What gets you through the day?

[CandleWithHair]

I am on the verge of separating from my DH of 4 years (together 12) - he 'doesn't love me anymore'. We don't have kids, although not for want of trying - have battled unexplained infertility including one miscarriage and one failed IVF in the last few years (bonus point: he told me he didn't think he loved me anymore on the 2nd anniversary of the miscarriage). I want to fix things, but it seems he really doesn't. We're not arguing, but it's like a stranger has moved in, I literally don't recognise this man anymore.
We have counselling scheduled as a last ditch attempt, but I think he's just box ticking, he won't talk to me about anything other than small talk.

My family and friends will be supportive, I know this, but they're all quite far away. I don't have any friends in my home town, but can't leave because of work. He's unlikely to move either as his family are nearby.

I just don't know how to get through the bone crushing misery of it all. I thought infertility was bad enough, but now I am facing being on my own in my mid 30s AND no kids. He's obviously been feeling this way for a while but I feel like I've had the rug pulled from under my feet, I didn't have a clue. I just want to crawl into a hole and never come out.

How do you survive this? I'm terrified.

I'm so sorry.

How about taking off home, if you can take leave or get signed off by the gp (you sound so very down). Get some supportive people around you.

In the longer term, it might be worth considering looking for work closer to family and friends.

You will get through this. I'm so sorry.

I'm sorry, that sounds fucking awful.

I agree with a PP - is there any way of looking for a new job nearer your home area? If not, can you look in the future at expanding your social circle where you are?

Do see your GP for help if you feel like you really can't cope. Assuming you're living in the same house still, that alone can be hell after a break up.

Thank you for replying! I have a feeling everything will come to a head tomorrow when we have our joint counselling. I think we've both been pussy footing around everything with the aim of making it to this session. What the outcome will be I don't know, I keep veering between wanting to beg him to try again and wanting to tell him to leave.
He's really not told me very much at all since his declaration last month - I started off by bring extremely open with him but have gone silent the last week or so because I don't want to make things worse.

My parents do live close by, it's my siblings and friends who are far away. If tomorrow is awful I might go and stay with them for a few days. I've already booked a gp appt for Thursday as I feel unable to cope at work and haven't been sleeping well.

I don't understand how we got here, or why he's doing this to me on top of everything else we've been through. The fact he doesn't seem to want to work on it flies in the face of the vows he made to me. 12 years of my life with this man, my 'best' friend and he does this.

Your post really resonated with me. I have been there. I wish I could give you the answers as to why things like this happen the way they do. I never found out for myself and still ask that question.

"Bone crushing misery"...you phrased that so well.

First of all you skate through the days on adrenalin
Then you slowly start going through all the dreadful stages of grief
Then you very slowly begin to live again

All those three stages are muddled up and sometimes you think you're fine and the bone crushing misery is back again. Sometimes you have days where little things make you feel joyful.

What you can do to help yourself just a little is to genuinely be kind to yourself. Talk and treat yourself as you would a good friend in the same position. Buy yourself something wonderful for Christmas. Do things that make you happy. Surround yourself however possible (even on the phone) with people that care about you. Join support groups or groups of people going through the same. Look after your body with healthy food and a daily walk or run.

There's no easy way that I know of, but reading yuor post i wanted to hug you; so maybe apply some of that love and sympathy to yourself

xxxxx

I don't usually say this, but in your case I think you should stop the joint counselling and now attend to yourself. IME nothing can revive a relationship that's gone stone cold like yours. Vows are disposable to some people.

As pp have said, get out of there, even if it's temporary. I'm sorry, OP, but I think you need to take control and face reality. I think counselling for yourself might help you with that process.

Hi, I just wanted to handhold and say stay strong. Remember that you're only mid 30s and there is life after this. You can still meet someone. Don't despair.

I've.been through very similar. And it's very painful. But there's time for you to move on, have some fun, meet someone much better. And have a lovely child with the right person hopefully. Focus on yourself. It will work out.

He is not showing you a decent level of care that you would expect from another human being, let alone someone who promised to love and respect you to the end of your days.

Call him out in the counselling session - he owes you an explanation as to why he is giving up on your marriage. Tell him, and the therapist, that the silent treatment is offensive. You feel betrayed by your 'best friend'. He is the one detonating your relationship. He needs to at least be straight with you so you can 'rip the plaster off' as AF (often) so neatly puts it. A long slow death of a thousand little cuts would be much worse.

I'm so sorry you're going through this OP. Infertility is fucking awful. And doing IVF etc is a hard road, I know as I've been there. And yes it can do shit things to a relationship, but there is no need for him to turn into a cold-hearted tosser.

If it's over, then it's over. He owes it to you NOT to be a coward at the very least. I agree, go and stay with your family anyway. Make arrangements for some TLC from people who love you. You will get through it. Keep telling yourself 'I deserve more than this'. There will be grief, loads of it - all over the place, but then you will come out the other side. Hugs to you.

its very hard but you will be ok.
if he doesn't love you any more then i think you're better off apart.

one day soon you won't love him either. then you will move on.

Thanks for the wise words everyone. hillfarmer your advice really stuck - I asked him yesterday to complete a few questions I picked off the Relate site about how he views the problems in our relationship and what the pros and cons of staying together were. He duly did so and the results were painful reading - not because of him going into great detail about shortcomings in our marriage but because even when answering specific questions he could only repeat his generic 'I just don't love you anymore' line. I asked him to move out.
We went to counselling today anyway, more out of sheer bloody mindedness on my part, but again I called him out as you suggested and said some pretty cruel/harsh things just to try to get any sort of emotion out of him, but nothing. The counsellor recommended he seek counselling for himself as she said he seemed emotionally 'shut down', but to be honest I am now starting to understand this really is over.
The separation is to be trial by name, but I've told him in no uncertain terms I will not be his back up option and unless he can demonstrate to me that he wants to work on repairing the damage he's done then the separation is permanent.
Seeing my GP tomorrow for some advice as I've not been sleeping well, and might take some time off work so I can try to put a plan in place. I commute to work on the train, but H has always been my ride to the station (long walk otherwise) - not sure how I am going to solve that one right now.

None of this really feels real yet, keep thinking I'll wake up any minute. Telling my immediate family isn't too scary but the fear of being pitied/seen as a failure by friends/colleagues is terrifying right now. Does anyone have any advice on how to tell people and cope with their reactions?
I know most will be totally stunned as my H is a generally amiable and very likeable sort and for the most part we are viewed as a bit of a 'golden' couple as in everyone thinks we're really happy (well, so did I till a month or so ago!). It's going to be so painful telling people what's happened.

I have recently separated from what appeared to be a very happy marriage to people on the outside. I just couldn't face questions and thought people would pity me so said the split was a mutual decision and we were both happy about it even though it wasn't really.
I told him to do the same with mutual friends and family. When people started trying to dig a bit deeper I said I didn't really want to talk about it as it was still a bit emotionally draining. In the main people accepted this.
At the end of the day it's nobody else's business.

I think people will surprise you OP. Telling anybody is terrible at first - I cried on everyone even when I thought I would hold it together. Nobody who cares about you will judge you and don't feel ashamed - that's a waste of time, as you have done NOTHING to cause this. You won't be pitied - people will have compassion and concern if they see you are upset, they are simple creatures.

And the people who are closest to you might not have been fooled by the 'golden couple' thing. Who knows, I thought I had kept it all nicely smoothed over, but it was a revelation the kinds of people (the electrician!) who said 'I didn't like the way he spoke to you'.