My heart feels shattered :'(

[SophieH12]

I have been with my partner for 10 years. We have 3 amazing children together. We both work hard and had what I thought, an amazing future in front of us.
Since November last year we have been saving every month for our wedding April 2022.

When we are not working we have lovely times together. We live by the coast so it is a favourite thing of ours to go to the beach as often as we can. We always say...we are at our happiest on the beach! :)
Life has felt amazing. We don't have everything but we had each other and that's all I could have ever wished for.

We had a slight disagreement a few weeks a go and ever since my whole life feels like its falling down around me.
OH has said he doesnt love me like he should and has felt this way for a long time. This has stunned me as I have never felt he felt that way. He always made me feel like a princess and only had me stood at our wedding venue a couple weeks before hand telling me he cant wait to finally make me his wife.
He is now saying he cant commit to me as he doesnt know if he wants to be with me for the rest of his life? MY HEART IS BREAKING SO BAD!

I honestly can not see my life without him. He says hes been living a lie to make it work for our children. He says hes not attracted to me because I'm old (I'm 30) he's 31.
The things he have said is so heart wrenching and I'm in total shock.
He has been saying he wants to break up but I cry and beg him as I love him so deeply.

He has been diagnosed with anxiety, so I was hoping it was that making him say things like this but I believe I may just be in denial?

I honestly feel like I am losing my everything and i dont know what to do. As cringey as it sounds he is my soulmate and I know life without him would be so hard. I love him so so much.

I feel like I have been lied to and feel so used/heartbroken. He says he can commit to another 10 years until our children have grown up and then leave me then but I feel that is so so wrong :'(
He says he loves me and within the next 10 years he might fall in love with me? But I cant help but feel if he doesnt love me now after 10 years that he never will.
I'm so good to him, I always do my best to make him and the kids so happy so this is all just a huge shock.

Has anyone else been in this situation ? And what advice can you give?

Or is he the same age his own DF fled to the other side of the world?

If his father left him at an early age then maybe your OH had to become the 'man' of the family at age 5? Hence the protectiveness towards his little brother.
There's something going on with him. He needs therapy to look at it all.
Why do you allow him to speak to you like that? Did you learn from your own upbringing that the woman in the house has to be a servant of the man in order to keep him?
You need to stand up to him and tell him he can fuck off out of the house if he's going to speak to you like that.
If a stranger in the street said those things to you, you'd be utterly gobsmacked. Yet I get the sense at home you are just paralysed by it and pretend everything's fine.
However, that doesn't mean he can treat you like shit and say horrible things.
Put the flowers in the bin and tell him he needs to go to a hotel for the weekend because you need to DECIDE if you want to be with such a selfish person as him.

How old are your kids OP? (Sorry if you already said and I missed it.) If the eldest one is around 5, in other words around the same age he was when his dad walked out, that could be a factor here. People with difficult childhoods sometimes find it triggering when their kids get to the age they were when a traumatic event happened in their own childhood. Counselling could help him with this.

He says hes not attracted to me because I'm old (I'm 30) he's 31

He's a fucking bastard just for that alone.

Stop being sad - get angry!

As blunt as this sounds you need to stop acting pathetically and seize control of your life-right now you're dancing to his tune and acting like HE has the right to dictate your future-you're a grown adult and a mother! Stop the pick me dancing! He sounds like he's got emotional baggage and needs a psychiatrist,frankly. You don't deserve his emotional breadcrumbs.

How long has he been on the meds? Anti-depressants can cause a kind of ‘emotional blunting’ that can lead to you feeling numb, detached or just ‘not yourself’. If the meds are a fairly recent thing, and all your instincts are telling you that this is out of character and unprecedented (after having known him for all of his adult life) maybe he should be thinking about chatting to his GP?

It’s not an excuse, and it is close to unforgivable that he spoke to you in that way, but it might explain the sudden apparent change in his feelings and behaviour.

I actually think he's had it all too easy in his life. Sorry OP that doesnt help you but I think he's a bit of a spoilt brat, wittering on about anxiety and finding you too old. Its he who needs the reality check, about what younger woman is going to find a man who has 3 children and left them remotely attractive.

Let him go, act with a cool, reasonable head and don't show him too much emotion, and he might just come to his senses, before he turns into a sleazy older man chasing after younger women (who will probably laugh at him). Call his bluff.

@madcatladyforever sorry I forgot to mention he has been on the tablets for 3ish weeks now. When we were "ok" he used to suffer with insomnia. So after a while the doctor prescribed an anti depressant xx

@SophieH12

So update.. OH has came home from work today. We are on talking times but its very clear theres an elephant in the room, which obviously we can't discuss in front of our children. However, when I got home from school pick up he was already home. He said hello etc and then he came up to me and hugged me and said.. I love you, I really do. He then said...I was going to buy you flowers but thought it would be too soon... Um mind f**k? Is this all a game to him? Obviously this is all I want to hear but I feel so destroyed by his words? And feel like the trust is gone. My mind is like mashed potato!

Do NOT let him shove some flowers at you and pretend like everything is OK. He has said some very cruel things that cannot be unsaid. You need to make it clear how hurtful he has been and that he needs to talk to you more about both the practicalities and his feelings.

as you don't need any from this man.

Whatever his childhood and his bad mental health you don't deserve him fucking with your brain.

You need to get him out for a few nights. It will be very enlightening.

What struck me is that he works from home, but you take the kids to school after a night shift and a couple of hours of sleep, and then spend the day doing housework rather than catching up on your sleep.
He is clearly. a bastard to let you do that, so I'm not surprised that he is being even more of one the way he has spoken to you now that he has decided he wants out.
If he really has decided his feelings for you are not what they should be, there are ways of saying that without insulting you.
He now sees you as an encumbrance but one who does the housekeeping and looks after his children ( who he couldn't bear to be away from for one day..he should have thought about that before being so nasty).
I'd put money on it he has met someone else, even if nothing has actually happened yet. But even if it hasn't, and there isn't another woman, he's behaved in such a way that you now know what coldness he's capable of , so how could you trust what he says ever again? Keep your dignity and tell him you don't want to be with someone who doesn't love you.

Cherchez la femme!

I'm fairly confident there's an ow there somewhere.

Cheaters script

I love you but I'm not in love with you

Despite me saying complete opposite days/weeks ago I've been unhappy for ages and just not told you

I'm no longer attracted to you even though I still care about you

My ex supposedly "didn't have time" they MAKE the time! Mine was shagging ow at work in lunch breaks etc.

Mine was pre smart phones, so it was harder for him to conduct and hide it (and he was no genius which helped!) now there are literally thousands of apps, sites and games where affairs can be conducted/hidden.

I WISH I had mn back then I made several mistakes.

My advice would be:

Don't do the pick me dance - I didn't do this but I didn't hide my hurt well which I very much regret

Gather all financial and legal information and documents.

If you have joint accounts only open a solo account ASAP WITH A DIFFERENT BANK - ex emptied the accounts and started running up an overdraft which I ended up paying part of! Get your salary and any benefits for you or dc paid into that account.

Lock down your IT and financial security, new passwords (randomly generated) for everything

I'm afraid you may need to try and find another job as overnight childcare is virtually non existent and at this point he does not sound reliable

Tell people in real life - for support, and also so that they don't tell him anything you wouldn't want him knowing, be prepared this may lead to people voicing their own suspicions or having witnessed him with ow. I had 2 colleagues of ex's as soon as split was official confirm to me that it was an open secret at work and when it started, which was a couple weeks earlier than I thought.

The antidepressants may be affecting him oddly, but equally he might be depressed/anxious from guilt

Him starting the antidepressants times in with the planned visit to his brother and your falling out?

So I'm thinking guilt more likely.

Possibly ow putting pressure on? Hard to convince an affair partner that you're unhappy in your current relationship if a wedding goes ahead!

Ultimately you need to protect and prioritise you and dc, he seems to be looking out for himself.

Someone else will crawl out of the woodwork eventually. They always do in these situations.

Possibly not relevant, but look up the side effects of his anti-depressants, and make him talk to his GP about this.

(doesn't alter the fact that he's behaved appallingly)

I'm sorry.

I think that both of you have started the whole family thing very young- meeting at 20 and having 3 kids by the age of 30 (the average age for a first child is now 30.)

I know you can't turn back the clock but between the ages of 20-30 people change a lot. Psychologists now say the brain doesn't mature properly till 25. You're wondering what this has to do with now and HIM?

My thoughts are you have outgrown each other - or he has.

He's not had much time to spend as a young man with no responsibilities , playing the field, and at 31 with 3 kids he clearly feels he's missed out.

I don't believe he thinks you are old. What he means is he wants to do the whole dating thing with slightly younger, available women which he never did before (much.)

He feels he has missed out and is having a mid life crisis at 31 (rather than 41 or 51) because he settled down very young.

A lot of men would realise they have a responsibility to their kids and buckle down. I don't think he will. he's got no backbone and wants to walk away.

All the wedding prep stuff was about him, trying to convince himself he wanted it, when really he had cold feet.

Let him.

You will need to see a good family lawyer and work out the finances and I hope to God you get something as you are not actually married.

(Note to other women- for God's sake get married if you have kids so you get something if you divorce other than CM.)

Please stand firm here OP and set your boundaries.

I am concerned that he is going to flit between two positions...one minute ‘I love you’, next minute ‘I’m not sure whether I want to be with you’.

I have been where you are and it is awful. There is nothing you can do to support him with this. You have to look after yourself, put yourself first and let him deal with his shit.

You also don’t need to hear every single thought that goes through his head...’I love you, I don’t love you, I want to be with you, I don’t know what I want’. Tell him to use this time to think about what he wants and you will do the same but only to let you know when he has made a decision he is prepared to stick by, not every fleeting thought he has between now and then.

He may be in a difficult place but putting you through this too is cruel.

OP I'm not surprised your head is spinning and he's been incredibly hurtful, which he should not get a pass for at all, but I would be thinking along the lines of his brain chemistry being pretty messed up just now, both from his depression/anxiety and from his new medication. I've seen this before in people I'm close to.

I think in your shoes I'd be seeing about counselling for both of you together and separately instead of jumping straight to an immediate breakup.

Any of the anxiety / medication / unresolved childhood issues / “mid” life crisis / OW / stress / cold feet / homesickness ..... are all attempts at seeking answers.

You might find that one of the above, all, or a combination of reasons explains his behaviour but nothing EXCUSES what he has said. And it is the impact of his behaviour on you that needs consequences from YOU - not you addressing or accommodating his reasons - they are all for him to address 100% on his own.

I think that the “thought I would get flowers but didn’t” - is a v bad sign......he is seeing how far he can push you.

He certainly has zero remorse from his actions - even if he does throw a few choice words together later.

What makes him think younger women would even be attracted to him? 🤣 I’m 10 years younger and I wouldn’t touch a 31 year old man with multiple children with a barge pole. Come on. We’re in completely different stages in life and beyond that, he doesn’t even sound like a catch - anyone could do better, including you

I think you need to focus on your self esteem. Sorry but if my fiancé said those things to me, his bags would be packed by the end of the conversation and we’d be officially over. He isn’t in love with you, he’s not attracted to you, he doesn’t see a future with you and would only stay with you out of pity. There’s no going back from this, everything has changed.

I only read the first page but this makes me so angry.
This sums up my advice:

Call his bluff , don't do the pick me dance , instead tell him not to bother with the putting himself out for 10 years , he can leave now. Don't forget to remind him the children are still a shared responsibility and what weekends does he want them for ?

Please don't grovel and beg. Hold your head up high and tell him you're not hanging around for ten years. At 30 you are at your prime and if he's bored with you let him go. What a shallow thing to say!
I wish you all the best. Please don't lower yourself.

He's not had much time to spend as a young man with no responsibilities , playing the field, and at 31 with 3 kids he clearly feels he's missed out

This!! Always the way. wouldn't be surprised if he isn't already involved with a woman with no kids. He wants a do over.

I think that the “thought I would get flowers but didn’t” - is a v bad sign......he is seeing how far he can push you.

Or it could be that he simply speaks every thought that he has.

He can't push anyone. It's up to the OP how she responds. She can only control her own behaviour and that can include not being 'pushed'.

Some men who behave like this are not 'pushing' they are simply an emotional mess and want to articulate every thought in the hope of getting some understanding.

Tell him to get some therapy and not use you as a counsellor!

So he had his eye on someone new, has been utterly vile to you. Now she has dumped him so he is crawling back to you.

Please find your anger and dump him.

What makes him think younger women would even be attracted to him?

Exactly this. 31 and 3 children with a woman he didn't marry. Not a catch. I doubt if he's even told the OW ,if there is one, the truth about himself.

I don't necessarily think he has another woman. I think he is thinking the grass is greener and wants to be free to be on the other side of the fence.

But the reality is, which woman with a sensible head will want to be involved with a man who walks out on 3 kids out of boredom?