Husband left me and I’m in bits

[pixiepoo99]

Hi lovelies... first post on here and feeling very fragile at the moment.

DH had been strange with me for the last 6 weeks - distant and then crying uncontrollably saying that he doesn’t have an identity anymore and didn’t know what he wants in life. I asked if it was a problem with us and he said it’s ‘everything’ in life. I thought maybe depression/early mid life crisis. This carried on for a few more weeks of weird behaviour/staying out late/drinking a lot.

3 weeks ago he went away on his own for the weekend to have ‘time to think things through’ and returned on the Monday without his wedding ring on saying that he needs to be out of the relationship for his mental health and that I’ve treated him like crap for years and we no longer want the same things or make each other happy.
This absolutely hit me like a train.

I have not been easy to live with... my hormones are always up and down, I’m depressed, I’m always trying to make everything perfect for everyone but go about it the wrong way and then get really sad when it goes wrong, and my temper can go 0-100. I’m always hugely apologetic afterwards but I can’t seem to hold it in.

I have a full time job which pays for the house and all bills. He is self employed so we ‘live’ off his money as it fluctuates each month. I do all the ‘life admin’ stuff... all paperwork/money/grown up stuff, he does the cooking.
He works hard in a physical job, and is overall a fantastic husband. He is there for me when s**t hits the fan and is always able to balance me out, he has completely been my emotional crutch over the years which must have taken a toll on him altho he always appears to be Teflon coated.

Over the last few years I’ve become increasingly upset that he doesn’t seem interested in me... hes always on his phone, very secretive with it (I was never allowed near it), obsessed with social media, didn’t want to socialise with me in the evenings, and certainly never ever wants to talk.
I like to talk about our relationship and make sure everything is ok but he gets frustrated and will ignore me/give me the silent treatment if he doesn’t want to give a proper answer. I think we often both feel undervalued by each other. I try all the time to find fun things to do together, weekends away, walks etc but he doesn’t seem very interested in my company, certainly not if I try and talk!

I’ve been so upset over the last two months as his behaviour has changed - more distant, ‘popping out’ and not coming back until late. Working long hours to avoid being at home, rolling over in bed with his back to me while he’s on his phone. He has been confiding in female ‘friend’ that he met at work for the last few months and when I saw a message pop up on his phone he quickly swiped it away and said he didn’t want me to see the messages/he didn’t want to hurt me.
It transpires that he has opened up to her about our relationship issues and she is supporting him through this as a friend.
I also found out that she was with him on his weekend away camping to ‘think things through’ that absolutely broke my heart.

He says they are just friends but he moved out of our house after his announcement and I’ve found out that he is currently staying with her and her young son. I asked him and he said she is ‘one of the lads’ and is just good company to support him through all of this.

I have never experienced heartbreak before and I am totally overwhelmed by it... I cannot shake the guilt that I have totally ruined his life and the only way out was to leave me/our house/our future (we were due to start IVF in the next few months)

I’ve driven him away and he was the best thing that ever happened to me... how do you cope and carry on forward? He’s unwilling to give things a second chance and it’s absolutely killing me, I’ve booked in for counselling and on anti depressants from the doctor but I can’t imagine a life without him. Does this pain ever end? Xxx

@PriestessofPing

Someone told me a little while ago something that stick with me - ‘blame’ and responsibility when shit situations happen is not like a cake where of you dole out one portion to one person it means the other person has less. You may have acted in ways that put a lot of pressure on him but that doesn’t mean that what he’s done now somehow is lesser because of that. You can accept responsibility for the things you want to change about yourself without it meaning you eat all the ‘blame cake’. He’s got his own cake.

Wow, I haven’t heard that before, but the cake analogy makes perfect sense, thank you for sharing.

@pixiepoo99 Please remember the strengths that you have to get through tough times, it certainly wasn’t relying on him! The loss of a marriage is a bereavement and all those emotions apply - guilt, anger, bargaining, denial, depression and eventually acceptance. Expect to move (seemingly randomly) through all of those feelings and back and forth within them. Allow yourself time to wallow and grieve and rally your allies to support you.
If you’ll allow me to be self indulgent for a moment - The fact that you are using this bombshell to grow from and so will eventually blossom from, is the best possible form of revenge!

Thanks both for your messages.

Yes it sadly looks like he is in a relationship with her... he still pleads friendship, Christ knows why he can’t come out and say it? Or is that another bloke thing of wanting to make this look like our relationship had broken down and no one to blame? He’s swears blind he has his own room at her place (bs - I’ve checked the particulars and it’s a two bedroom house) one of which is her sons room. Again, verified by pictures on Instagram. He’s certainly not sleeping on the sofa.

I just can’t bear all the deceit when he’s being very nicey nicey and caring about how I am when he sees me. The guilt is eating him I am sure, he’s not a natural liar.

Should I confront him about this?

OP I'm terribly sorry you're going through this.

One thing I will say is that you need some counselling as that relationship sounded unhealthy and like you both had terrible communication. You shouldn't have been putting up with silent treatments (it's consider abusive) for instance. Counselling to help you deal with your communication style, emotional outbursts but also setting healthy boundaries from future partners should be something you prioritise before you enter another relationship.

I know this is a really difficult thing to ask as you just want answers all the time. You need to stop checking up on her, her house, what you think is going on. It will do you no good. Your husband will bend the truth purely to make him feel better about the situation. Take it as read that they are in a relationship and he is living at her place as a couple and try very hard not to question him about it as it will just tie you up in all sorts of knots and prevent you from doing the really important work of fixing yourself for your future. If you can reduce your contact with your husband to the bare minimum and aiming for zero contact then that will help you enormously. Its so hard, I know but I kept hanging on asking for answers for too long and it was like picking a scab that didn't get better. Be strong, stop questioning and start rebuilding.

You’re right @litterbird I am torturing myself by looking and have stopped now, for some reason I just needed to validate that I wasn’t going mad with all the different stories I’d been fed.

I will really try the no contact thing over the next few weeks... it’s hard as I want to see the dog regularly but will try and keep it to a minimum.

The terrible advice on here where it comes to affairs never ceases to amaze me. OP is being very reflective in acknowledging her part in the marital problems rather than just blaming her DH. Of course it isn’t all his fault, it’s ludicrous to suggest that it is and this won’t help the OP move on and learn from this in future relationships. I’m divorced and in my 40s, I’ve seen lots of friends, family and acquaintances go through divorces etc and not one has just left the marriage without having at least had their head turned by someone else. Rightly or wrongly this is human nature and affairs are generally a symptom and not the cause of a marriage break up. They are not bad people just because they were unhappy and found love elsewhere! The Victorian attitudes on here are laughable sometimes. In the majority of cases people in happy relationships don’t have affairs. I’m saying this as someone who was cheated on in my marriage. Op your marriage doesn’t sound like it was happy, you had just grown apart. Work on your issues, accept your part in the break up and I’m sure you’ll move on and be much happier.

@pixiepoo99

You’re right *@litterbird* I am torturing myself by looking and have stopped now, for some reason I just needed to validate that I wasn’t going mad with all the different stories I’d been fed.

I will really try the no contact thing over the next few weeks... it’s hard as I want to see the dog regularly but will try and keep it to a minimum.

Has he taken the puppy with him, or did you have another dog too?

"this isn't about you or your behaviour, he's using your issues / stress levels against you as an excuse to leave." So true. While there may be real issues make sure not to overly take his feedback on board. He needs to rationalise checking out somehow. -If we are looking for faults we will find them. So sorry about all you are going through right now. Sending hugs.

He was cheating on you and blamed you. Now you feel guilty/bad. Classic!

Where does one begin:

distant and then crying uncontrollably saying that he doesn’t have an identity anymore and didn’t know what he wants in life.

Was he crying real tears or just faking the uncontrollable crying?

3 weeks ago he went away on his own for the weekend to have ‘time to think things through’ and returned on the Monday without his wedding ring on saying that he needs to be out of the relationship for his mental health and that I’ve treated him like crap for years and we no longer want the same things or make each other happy

If you've treated him like crap for years, has he ever talked about any of those occasions at the time, or has he suddenly announced this having said nothing all that time...

He does care about me... he is terrified how this is going to affect my mental health and wants to make sure things aren’t rushed so I have plenty of time to get my head around things.

How magnanimous of him. He's told you he wants out of the 17 year relationship - he doesn't get to control how long nor in what way you process the decision he's taken, just to assuage his guilty conscience.

He was cheating on you as pretty much everyone has pointed out. If you Google ‘signs your partner is cheating’, he fits pretty much every single one. He pushed you away, kept his phone to himself, sat on it for hours, stopped being intimate or talking to you, started mysteriously disappearing for hours at a time with little explanation. He didn’t even really try to hide the affair very well, perhaps he was hoping you’d find out and end the marriage for him. He’s moved in with her because she’s the OW, I’m sure she wouldn’t be thrilled to hear he was describing her as ‘one of the lads’ at all. The weekend away was a dirty weekend away, they didn’t go away just as friends. He’s been shagging her for months behind your back, he isn’t a kind person at all- just a dirty cheat.

You can pick yourself apart until there’s nothing left but it ultimately isn’t your fault. If he wasn’t happy, he should have had the guts to end the marriage but instead he made sure he had a back up woman set up so he wouldn’t be alone. Typical behaviour from men really, they rarely ever leave a relationship unless they have someone else. He also could have suggested couples counselling if he wanted to save the marriage, instead he chose to screw someone else.

He fits the standard cheaters script really, he sounds pathetic. It’s good you have accepted your own faults and that you plan to fix them but please don’t tear yourself apart blaming yourself.

@Baws

The terrible advice on here where it comes to affairs never ceases to amaze me. OP is being very reflective in acknowledging her part in the marital problems rather than just blaming her DH. Of course it isn’t all his fault, it’s ludicrous to suggest that it is and this won’t help the OP move on and learn from this in future relationships. I’m divorced and in my 40s, I’ve seen lots of friends, family and acquaintances go through divorces etc and not one has just left the marriage without having at least had their head turned by someone else. Rightly or wrongly this is human nature and affairs are generally a symptom and not the cause of a marriage break up. They are not bad people just because they were unhappy and found love elsewhere! The Victorian attitudes on here are laughable sometimes. In the majority of cases people in happy relationships don’t have affairs. I’m saying this as someone who was cheated on in my marriage. Op your marriage doesn’t sound like it was happy, you had just grown apart. Work on your issues, accept your part in the break up and I’m sure you’ll move on and be much happier.

No one deserves to be cheated on. Blaming someone for their husband fucking another woman is really low and s what leads to women doing the pick me dance rather than realising their husband is a lying cheating piece of scum.

@pixiepoo99

You have to accept you have no control over his actions.

You've mentioned you have an horrendous temper which other posters have conveniently glossed over because you're a woman. The responses would be very different if you were a man. I very much doubt you "can't control" your temper. I doubt you're the same with shop assistants, work colleagues etc but have treated him abysmally because you could seemingly get away with your abusive behaviour. Yet seem surprised he lost interest in you and didn't want to engage in meaningless conversations

I personally couldn't cope with living with such an angry, toxic person. He's a Saint for putting up with it so long. You only seem motivated to actually change because he's finally stopped putting up with you treating him as a virtual punchbag.

Focus on going to counselling and anger management and getting your issues under control before concerning yourself with him.

You've mentioned you have an horrendous temper which other posters have conveniently glossed over because you're a woman

This. No-one on here would be telling you to stay if you'd posted saying a man had treated you like that.

He has gone about it the wrong way but maybe he was actually a bit scared of you and how you would react.

You need to move on now and learn lessons from all of this.

@pixiepoo99 the stuff you mentioned around wild mood swings, temper, hormones etc - you should check out whether it's perimenopause/menopause related or bipolar or a personality disorder. Nothing will improve enough until you have the right treatment/mental health support. You owe it to yourself to do it, and really should have started to address this years ago.

[quote DateXY]@pixiepoo99

You have to accept you have no control over his actions.

You've mentioned you have an horrendous temper which other posters have conveniently glossed over because you're a woman. The responses would be very different if you were a man. I very much doubt you "can't control" your temper. I doubt you're the same with shop assistants, work colleagues etc but have treated him abysmally because you could seemingly get away with your abusive behaviour. Yet seem surprised he lost interest in you and didn't want to engage in meaningless conversations

I personally couldn't cope with living with such an angry, toxic person. He's a Saint for putting up with it so long. You only seem motivated to actually change because he's finally stopped putting up with you treating him as a virtual punchbag.

Focus on going to counselling and anger management and getting your issues under control before concerning yourself with him.[/quote]
Oh no, I read that and then I also read the paragraph below it:

"Over the last few years I’ve become increasingly upset that he doesn’t seem interested in me... hes always on his phone, very secretive with it (I was never allowed near it), obsessed with social media, didn’t want to socialise with me in the evenings, and certainly never ever wants to talk.
I like to talk about our relationship and make sure everything is ok but he gets frustrated and will ignore me/give me the silent treatment if he doesn’t want to give a proper answer. I think we often both feel undervalued by each other. I try all the time to find fun things to do together, weekends away, walks etc but he doesn’t seem very interested in my company, certainly not if I try and talk!"

I'd lose my shit if I lived with someone like this too.

The OP is not 'an angry, toxic' person' who treats her husband as a virtual punchbag. And neither is he a fucking Saint either.

He's been having an affair for two years which isn't saintly. Oh - I see. You're a man. Figures.

It’s always best to split when no one else is involved —but to be honest there is never ever an easy way to do it , unless it’s a totally mutual feeling. someone always feels like the bad guy even though they may have very good reasons to separate . He is wrong if he hasn’t been honest with OP and already had someone else on the go — but I’m
Not sure it would hurt that much less if that wasn’t the case— sometimes it can hurt more if your partner says they are leaving because of you— rather than that they’ve met someone else— the idea we would all sit there politely saying ‘oh no problem, it happens, I’m sorry you are unhappy with me ’ if someone isn’t having an affair and wants to split is simply not what I’ve experienced myself or others I know.

@Clymene I most certainly did read that paragraph which is exactly why I said it makes no sense she's apparently surprised that he stoppeed seeming interested in her after years of abusive anger.

If you've never lived with a person with a bad temper, you don't know how bad it is. Even when the person is calm, you'll be subconsciously walking on egg shells wondering what the next trigger will be. The so called "silent treatment" was very likely him keeping quiet and refusing to engage for fear of an angry outburst from her and knowing it's fruitless anyway talking to someone who's in a worked up state. Someone with a temper is not someone you can constructively engage in a meaningful conversation. What needed to have changed was her addressing her anger problem which she refused to do during the relationship. What would be the point of him "talking" about the relationship if she never addressed this key problem in the first place. He naturally checked out.

If he's had an affair, it doesn't justify him committing adultery but I can fully understand why he couldn't cope with living with her anymore.

If it was a woman who posted her DH's side of the story, the very same posters on here would be gleefully telling her she should have divorced years ago 🙄

date

I think you're using a bit of artistic license there. What you said might be true. Equally it sounds like she has been repeatedly stonewalled and a hasty script put together to lay the blame for everything at her door.

I agree that she should have divorced him ages ago...when the stonewalling started.

If he's so worried about her, why did he have to take the dog too? Just low.

Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.
There seems to be fault on both sides, essentially you’ve both been unhappy.

Try not to spend your time checking on him, and her. This way madness lies. Try not to be too hard on yourself, you can accept that you weren’t perfect and build on the aspects of your personality that you want to change. But you don’t need to berate yourself. No one is perfect and we’ve all just got to try to learn through experience.

Be as kind to yourself as you can. Have a wallow. Talk to your friends and family and get some support. Then, when you’re ready, start to build the future you want without having to compromise.

Hi OP,
Sorry you are going through this. Obviously you have a lot to cope with. It is probably worth looking at the situation from all angles though, to hopefully improve your future happiness. There could for example be numerous reasons why you are having issues with your hormones etc. I'm sure it would be worth investigating further. Possibilities could include endometriosis, severe PMT, early menopause etc. Good luck x