Separated and confused - 10/06/13 11:03 PM
This may get a little long, so I apologize in advance.
We met online back in 01, I moved to Canada to be with him in early 2002. I was able to get a job here in the US about a year later so we moved back here to the US. We got married in 2003 in order for him to be able to stay in the US and get started working. I loved him from the first day I met him and my feelings have only grown over the years. I was 21 and he was 22 when we got married.
Over the course of the years, on the outside our relationship looked picture perfect. He would spoil me with anything I wanted, we went on lots of vacations together, and in general we had good enough fortune to be able to buy anything we wanted to within reason. We currently own a house, 3 cars, and a rental property.
He has never been the type to show emotions, EVER. I have seen this man cry one time since I've met him and that was the day my mother passed away.
He made a few friends at work, but never really got close to anyone where he could just call them up and see if they wanted to go for a beer. He has a few friends at home where he could do that, but never seemed to be able to connect with anyone like that here. I have my friends that I grew up with and I also have a sister I'm very close with. He doesn't have any siblings.
In 2010, we started looking around for ways to invest some money. I wanted to buy a house to flip and he wanted to buy a place that didn't need any work but wanted to just start renting it out and be a landlord. We ended up going with what I wanted - the flip. We bought a foreclosed house at the end of 2010 and we had to gut the thing from head to toe. I learned how to do drywall, painting, little bits of electrical and plumbing and everything in between. My husband ended up doing the bulk of the work at the house, and had to do a lot of the planning. It seemed like everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong with this house. It was a huge nightmare and there were days I just wanted to walk away from it. We ended up finishing up with the house this may and then we got it rented out starting in July.
My dad also was involved in the project and would come over and help us do some of the work. I did pay him though, but nowhere near the amount it would have cost if we hired someone to do the work. My dad is not very well off at all and struggles a lot with money. He is also very unreliable. He says he will be there at 2, and he might show up by 6 or not at all. He is also like that on holidays. Will show up late, or not at all, or will show up already having ate somewhere else. He also decided to marry a woman who is in her early 20's (he is nearing 60) and they have a child together and another one that is due in Nov. His wife has never worked a day in her life and would call me all throughout her 1st pregnancy to ask me to drive her to the doctor, hospital, stop at the store for this that and the other, and stupid me would go every single time.
My husband and I got to be in pretty close contact with one of his friends (the best man at our wedding) and his wife about 2 years ago. They live in Canada, so they would come to visit us and we would go visit with them. I was pretty close with both of them myself, we would text a lot and play video games together online a lot and we were all friends. My husband started talking via text pretty often with the friends wife. She is the type of person that is usually closer with guy friends and she is pretty close with her dad. They didn't hide the fact that they talked a lot from me or the husband and I just let it be. Over time though, I started to get suspicious and bitter. Finally around Christmas this past year, I looked through his texts. They flirted and everything but I never found any naked pics or any "I love you's" or anything like that. She had been going through a hard time with her parents and he said that he was providing her with support with that and just in other life areas. She is 10 years younger than him as well. I asked him if anything happened between them and he said that nothing did, they were just friends and I was overreacting. I looked through his texts again sometime in January and she said she was sorry for causing me to get angry at him and asked him if they should stop talking. He told her that no, they didn't have to stop talking. He also told her that I said that I never trusted him. So I left it at that, and I did say at the time that I didn't trust him and that I thought she was immature and all sorts of stuff. I did ask him a few more times over this past year if she was hitting on him or if he wanted to be with her, and if he would just tell me if he didnt want to be with me. He told me he would tell me if she tried anything with him. They were just friends and he didn't like to be told who he could be friends with. She ended up leaving her husband in January of this year and moved out. He seemed surprised by it, but she claims that he was hitting her. They are still apart now, but I'm not sure if legally divorced yet.
All through the beginning of this year and most of last year, things definitely slowed down in the bedroom department. I just took that as a sign that we were tired after working at the other house and didn't take it personally. He started to act distant and snippy with me probably around Feb or so this year. He started not to be so affectionate towards me, and he just seemed like he was hardened and not his usual happy self. When I would ask if he wanted to do something, he would just say "we'll see" or "Maybe" so it made it really hard to plan things with friends. I just thought he was feeling the stress of the house catch up with him and he never said otherwise.
Finally in April, after dinner one night he asks me if we can talk. I panic immediately and start to feel all the blood drain from my face. He says that he wrote me a letter and would like me to read it whenever I felt like I wanted to. So I read it right there with him. He said that he knew that I could tell he was acting strange and wanted to let me know why that was. He told me that he felt bitterness and resentment towards me for doing the house project we ended up doing, he said that he felt like I left him there alone and "checked out" of it. He said he felt that we had been drifting apart for a few years and ever more so after our house project. He told me that he thought my dad was on a self destructive path and wanted absolutely nothing to do with him anymore and felt that should something happen to him that his wife would run to me for help or money. He also said that he felt my sister was dragging down our relationship and that she was sort of in the same boat as my dad, she didn't have a steady job but had just finished university. He felt that her attitude was negative and that I was getting a negative attitude about things as well. He said he felt like I didn't put him first and that I was busy trying to take care of my sister and my dad all the time. He told me that he noticed my lack of caring about my appearance, and said that he wished I would wear some makeup or nicer clothes on occasion. After I read the letter, I felt hurt and picked on but I was glad that he told me how he felt. In the weeks after that, I asked him if he thought he would want to try some counseling and he agreed to it. He said that he wanted to go by himself at first and that at some later point we could try the couples counseling. I found us each a therapist and they work at the same place. They said that we could do individual counseling and then when we wanted to do couples counseling we could all 4 go together. So he started therapy at the very end of may and went every 2 weeks. I started going as well.
His behavior didn't improve and he was still acting distant and cold to me even after the letter. I started doing things to try to fix the problems such as telling my dad "No" if he asked for a favor, and in general distancing myself from their situation. I started to wear some nicer clothes and makeup when we went out on dates and things like that. I bought him a few small gifts here and there just to let him know I was thinking about him and that he meant the world to me. So, middle of June I come home to a book and another letter. The book was "codependent no more" and the letter said that he was sorry for the way he was acting, and he knew I could still tell something was wrong. He said that he couldn't help but to feel angry and bitter towards me for my wanting to do the house project and him not wanting to. He said he also blamed himself for not being more open about not wanting to do it and took responsibility for that. He also started talking about children and how he didn't think that we had a stable environment here to do that. He said that his therapist identified him as being codependent and he said that he spent most of his life doing things for others and put his wants aside for everyone else. He said he wanted to take a few days for himself and hoped that I would understand. So he got a hotel room in another part of the city but then one of his friends from canada invited him up for the weekend so he went and had a guys weekend. He told me that he loved me in both of the letters he wrote.
A few more weeks go by and he is pretty much the same, just keeping to himself and not talking much and just seeming depressed. I decide to write him a letter of my own. I tell him that I am sorry for wanting to do the project, I didn't realize that he wasn't fully into it, and I was sorry for him feeling abandoned. I told him that I also didn't like my dad's situation, but there was no way I could completely cut him from my life. I said that if he wanted to, we could move to Canada and start something different, especially if we decided on kids. I said that I was willing to do anything for us and that I took our vows seriously. About a day later, he was just like his old self, he was very affectionate towards me and seemed happier than I'd seen him in forever. His parents came down to visit a few days later (this was during the 4th of july ) and they thought everything was going well. This lasted for about 2 weeks and then like a switch, he changed again back to his depressive self. I sat him down one saturday in the middle of July and said that I was very worried about him and that I was pretty sure he was depressed. I asked him questions like what he was happy about and he replied with "not being dead" I tried to talk to him about happy childhood times and I recalled different things my sister and I did together or things I did with my mom that made me feel happy when I thought of them. The things he told me were depressing things that weren't at all happy memories from childhood. He told me that he felt like he had no emotions at all and that he felt numb to everything. He said he didn't want to do anything, didn't want to go out, do anything or make any type of plans. We had a cat that was just diagnosed with cancer and he said "I should feel something for our cat, but I just feel nothing" I called my therapist right away and told her that I was really worried about him. She in turn, called his therapist and then his therapist called him to talk about his depression.
At the end of july, I got our phone bill and saw some numbers he had been calling were apartments in another part of the city. I confronted him about it and he told me that he had been thinking of moving out and that at his latest therapy appointment, the therapist had suggested it as well. So on Aug 3 rd I laid there on the couch dripping tears as he moved out. He held me and hugged me and said that 'everything will be ok" and said that he had to be on his own for a while and that it was HIM that needed fixed. He said that he was tired of hurting everyone he loved and that he wanted to do something on his own and try to fix himself.
I asked him if he would agree to try a couples therapy session and he said he didn't think that it would help since he was the one with the issue, but that he would go and see anyway. So we went to the couples therapy on aug 7. The session was with the therapist I have been seeing individually. The therapist asked him to be honest and clear with me and asked him if he wanted me to contact him at all or not. He said that he would prefer that I didn't contact him for a month because if I did, it wouldn't allow him to really focus on his issues and he would be worried about me. I told him that if he wanted to, he could contact me at any time but I would respect his wishes and leave him be for now. The therapist said that it seemed like we were on 2 different waves right now. She made it clear to him that I knew exactly what I wanted, and that was to do anything to fix our marriage and he said that he was still not sure what it was that he wanted. He said that this was all new to him and that he didn't know if he wanted to be in the relationship or not still. The therapist said that she was surprised at how well I handled the session since it was a pretty brutal one. I was just basically in shock and I didn't know how to react. He didn't ever tell me that he was thinking of ending our relationship, he just said that he "wanted some space".
I was hoping he would realize that I really would do anything for our relationship and that if only he would have communicated to me he was unhappy, I could have worked on things earlier instead of waiting until he exploded from keeping everything in.
I ended up having the most awful month in August- had to put one of my cats down as he had stomach cancer, had another cat with a burst tumor on his toe which also turned out to be cancer. My grandmother passed away after an attempted suicide which she recovered from and then went downhill.
To top all of that off, I fell at work in the middle of aug and had some small fractures on my foot and had to be off work for a bit over a month. Just got back to work last week and my foot is still sore but healing up.
I'm used to jogging and or bikeriding and I would do that everyday at lunch to get my mind clear. When I was off work, I couldn't do any of that because of my foot.
I didn't contact him at all for the whole month of aug but on the 30th after my grandma passed away I messaged him online and just filled him in on everything that was going on. He said "I'm sorry" for the crappy things that were happening to me. He also remained pretty cold and short in the convo. I didn't message him again until the middle of sept and then again it was just a message online. We talked a bit and he said he had been doing a lot better, his anxiety had come down and he was spending some time making new friends, working out etc. He said that his therapist had noticed a change in him. He did also mention that he was thinking about things of course, and that living alone was hard but he was managing. Told me that he asked his therapist about my meeting her and she said that "it wouldn't be a good idea".
In the meantime, my therapist suggested that we try to schedule a session with his therapist and him to see where he stands on things. My therapist seems to be forcing him into a timeline to make a decision and I don't feel like that will be the right thing to do. Anyways, he ends up declining the session so I didn't have to deal with it anyways.
I got a copy of "divorce remedy" and read that sucker in about 1 day. I've started getting a life of my own - going out with friends and family. Though at the same time there are still days where I wake up and immediately have to throw up. Sometimes I just randomly burst into tears. Some days I feel like I'll be ok no matter what happens. Its the unknown which is the scariest.
Fast forward to this week, I figured I would try something different when I talked with him. I messaged him online and just chatted about regular everyday stuff. Didn't bring up anything to do with our relationship. Just talked sports, music, movies, tv etc.. He was WAY more warm to me this time around. Gave me a few smiley faces and even some haha's in there. He asked me about how my foot was doing and gave me a compliment about how he thought I could manage the department I work in better than my boss. We ended the convo with wishing each other a good night. I haven't contacted him since then.
All of my friends and family are telling me I need to give him an ultimatum and he's just stringing me along while he figures himself out. His parents continue to text me and tell me they are embarrassed by his behavior actually.
In my heart, I don't feel like pushing him for an ultimatum will do any good. He asked me for space and said he needed to be on his own for a while. I'm trying my hardest to give him space, but also want to keep in touch with him but try to keep it light natured for now.
Thanks for reading this super long post.
We met online back in 01, I moved to Canada to be with him in early 2002. I was able to get a job here in the US about a year later so we moved back here to the US. We got married in 2003 in order for him to be able to stay in the US and get started working. I loved him from the first day I met him and my feelings have only grown over the years. I was 21 and he was 22 when we got married.
Over the course of the years, on the outside our relationship looked picture perfect. He would spoil me with anything I wanted, we went on lots of vacations together, and in general we had good enough fortune to be able to buy anything we wanted to within reason. We currently own a house, 3 cars, and a rental property.
He has never been the type to show emotions, EVER. I have seen this man cry one time since I've met him and that was the day my mother passed away.
He made a few friends at work, but never really got close to anyone where he could just call them up and see if they wanted to go for a beer. He has a few friends at home where he could do that, but never seemed to be able to connect with anyone like that here. I have my friends that I grew up with and I also have a sister I'm very close with. He doesn't have any siblings.
In 2010, we started looking around for ways to invest some money. I wanted to buy a house to flip and he wanted to buy a place that didn't need any work but wanted to just start renting it out and be a landlord. We ended up going with what I wanted - the flip. We bought a foreclosed house at the end of 2010 and we had to gut the thing from head to toe. I learned how to do drywall, painting, little bits of electrical and plumbing and everything in between. My husband ended up doing the bulk of the work at the house, and had to do a lot of the planning. It seemed like everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong with this house. It was a huge nightmare and there were days I just wanted to walk away from it. We ended up finishing up with the house this may and then we got it rented out starting in July.
My dad also was involved in the project and would come over and help us do some of the work. I did pay him though, but nowhere near the amount it would have cost if we hired someone to do the work. My dad is not very well off at all and struggles a lot with money. He is also very unreliable. He says he will be there at 2, and he might show up by 6 or not at all. He is also like that on holidays. Will show up late, or not at all, or will show up already having ate somewhere else. He also decided to marry a woman who is in her early 20's (he is nearing 60) and they have a child together and another one that is due in Nov. His wife has never worked a day in her life and would call me all throughout her 1st pregnancy to ask me to drive her to the doctor, hospital, stop at the store for this that and the other, and stupid me would go every single time.
My husband and I got to be in pretty close contact with one of his friends (the best man at our wedding) and his wife about 2 years ago. They live in Canada, so they would come to visit us and we would go visit with them. I was pretty close with both of them myself, we would text a lot and play video games together online a lot and we were all friends. My husband started talking via text pretty often with the friends wife. She is the type of person that is usually closer with guy friends and she is pretty close with her dad. They didn't hide the fact that they talked a lot from me or the husband and I just let it be. Over time though, I started to get suspicious and bitter. Finally around Christmas this past year, I looked through his texts. They flirted and everything but I never found any naked pics or any "I love you's" or anything like that. She had been going through a hard time with her parents and he said that he was providing her with support with that and just in other life areas. She is 10 years younger than him as well. I asked him if anything happened between them and he said that nothing did, they were just friends and I was overreacting. I looked through his texts again sometime in January and she said she was sorry for causing me to get angry at him and asked him if they should stop talking. He told her that no, they didn't have to stop talking. He also told her that I said that I never trusted him. So I left it at that, and I did say at the time that I didn't trust him and that I thought she was immature and all sorts of stuff. I did ask him a few more times over this past year if she was hitting on him or if he wanted to be with her, and if he would just tell me if he didnt want to be with me. He told me he would tell me if she tried anything with him. They were just friends and he didn't like to be told who he could be friends with. She ended up leaving her husband in January of this year and moved out. He seemed surprised by it, but she claims that he was hitting her. They are still apart now, but I'm not sure if legally divorced yet.
All through the beginning of this year and most of last year, things definitely slowed down in the bedroom department. I just took that as a sign that we were tired after working at the other house and didn't take it personally. He started to act distant and snippy with me probably around Feb or so this year. He started not to be so affectionate towards me, and he just seemed like he was hardened and not his usual happy self. When I would ask if he wanted to do something, he would just say "we'll see" or "Maybe" so it made it really hard to plan things with friends. I just thought he was feeling the stress of the house catch up with him and he never said otherwise.
Finally in April, after dinner one night he asks me if we can talk. I panic immediately and start to feel all the blood drain from my face. He says that he wrote me a letter and would like me to read it whenever I felt like I wanted to. So I read it right there with him. He said that he knew that I could tell he was acting strange and wanted to let me know why that was. He told me that he felt bitterness and resentment towards me for doing the house project we ended up doing, he said that he felt like I left him there alone and "checked out" of it. He said he felt that we had been drifting apart for a few years and ever more so after our house project. He told me that he thought my dad was on a self destructive path and wanted absolutely nothing to do with him anymore and felt that should something happen to him that his wife would run to me for help or money. He also said that he felt my sister was dragging down our relationship and that she was sort of in the same boat as my dad, she didn't have a steady job but had just finished university. He felt that her attitude was negative and that I was getting a negative attitude about things as well. He said he felt like I didn't put him first and that I was busy trying to take care of my sister and my dad all the time. He told me that he noticed my lack of caring about my appearance, and said that he wished I would wear some makeup or nicer clothes on occasion. After I read the letter, I felt hurt and picked on but I was glad that he told me how he felt. In the weeks after that, I asked him if he thought he would want to try some counseling and he agreed to it. He said that he wanted to go by himself at first and that at some later point we could try the couples counseling. I found us each a therapist and they work at the same place. They said that we could do individual counseling and then when we wanted to do couples counseling we could all 4 go together. So he started therapy at the very end of may and went every 2 weeks. I started going as well.
His behavior didn't improve and he was still acting distant and cold to me even after the letter. I started doing things to try to fix the problems such as telling my dad "No" if he asked for a favor, and in general distancing myself from their situation. I started to wear some nicer clothes and makeup when we went out on dates and things like that. I bought him a few small gifts here and there just to let him know I was thinking about him and that he meant the world to me. So, middle of June I come home to a book and another letter. The book was "codependent no more" and the letter said that he was sorry for the way he was acting, and he knew I could still tell something was wrong. He said that he couldn't help but to feel angry and bitter towards me for my wanting to do the house project and him not wanting to. He said he also blamed himself for not being more open about not wanting to do it and took responsibility for that. He also started talking about children and how he didn't think that we had a stable environment here to do that. He said that his therapist identified him as being codependent and he said that he spent most of his life doing things for others and put his wants aside for everyone else. He said he wanted to take a few days for himself and hoped that I would understand. So he got a hotel room in another part of the city but then one of his friends from canada invited him up for the weekend so he went and had a guys weekend. He told me that he loved me in both of the letters he wrote.
A few more weeks go by and he is pretty much the same, just keeping to himself and not talking much and just seeming depressed. I decide to write him a letter of my own. I tell him that I am sorry for wanting to do the project, I didn't realize that he wasn't fully into it, and I was sorry for him feeling abandoned. I told him that I also didn't like my dad's situation, but there was no way I could completely cut him from my life. I said that if he wanted to, we could move to Canada and start something different, especially if we decided on kids. I said that I was willing to do anything for us and that I took our vows seriously. About a day later, he was just like his old self, he was very affectionate towards me and seemed happier than I'd seen him in forever. His parents came down to visit a few days later (this was during the 4th of july ) and they thought everything was going well. This lasted for about 2 weeks and then like a switch, he changed again back to his depressive self. I sat him down one saturday in the middle of July and said that I was very worried about him and that I was pretty sure he was depressed. I asked him questions like what he was happy about and he replied with "not being dead" I tried to talk to him about happy childhood times and I recalled different things my sister and I did together or things I did with my mom that made me feel happy when I thought of them. The things he told me were depressing things that weren't at all happy memories from childhood. He told me that he felt like he had no emotions at all and that he felt numb to everything. He said he didn't want to do anything, didn't want to go out, do anything or make any type of plans. We had a cat that was just diagnosed with cancer and he said "I should feel something for our cat, but I just feel nothing" I called my therapist right away and told her that I was really worried about him. She in turn, called his therapist and then his therapist called him to talk about his depression.
At the end of july, I got our phone bill and saw some numbers he had been calling were apartments in another part of the city. I confronted him about it and he told me that he had been thinking of moving out and that at his latest therapy appointment, the therapist had suggested it as well. So on Aug 3 rd I laid there on the couch dripping tears as he moved out. He held me and hugged me and said that 'everything will be ok" and said that he had to be on his own for a while and that it was HIM that needed fixed. He said that he was tired of hurting everyone he loved and that he wanted to do something on his own and try to fix himself.
I asked him if he would agree to try a couples therapy session and he said he didn't think that it would help since he was the one with the issue, but that he would go and see anyway. So we went to the couples therapy on aug 7. The session was with the therapist I have been seeing individually. The therapist asked him to be honest and clear with me and asked him if he wanted me to contact him at all or not. He said that he would prefer that I didn't contact him for a month because if I did, it wouldn't allow him to really focus on his issues and he would be worried about me. I told him that if he wanted to, he could contact me at any time but I would respect his wishes and leave him be for now. The therapist said that it seemed like we were on 2 different waves right now. She made it clear to him that I knew exactly what I wanted, and that was to do anything to fix our marriage and he said that he was still not sure what it was that he wanted. He said that this was all new to him and that he didn't know if he wanted to be in the relationship or not still. The therapist said that she was surprised at how well I handled the session since it was a pretty brutal one. I was just basically in shock and I didn't know how to react. He didn't ever tell me that he was thinking of ending our relationship, he just said that he "wanted some space".
I was hoping he would realize that I really would do anything for our relationship and that if only he would have communicated to me he was unhappy, I could have worked on things earlier instead of waiting until he exploded from keeping everything in.
I ended up having the most awful month in August- had to put one of my cats down as he had stomach cancer, had another cat with a burst tumor on his toe which also turned out to be cancer. My grandmother passed away after an attempted suicide which she recovered from and then went downhill.
To top all of that off, I fell at work in the middle of aug and had some small fractures on my foot and had to be off work for a bit over a month. Just got back to work last week and my foot is still sore but healing up.
I'm used to jogging and or bikeriding and I would do that everyday at lunch to get my mind clear. When I was off work, I couldn't do any of that because of my foot.
I didn't contact him at all for the whole month of aug but on the 30th after my grandma passed away I messaged him online and just filled him in on everything that was going on. He said "I'm sorry" for the crappy things that were happening to me. He also remained pretty cold and short in the convo. I didn't message him again until the middle of sept and then again it was just a message online. We talked a bit and he said he had been doing a lot better, his anxiety had come down and he was spending some time making new friends, working out etc. He said that his therapist had noticed a change in him. He did also mention that he was thinking about things of course, and that living alone was hard but he was managing. Told me that he asked his therapist about my meeting her and she said that "it wouldn't be a good idea".
In the meantime, my therapist suggested that we try to schedule a session with his therapist and him to see where he stands on things. My therapist seems to be forcing him into a timeline to make a decision and I don't feel like that will be the right thing to do. Anyways, he ends up declining the session so I didn't have to deal with it anyways.
I got a copy of "divorce remedy" and read that sucker in about 1 day. I've started getting a life of my own - going out with friends and family. Though at the same time there are still days where I wake up and immediately have to throw up. Sometimes I just randomly burst into tears. Some days I feel like I'll be ok no matter what happens. Its the unknown which is the scariest.
Fast forward to this week, I figured I would try something different when I talked with him. I messaged him online and just chatted about regular everyday stuff. Didn't bring up anything to do with our relationship. Just talked sports, music, movies, tv etc.. He was WAY more warm to me this time around. Gave me a few smiley faces and even some haha's in there. He asked me about how my foot was doing and gave me a compliment about how he thought I could manage the department I work in better than my boss. We ended the convo with wishing each other a good night. I haven't contacted him since then.
All of my friends and family are telling me I need to give him an ultimatum and he's just stringing me along while he figures himself out. His parents continue to text me and tell me they are embarrassed by his behavior actually.
In my heart, I don't feel like pushing him for an ultimatum will do any good. He asked me for space and said he needed to be on his own for a while. I'm trying my hardest to give him space, but also want to keep in touch with him but try to keep it light natured for now.
Thanks for reading this super long post.
