Please tell me this gets better

[Heja]

Last week my husband of 15 years moved out after a very bad argument, saying he wanted a break. Since then he’s been quite cold and detached and not communicative at all.
For those who will say he’s having an affair…. He could well be and I’ve thought about it myself but I actually think he’s going through some kind of mental breakdown.
The problem is, despite having had a difficult year this still came completely out of the blue. Our relationship has always been fun and supportive and full of love. He’s my best friend. We have 3 young children together and my heart is breaking. He’s basically saying he wants to go to counselling (for himself) and then eventually for us. He says he needs a break and some space. He’s put a plan in place for seeing the children who absolutely adore him but other than that he won’t speak to me.
We have always been that couple that would be in contact a lot throughout the day, just texts and phone calls checking in, very loving. We’ve got a busy life with 3 kids and a dog and a big house to run that is very remote and I feel so abandoned and lonely. Sounds cliche but I can’t eat, can’t sleep, feel on the edge of a panic attack all the time. Desperately trying to keep it together for the children. Having to stop myself from texting him and asking why over and over. I’m beside myself.

I just need some help. Someone to listen to me who’s been in this situation. Tell me it gets better. Tell me I’ll get through this.

Thank you so much for all your lovely messages. It really has been a great support for me. Very little has changed since I last updated. He’d had the counselling session on Tuesday but I found out via the therapist rather than him. I find it strange that if he was wanting to reconcile at some point, he wouldn’t mention it to me himself as sort of proof that he was making the first step?

Since last Sunday the communication has been pretty much non existent. I just can’t engage with him right now. He’s sent a couple of messages about the children and I answered keeping it short and sweet each time. I still feel very angry (much to the surprise seemingly of one of the posters above!) but it’s true. I’m finding it very very hard to pick up the pieces left behind whilst putting on a brave face for the children. I just keep thinking over and over again that my love for them is stronger than my anger/disappointment for him and that is keeping me sane.

OP you have every right to feel immense anger. As someone else said above you don’t see many women walking out on their families and shacking up in a camper van due to their mental health problems. He owes you an explanation and at the moment you are getting nothing! It is completely unacceptable and I think you need to take control as try as hard as you can to get on with your life. Even if he does come crawling back in a few weeks or months your relationship has changed now and may not recover. Whichever way your feelings will be different - will it happen again? The way he is treating you is appalling and mental health is not an excuse. Lean on friends and family and take one step at a time - you will feel happy again.

I have to say I find this reply a bit bizarre and intentionally antagonistic. I have repeatedly said how loving, supportive and frequent our communication was in our marriage, despite him being away a lot.

I have expressed how angry I am SINCE he’s gone and it’s true, I feel very angry. We have been together for 15 years, we have 3 children, a dog, a great big house halfway renovated, plans and dreams and a long shared history together that he’s walked away with no real explanation. I think anger is a very valid emotion in this scenario. I also said I WANTED to scream at him, not that I had. As for my calm, quite frankly calm isn’t really on the agenda right now! Maybe when it’s been longer than 2 weeks since my whole life was turned upside down I can find calmness but for now, it’s fake it till you make it.

I fibbed to my Mum because I was struggling with the notion that I was going to have to tell her that my husband (who my family loves) had walked away and I didn’t know why. I would say in the moment that I didn’t answer her call I was protecting my peace so I could tell her when I wasn’t quite as emotional. I have since told her and she has been a great support.

Finally, it’s seems unbelievably naïve to just suggest that my life must be peaceful now and that’s that?! No, my life does not suddenly seem zen and peaceful. If it did, this thread wouldn’t exist. Oh, and he has moved out.

My experience is that they do a session or two of counselling to basically say they have done it and in the hope of finding someone who will reinforce what they say which is not of course necessarily the truth. It makes them feel better in their lies.

You are correct OP - it is a ridiculous and naive comment - there’s always one or two who will try to pick a part your replies on your thread and make it into something it’s not. How black and white to suggest “oh well your life must be calmer now” - what nonsense. Let it go over your head. Of course you feel angry - it’s a perfectly normal feeling in this situation.

@Interlaken I take it you have never been abandoned with no explanation and 3 young children? I have, your comment is utterly ignorant and offensive, so off you hop and have a Calm day. 👋

OP, I have been in your situation but many years ago. In my situation it resulted in finding out there was another women, and then some. We'd been childhood sweethearts, life was looking rosy and we were financially well off for our ages at the time. My ExH always thought himself to be 'cool' but was clever enough to disguise that to the general public. He was also rather lacking in emotional intelligence. The 'breakdown' I initially thought (he was having (he was a workaholic through choice) included cocaine, cannabis, and as I said before, other women oh, and a trip to Amsterdam - evidenced by what I found on my computer 🤔

I thought we were a happy family. I felt so foolish when I found out as liking back there were tiny little signs.

The shock is horrendous.

My GP, family and friends were a fantastic support at the time. Medication like Diazepam and SSRI's also helped enormously.

I had to go through a very long court battle in the end that concluded at Crown Court, (how embarrassing) and also included an injunction when he wouldn't stop letting himself into our (now my) house in the early hours, taking papers and documents and being abusive towards me.

He also suggested going to Relate, when I started to query certain things, which would always result in an argument, him twisting my words making me feel I was going insane.
He was the only one who knew exactly why we were there-I was oblivious at the time, he was having the affair and lied all the way through the therapy.

I sincerely hope this has a positive outcome for you, but I would be getting my ducks in a row and make sure you have knowledge of all financials; pensions, insurances, bank accounts, kids bank accounts-absolutely everything. Also see a solicitor and make sure he can not remortgage the house. It can be done quickly and easily.

We are stronger than we think we are.

Sending hugs 🤗

@abracadabra1980 I know where you are coming from. The mental toll is terrible. Last night I again had a horrible dream about it all even after many years. I have a new very happy life but in my dreams I still endure it.

You have absolutely every right of feel angry, it’s a normal and healthy reaction to the situation and it’d be more concerning if you weren’t feeling the rage!

Personally I’d find his cold and dismissive treatment of you to be almost as hard to deal with as the physical abandonment. If he’d said that he can’t cope, needs space etc. recognised and acknowledged what he’s asking of you in order to give him that space, and remained kind towards you I think his physical abandonment might be easier to deal with even if the final outcome of this situation is still unclear. But acting like a stranger towards you, withdrawing all love and affection, not answering the phone and putting the kids straight on and being totally cold is absolutely heartbreaking when you’ve done nothing but support him and are continuing to support him by letting him walk away from his responsibilities. Because while he’s walked away from all of you, he’s still seeing the DC (even as a Disney Dad) where as he has entirely emotionally abandoned you with no care for the impact this is having on you personally. Depression can lead to selfish behaviours, but that does not make this emotional abandonment any easier to cope with or perhaps to forgive.

In your final argument, did you feel it was a legitimate row or manufactured to give him a reason to leave? Do you feel this is something he’d been planning for sometime? Was the caravan lined up already? Do you feel he was blaming you for everything in your row, or was he taking any responsibility for the issues?

It sounds like you’ve been super woman managing your lives, supporting him to work away, supporting him through a difficult year and now dealing with this. And this is how he repays you. I’d be bloody livid. You deserve SO much more.

I wonder if he has any idea what you’re coping with? I’d be tempted to drop the kids off with him for a week and go on holiday for your own break. Give him a taste of his own medicine and he might see what he’s doing to you!!

Keep going you absolute warrior x

I agree you are a warrior!
A word of caution about this therapist - no therapist should be contacting you unless you are the client.
Even if the other person has booked and paid for the sessions, a therapist should be keeping attendance as confidential.
It is unethical to do otherwise.
The only other option is that the client has given complete permission for someone else to know they have attended. Maybe that’s what’s happening here?

OP, I am not intending to be antagonistic, and I have been in a longer relationship/3 kids/house/the whole shebang! With an errant husband.

However, and this is to think about - if he is away so much, and still needs a break, and there was still the terrible argument mentioned at the start (about what?), maybe the communication around resolving conflict is somewhere between not great and terrible. Is it possible that you are more generally angry than you have perhaps realized, which has contributed to a breakdown in communication.

There is a real dichotomy between the actions you say he takes and your assessment of him as a person and husband.

OP, I completely understand the anger. He's engaging about the children, but is he actually stepping up or is it still largely on you? Becuase tht would be making me very angry too. I'm sorr you're going through this. He's not behaving well.

Maybe he`s fed up.

Oh.

Well that's ok then

Let him leave his wife and family hanging till he feels better then. Yes?

Not much else op can do.

She could choose to be mistress of her own destiny and make some choices independently of him. She’s certainly entitled to, and anger is a very effective fuel for getting things done.

You're being too passive op.

Give him a kick up the arse.

Do you work?

30 years on from where you are now. I thought my lovely husband was having some sort of breakdown. He wasn’t- he had another woman. I sometimes don’t know how I got through it, but it helped for me to see that he wasn’t the man I thought he was all those years we had been together. If he had been that lovely man, he would never have left.

Although your husband has suggested counselling, and made an appointment, just remember that whatever he tells you the counseller said it may not be true. It could be that he wants someone to give "permission" for what he has in mind to do, or if not permission then a mechanism for pretence that things are not his idea.

This is precisely what my exH did.
I also overheard him prior to our break up, “advising” his friend who was divorcing, to “just go to Relate so it looks like you've tried”. Unbelievable.

She can tell him she's made the decision for him

Stop protecting him.
Tell your family the truth so they can support you AND your children.

You deserve better than this selfishness.
How convenient that he needs a break from family life....don't we all🙄.

I think women tend to put their husbands on a pedestal. They are never as good as you think they are.

id kick him out for good to be honest.

Thanks again for all your messages. I’m a bit nervous to post an update and not even sure why I am, except that I feel like when you have all given such great words, advice and sympathies I don’t want to just drop off the thread.
Some advice from a friend yesterday changed a lot for me. My husband and I had a chat today on the phone, the first actual talk in nearly 2 weeks. I asked him if he still loved me and he said yes. I asked him if he ever wanted a life back at home with his family or if he felt that although he loved me, it was the start of a new chapter for him? He said no, he wanted to be back at home but didn’t know how. I asked him how he felt and he said he felt the worst mentally that he had in his whole life and it was getting worse. I asked him why he was being so cold with me and he said guilt and shame. I asked him if he felt like he was having a mental breakdown and he said yes.
So I offered him 6 weeks. I said for 6 weeks we would not communicate at all. We would tell the children he was going on a big work trip abroad. I told him that in that 6 weeks I wanted him to work fully on himself…. Do the counselling, go to the GP and get on some medication, start AA, journal, run, go to bloody church if necessary… just use the 6 weeks with absolutely no outside noise/distraction to do all the work to make himself better. After the 6 weeks we meet and decide one way or another what to do and how to move forward and do so with absolutely no excuses on his part.

I absolutely know that many (if not all of you) will think I’ve lost my mind and that I should just kick him to the kerb. The truth is, I keep thinking about our wedding vows ‘for better or worse, in sickness and in health’……maybe this is his worse and this is his sickness. I also think about how if I had some kind of mental breakdown, how would I expect to be treated by my husband? The answer is I hope he would treat me with compassion and understanding.

I am VERY aware that this could totally backfire and right now he could be laughing at me, shagging his mistress, getting pissed and that things only get worse but I can’t control his behaviour, only my own. I feel like if it all goes to shit I can walk away having upheld my vows and tried all I can to keep our family together. If he betrays my trust that’s on him, not me.
I also think if 6 weeks could get us back on track and give us another 40 years together then it will have been worth it.

So thats where I’m at, putting full trust in my husband and the man that I married to do the right thing and use this time wisely. My parents are supportive of it, my MIL thinks it’s a terrible idea 😂 But I figure, things can’t get much worse than they are right now, maybe it’s the re set we need.

I also feel weirdly relieved. Like I can take some distance from it and all the emotions tied to it. The children are used to him working away so I think they will be fine. It also takes the stress out of Christmas and them feeling sorry for him being alone. I intend to start my own therapy and in 6 weeks time, I know I can walk away if I need to.

This really tickled me 😂

From my own experience with my long term partner, this sounds like it could be alcohol induced depression.
If he's drinking large quantities, it starts to rewire the brain and my ex became very susceptible to depression as he approached his 40's. It made him unable to cope, or be part of, family life.

I'm not sure the 6 weeks no contact with the children will help with this. Does he need to stay positive and keep up communication- especially with young kids, it's a very long time for them and it means not seeing him until mid-January . . .