17 years and my husband has walked out

[WTFis2020]

Hi all,
I need advice and will try and keep this short.
I’ve been with my husband for 17 years, married for 3, with 2 kids. We have the perfect world, no arguments, a beautiful house and holidays. We are the typical perfect family.
I’ve had a difficult year this year with my mum being critically ill, my usually loving husband has been a bit ‘off’ and my gut has told me there’s someone else. He’s constantly on his phone, the occasional night out he’s had hasn’t made sense etc.
So I flipped the other day and accused him of all sorts, he denied then went silent for 2 days. Upon trying to talk to him on day 3 he’s now claiming we apparently want different things and he should leave! He has told the kids in a 2 minute conversation and we are all shocked to the core.
I feel like he has been taken over by an alien or has a brain parasite 🙈.
Please help me to make sense of this all

And if there was discussion, honesty, compromise from a real place, not a defensive lazy selfish entitled place then there could be optimism and reconnection. That's not impossible @onemorecupofcoffeefortheroad but it is not the situation here.

My mother supported my father through a mental health crisis. A real one. He was on seroxat and was in a psychiatric hospital. I was a teenager and it did damage my sense of my self. My parents scapegoated me. My mother was like weasel and i wasnt allow3d a need. I thought being good was having no needs.
I would hesitate to recommend supporting a husband through a genuine mental health crisis. I ended up very damaged but the family was patched together. No divorce! Family house never sold! Golden child, scapegoat, defensive mother, weak enabling father and im also summonsed to be IN the family but only playing a role. Denied any real connection or communication.

So id say get your kids away from this unhealthy dynamic (if he had genuinely had a mental health crisis).

Well, i sure had a lot to say there!
I was triggered by @onemorecupifcoffee saying that @lunalulu had made a measured post

@MzHz
@OwlOne
@S00LA

Great posts ladies.

Once you have read about "the script", it's such a revelation.
I had never heard about it, but it is simply extraordinary how many men unconsciously follow it to the letter.

I appreciate @lunalulu's other take.

However, I will repeat, that whatever chance a man would have for coming back from this...... for some women like me........ his utter disregard for the children would be what I could neither forgive, nor forget.

I have realised since becoming a mother many years ago, that I have had a high threshold for pain and have gotten through some very challenging times in my life well.

But, I find this pain threshold disappears when it comes to my children and their happiness and well being.

For the OP, as a mother, to be doing her best to give her children a happy childhood, for that selfish prick to drop such a bomb in their lives and cause them such pain and confusion.

Emotionally he would be dead to me. I really mean that.

Just unforgivable.

Wow guys, who knew my car crash of a life would cause such a debate 🙈.

Family and friends are saying ‘he’s not been himself for a while now’ , ‘last time I seen him he was really quiet’ , ‘there’s definitely something wrong with him’ etc.

Well, yes! There’s definitely something wrong. My response is that ‘he obviously wasn’t happy at home then’ or ‘probs because his head has been turned’

Remaining strong for my children. He said he didn’t love me, well guess what, I don’t think I love him now either. Mental health or no mental health.

The thing is it's easier for them to say give him another chance as people are afraid to go the other way in case you get back together.
I would reply with "if it was just me he had said it to I can maybe understand but to say it to the children is a whole other level of nastiness and selfishness that I cannot come back from".
They can't deny the madness to the children and you protecting them until he is "better" in a way it backs you up and if you "accept" he has issues then you cannot put your children in the line of fire again at least until his mental health is sorted.

@WTFis2020

Wow guys, who knew my car crash of a life would cause such a debate 🙈.

Family and friends are saying ‘he’s not been himself for a while now’ , ‘last time I seen him he was really quiet’ , ‘there’s definitely something wrong with him’ etc.

Well, yes! There’s definitely something wrong. My response is that ‘he obviously wasn’t happy at home then’ or ‘probs because his head has been turned’

Remaining strong for my children. He said he didn’t love me, well guess what, I don’t think I love him now either. Mental health or no mental health.

You are a star OP.

Also, I appreciate this may not be PC but some women can't bear seeing others strong and resolute when shit goes wrong.
They can't bear to see them cope and thrive.

Also for some women, their default mode is to have fxxk all expectations of men.

That no matter how badly they behave, how selfish they are, they somehow have to be excused.

They then feel they need to intervene to interpret and advocate for "de poor lickle man, who just wasn't himself, poor pet"🙄

Well fxxk that for a game of soldier's.

I'm clearly not in that grouping🙄🤣, because I, like most poster's say to you, well done for staying strong, for not capitulating and accepting his dodgy flowers and pathetically weak attempts to slide back into his life that he had clearly such little regard for.

You know how I and others feel😗...but whatever you decide to do....you can be hugely proud of who you are, the model you are for your children, how strong and calm you have been.

Take great comfort in the fact that you are a strong capable woman who will survive when life throws a curveball.

Take your time and be very very proud of yourself.👏👏👏

WTF Your eyes have been opened !
This is a great new chapter, because you will feel less pain.
Next on the "script" will be health issues, heart attack, cancer or suicide threat.
Then comes the Venom...He will now try to ruin you.
I hope you are watching your bank balance carefully.

How are the DC now? have you spoken to them about why daddy isn't coming home? Can you see the messages he sends to them or do they just show you ?
He will be using them more, "my life isn't worth living without my family..." Beware, they can still blame you if he goes off the rails.

S00LA, I laughed at that post ! :0)

I was wondering, is he still going to work & eating, functioning normally?
If so, it seems he's only falling apart with you...
Strange that he can compartmentalize this !

A dignified silence might be the easiest way to go op. A cryptic 'He knows what he needs to do' keeps it private and puts the responsibility firmly where it belongs.

I used to believe this. But I have done a complete 180. Obviously, ranting and raging to anyone who will listen and sticking up passive aggressive social media posts is not the way to go, but maintaining a "dignified silence" simply allows him to set the narrative. Rather, find whatever wording or details you believe is appropriate (lots of great ideas on this thread) and repeat as needed. You don't have to defend or explain yourself, but you also don't have to let his narrative stand.

For whatever reason, he destroyed your trust and broke your and your children's hearts. This may or may not be fixable, but please do not allow any suggestion that HE is the injured party to stand.

I had a mental health crisis at 29. I felt so utterly utterly worthless that i made no demands or requests of anybody. I felt 'why would anybody go out of their way to help me?'. I didnt try to throw anybody over a barrel by using my mental health as a bargaining chip.

@OwlOne (((hug))) absolutely

Me too. Aged 30 I was hit by a depression that wanted to kill me and was relentless in its quest. Almost did too. Not once did I turn against my then H, or my family (although perhaps with hindsight now I would have saved myself a lot of heartbreak..)

Rewriting his history suits the flying monkeys need for the status quo to continue without any thought to what damage it causes to you @WTFis2020, or to your kids

I don’t have any contact with my mother, she purposefully let me down, multiple times yet told everyone the opposite. She also actually hurt my the 6yo son. The truth really is stranger than fiction. I have spoken at length to my aunt and uncle about what actually happened and years later I still get the odd comment, “have you had contact with your mother?” And “oh what a shame.”

Our job as parents is to raise our children to be the best adults they can be.

What we learn by watching an unhappy mother in a marriage with a man who treats her and them badly and it just goes on unchallenged is that this is what marriage is supposed to look like.

We have a duty to show our kids to earn and command respect, to be kind but also to draw and maintain boundaries. One of our jobs is to show our kids that they don’t deserve a 2minute chat that he’s leaving

And I presume he STILL isn’t owning what he’s done or apologising?

I've personally dealt with two men and one woman having fake breakdowns. In each case they'd been caught out in lies and could no longer hide their actions or redirect the blame onto someone else.

To me it seems quite clear. A person gets caught out with despicable behaviour that can't be explained away. It means they are a nasty piece of work. The only way they can get out of it is by by saying - that's not me. I had a breakdown.

As someone with too much experience of real mental health issues - it enrages me. People with genuine MH issues are not all evil, conniving, lying, manipulative arseholes - although some may be.

@billy1966 “Also for some women, their default mode is to have fxxk all expectations of men.*

If your user name is any indication of age, you’re about the same age as me, and lately I’m growing more and more appalled at what women are supposed to stfu about and put up with

We are not supposed to be in a relationship that makes us nervous, looking over our shoulders or wondering if they’re coming home, or who they’re texting or if the kids hearts are going to be broken in a chat lasting 120 seconds

No. Enough

@MzHz 💪🏼🙌🏼

I agree. Why is it always women shouldering the burden of a shitty relationship with a man child husband, just to keep a marriage together that appears to be 90% work on her part

Yeah and she gets the pressure to take this crap instead of someone pulling HIM aside and saying stop being such a monumental man child, pull your weight, be a decent parent/person.
Make her want to be with you!

@NettleTea

I agree. Why is it always women shouldering the burden of a shitty relationship with a man child husband, just to keep a marriage together that appears to be 90% work on her part

yes. This.Men get to use supposed mental health issues as excuses. Women don't.

And the fact that you are getting this from multiple people (if I'm understanding your posts correctly) is very worrying because clearly he's out there waging a bloody campaign.

@WTFis2020 - gentle nudge to remind you it's almost time to start a new post so that we can continue to support (and be totally inspired by) you 💐

I think talking about "mid life crises" or "breakdowns" is a palatable way to refer to the reason a man will do certain things at the end stage of a marriage - palatable to both the injured party and the family . It gives a reason . Yes there is usually a reason - it may be another person, it may be them wanting their "happiness" , it may be them not feeling valued in a marriage . If you accept that you will never get a "reason" for this behaviour then it gets easier. Once they start this kind of stuff just tell them to fuck off. @WTFis2020 if you have read "Runaway Husbands" then you know what I am talking about .

Oh the mh card, makes a mockery of people who actually have mh conditions.

I’d have a bet on the ow backing out too. One of dhs colleagues was shagging a woman at work and had never felt like this before blah blah blah 🙄 so he told her you leave your oh, I’ll leave the wife and she said no. Wife knew and had him back. Not long after he left anyway for someone else who had a house paid off so lower bills to pay.

Of course he’s panicking now because he thought you’d have him back & he realises he’s just a saddo living back with mum (I’m sure she’s delighted to have him back). In his mind it’s all “fuck, the wife will have me back though I’ll just lob some gifts her way” then you didn’t follow the script so he now has mh problems & isn’t right.

I really hate that we have such a poor understanding of mental health.

No-one's checking in on the OP's mental health after having the whole foundations of her life pulled from under her, are they?

Excusing mid-life crisises is part of the narrative that is thrilled when a man 'pays for his kids' (CMS of £5 a week); 'is a hands-on dad' (does weeknight baths); and 'is a brilliant partner' (when he's not in the pub).

I got a bit of flak on here for suggesting that lunalulu response was a measured one - yikes! fairynuff - I can take it.
However, all I was trying to get across OP (if you're still around) - is, as the saying goes, "act in haste, repent at leisure". It's only been a couple of weeks since this all blew up and you described your previous life as "perfect". Is the last two weeks indicative of the previous 17 years? Or is it as your mum says 'a blip'
There was also the accusation on here that my suggestion to follow Luna's advice was encouraging you to roll over and become the acquiescent silent wife who just took the bins out.
Believe me, as a woman previously married to a man with two young children who then left said man for a woman I am so far away from the silenced wife as you can possibly imagine. And I would never acquiesce to a male partner - or any partner - whatever gender - not ever.
I just meant that when making life changing decisions, take your time, don't make big drastic decisions out of anger or to punish someone - make them calmly, rationally and because they are absolutely the right thing for you.

don't make big drastic decisions out of anger or to punish someone

Shame that’s not advice @WTFis2020 H followed eh? He blew up the kids after a while of huffing and sulking ...

MzHz exactly my point thank you. Not a sensible thought process and therefore not one to emulate.

OP a very similar thing happened to me a few years and after 14 years together. Completely out the blue he left me one Sunday morning. Everyone in both of our families was completely shocked. He was a wonderful partner who just became a stranger over night. I loved him desperately, he was my best friend and I missed him so much. I’m afraid I begged him to come back.

I received a lot of support and advice from MN and got the house signed over whilst he still felt guilty.

After five months he had a complete breakdown. It was awful. By the time he wanted to come back I’m afraid I’d moved on.

And life got better. I started doing more, made more friends and completely unexpectedly met current DP at a friend’s birthday party. I can tell you what I wanted people to tell me - you will survive this, you will be happy again and you will have easy, carefree days again.

So, in a nutshell

What’s good for the Gander ISNT what’s good for the goose...

Thus ever was.

The kids are the ones at stake here, what H wants literally doesn’t matter at all

Despite the fact that he’s not sorry at all, not making any real changes to how he is, not being being all transparent

But hey... he could put the bins out :)

@OwlOne

It's not measured! *@lunalulu* can give her take same as the rest of us but i think she has it wrong to give him the benefit of the doubt that he is having a mental health episode that he deserves to be supported through.

Even if there was no other woman, he had disconnected from communication with op so he could be on his phone all day. He got ANGRY when op basically asked him to reconnect and be present in the family. He hoped that'd be enough to make her back down and leave him be on his phone. But when she knew she deserved more he stormed off. Worse, he told the kids. He told his own mother he didnt love op. He tried to borrow 25k.

To say that the OP might owe it to him to support him through his mental health crisis is not "measured".

What is the meantal health crisis exactly? Would it be solved quite quicckly by getting his own way? And being left alone to flirt/surf/chat online?

I reckon that would solve his mental health crisis.

I had a mental health crisis at 29. I felt so utterly utterly worthless that i made no demands or requests of anybody. I felt 'why would anybody go out of their way to help me?'. I didnt try to throw anybody over a barrel by using my mental health as a bargaining chip.

So @onemorecupofcoffeefortheroad giving in and pushing your standard underground because you are married is not "measured".

There is nothing preventing the op's husband from communicsting honestly. But he isnt doing that.

Flowers and a mental health crisis 👏👏 the script reaches the conclusion of its first half.

Excellent post @OwlOne.

Men (and women) have to admit fault when they have done wrong.

It is unnaceptable to expect someone, to forgive someone who will not admit fault.

We all deserve apologies for wrong doing.