H needs help but won't admit he's depressed!

[UnreliableMemory]

Me and H have been together for nearly 30 years, from our late teens and early 20's respectively, he's older than me by 5 years. For a period somewhere in the middle I was guilty of serial infidelity, casual encounters, work flings and one night stands. I don't know why, just an age/immaturity/alcohol/ego thing. Over the past couple of years H has started bringing this up more and more frequently. More worryingly he's becoming increasingly withdrawn and lost all interest in intimacy and s3x. He's even started covering up, he won't be seen even in his underwear let alone naked. He's sleeping almost nightly on the sofa.

There's no anger there, just very sad watching him disconnect from life. He's offered to move out but I don't want him to go. He's the most doting Dad, still a wonderful partner and friend albeit without intimacy or s3x. He's attentive and kind, still giving me frequent back rubs, foot rubs, runs me a bath, brings me and the kids breakfast in bed, and often surprises me with romantic treats. He does more than his fair share. But I can't go on without intimacy, and while I'm sure he has needs to be met too, he'd rather punishingly go without than get intimate with me, which he has said in the past he finds traumatic and embarrassing, constantly comparing himself to others.

He and we both have tried counselling several times over the years, sometimes with good results in the short term although it seems to just come up again and again. He won't entertain the notion that he's depressed. I'm desperately sorry for the damage I've caused him. I don't know how I can fix him. It's got so bad recently that I fear leaving him alone and coming back to find he might have done something unthinkable.

If anyone has been there, please can you help.
🙏

If you're worried he's going to kill himself then contact NHS Direct option 2 and speak to the mental health team. You can also contact his GP.

I imagine he didn't leave after all the cheating because you had a family to bring up but now he's looking to end the relationship.

It seems like you've tried everything such as counseling but he was unable to move on. The best thing to do is have a conversation with him and ask him what he wants to do.

What’s s3x?

It’s not obvious he is depressed.

it sounds like he is reasoning through that he wasn’t enough for you and he takes your infidelity as a rejection of him (which in a way it is).

I’m not sure I have any advice. I’d be devastated if this had happened to me.

i’m also concerned you don’t seem to know why you did it. You mention multiple people and ons so clearly not an affair with one person.

I think it's a bit cruel to veto him leaving if that's what he wants OP. It doesn't matter what you want.

He needs to be asked what he wants and you need to listen

I think depression is a bit if a glib way if looking at it. I mean: he may be clinically depressed but he may also be sad and confused because he is stuck in a loveless, sexless, marriage with someone whose infidelity broke his confidence and security.

Are his parents divorced? Did he go to boarding school? He may not have wanted to recreate that pain for the children.,Or he may gave taken the oain for granted as a natural part of his experience. He may not have been able to summon the strength to leave you over your infidelity before, or not wanted to break up the family, but the wound never healed. Just festered.

Help him get individual therapy so he can figure out what to do. You don’t need to do penance , but he also should not stay in this dysfunctional relationship.

You know your DH. If you think he is depressed then he probably is. My suggestion would be 1. hang in there. He may well come to the realization he is depressed but it can take time. 2. tell him you will never give up on him and will always he his wife no matter what 3. if the talk about you past isn’t helping don’t engage with it. If he forgave you in the past and together you moved on then it’s likely it’s the depression talking.

Possibly some PTSD there, especially if things were ok after the infidelity. Not difficult to see why he's comparing himself to others. Are you waiting for him to initiate intimacy? Maybe you should be the one that makes him feel worthwhile and attractive, have you tried to seduce him, make him feel special? If he's ageing there might be an element of mid life loss of libido which is bound to add to his anxieties and sense of inadequacy.

He sounds desperately sad, maybe start the conversation with a candid apology?

Only suggestions from my own experience. I do hope you both find a way to be happy, ultimately it might mean separating but you can haya great relationship living apart too. I split from a long term partner in similar circumstances and while I miss him every day we speak, text or see each other every day and I know it's more authentic now.

I think it could be a mistake to pathologise a natural response to what must have been a desperately sad time for your poor husband. Spousal betrayal and infidelity have a huge impact on trust and sense of identity.

I wonder whether, because you can not quite name precisely what it was that caused you to seek the company of other men, you may not have been able to fully own your infidelity and take responsibility for the events which caused so much pain, thus making the repair of the rupture very hard. Your husband may have put on a brave face in the period after your transgressions -that's not uncommon, although it is rarely indicative of things being 'fine'. The image of your husband no longer feeling like he can be naked in front of his own wife is so sad.

There's a saying: Beware the wrath of a patient man. I find this is true of many relationship dynamics when one partner is long-suffering or somehow denied closure; when they're done, they're really done. If he's 'offering' to move out, support him by bringing it to the table and explore what it might look like. It must have taken real guts to voice the extent of his reservations like that, so take him on his word and hear him out. At the end of the day, this is on you, OP.

I would ask him if he wants to separate, to get his head right and see if he can let go of the past. You can’t change the past, sounds like it’s broke him and he can’t get past it,
He might need to separate and move on but either way the balls in his court.

Is he depressed though? Or is he finally coming to terms with being married to a serial cheater who completely disregarded his feelings, agency and health for years? And is still doing so by refusing to let him set himself free from the person who broke his self image so thoroughly.

It can take people a long time to come to terms with infidelity, sometimes years, because it's such an incredible self esteem destroyer. Sometimes it's easier to just bury it and try and carry on, especially if you love the cheater. But eventually it erodes away at you and the end result is what you see before you - a man with so little self esteem left he can't bear to even be seen in his underwear.

You should do him a favour and let him leave. He sounds a good sort and he deserves better than you.

You need to let him go, he’s asked you but you don’t want him to, the relationship is over and it’s only yourself who doesn’t recognise this. He is so hurt but noble, he doesn’t want to leave and hurt anyone in doing so.
You destroyed his trust in you, intimacy is gone and his insecurities over your infidelities has killed the marriage.
Once you separate, you can live without forever feeling guilty about your past, let him be free to move on.