dressing gown saying he had a virus (I look back now and think maybe he was actually depressed).
Then he left a few days later. And switched from saying he could not live without me so saying the opposite.
I do think he had developed a drinking problem, and while there was no OW, he definitely spiralled into alcoholism for six months after he left and became absolutely drunk every single day. He wasn't even chasing women. He was crying and drinking and being angry and abusive to me.
He did stop drinking completely, sorted himself out, got some anti depressants and started to work through it but the feelings for me which he turned off like a tap on that day never came back on.
I do wonder if a part of these men do this to escape themselves? Like escaping the the bottle or escaping to a new woman and all of this allows them to pretend to be someone else? As if they are really trying to run away?
Then perhaps the characteristics I listed of being Mr Nice guy, seeking approval, avoiding confrontation made it impossible for them to just talk to us and work through it? Like they were playing a role of perfect husband and got tired of it?
Then those other characteristics I mentioned of being manipulative, lying to get out of trouble, compartmentalising and playing the victim are the ones that allowed them to do it in such a viscious and evil way?
Looking back, I remmeber the sheer hatred and rage and evil words that he directed at me had absolutely no place being spoken to me. He had no context for the way he was feeling so angry, he just wanted to hurt, harm and cause mazimum damage almost as if he was (a) angry at thw world and not just me and (b) completely unable to sit down and handle it like an adult and discuss our marraige because perhaps he knew if he did he would not like what he saw.
One thing I remmeber him saying as he left that day was "Phil got over Joanne, so I will get over you". Phil is a friend of ours who's wife died in an accident! It was bizarre that he likenened the end of our marriage to something like that because Phil had no option but to lose his beloved wife and my ex had every option in the world.
It was almost like he made a snap decision and then stacked the deck up as a way to prove he had done the right thing. Systematically devaluing me, minimising what he did, twisting it round so he was the victim - like he was painting a false picture of what had happenned so he could live with it and he became so embroiled in that he thought it was true.
I didn't think we were dealing with healthy, normal or logical men. I think we were dealing with deeply disturbed men who role played who they were (yes, even to us) because of deep insecurities and who faced internal crisis and used us a scapegoat's for their own failures.
It never occurred to my DH how unfair it was to blame me for not knowing he was unhappy when he freely admitted he bent over backwards to hide from me that he was. It never ocurred to him that he could not list a single thing in our marriage he found unsatisfactory -it was simple a case that he could not be married anymore, could not continue in the role he had created and he had to escape.