My story - welcome to my world .....

Hi Everyone,

I am so glad I have discovered this community... in the first few days, I have found out more useful info than in the six weeks since he left.

We were married for 18 years (together for 22- over half our lives.) We have had a tough couple of years, death of my mum, serious illness of his dad and my sister, house move, new job and possible redundancy. He is a hard-working chap who can verge on being a work-a-holic, working an average 65-75 hour week and that is what I thought the problem was.

He seemed to be losing perspective in what was important over the last 12 months and failed to put me and the kids before the job and more so since xmas. To cut a long story short, I was trying to remind him that he needed to put us first but this led to a series of rows, resulting in him finally admitting that he didn't love me anymore and apparently had felt like it for some time. He packed his bags and left two hours after this admission.

I never, in a million years, expected this to happen. Despite our problems, I loved him and still do.

Six weeks on he is in a rented house, I believe there is no-one else involved, he is seeing our kids twice a week and being financially fair. However, I still can't understand where it went wrong. He has shut off emotionally from me and won't discuss 'us'. When I ask 'why' all I get is 'Ive told you why - I don't love you anymore. To me that is the end result - not the reason why. He can't/won't tell me what he wants from his life, just that it's not me.

I am just getting on with things as best I can and thank god every day that I have a good network of friends around me who have made this last six weeks bearable. You certainly find out who your friends are don't you!???

You certainly find out who your friends are don't you!???

Oh yes! And the secret is to find out when they are getting tired of your problems and find yourself a community where everyone understand what you are going through.

Welcome

Give yourself and your relationship some time and dont discuss things with him now..he wont be able to answer anything any questions. Watch out for yourself, be kind to your soul and body ( not too many drinks, no drugs, no selharming) and take a tiny step each day.
After a few month when you are much stronger you can very carefully start again to open communication, if he still refuses just carry on walking (or limping, or crawling)

Hi, welcome to wiki, sorry to hear the story, its repeated through the whole forum unfortunately, my own very similar, although in my case there is another woman and being more and more cynical, I would suspect the same in your case as they seem to need someone else as a crutch to limp away on. They never seem to want to discuss the issues and won't go to relate etc. Basically they dont give you a second chance and just leave their old lives behind.

Its early days and he might just be having a bit of a mid-life crisis in which case perhaps you can give him some space and he will change his mind or realise what he's lost. I hope thats the case, but if it isn't you can talk to us all here and it is amazing what being able to chat about things can do.

Keep going and keep talking and we're all here for you if you need us.

JezzieJ

In the background, you explain, you explain much about how many issues your huband and you have had to deal with recently. These alone could easily have overloaded him, and I would guess he needs space to recover and consider what has happened. I would advise absolute minimum of pressure, and use any contact opportunities to care, rather than insistance that he should explain. There may be another, as suggested by ghosthunter, but be very careful to be sure about that.

Just a bloke's perspective...... we're a bit different about how we manage issues...... I hope it is of some assistance.

Best wishes

Kalamari

Yes, I too thought, and a bit of me still does, that the stress had got to him and he had simply packed and run.

However, 6 weeks on he is still as resolute. Now, I think that all of those things had an impact and instead of taking them as 'individual' events he channelled them into one big problem and ended up with that being me! To be fair, I was giving him a hard time over the amount of time he spent at work ...... I was obviously fighting the wrong war!

I know it looks to everyone, me included at times, that there must be someone else lurking in the background, but I can find no signs of that ..... and believe me I have been looking.

His family also thought the same but like me, they can see no evidence of this and he swears to us all that this is not the case.

It seems to be that there is no going back from his point of view but he is not pushing for any sort of resolution, divorce, financial or otherwise at the moment, so I am not sure what to do for the best other than trying to prepare myself for the future.

Hi Jezzie

I'm sorry that you are going through this. You will find this site a good resource as well as supportive.

Someone told me in the beginning that if and when you find out that someone else is involved little things will come back to you that you didn't pick up at the time.

Many said to me that there would be someone else as a man doesn't leave his wife of many years without someone else being involved. In my case they were all correct.

Men do deal differently with problems than women. A woman is likely to keep looking at a problem, picking at it, trying to see it from every angle, wanting to talk about it, discuss it etc. A man is likely to look at it, see he can't do anything about it so put it away. I think that was from a book called somthing like 'why men don't listen and women can't read maps'

It is important that right now you do what you need to to keep your mind and body healthy.

Take care
Tricia

Thanks for your kind words everyone .... this whole situation is a nightmare and I am still hoping to wake up!!

However, today I wrote him a letter ... whether I send it depends on how the next couple of days go. I wanted to tell him that it took two people to make our marriage fail and I take some responsibility for that ... somewhere along the line I took him for granted and stopped trying to make him happy, I sort of expected it to happen naturally ..... but do you know what ... he stopped trying too!! I stayed happy, and settled for my lot, but he didn't. The thing I can't get to grips with is that he didn't give us the opportunity to try and sort it out. He ran immediately after telling me how he felt, put up the emotional barriers and is standing his ground with no signs of indecison.

He is now living 45 minutes away in rented accomodation despite the kids asking him to stay nearby. His new place is closer to work and far enough away to avoid those awkward confrontations with my friends and family and reminders of our life together. He is seeing the kids (well, when they agree to see him!!) and being financially fair. He is still wearing his wedding ring (but does this actually mean anything!?) and not pursuing any sort of resolution, legal or otherwise.

I truly believe that there is no-one else involved, in so many ways it would make it easier to deal with if there was... Anger can be an amazing driving force!!

Do I stay with the status quo for now or do I take charge and start the ball rolling ..... I really don't know.