Details are in an earlier thread, but it’s a long tale of mental health problems (both of us, in his case severe chronic depression, in mine anxiety on a background of high-functioning autism), infidelity (him, 2.5 years ago), financial problems (him), previous marriage counselling but not keeping up good communication (in all fairness probably both of us, but I would still say more him than me), now back to being housemates with no affection/sex/meaningful communication. Together 19 years, married 13, 2 kids, house, lots of pets.
I can’t quite say why I’ve come to the end of the road now, but I spoke to a divorce lawyer last week. I started trying to open up communication with H this weekend, and we exchanged a couple of text messages which were clear and on his side sounded pretty bitter and not optimistic (he has no sexual attraction to me, he feels having an enjoyable relationship with me is pretty far off, he thought we were doing fine). This evening I try to talk to him in person and he tells me he’s not getting self-employment furlough money, he’s not got a big job he was hoping for, he ‘can’t handle this right now’ and ‘can’t take this shit on top of shit’ , basically telling me he wants me to back off and leave him alone.
If I wasn’t sure before, I’m pretty much done now - he’d have to go a long way to come back from this level of rejection. I should say I’ll be paying for everything as I have been for essentially the last year without that ever being agreed, although he seems to have money for vodka and books.
The question is, when to tell him now? With that financial news, it might be just too much of a kick in the teeth to say I want to separate right now. I doubt his mental health would weather it well; I’m also aware that thanks to the autism I don’t read people and situations well and I don’t want to be cruel without meaning to. He’ll actually be much better off financially if we divorce, which might make that news easier. I’m emotionally exhausted and part of me just wants to tell him to fuck off now, I’ve had enough. I didn’t stay with him after the horrific experience that was finding out about the affair to be treated like this.