Can love ever return?

[oatsandbeansandbarleygrow]

Regular poster on other threads but have NC for this. I am devastated, crucified, completely broken. My DH says he no longer loves me and wants a divorce. We have been together 20 years, married for 18 and have 4 DC. We have had a very difficult last five years, financially and with our eldest DC who has severe MH issues.

DH had an affair some years ago which was agonising but we have both worked hard to overcome this and he seemed genuinely remorseful. I know for sure that the OW is not back on the scene and he is adamant there is no one else now but he no longer loves or even likes me. He is very cold when he says these things. This has come to a head recently but he says he has felt this way for years. We have recently moved with his work but he wants to return to where he was brought up, without me, as he has family there still.

I love him with all my heart and am in physical pain with the trauma of it all. I know there are many here who post about how happy they are that they have decided to leave their marriages but is there anyone reading this who has fallen back in love with their partner, or whose DH has told them that they no longer love them and want a divorce, only for the position to change? I suspect I will be told I am clutching at straws but I am desperate for some light at the end of this nightmarish dark tunnel and to have some hope that he will love me again.

OP, please take some time off work. The most important thing at the moment is to look after your mental health. I think that you need to accept that it's over, for whatever reason, and you need time to look after yourself and sort out what you need to do. You'll be fine.

Someone who wants to leave you isn't your soul mate. It's hard, but you need to get a grip on reality, not the ideal version of him in your head.

OP I'm so sorry to read this but kindly, you can't make someone stay in a relationship with you and if he wants out then you unfortunately have to respect that. Relationships only work if both parties are willing to invest into them and he's told you categorically that he isn't willing to do this anymore.

Please also try to move on from looking at ways to end your life, if you honestly believe your life is worth nothing without him then look at your children, job, friends, family... it's of course ok to grieve the end of your marriage but he does not define you as a person. Samaritans might be a good, safe place to discuss these feelings and they are trained to help.

I don't believe in soulmates but I certainly believe that someone who's already cheated on you in the past and is now telling you they no longer love you is not your soulmate.

I strongly suggest finding a therapist, a good lawyer and taking some time off work to properly allow yourself to process what's happened and planning a way to work through it.

Sending you strength and love

Oh he is cruel OP! It is no wonder you are in pain.

Please just take one minute, one hour at a time and breathe. Set yourself the tiniest goals. Make a cup of tea for yourself, have a shower with strong smelling shower gel, put some music on, go for a walk just around the block… anything that will get you through each hour. If you can tell your employer what is happening then please do so. And refer yourself for some support (does your employer have an employee assistance programme that offers short-term counselling?)

Above all please remember that however awful things feel right now, it will pass. Six months or a year from now you will NOT be feeling the pain you do now.

Please think about who you can talk to in real life.

I have been where you are and the shock and pain is indescribable. Exercise helped me. Vigorous walking and a bit of running really helped focus my mind on something else. You will get through this. I never thought I’d be the same again. I’m now stronger than ever. And you will be too.

Sending much love.

PS. And my employer was brilliant by the way. I didn’t give them the details only that I was going through something that was traumatic for me. They told me I could come to work if I needed to be out of the house or to stay at home if I couldn’t be at work. They were really flexible with me for which I was incredibly grateful. Counselling helped just so I had someone to talk to. And my employer had a 24 hour counselling helpline which I also used. It all helped.

I agree with taking some time off. I opened up to my boss who was incredible - between annual leave, compassionate leave and work just being brilliant, I had the best part of a month off to sort my head out. I missed it in the end and wanted to go back!

Thank you @JaneAustensHeroine and everyone else who has commented - thank you too to the wonderful poster who has PM'd me. I appreciate all the candour and advice, irrespective of how blunt it is.

My employer does have an assistance program and my immediate boss is fantastic but very, very happily married to the man she has been with since at uni and although sympathetic, I can see in her eyes that she doesn't really get it, doesn't understand the depth of the pain involved. I think it's like childbirth - someone can tell you how agonising it can be but until you experience it yourself, you don't ever truly understand that visceral, searing pain. I don't think I can take time off work as lots of people rely on me but I will try and calibrate my work load rather more as it is crushing and I don't currently have the emotional or physical energy to do it all justice.

@Twentylfourth, that's a perceptive comment and one I am beginning to think is correct as he talks about 'making a new life', well there isn't much wrong with the current one if it is looked at dispassionately! So something else is driving this beyond the usual daily dissatisfactions we can all suffer.

@ToWonderWhyIBother I loved your comments about being a woman and a mother - they braced me. I'm really really trying to strengthen myself but keep breaking down in tears. I feel pathetic and a loser and absolutely lost. I'm sobbing as I type this but I promise I'll try and do better.

I'm pretty organised when it comes to finances and documentation so that's all alright but I simply cannot face seeing a solicitor at present. I have family members who are in the profession so can take informal advice, but to actually consult one at this point is a mountain I simply can't face climbing as my emotional oxygen is so depleted. I don't understand DH's desire to move back to where he came from as he was very glad to leave there when he went to uni and has said since that he would rather live anywhere but there as it is a large industrial town and he loves the mountains and remoteness so it simply doesn't add up.

You are absolutely not pathetic or a loser. This is all on him.

Your husband is likely to be making decisions that seem irrational and nonsensical (mid-life crisis?). Please do not deplete your energy by thinking about him. Think only of yourself and what you need right now. And give yourself permission to have time off work when you need it. Whether your boss can empathise or not doesn’t matter…if you need not to be at work for your own health and wellbeing then so be it. Ask yourself what you would say to a friend in this situation and do that.

I remember all too well being in this situation and it was shockingly awful. I really had to take one day at a time and just get through it, hour by hour. Funnily enough my boss sounds like yours…married to their childhood sweetheart and no frame of reference for what I was going through. However she was at least pragmatic and enabled me to work flexibly as and when I could. It made a world of difference. Please use what is available to you.

Don’t try to have long conversations with your DH, or try to change his mind. If anything it will make him pull away further. The best thing I did was to say nothing and to try not to react. Keep your cool, go about your life as much as you can. It holds a mirror up to their behaviour. You can’t reason with the unreasonable. Look after yourself and let him see that you are not going to be pushed around or destroyed by his behaviour. He can make his own decisions…but you know what, you can also make yours. You have more power than you think.

This is great advice!

It’s ok to cry and sob .. it’s better not to keep it in but be sure to dry you eyes and get back up again!
I do hope when the dust settles that you can get some legal advice.
how old are your DC ( sorry if you’ve already said). He can’t be right in up and leaving them and leaving sole responsibility on you.

And if you need to chat, feel free to PM, I was in a similar position last year and felt like the world was ending!

Your DH may have connected (on SM?) with someone from his past or even a group of old schoolmates and although he hated the place when he left for Uni he has now forgotten what it was really like and feels more fondly towards it and may see going back as a kind of homecoming and a way to go back to the start, his place of origin. I'm 60 and in the past decade I've been shocked by how many of my fellow escapees from our home town have returned to live there and the revisionist history they have of the place. There was a lot of nostalgia about friendship groups and school romances.

You have so much on your plate right now, perhaps the stress of your finances and illness in the family have made him selfishly want to escape and blow everything up (just like he did with the affair), so in his mind in order to justify that he has created a scenario/fiction where he has felt this way for a long time and dislikes you because that means he has bravely stuck it out for a long time and tried so hard, who could ever blame him for leaving? He needs to feel okay about himself, that he isn't the bad guy. Very cruel on you and your DC. When something similar happened to me, I felt my very soul had been trampled on. You sound like a wonderful strong loving and supportive wife. It really is HIM and NOT YOU.

Is he still in your home? Do your DC know what is going on?

Hi. I mean this in the most respectful way but I think you need to focus on your mental state. For your own sake and the sake of your children. The fact of the matter is that he doesn't want to be in this marriage anymore and whether he has someone else or not - you have to be able to accept his decision.

I’m sorry to resurrect this thread again a few months later, but I’m
just hoping you are doing a lot better now.
There have been a few threads similar to yours this week from women at the very beginning of this journey and are reeling. I just hope you are ok x x

I've also just found this thread. @oatsandbeansandbarleygrow how are you doing now? 💐

Really hope you're in a better place, op.

How are you getting on @oatsandbeansandbarleygrow?

@oatsandbeansandbarleygrow how are you doing? Hope things have improved and you're finding it easier to cope with.