Husband of 23 years has dumped me

[ThatCoralBiscuit]

I don’t even know who I am anymore. I pointed out to my husband that we needed to work on making things better as we were just trundling along, no intimacy, no conversation, no together time.
our 17 year old daughter is aen and does not talk and has high dependency but the fact that we have even survived that means that we should try to make it work.
however, he is not prepared to talk about the future, keeps on saying we have grown apart. Refuses to talk and ignores me by going on his phone when I try to.
I feel like if I keep on pushing, then I am losing my self respect , but I find it incredible that he just wants to give up just like that.
there is no other woman because he is in the house most of the time. I feel so sad. And then he won’t talk about what he does want so I feel kind of trapped.

Sounds like he doesn’t want to change anything. If you have just has the conversation then I would give him time to take it in, this is assuming it’s come out of the blue for him. Then after a week or so raise it again and say you either need to make plans to work on the relationship or plans as to how a split can work.

I'm thinking he has another woman lined up.

That is always the default answer but not the case all the time. Plenty of men leave relationships they are not happy with - I have done in the past (ok, not a long one like this) with no other woman involved.

It sounds like he has not been happy for a while, probably checked out and thinks it's best to move on. Sadly, if he will not engage there is probably not much you can do. Just start looking into how things could be split and go down that process. He MAY then have 2nd thoughts when he realises what he may be losing, but its probably too late for that

I doubt he's decided he wants to "give up just like that". Much more likely he's been ruminating about this for months, or even years, and just done the typical man thing of saying absolutely nothing until he's absolutely certain in his own mind that the relationship is irrecoverable, and you bringing it up has been a convenient moment for him to signal that.

Ask him when he is moving out and what plans he would like to make for shared care of your daughter. You are in limbo currently. Sounds like he has decided he wants more out of the rest of his life than what he has currently. He's been thinking about this for a while it would seem.

I agree with this. He needs to shit or get off the pot. If he has decided your marriage isn't worth saving and he can't be bothered to make the effort, then he doesn't get all the comforts of the status quo, while you wither away from loneliness. He needs to move out and you need to sort out arrangements for shared care of your daughter.

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Sadly, when people say the marriage is over, they’d checked out a while ago. So it comes as a real shock to the person hearing it but not to the person saying it.

My exH did the same as yours. Shut down, refused to talk. (He then went on to revise our history, saying he’d been unhappy forever. That’s quite a common thing too.)

It’s really painful. I hope you have support. People will want to support you so don’t be afraid of being a burden.

How long has it been in the doldrums?

And yes, do this. My exH was stunned when I wouldn’t let him stay in the house. He had a plan in his head that we could be separated but living together until he decided otherwise.

I'm so sorry you are going through this. May I just say that recently I joined several International 'Solo women travellers' groups. I was really quite shocked at the huge percentage of women who began their posts with" My husband just left me after ( 20-25) years" - and so often 'out of the blue'. Please don't take it personally, and I wish you all the best.