I met my husband when I was 21. We married when I was 26. At 27 we had a wonderful surprise, our daughter. When she turned one, he was diagnosed with MS and I was his carer for a year. Up until then I had experienced mild depression. When he was ill, I became very depressed. I never really recovered, despite doing everything the doctors told me and going to tons of therapy.
On several occasions I asked him to come to couples counselling with me - its always a good idea to do that when one of you has a lot of therapy. Plus there were several things I wasn't happy with - there had been long periods of him witholding intimacy from me and I was turning myself inside out to become more fun, thinner, better looking. He wanted to move to be near his parents - this was not good for me at all because the job I do is usually on offer in cities and they are in the country. I agreed because I wanted him to be happy.
Last month we were planning our 10th wedding anniversary. The day after we book the venue, he dumps me in a five minute conversation. He told me that I'd chipped away at his love for me. I was devastated. He was working 200 miles away, and I had gone there to see him.
He told me to go home and said I mustn't tell our daughter, I should wait for him to come next week. I managed 24 hours and then I needed to tell her what's wrong.
Once the initial shock wore off, I asked him why he didn't come to counselling with me if there was a problem. He said he didn't know. I asked him to try it now. He refused. I then asked him why he felt the need to do this to our daughter 3 weeks before Christmas. He told me that was none of my business. Then I asked him if there was someone else. He said he had "strong feelings" for someone, but it's not his fault, I'm impossible to be with. He only had to come home at weekends!!
I've been through hell, blaming myself for all of it. I know that living with a depressed person can be hard. I tried so hard to make it easier for him. It always felt like he wouldn't meet me in the middle.
He's been making life hard financially, and the advice I've received is that I need to file the divorce that I don't want so that I can use the legal system to get him to do the right thing. My daughter is really upset with him - apparently he told her "tough, get over it" when she said she was upset. She's 7!!!!
I still blame myself. How did this lovely, kind, patient man turn into such an arrogant arsehole? What did I do that was so terrible this wonderful Dad needed to turn his life upside down and trash his relationship with his daughter, to get away from me?