Husband’s fallen out of love

[PunnyDeer]

Now what?

I am feeling so depressed. I’ve been having a really tough few months, my daughter has been in critical condition in intensive care for months, we almost lost her several times, my beloved uncle passed away yesterday, and today my husband has told me he had fallen out of love with me. I don’t want to keep going. Obviously, I have to because I have kids, but I just want to crawl up in bed and stay there.

He said it’s been a few months, and that that’s why he’s been distant and not wanting to talk.
He’s saying he still wants our marriage to work, but I don’t see how? I don’t know if I want to see in a loveless marriage.

What do I do, now? We have to live together for a while (Ronald McDonald House), but then what? I don’t have savings, and I don’t have a job, I’m a SAHM and the only income I have is carer allowance (I have two disabled children and my youngest). Can I even realistically find accommodation? We have three kids together, 4, 2, and 3 months old.

Thank you

What a ridiculous thing for your husband to land on you at this point in time. He sounds very self involved. Even if you were feeling this way, wouldn’t you pause to think that perhaps the extreme life circumstances you were in the middle of might not be particularly conducive to feeling in love??? Maybe take a breath and wait to see how things feel a bit further down the track? If he wants the marriage to work I don’t know why he would say something like this right now.

He is just blaming you because he isn't coping emotionally with what is going on and you are the punching bag.

Tell him he is part of the team who cares for your kids. And he made a marriage vow.
That you will not hear any more of him handing in his resignation until his children are all in school and until you are both in a much better financial situation.
Insist that he seek professional counselling to glean ideas about how to fall back in love. Tell him you will be patient.

Tell him not to drop the ball. Tell him to keep battling in the trenches and to give his head a good wobble. He needs to behave in the correct manner and help you all through the present hardship.

Do not entertain his childish, selfish statement. Remind him that love is a verb. He needs to keep practising love when the first glow of 'in love' dims.

He is not coping with your harsh reality.

It is perfectly possible to live with someone you love but are no longer in love with in the same romantic way you were. All that matters is what is right for the individuals. The awful things you're going through break through rose tinted romantic ideas. Could you ask about some support or counselling, obviously you might not want to do this for some time.

Thank you for your replies.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t want couple therapy - he thinks the therapist will be judgmental and encourage us to get a divorce.
He thinks it’s something we can fix just the two of us.

I would be very wary that he’d met someone else. Speaking from experience here.
Can you do any digging?

Unfortunately I agree with @BoxOfCats
I would suspect this is the beginning of the Script and that his way of dealing with all the dreadful things going on in your lives has been to seek solace from someone else.
I'm so sorry you are going through such a hard time OP.

So he fell out of love with you at the exact time you gave birth to your (and his!) third child??

Men don’t usually say stuff like this unless they’ve met someone else ime.

Reach out to every Agency out there. They are there to help. If you are struggling with a sick child in hospital there are Agencies and Charities that help, Agencies help with housing and financial issues, bereavement for your uncle, relationship issues, help is out there. Stop focusing on him being your solutions, he really isn't. Google help for all your issues and take all the support going.
Then you'll have a different perspective and he won't be what defines your decisions.
Good luck. Go for it.

He is naive and/ or manipulative. And his timing sucks. Neither of you is in a state to make major changes while your daughter is in critical condition. Both of your judgments have been compromised and your emotions are high. Accept what he says now, while realizing that one or both of you may change your minds with shifting circumstances. You don’t need to tell him that now. All you have to say now is “I see. In any case let’s work together for the benefit of our daughter”. And then do that for as long as necessary.

I agree it sounds like he’s met someone else. Whatever it is though I’m so sorry for what you’ve been going through OP. What a fuckwit your DH is to land this on you now.

Chercher la femme.
Sorry OP

I am really sorry to hear about your situation.

Do you have time to read? There's a good book by Rob Parsons "Loving Against the Odds ". He is a marriage counsellor with vast experience

All good things come to an end and all bad things come to an end too. Every marriage will eventually hits a crisis. How we deal with a crisis will determine the outcome

Love and marriage is a decision. Speaking from experience, sometimes you need to fake it until you make it. It's encouraging to hear your husband wants to work on things.

I hope it helps

He’s avoiding therapy because he knows it would out a spotlight on him not because therapists encourage people to divorce. If he really wanted to work on it he would be going to therapy. He’s probably got someone else lined up. Honestly you don’t have the bandwidth for this, focus on how you are going to manage financially, make sure you know where all the money is and what you are going to need from him going forward. If he’s going to leave he’s going to leave, you need to focus on you and the kids.

I’m so sorry OP, it sounds like you are going through a horrendous time, thoughts are with your little girl x

Your DH sounds like the last person who should be consuming your emotional energy at this time. Please just focus on your daughter. Put your husband's noise out of your head. At least for now.

Sorry for all you’re suffering OP. That’s tough. You aren’t in normal circumstances so I wouldn’t rush to end your marriage. Could it be a culmination of the last few months? Are you needing time together to rebuild once you can get a break? Lost love can find it’s way back if you could both meet each other’s needs. Sounds like things haven’t been great for you either but if you both give more than you take and find out what you need and him, it could work out. They say marriage is having to find a way to fall in love with the same person over again. Relate and others do some great books for this kind of situation. Thinking of your DD too. Whilst everything at crisis point it will be hard to navigate so just take each minute as it comes.

Thank you so much everyone for your help and advice.

There very much could be another woman.
Our marriage hasn’t been easy, but he’s never said anything like that before.
The timing coincide with finding out from the geneticist, a few months ago, that I have a genetic syndrome - it causes a bunch of problems including bodily and facial dysmorphic features.
He jokes about it often (he will call knockout toy brands - for example Megabloks, the “syndrome” version of Lego, jokingly blame my absent-mindedness or my dumb moments to Noonan syndrome, etc…), but I think (and I might be wrong) that, to some degree, he is a little serious and now believes he can do better.

I also passed the condition onto two of my children - my 4-year-old who is severely autistic and non-verbal, and my daughter in intensive care. So there might be a level of resentment there.

I am afraid I would strongly expect that his brain is largely swirling around in his nether regions at the moment

Cherchez la femme

its possible. I don’t think he is sexually attracted to me anymore

I’d put money on that he’s met someone else for sure. See a lawyer asap. You stay in the house he leaves.