I'm about to lose my mind here. I think DH is going to leave me tonight..

[garlicbreathing]

DH has been uncharacteristically cold towards me for the past week or so. I had had a bad week as I had AF (we have been ttc for 16 months, and now under the care of the fertility clinic) and it pretty much devastated me. I had no sympathy from DH, we've barely spoke.
It's came to a head when I apologised on Friday, and I told him I was upset with his lack of affection, and he continues to be so cold. I questioned him about whether I did something, or if he is upset about something but he denied anything was wrong. I asked if he loves me, he said he did. He shrugged off cuddles on Saturday morning.

I gave him space yesterday, and slept in the spare room, but I woke up incredibly anxious about what is wrong so I sent him a text telling him that whatever it is, we must talk tonight. He responded in the afternoon, agreeing that we do need to talk.
I was a state in work, I generally always think the worst, so I asked him if it was serious, if he wants to leave me. All he has responded is that we will talk tonight. I asked to get away from work early as I was on the verge of tears, so now I'm sat at home waiting for him to arrive back.

I just don't know what to do. I think this might be the end of my world and I just don't know how I could continue to go on if this is actually happening to me. I hope and pray that it's to do with the ttc, and hes just wanting to take a break from it. But I think maybe it's just broke him and he doesn't love me anymore.

Yes. Ask MNHQ to remove your dog's name.

Thank you. I have reported it and asked for it to be edited out.

I am only 25, and certainly feel like I have so much life ahead of me to live. My life isn't over. I always felt I would be utterly bereft if it came to this. I have some true rocks in my life, and they will pull me through this.

They have left one of the dog's name unedited

Thinking of you garlic. Doing so well.

I'd edited it out in the other two times, but I'd missed one of them.

You know garlic - I think your last text there was spot on. Dignified and giving him time.

I do worry there's an OW somewhere in the background - or a woman who had turned his head. Sorry, I know you're not entertaining this thought, but IME there is nearly always someone else. The sudden change in him is the clue here.

Just brace yourself for it. Like PP's here, this happened to a RL friend of mine, and months after the split she found out he was having an affair all along. I've seen this situation play out a dozen times or more on MN.

Beware the 'friend' he was talking to too - my friend's ex was 'confiding in a friend' too - he referred to as male - turned out it was the OW.

He is still going to say you made the decision and forced him into it - and from those texts I really do see his point. You barely talked. 5 minutes before you left?! If you tried 5 hours in the same room and he couldn't express himself, then I would agree you tried. But he's trying to articulate something, he's obviously not confrontational, and you add time pressure to that?

You are also planning and telling everyone your marriage is over while supposedly telling him it's up to him to make a decision? Meawhile he's just saying I need time to come to my decision.

You don't think friends and family members will tell him you're acting as if you've already separated?

Decision made again by you.

I agree with UpsiLondoes, you're not willing to fight for your marriage, you walked out after barely having a conversation with him.

I don't know if he's right in saying you only spent 5 minutes talking about this, but it does sound as if he would rather have talked things through and it may be worth exploring that. Maybe you could agree to talk calmly without slinging blame around and decide where you go from here?

Incidentally, you do seem to have just decided you've moved back to your parents without consulting them. Are you sure they're happy with that?

Hang on. You are 25, you have been married 18 months or so and were engaged 7 years.

So you were 16/17 when you got engaged and as UpsiLondes says you already knew your marriage was over at the top of the thread before you spoke to him, you had a bag packed already and walked out in 5 minutes?

Have I got those calculations wrong?

Dad I think it was someone else who was engaged for seven years (but didn't get married)

I have to say I kind of agree with UpsiLondes too

Have you also spoken to your parents about staying? You seem to be rearranging rooms and talking about moving back on long term.

I'm not sure if there is an OW per se but I think that someone or something has sparked his interest and made him explore a life away from you

I've had experience of this kind of behaviour. Thankfully when I was very young. It usually morphed from "I don't want to be with you" to "I'm not suuurreeee". I'd be left hanging about pleading with him to give things another chance. My parents were left to pick up the pieces after that happened twice - both times when I was in other countries. Nightmare. Eventually I became quite seriously physically ill and was told it was symptomatic of huge stress.

I lived my life on a knife edge. Never knowing if he was suddenly going to announce we might be splitting up. Eventually my parents told me that their advice was to leave him to it. That if he said it again, I was to say "fine" and ignore him.

I also went abroad to do a masters to basically get away. Naturally, just before I left, we had the same thing again. I said "fine" and left. I told him not to contact me again for 3 months. When he did, he wanted to come and visit etc. Begged to be able to. When I eventually says yes, we started making plans and then a week later, he wasn't sure again. We had a week of toing and froing and I became really ill again - I used to feel like I was going to have a heart attack. He also admitted that he had been seeing someone else and just couldn't chose between us - poor diddums. When I heard that, I told him to piss of and never contacted him again. I wish I'd done it years ago.

I think your husband has handled this dreadfully. However, I respect his right to decide that he doesn't want to be in a relationship. But if you reconcile what worries me is you would need to resolve going forward how you could trust him again and that is very difficult. Plus, I'm concerned this could happen again and again. You need to think about what you want to do during this break.

I also agree that I don't think you have communicated particularly well. I would have no contact for a week and then contact him to say that you think communication is an issue here. You both need to make some big decisions. Therefore, you want to book a counselling session for you both so you can communicate clearly how you both feel

Hi garlic, so pleased you got some sleep! Just to disagree with the last few posters - I've been there, I know when a bombshell like this is dropped on you, the flight instinct kicks in and you have to escape for your own self-preservation, so of course you didn't want a long conversation!

It does seem a bit like you've already made the decision that it's over, but why does that have to be a bad thing, and why should he get to be the one who decides? Even if he turns around and says he's sorry and wants to try again, will you ever trust him to always want to be with you, and to love you 100%? If not, don't settle - why on earth should you?! When my ex did this to me, it absolutely broke me. He too requested 2 weeks of us not speaking to 'work out what he wanted', and it almost drove me crazy. Turns out, even though he was insisting even after we split that there wasn't, there had been an OW the whole time. I am not saying that's the case with you at all, just that if I could rewind time, I would never have given him the 2 weeks of thinking time, I'd have turned around and said 'if you need to think if I'm worth being with, then thanks but I can do better' and I'd have been the one to walk away. I struggled horribly for the first few months, I really did. Met lovely DH 4 months after, married for two years now!

All I am saying is that there's no reason it can't be your decision - why should you have to be on standby for someone who isn't 100% behind you.

Oh, and I remember your gorgeous dog from a previous thread - I have one pretty much the same. Squish that little ball of fluff tight and keep going - you are doing so well!

Hi OP

I've been following this thread from the start but I'm pretty crap with advice so didn't post before. You have shown a lot of strength throughout this, I would've probably crumbled.

I just thought I would say that I was in a serious relationship which ended at 23 and my world turned upside down, all my plans for the future had changed as had the direction in which I saw my life going, but do you know what? It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I got my social life back and made some amazing life long friends in the process. I met the love of my life at 25 and I couldn't be happier. We have one DC and another due in June.

I know sometimes you will feel like there is no coming back from this but slowly slowly those feelings will pass and you will come out of this a stronger and happier person.

Wishing you all the best

abeta - yes. These sums do seem right.

I agree that you dint need to be talking about moving back in with your parents long term. You have the flat

We were engaged for two years. Together for 3 years before that.

It's possible I am acting too quickly. But I can't see a way of him wanting this to work after he's let this go on for so long and been unhappy.
Maybe I have made the decision, but I've reached this decision by being convinced this is the way he's going to make it go.

I don't think he wanted a conversation. I think he wanted me to say the words. He started a conversation, I didn't know what to say to it. He wasn't mid speech when I walked out. He had plenty opportunity to discuss things if he had things to discuss. If he had a lot to say, then he should have said it. But this was a bombshell to me, I suspected it, but from my early posts you can see I hoped it was anything but this. I wasn't prepared for his lies and justification for his unhappiness, I can't take the blame for him not communicating with me his deep, long running unhappiness.

Agree there is more to this which the OP clearly doesn't want to say, perhaps because she is more unreasonable than she wants to admit.

It seems clear that the OP actually wants her marriage to be over, and once she's decided on what she wants that's what she goes for. He came home to talk and she left within five minutes and now says it's up to him. A five minute conversation about the rest of your life isn't talking.

If this is how the OP deals with getting what she wants then it's hardly surprising that the DH feels he never has a say in anything.

I think Garlic is doing the right thing by emotionally steeling herself to potentially (and most likely) what H is going to say. It makes perfect sense to me to start getting things in order and not to spend another second idly hanging on waiting for H to make up his mind if he can be bothered with the marriage or not, that way if he decides no she's already put some groundwork into securing her future.

You do what you have to do, including speaking to friends, that's what they're there for, why should you keep it bottled up? Also your parents definitely need to be aware your stay could be an extended one, my mum seemed slightly clueless until I'd been there for a few weeks.

I'm glad to see you're being proactive! At this stage I was a crying, barely sleeping, barely eating mess who spent my entire days desperately clinging to my phone.

I'm quite shocked at your attitude towards your parents, are you always so entitled? It's lovely that you can rely on them and they will support you but you need to reign the "I'm back" in a bit. I can't help wondering if you're a bit of a steam roller and somewhat impulsive in other areas.

OP, if you decided after just one week that your marriage was over then your relationship was already in crisis and you know it.

Good, strong, loving marriages do not crumble on the thought process of one person and the announcement by another that he's not happy. They just don't.

You're not actually prepared to fight for your marriage, you're waiting for him to come back to you. You don't even want to have a conversation about what he feels is wrong. You want him to beg you to come back to him. TBH you sound pretty controlling and from your posts it seems clearer and clearer why he wasn't happy. But I think you know this, but it' such easier to see this as a bombshell out of the blue than to admit your part.

My parents have said they will be there for me. It's not so much as moving their stuff out, just reorganising it to a cupboard. Even if I stay for a week, I have nowhere to store my clothes.
I realise this isn't a massive priority in the scheme of things. But I know I won't be back at the flat, miles away from any friends and family, and it's further away from my work. We lived there for him. Incidentally this was a joint decision, he wanted to live where we live. But I'd be intrigued to see if this gets turned back on me anyway.

I need to know I have a plan for my own sanity. And yes. This is still raw, and true nothing has been decided 100%. I know from very recent experience that things can be flipped on their head in a minute. So nothing is over until it is really over. I just need to be able to plan for this ending, for my sake, so I know what the bloody hell I will do next.

I'm so sorry Garlic. I think that you need to realise that the 'two-week break' is possibly his way of getting you used to the idea of life without him and that there is no going back. He's just too chicken shit to admit it so please don't hold out much hope.

for you and let your mum take care of you.

OP it's becoming increasingly obvious that there's more to this, Wannabe has hit the nail on the head.