I have been with him for nearly 3 years. We do not live together as have children and don’t have the money to buy a large house together and don’t want to private rent (nothing wrong with this but not for us). We don’t argue, have great sex, get along, affectionate, make each other laugh, talk about the future and all normal I thought. It’s been the summer holidays so busy with kids, tired, working and we hadn’t spoken as much as we used to but nothing alarming until a few days ago when I saw him and he was disengaged and disinterested but said he was just super tired. I trusted he was tired and didn’t think anything else of it. He hasn’t brought up anything bothering him that I have done or said once. He is a very nice guy and he doesn’t have any track record of being a dick to women, at all.
In hindsight now I can see we were both tired and things had got a little stale. I had noticed this but didn’t confront it up as an issue itself but suggested to go out for a fun date over the bank holiday to respark some fun and I was excited about it.
He was coming over today and was 2 hours late which is unusual for him. He came in and immediately started crying which scared me something awful had happened. He then confessed he had been feeling this way ‘for ages’ that he didn’t think it was going to work out. We had a long discussion, I had no idea he was even feeling this way so I had some questions but then he wasn’t really able to answer them which was so frustrating so I gave up asking. He kept saying ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ but then when I asked directly he was coming up with examples of things that I had said or done that made him decide we had different life paths and it was best to end it (without bothering to clarify any of my own life path goals with me). He confessed that he was hoping we would have a row so he had a reason to break up with me, we never row, but I felt so sad he was prepared to fall out with me.
I’m gonna be honest I was internally very mad at him for springing it all on me out of the blue and not even giving me solid reasons and the opportunity to work on it before this point, but I calmly said I respected his decision to be honest with me now but I was disappointed he a. Didn’t speak to me about any of it b. Had waited till it got really bad c. Had decided my thoughts for me, my life goals and whatever and D. Hadn’t even considered working it out together? He asked for a hug I said no, I said he could leave and I wished him luck etc, I was very sad as I loved him and had been content and happy and thought we were best friends, a team who could talk about things and now I was realising it was all superficial so it felt like everything had been turned upside down.
He then changed his mind, he does want to work on it, and work on himself and does love me, wants to be with me, he’s sorry he didn’t talk to me. I agreed to give it another go because I do love him, I do value and respect him but I feel sick, I don’t know if I can trust him now if he hides all his feelings from me? Can you ever come back from this? He seems depressed, I can’t fix that. I can just cut my losses, maybe I should
I feel like I know what all the responses are going to be 🙁