think my hubby wants out [sad] dont quite know what to do

[micramummy]

my husband and I have been through the mill....to say the least. BUT I really felt like if we could just get through the next 18 months or so we will start being able to look forward and get somewhere.
never mind how difficult things have got for us in the past we have never really argued or fall out with eachother and always loved eachother.... a lot.
However, the last couple of months he has felt a little distant and although our sexlife had always had problems he seems to spend most of his time away fom me now, watches TV in other lounge and comes to bed really late. I asked him a few weeks ago if everything was alright and if he had met someone else and he just laughed and said don't be stupid , as if he had the time
and was just a bit down. This morning I asked him for a cuddle, he gave me a half hearted hug and I said " you dont even seem to want a cuddle me nevermind anything else, do you want to split up? whats going on?" and he said he didnt feel like he had any time to himself and needs to sort his head out.
he has gone to work and I dont quite know what to do? I did try relate a few weeks ago to see if we needed professional help to talk through everything we have been through. I went to 6 appointments but he went to 2 and then stopped saying he doesnt like it.

how old are your kids?

time to hmself

diddums

don't faun over him its degrading. remind him that you will find someone else and fuck them blind

Oh god another one what is wrong with these pathetic excuses for men!
There will be an OW lurking in the wings I bet my arse on it

I bet there's another woman too.

one daughter who is 6

It does all feel like the OW situation but I just cant see it?
something has changed though, he has suffered from depression on and off for years but that in itself is really tough to live with and I just dont know if he will ever be happy, we both have jobs, Im in training so income is low but we are manageing and its only for another 18 months.
we have a nice house and well.........it just feels like where ever we are and whatever he is doing he is still depressed and tired all the tme.

Can you have a look through emails/phone etc just to rule out another woman? Can you account for where he is all of the time?

He's not ill? Clinically depressed?

Yet again I say!! Being depressed is NOT an excuse to treat your partner like an emotional punching bag, to abandon your children physically or emotionally, and to fuck someone else!
But they all seem to be "depressed"!

he doesnt really email and he is a bus driver, he changed to that a couple of years ao after being made redundant and he seems to love it, he works all kinds of wierd shifts and timing is very tight because Im student nurse and we have to do opposite shifts to cover child care so he doesnt get much time to himself so cant really see how he would have chance to be seeing someone. I told him that when i quailfy Im just going to work part time and preferably nights so we have much more time together and its just while I am training its full time and I have no choice about hours.

sorry I didnt breath much in that last post lol i am full of cold and feel totally crap as it is!

he was on anti depressants for about a year ad a half but came off about a year ago, he was putting lots of weight on and said he wanted to come off. so he does genuinely suffer from depression

Does he keep fit?

so sorry but smell OW too based on what happened to me. But could be at early stage ie emotional attachment rather than gone to physical affair. BTW my H wass seeing OW very infrequently so I couldnt see where he could possibly see her but he was (Sorry if this is upsetting)

Posie right to ask re fitnesss -there could be a physical problem.

no he does no sport or social activity at all, never really has done, he goes for the occassional drink with lads from work and chats to them on phone/facebook etc but is always too tired ...zzzzzzzzz

I love him so much and it would be such a shame to split up now after everything we have been though. I havent been the wife I perhaps should have been but I know that and it IS exhausting being with someone so negative all the time

Whatever may be going on in his mind, the more you follow him about pleading for affection and attention, the less of it he will want to give. WHile I don't recommend being unkind to him or trying to pretend that you are having an affair, the best thing to do is to find something to be interested in and excited by other than him. I appreciate that you have a lot of demands on your time/money, but what hobbies or interests have you had in the past? Are you and he both getting equal amounts of free time to do something enjoyable? If not, address that right now ie take it in turns to mind the DC while the other parent goes to see friends or to the gym or the cinema or something. Focussing on nothing but the daily chore routine and Our Relationship is deeply depressing, everyone needs fun.

if he wants space/time out ...if he has started getting involved with someone else, okay we will havwe to split for the time being atleast but cant see how it is practially possible, we have a young child and both work shifts and he doesnt have any famly around here they are all miles away so he cant move anywhere round here, no way i afford this house on a nursing bursary, I dont know what to do

I actually have probably been going out too much! and I have rejected him sexually for a long time so if anything it is my fault and I dont follow him around, we have always been very close though and lots of cuddles and kisses and holding hands and talking but I think his mood has frustrated me more and more and possibly pushed me into spending more time away from the house although I calmed down a few months ago as I realised what was going on. but now I am here he doesnt seem to want to be with me anyway

The less you do the less you want to do, whether it's sex or running, making an effort to have fun or chores.

Space and time out means he doesn't want to put the work into your relationship and it's very selfish. Life is for living and not waiting around for others to treat you nicely so follow SGB's advice and get out on your own, then his moping won't control your life at all.

But if when he asks for time and space you responded that that's just what you need too, how would he react? Or is this him wanting your attention?

he drives me mad and I hate his negativity about everything, i work so hard to make things better for us, before I went to uni and retrained I was the main earner, I dont mind him going out if he wants to although money is very tight so sometimes we cant afford to go out.
I dont think i would want us to end now, before this I was finally beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel!
Oh god I think I am in shock

Micra - I'm sorry, you sound in so much pain. Having a cold doesn't help, I know!

I'm afraid the red flags in your posts are arriving by the bucketload. I'm so sorry, but I think it's highly likely he has formed an attachment to someone else. Whether it is yet a full-blown physical affair (PA), I don't know. These are the flags:

• Distancing from you: this is what people do to either justify a decision to have an affair (during the emotional affair (EA) phase) or while a PA is in full flight. Often, the distancing gets worse when a PA has taken hold.
• Saying he needs space and rejecting physical affection.
• The lack of sex in your relationship.
• His depression. I know what Mac says downthread, but depression induces flat, dead feelings in people. Affairs make people feel suddenly "alive" and so going from "dead" to "alive" can be especially intoxicating. This is never an excuse, but it means that depressed people are especially vulnerable to behaving like an arse.
• Busy, child and work-centred lives.
• His weight gain. Chances are this made him feel horrible. If your wife isn't having sex with you and you look like shit, the presence of someone who is telling you that you are in fact gorgeous and desirable is going to have a hell of an effect.
• Working all sorts of weird shifts. Never kid yourself that he "hasn't got the time". Chances are, it's someone from work, or he's not in fact working at all some days or nights. Or he's not meeting his friends at the pub.
• Chatting to work friends on Facebook or on the 'phone. Do you mean texting or conversations re. the latter?
• The biggest clue of all: the half-hearted, jokey denial about someone else. He was probably shitting himself and the jokiness was like nervous laughter. My H did this, as have countless others.

I'm getting a sense that you think he's probably having an affair of some sort as well and perhaps you have always believed that if that happened, you would end the relationship. Ending the relationship now however would cause chaos in terms of childcare and keeping your busy lives going, so you're putting your head in the sand a bit. Step back a bit and don't give yourself any rules about this. If it is an affair, you might decide to work with him on getting over it - don't constrain yourself to one decision.

What I can tell you is that avoiding the clues is not going to bring this to a head and it is only when everything is out in the open that your choices open up.

Do some detective work - or ask him to give you some respect and tell you what is really going on. Only you know what snooping you can live with, but in your shoes, having had a denial already, I would be moving heaven on earth to find some evidence.

okay so I have just manage to log into his facebook, NEVER done this before and suprisingly easy password to guess, braced myself and looked in inbox which had lots of messages in but NOTHING at all worrying or suspicious
already checked the phone on a couple of occassions and never been anything

If he is having an affair part of me doesnt blame him because I have rejected him sexually,alot, and been very busy with my training and work but I just need to know what IS going on, what CAN I do?
I have called my mum this morning and she is coming over, didnt say anything but she has been through a divorce and need to talk to her about it i think. I dont want to talk any friends I dont know, why I just dont?

Do you think there could be some jelousy on his part? YOu have given up one (?well paid) job to do something that (presumably) you are very interested in/passionate about. You also mentioned you are going out alot and sounds like you have a good group of friends (which is a good thing). if he is depressed and has had to do a career which was maybe not of his choosing and his social efforts are facebook plus a few visits to the pub, could there be some envy on his part? Perhaps this is making him feel resentful and pushing you away.

Think solo might have a point here. It's easy to delete phone messages and clear the log. Have you checked phone bills though? Or looked for evidence of another phone?

I do love what I am doing now and my last job although it brought in the money was so stressful and I was so burned out I am much less stressed and happy now I have finished, and he loves is job now he said he cant imagine being stuck in one place indoors all day now he has started the driving.
]a few years ago we were almost £20,000 in debt in a house we hated and having REAL problems with his ex and if anything the last couple of years since we moved away and have changed our occupations and reduced our debt to under £3000 things have been better than they have ever been if anything? thats why i am so confused

he has just called me and said it is nothing at all to do with me and he is absolutely not seeing anyone else he thinks he needs to go back on the anti depressants and doent know why he feels like he does?

Micramummy: Well that's encouraging. He may well not be having anything to do with anyone else, and if he is suffering from depression, the fact that he is going to get help for it is another good sign.
Also, do you know what's been causing you to lose interest in sex? Because, while no one is saying you should just lie back and let him have sex on you when you don't want to, being sexually rejected by a partner is miserable; above all it needs discussing so you don't get into a vicous circle of one partner asking for sex, the other refusing, and the more the first partner asks, the more reluctant the other partner becomes.