Husband dropped a bombshell

[Sadandneedahug]

Hi all. I need a hug and a handhold and any advice. I’ve been on MN for years but I’ve name changed for this.

Apologies if this ends up being really long, I’ll try to include everything.

In February of this year, my husband of 15 years told me we needed to work on things as he was feeling unhappy. We had a chat, both made a list of things we needed to do, and the lists were very similar. We were doing really well for a couple of weeks but then he had to go abroad for 3 weeks for work and when he came back he was quite poorly for a couple of weeks.

When he recovered (so about a month ago), told me he still wasn’t happy and wanted to leave.

We have two children aged 11 & 10.

He’s told me he hasn’t been happy for some time, and that he feels like we’ve grown apart. Says we live like co-parents and friends rather than a married couple. He says he doesn’t love me anymore, but still cares about me and will always love me as the kids mother.

He says he has tried for years to make an effort. However in my mind I’ve not seen this. We’ve had good times, great holidays and I think we’ve been happy. He’s been quiet and withdrawn over the last year - I asked if he was ok, and he always replied with ‘I’m fine’ or ‘stressed with work’. He has a stressful job so I believed him. I even said to him last year that I was worried I was losing him. He said absolutely not. After our chat in February this year, I asked if we were going to be ok - answer was yes. He acknowledged it would take hard work but would try his best.

I was quite poorly for 12-18 months in 2024/25 and the best I could do was to the bare minimum every day and no more. Due to this our sex life has dwindled. I also struggled when the kids were young with post natal depression, struggled with being a stay at home mum even though that’s what I wanted. I did end up going to work for a couple of days a week just to feel like me again.

Our house needs a fair bit of work and he says that gets him down. It frustrates me as well but I try to not nag him about it as I know how busy and stressed he is/was. We made a list of things that needed done and who would do them to break it down into easier chunks.

He wants to still be around, have a key for the house and come and go whenever if I’m ok with that. He’ll still help with kids, activities etc, DIY around the house and basically to let him know whenever I need some help. If I want him around to help with breakfasts/dinners/school runs he says he’ll do it. He also says we can still go on family holidays too.

He says he feels really guilty for doing this, but is feeling depressed, miserable, not himself and would rather put everyone through the pain now rather than waiting for years to come and do it then. He says doing it now will make our relationship better and his relationship with the kids better. He says he doesn’t hate me.

He is a fantastic dad.

I’m confused. Before he went on his work trip he told me he loved me. Loads of messages towards the end of last year saying he loved me. We had plans to move house in a few years, in March we booked a holiday for December. We had plans to start a new business together and the wheels were in motion for that - it’s easy enough to stop it though. It was all long term stuff.

I admit I’ve gotten pretty comfortable and just sailing through life, getting things done, going to work etc. Yes we probably have neglected each other. We’ve never had much alone time as we don’t have any childcare options. I have exploded at times with the lack of help around the house - cleaning, cooking, household chores etc. It got better for a week or so after each explosion and then went back to ‘normal’. However this past month I’ve never had so much help! He’s taking the bins out, making dinners, emptying the dishwasher, making the kids packed lunches. I don’t know if that’s just guilt. He’s also just redecorated our youngests bedroom - something he’s been saying he’d do since last year.

I know he’s had an individual counselling session. With all he has going on at work and at home she told him she’s surprised he hasn’t had a nervous breakdown. I’ve been seeing a solution based hypnotherapist to help with my confidence levels as I was struggling before all of this happened. I was beginning to get to a good place until this happened.

He has agreed to go to couples counselling to talk it through as we keep going over the same things and end up arguing. He says it won’t change anything but then says he’ll be honest and see what the counsellor says. I have no experience with this so I’m a bit worried about what will happen at these sessions. Do I say all of this to a counsellor?

I’m not blameless. I’m not trying to make excuses with my health problems and my issues when the kids were tiny. I could’ve given him more attention. I should’ve pushed it when he went quiet last year but I left him at his short answers.

I’ve asked him if there’s someone else, and he says no. I do believe him.

Thank you if anyone has read all of this, sorry it’s so long. I don’t even know what I’m asking for. I don’t want to split up. I still love him. I feel like a failure and I’m so embarrassed. I feel like an idiot. I cry every day. He says I need to talk to someone rather than keep torturing myself about it on my own. I’ve told very few people because of feeling like such a failure. I can’t even face his parents (who are furious with him) and they’re lovely people. I just don’t know how I can get othrough this. I can’t imagine my life without him - I feel like my whole future has gone.

Don’t accept the key and come and go as he pleases thing , it will be a disaster long term for your mental health and your children’s .

OP he wants his cake and to eat it too. You cannot allow this to happen it will destroy you.

You're missing that he is a father and has a caring responsibility to his kids with OP.

I think the same.

OP, he sounds depressed to me. Maybe suggest that to him as a possibility and ask him to see his GP?

I don’t know why you wrote that to the poster, it was unpleasant. They were correct, leaving the marriage doesn’t mean he wants to give up his assets, it’s an important point, and the poster didn’t suggest scaffolding him.

the op is requesting counselling to see if he will change his mind, she’s saying she needs support, thays why he is offering, what ever is going on in the home, it’s reached a level he’s said she needs help and is torturing herself.

so it’s highly unlikely she’s going to take the key, boot him out, as she’s still doing the pick me dance, and as much as it’s likely she should, it is also likely it’s 50 percent his home, so she can’t legally. He has to agree to it. He can also turn and tell her to leave.

it’s really not as simple as you’re leaving so off you pop. They need to discuss finances, who pays for the home, and the practicalities once she accepts it’s over.

Are they not his kids or something? What does he mean he "will help you", like the prime responsibility is all yours, and he gets brownie points if he helps? What a fucking cheek!

It's a hard NO to giving him a key. It's the epitome of arrogance suggesting he has a key - what he's saying here, is that you won't be moving on to a new man - because he will keep you where you are, and HE will be front and centre with all the "popping in". How dare he? If he mentions that again, just say "That won't work once I am in a new relationship".

There is another woman. Look, I'm old. Seen this before. Men don't leave unless there's a soft landing. 100% led with his dick. He's not uprooting his whole life just on the off chance he might get to dip his wick elsewhere.

Do some digging. Get into his phone and e-mails. Something happened on the work trip.

Also, see a lawyer asap. You can go for Compensation Principal if you have reduced your working hours to be the children's primary carer. This is more money in the settlement. You can get half of his pension, and you can get it in cash. What maintenance would he have to pay you each month? Or will he have the kids 50/50? If so, how will he balance that with work? Write out all the finances on paper and present it to him. Then start sending him links to bedsits. I'd scare the living shit out of him, if it was me.

HARD BALL.

He says he doesn’t love me anymore, but still cares about me and will always love me as the kids mother.

Google the script, cake eating and Chumplady…

https://chumplady.com/

And get your ducks lined up:

• Wikivorce
• Divorce for Dummies
• collect all financial documentation
• see an experienced family solicitor

Don’t let him take you to the cleaners!

My concern here is for the op - and suggesting that she look after herself at this point isn't half so "unpleasant" as that poster's string of suggestions in defence of the DH.

And there HAS been suggestion that he might be "not knowing what to do" or "muddling through" and my advice to the op is she need not be bothered about supporting him in any way with that.

Yes, of course, there will be legal issues to sort around the splitting of assets; however it is not incumbent on the op to accept any proposal of an arrangement where he has all his rights to return home and play happy families while simultaneously forging a new life they are not part of. I can't believe you would think it was?

It's a hard NO to giving him a key. It's the epitome of arrogance suggesting he has a key

Totally agree.

Plus he doesn’t want to actually look after his own children (hence the key) so you still feed, clothe and amuse them and he just swans in as Disney Dad. Also you can’t possibly move on from him mentally or build any life of your own because he never takes responsibility for the kids or gives you any mental space.

He’s not a great dad. A great dad would be arranging to set himself up somewhere that he could actually see his own children not passing all of the burden onto you.

Unfortunately this is a tale as old as time. Man gets fed up as all of the attention isn’t on him; but he still wants to be king of the family and swan in whenever it suits him. Meanwhile his wife who has been completely blindsided by this still keeps the home fires burning and can’t establish her own life because he’s still monopolising it. Don’t let him set all of the agenda. He moves out, he stays out. Don’t do the pick me dance. Assume there’s someone else. Get mad.

Don’t feel like a failure. He’s the failure. Think about it: who’s the one who has put in more hours if you add in housework, childcare, plus work? Who is the one who’s been really trying to get things back on track? Who’s the one who felt their life wasn’t truly their own? And yet he also expected you to be the bloody seductress and entertainment for him when he couldn’t even be bothered to load the dishwasher! Looking after everyone without any support is absolutely exhausting whatever the mean girls on here might say.

Tell him he has to have the kids a certain number of evenings/days a week to give you a break. Start taking control. See a counsellor yourself who specialises in relationships and will understand the dynamics. Start to work out what you want financially. See a lawyer. Maybe increase your work hours. You can do this.

The audacity of these men never fails to surprise me.

i also suspect he’s had his head turned.

All of this 100%

I'm sorry. There definitely is another woman. He wants to explore this relationship while keeping a foot in your door. Please believe all the many women here who recognise this script.
You need to be strong. You're not going to get any support from him, you will just get fucked around. You need to seek other sources of support - friends, family, a professional counsellor. Be ice cold towards him - you can breakdown and sob with the grief of losing your marriage in front of other people.
The best thing you can do is to show him the consequences of his actions. He may or may not want to come back to you once he experience the reality of losing his relationship with you, but be cautious if he does.
Sort out the finances, see a lawyer, get him to leave and change the locks.

I was in this exact position many years ago. He wanted the same scenario (out of the blue) - come and go as he pleased and “help out” while he had a whole other life. Turned out there was another woman (and many more since). I was a SAHM who had given up (willingly) my career. I was scared and devastated but what I discovered was a backbone and a big set of balls. I also realised I did everything - ran the house, 100% care of kids and had supported him totally in his job. This is a HIM problem. Gather information on all assets, find a solicitor (can always change if useless) but most of all find yourself and believe in yourself. You don’t need him. Think about what you want, what is best for your children and fight for it. My Ex tried to reduce me to the “nanny” as he pushed for weekends and school holidays. He did not succeed. Not even close to what he wanted. IMO he can’t be a “good father” because if he was he would want what was best for the children and not lie and torment the mother.

Maybe OP could offer to move out so he could continue living in the house and looking after his children and she would pop in to help when she felt like.
If he's such a decent guy I'm sure he'd be go for that...

This is not how depressed husbands behave.
This is how husbands shagging another woman behave.

Popping in isn't an option and nor is dipping in and out of parenting as he fancies, if he wants to split.
See a solicitor and file for divorce and a financial settlement as soon as you can OP. Take charge and tell all your friends and family, it's not shameful at all. Ask him to move out and hand over his key. If he's not with you he's against you. He's hedging his bets and that is so cruel.

When he says 'he doesn't love her' he means he doesn't feel the romantic and sexual sparkles he's getting with his new woman.

As a man who has made promises to his wife and still has children at home leaving his family 'because he doesn't love her anymore' makes him an immature selfish shitbag. Of course it's the wrong thing to do.

Nor do I necessarily. I'm giving him the benefit of doubt. Remember who this demographic is! Many have been cheated on by people they trusted, myself included, but this is not always the case. LTB is standard here

I'm not saying he hasn't had his head turned, maybe he has, but to me it sounds like classic middle age male breakdown/depression and the fact he's sought counselling is a strong indicator towards that being the root. I'm not being a male apologist or negating your own struggle. It's a slog and a large proportion of men either ignore, don't realise or refuse to accept that they're struggling. And then they crash and burn. Admit you're struggling and you hear "man the fuck up" in response.

Life is a fucker. You start as individuals, become a couple, all very exciting. You have a child, very exciting...but focus shifts...you have another...there's little or no couple anymore. As positive as that is it's negative to. Family replaces couple and nobody tells you IT'S FUCKING HARD! Add in reduces earning, increased costs, post natal depression, destroyed emotional bonding from physical sex (even the hugs and kisses that are meant) all the work of motherhood and the constant hyperfocus on the kid's every waking moment that has become the norm over the last 30 years and you're stuffed. Everyone is knackered and drifts into their phones as easy escapism.

Somehow you need to find a way to be a couple again. Once you seperate, even with the best intentions, it's over. Heads are guaranteed to turn then, it's less stressful.

Classic male midlife crisis - he wants you to be his mum, taking care of business, while indulging in his desperate attempts to feel young again, be it a much younger woman or man, or "trans" or spending money he doesn't really have on a sports car/harley Davidson /hair transplants/etc etc Men rarely age well and you do should not indulge him-your life matters too. You deserve a partner who loves and fancies you and respects you, which he does not.

FWIW OP I don't think we can 100 percent assume he is having an affair.

But that relatively slim possibility that he isn't is still not good enough reason to allow him to mess you about with his dithering. In fact, I think requiring he "pee or get off the pot" is the better course in either situation: if he is certain about leaving, it is no help to you to blur where you stand and delay your healing, and if he isn't sure what he is really doing, then shaking him awake to the reality of it is also the better course I think.

Anyway, I am sorry you are going through this, and seeing a good lawyer - which is now absolutely the correct thing to do given what he has said - will give you good practical support.

He wants to still be around, have a key for the house and come and go whenever if I’m ok with that. He’ll still help with kids, activities etc, DIY around the house and basically to let him know whenever I need some help. If I want him around to help with breakfasts/dinners/school runs he says he’ll do it. He also says we can still go on family holidays too.

The children are 10 and 11 - they aren’t small children. They can get their own breakfast and walk to school. When he moves out, change the locks and don’t let him in the house. He can collect the children on his set days.

OP, your husband is either in or out of the relationship. There's no half in and half out, where relationships are concerned. That's extremely unfair on you and the children. I'm afraid it looks to me, as if he's hedging his bets...and the only reason would be because there's someone else, and he's not sure where that relationship stands.

So no, he can't just nip around when he feels like it, and live as a single man the rest of the time.

You haven't got a clue.