Partner said he wants to leave but still here, looking for advice

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Evening

Just looking for people that have been through similar experiences.

Me (33) and my partner (36) have been together 6 years, really great relationship, great friends and enjoy each other's company, great physical attraction and lots of affection. Really great relationship. Wanted to spend the rest of my life with him and he's always said the same, always been able to talk about any worries. You get the picture.

I had a nasty accident 3 months ago, I broke part of my pelvis and have been off work stuck indoors since. My partner had to help with household chores and help me shower and things like that. He's been brilliant and really sweet but towards the end he's seemed very distant and is going out with friends drinking a lot.

A week ago he told me he was sick of everything and wanted to do his own thing and be alone. He said he wanted to move into a house share or something.

I was devastated, I said I was sorry for all the stress with my injury but I would be back at work in a few days and I am able to do pretty much everything for myself again now. I tried to get him to talk but he just clams up. He didn't speak to me much for a few days and stayed out after work. Then a couple of days he just starts acting normal again, being nice and kind and acting like nothing has happened, he's not being physical but just acting as if nothing has happened. I'm so confused.

Please, has anyone been through this, he just won't talk about anything. Is it the injury and looking after me? If anyone has any ideas or has been through anything similar I would be grateful to hear how you handled it.

Yeah I know, first trough and he's messing about. Like other posters said glad I never had a baby with him. At least there's not kids being hurt by this.

God, what a tool. Trying to recreate his youth is he ? Get down wid da kidz ? Embarassing cliche.

You need to take off the rose tinted specs and see him for what he is...a pathetic, contemptible bloke seeing a girl young enough to be his daughter

I bet his family and friends are cringing, even if they are being superficially accepting. Honestly, cut him off. Leave him to try and pretend he's a teenager again.

Definitely don't get back with him whatever he says to you. You had a great relationship with him when things were easy and no trouble, but as soon as life threw something hard into the relationship he cheats and becomes distant when you need the most support. That's not a guy you can spend your life with now, no way. If you were married it's until death do you apart, you got injured and he made the relationship fall apart which isn't fair. Your not to blame for the relationship breakdown so please don't feel like that, there could have been any number of things happen in the future that would have made him do the same thing. And if he's willing to throw it all away so quickly he certainly isn't worth your time.

I had a feeling when reading the first part that he had cheated considering blowing hot and cold with you, he will have been cold and wanting to leave when OW was around and if things weren't good with her wanting to keep you. He was keeping his options open.

Hope you have recovered from your injury, you'll be much better off out of a relationship with him and focusing on yourself. Try find a new hobby or something interesting to keep your mind occupied while it's still early days. Good luck x

The truth came out. He was seeing someone else.

I am so sorry to read your updates, but not, I am afraid, the least bit surprised. It is so often tbe case, when a DH/DP is suddenly struggling and funding fault, that there is someone else in the frame.

Its not easy for you now, but it will get better, starting as soon as you cut him out of your life completely. I agree with PP that, in the medium/long term you have dodged a bullet and it was best to find that out before there were any children to complicate matters.

Your best revenge is to live a brilliant life...Remember to be kind to yourself, to do some things that you enjoy, even simple things, a cup of tea, the quiet. Remember to enjoy them, savour them and the rest of your life. Its going to be great.

Thanks everyone for the kind words and advice. It was only Sunday it all came out so still a bit up and down emotionally.

Yeah it is cringey that she's so much younger, a teenager. She also doesn't look 19, she looks about 15, mortified. Not looking forward to seeing them around my small town.

He sounds very immature. Sit down with him and make him talk about what he really wants and tell him what you want. You don't want him staying with you just because it's a habit and he can't be arsed to find somewhere else. It's not fair.

When you are with someone you look after eachother in good times and bad. If he got with anyone else it would be the same, she'd be ill at some time.

I'm annoyed with him which is by the by. You do not to talk plainly though.

I've tried to get him to talk and it's like getting blood from a stone.

The only time he opened up was yesterday when he came to get some clothes.
I said why didn't you talk to me and he said he wishes he had and started crying. But then who knows what is real and what is a show when someone has snuck around and lied with a teenager?

He looked shocked at my grief, sobbing my heart out when he was pulling his going out shirts out and all that. I don't think he is very mature after all.

Oh I'm so sorry, OP, - it's always heartbreaking when someone you love and trust suddenly starts behaving like such a selfish, clichéd embarrassment.

I'm sure he was a great partner - all the time you were fit and healthy, cheerful and able to provide him with support and ask for very little . But the moment you needed his support, he totally freaked out - your injury reminded him of his own vulnerabilities, that one day he would be old, that he was the one who had to do the caring for the time being, etc.

I expect he started to feel hard done by - you were (understandably) down and less sparky company, the reality of caring for someone sunk in, and he spun a self pitying narrative where he was "too young for this" and pretended to believe that you guys had "grown apart" and wanted different things. Then an impressionable teenager came on the horizon and he decided that he could have one last final fling of youth, push back all the day to day responsibilities of the real world, and somehow convince himself that he deserved this final roll of the dice.

My prediction is that you will pick yourself up, grieve how pathetic he turned out to be, and put your life back together. And in eighteen months to two years he'll suddenly make contact. He'll frame it initially as wanting to apologise, then will segue smoothly into moaning to you about how sad and lonely he is, how great you guys were together, and how much he regrets letting you go.

When he does, please, please turn him down. He has shown his true colours and you are worth a hundred of him.

Yeah my Mum said he will probably crawl back at some point. I give the thing with the 19 year old a couple of months at most. It's like an illusion isn't it, so he says 'he can talk to her and likes being around her' (in the space of 2 weeks apparently) I suppose he thinks it's paradise, no big responsibilties etc. But like others said people get ill, things happen, you have peaks and troughs and they are on shakier ground as the foundation of their new 'relationship' is lies and deceit and sneaking.

And yeah @Sendintheardwolves that's it, that's what I think from reading everyone's replies and thinking over it myself. I'm saying he was amazing, but yeah when it was smooth sailing. It's never going to be smooth when you're together a long time. As soon as we hit a big wave off he went.

Even if teh teenage (yuk) fling doesn't last long do you really want him actual him the 38yr old man who was shagging a teenager not teh idea of having a partner who is your equal back?

As you said you would never have done this to him.....

If you are isolated and can move why not! where do you fancy living...if you have transferable skills then make the most of it...

re the joint stuff I got 2 cardboard boxes and if if was stuff from my freinds/family and I put it in 1 and if it was his put in the other (and also a bit based n whether I liked things or not taped tehm up and made him take one...

a bit later on (probably about a year as was busy!) after I had moved I opened the box and most of it went to the tip/charity shop as I had mentally moved on . what i kept were things that i really liked

Yeah running a few ideas through my head, but situation still fresh so trying to calm down before making any big changes. I don't have a great network here anyway so I don't mind moving. I'm still not fully recovered from my injury so have that to wait on a little bit too.

Thanks for the ideas about the possessions. :)

When he says he can talk to her, he actually means talk AT her. And because she isn't old and wise enough yet she will be nodding and making all the right 'poor you' noises. She'll be thinking he's sooooo mature and knowledgeable and making him feel like the big man he wishes he was, because she has yet to realise that maturity and knowledge do not automatically come with age. She is boosting his fragile ego and that is why he likes being around her. When she realises what a child he really is, she'll move on, like you are going to, to a better life without having to pander to this manchild.

Yeah that sounds about right.