Possible husband's depression, my affair, our divorce

[user1481021132]

I am in a situation in which I do not know anymore what to do.

Early in the year my husband and I had a rather strong argument. As I was abroad he sent me an email communicating that he was divorcing me. His email was a rather angry email.

We managed to sort out the situation through counselling, not without horrific pain. He said he had not been in love with me for a long time, then he changed to never had been in love with me. This was surreal as he had me in a pedestal and was always utterly affectionate with me.

During the counselling it came up that our plans of future had him very stressed and that he was very resentful towards me for a decision regarding his career that I thought we both had taken together. Apparently it was a unilateral decision from my side. He blamed me for his lack of personal growth.

After counselling he recognised how much I loved him and cared for the relationship and that he was falling in love very deeply with me. I was precious and he wanted to be with me for the rest of his life.

My husband has changed careers about 7 times in his life time. He has swapped motorbikes more than years we have been together during our entire relationship, always being the new bike “the one”. He now has gone to an industry which he despises, has got a rather spiritual new tattoo and keeps on saying that when we got married we were not in love with each other because we weren’t in love with ourselves as we do not know ourselves fully.

Due to the things he was saying at the time I felt I had to confess an old PA fling I had due to several reason that I am exploring with IC at the moment. I had the hope that although it would hurt both of us, after what we had gone through we could work it out together.

Since then he moved out, he has told me I never loved him in the 9 years relationship we had, always took him for granted, had never been nice to him and has never been happy. He also says that I have always made him feel out of place when I always told him that it was how different he is that attracted me from him, now he says that he is not different but that he is “awaken” to the reality we live in. He says that he is sorry to have started a relationship with me when he did not know what he wanted in his life and that he apologised because in 9 years he had not shown his real personality to me. He is constantly talking about god, but god being the universe and each person being the compressed representation of the universe.

We are separated and he refuses to go to counselling as he feels very humiliated by my actions. I have begged him and asked him for forgiveness, that I am working on myself, my destructive behaviours and bad coping mechanisms and my compartmentalization. He is set on divorce, however he will not file for 6 months. He initially said that he will not file until he is emotionally stable and now that he will wait for the 6 months so that I understand that his decision is not based on an emotion.

His reasons for divorcing me are to gain self-respect, to make me suffer the consequences of my actions and because growth is not possible in a construct that is based on a lie and has been given away. He wants to divorce now and in the future, when we have both built our own personal happy lives, where we are emotionally and financially resilient our paths may or may not get back together.

He still calls me regarding internet accounts we have together, he has not suggested to cancel our joined bank accounts and he will come with me to the doctor in few weeks’ time as I believe I may have BPD.

I know he is heartbroken, humiliated, feels betrayed and abandoned and I have turned out lives and futures upside down but I will do anything possible to help him heal and heal our marriage. But I am really struggling to understand his way of thinking. I think before my confession he was suffering some kind of depression and I have made things so much worse now. I really do not know what to do.

He always said to be happy and whatever happened and life threw to us we would be able to overcome together as a couple. Now it is all a disaster, I really think he has a depression since a long time ago due to pressure at work and life but he will not get it checked by the doctor, I am sure I have a depression as I really cannot cope. He says he is in hell and I am in hell and I cannot complain because I have created it myself.

I guess I just need to vent, but I do not understand his way of thinking and neither do the 2 Ic’s I’ve had since the beginning of the year. All I want is to understand whether his thinking comes from a previous undiagnosed depression or from the pain he is suffering right now. He is close to his 40s, I’m in my mid 30s and we have no children. I cannot believe we have ended up like this 

Hi OP, my ex had BPD. You don't sound like you have it to me. As others have said, don't look for any diagnosis jointly with your dh, have any such discussion alone with a suitably qualified health professional. Your dh may want to convince you or a third party that you do have mh issues to deflect from his own fairly obvious problems.

Chickenagain, thanks for the advice. I will look in google properly and reflect about his behaviour.

Alvinp, i agree that i should go on my own, however i see this as my only chance to get him to see a doctor with me and talk about how out of character he is behaving. He will probably get even angier with me, but by the look of it i already lost my marriage...

I can understand him wanting a divorce because of your affair. However, when he initially wanted a divorce it was out of the blue. He did it by email as well. .. not very nice.

In your shoes, I would file for the divorce. If only to put an end to the uncertainty. I bet he'll be very angry about you filing, but considering you had an affair, the marriage wasn't in a great place to begin with.

Your husband wants to be in control of everything ... so you take control of the permanent seperation and divorce and stop him punishing you.

I think he's suffering from a bruised ego.

Crikey, he's gaslighting you. It's so so typical that they say "I never loved you" or "It was a marriage of convenience" or whatever.

Good luck keeping a steady course through the rubbish OP

Chemistrygeek,
I am not tricking him. But i am sorry it came across as such. I am going to the gp for my own sanity and if the doctor asks how he is feeling then i will tell what is happening.

The marriage wasnt in a good place because of the situation we were in, but i do not blame my affair on the marriage but myself and my low self esteem. I also believe i was suffering with a depression for several reasons.

He is really behaving very out of character. I do not know if it is something that he has hidden all the nine years or if he suddenly ...woke up.. But certainly he was not like this at the beginning of the year.

He has always been controlling and observesed with his finances and as to where we were going to live then. He used to have a plan for absoultely everything... Where we would be in two years time.. Children... Career... But his plans changed every month so it was very hard for me to adjust to the new ..plan... Now apparently i have never supported him and have never had any input in our project of life. Neither i supported him in his seventh career change, i only tolerated him.

I know i did something very wrong, unforgivable and horrific, but he is really driving me mad and i stupidly feel selfish for feeling this way.

I am getting to a point that i do not care anymore about who has control. All i know is that i only have to stay in the uk until the end of july to somehow finish my studies and save enough move to be able to move to my country. If he wakes up from this me me me state he is in, wants to at least try to fix our relation and move with me abroad as we had planned... He is welcome to do so... Otherwise i am on my own. I cannot show him anymore how important he is to me despite my affair, he acknoledge this before i confessed.

And i agree, his ego is bruished and i have triggeres his childhood abandonment issues.

What is 'an old PA fling'?

Lord of almighty, this all sounds like a lot of hard work, I'm coming out in a rash listening to the psychobabble. Does it really matter who has what mental disorder, who did what to whom, who is in control, who was more horrific to who, etc., etc? It's very simple really; you are making each other miserable and someone needs to shout stop.

You cant save him from himself.
Let him go and be happy.
Their are so many grown men out their who will love you for you.
He is no way spiritual in his thinking.
You think he's enlighten by what he says to you.
Hes wasting time and money.
Change your bank accounts etc.
Become that single woman again.
And count yourself lucky you got away.

franklyidontgiveadamscarlet, please do not get me wrong...i do not thibk he is enlightened... I think he has gone mad.
All i want is my old happy husband in my oen country. And as it seems like my old happy husband is somewhere very well hidden inside of himself... I will move to my country on my own.
He has gone cookoo and i had an affair. We bkth messed up. If we get back together we need to start fresh.

Fairnuff... It means that i was unfaithfulnto him.

Julybug. You are right. Somebody needs to stop and he is. I believe we can sort out all of our problems. He doesn.t. he has an avoidant personaliy and gives up rather easily. So he is making that stop.

Reads to me like the best thing for both of you is to separate, deal with each of your respective issues and then review if either of you want to be in a relationship with anyone, never mind each other.

Don't go back.
Move forward and let him go.
You cant fix someone who you think is broken.
Give yourself the chance to grow and be alone.
Life is not this hard.

But what does the PA mean?

I don't think you can make sense of it OP because he is gaslighting you and you've got no idea what is really going on.

All this ' I never loved you' 'you never loved me' nonsense sounds like he's gearing up to something. You admitting to an affair has possibly given him all the ammunition he needed.

I really feel like such a hypocrite as I have created this situation myself, but I am still struggling to understand him.

He ended up coming with me to the doctor´s appointment. He, of course, was angry because the receptionist was busy and could not check me in as we arrived. He then blamed it on hating London.

After being referred to the NHP Mental Health Clinic, we went for a coffee and told me that he is going to buy a house in his home country (and eventually will move there) using the money that we were going to use for the deposit of the house we were going to buy together. Although he had earned this money, he did it during our marriage and because he would not take a single day off to spend with me, it has caused us to be in the situation we are in at the moment. (Bear in mind that when I asked him for some of this money to be able to move back to my country he told me to get a job on saturdays as he had already invested enough money into this relationship. He has only supported me financially 7/8 months out of 9 years).
He then went on to tell me that 1- it is extreamly difficult to be my husband (He never complained about this previously) and that
2- I must understand that at the moment he cannot be my husband because he cannot give me the emotional support that I need.
3- That he loves me and therefore he will support me if I have some mh issue, but that he cannot be my partner right now.
4 - That because of the way he is he needs somebody who is stable
5- That his family do not understand his actions because they do not know the real me.
6- He continously talks about being happy and me building a happy life
7 - He will go to see my counsellor to explain why I have been such a bad wife so that I can become a better person

He also showed me pictured of himself taken in his home country and he seems to be a very happy chap, whereas I hardly can smile and sleep at night and how easily he said exwife and exhusband was shocking.

I stupidly got him a rather generous Christmas present which he very kindly DID NOT refuse. I guess if I was in his place I would not accept it, so I was surprised

Some days he texts me and calls me. Many other days he gives me the silent treatment. Then he texts my parents in Christmas day saying that he is thinking about them.

I simply do not understand. Sometimes I feel like I am actually suffering more than him with all this. He gives me the impressio that he has gotten rid of a heavy weight from his shoulders by getting rid of me.

My counsellor says that this i all bs and all i can think is that this is all so sad and so strange.....

This man is hard work and complicated, taking himself far too seriously. I couldn't waste my energy on all this idiotic, self obsessed rubbish he seems to spout. Actually, I don't think either of you do the other one any good at all. Time to get real and try to meet someone else when you are ready and you will hopefully live a good life with someone else. Good luck!