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#2234600 03/31/12 06:48 PM
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I thought I'd lived the fairy tale romance. Met him 3 days after my 15th birthday, moved in together second year university, married at 25, children when I was 31 and 34. Then at 41.. I don't love you. I never loved you. We don't work. I don't care if I ever, ever, ever, ever, see you again. I can't live here anymore. I will throw myself in a river. I will die a slow death if I have to live here. I was never able to be me. I need out. Let me go. If you want me to be happy let me go.

Wow. This has persisted for over a month. I didn't see it coming but in retrospect, I think he's been mulling it over for months or years! By the time he tells me, he's villainized me, rewritten our past. He doesn't want to try just one more time with me knowing how he feels.

I need help. There is much more to the story, but any support will be welcome. Lately I've stopped pleading and begging and everything seems normal if I treat him well. He has not left the house. No one really knows. But he has left the bedroom and doesn't touch me at all. Very business-like in ways. But even friendly if I don't talk about R. Doesn't want to go anywhere with me alone, but if he does, he wants to come home early. When he goes out on his own, he's out past midnight and often until after 2, even 4. Says there is no OW.

???? If there is no OW, or even if there is, once he has muttered all of those words, what are the chances he might just change his mind? If I'm nice, well-behaved, start to follow the things he's always asked me to do? Tried the DB approaches, but went too hard core on them and he thought I was acting 'weird.' Started trying a more loving approach with him to normalize our interactions and he seems to respond to this a little better. Help!

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Okay, now have strayed too far from DB rules. Putting him into a corner. I am just not strong enough, not consistent to stick to them!

He has noticed changes in me, but swears it is because I am better off without him. He is willing to go to marriage counselling but only to help me through this.

He has deep-rooted, traumatic childhood issues that have surely affected our intimacy throughout the marriage. Things I only found about recently. Also a product of divorce at 11 years old, which psychologically has the deepest impact in boys.

He is dead set on leaving, but without a job (he has been a SAHD) he doesn't know how to proceed.

No sex, no hugs, no touch. Just quit his facebook page yesterday because I put up photos of us together (I did that because I had taken them all down and thought that would look suspicious). He panicked I think.

I take sleeping pills at night and see a therapist 3 days per week. Can hardly function at work. So worried for my kids. Don't want to tell them, and will NEVER tell them I decided on doing this. Daddy will have to take the fall for that one. I know you aren't supposed to make one into the villian, but I am STRONGLY against divorce when there are children old enough to understand the loss. I think he is being selfish, only thinking of him, not me, not the kids. We have built a beautiful life here and he is on a seemingly-MIL destruction path.

Thinks ridding himself of me will make him happy. Also quite content to see me and help with the kids. He actually wants me to just have him here as the Maid-Fix-It Guy, preparing dinner, etc. But no interest in me romantically. No love. And "I won't sacrifice."

I don't know if this is significant but physically I have not changed much since we married. Still thin, fit, probably better shape than I've ever been.. other than the scars of motherhood. I am 41, but am often told I look much younger. I am sure this is not about appearances.

I suspect with me as the primary breadwinner he feels I have too much control in the relationship. I am also somewhat neurotic, so I've never likes to have too many people in the house at once, whereas he would throw a party for 80 people. We have issues, but I think they are not insurmountable. But he is not willing to try.

Help friends!

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Spoke with Joanne during a phone consultation. Thank you so much Joanne. Your advice was practical. You are excellent at clarifying issues and giving me a plan. Right now a plan makes me feel sane.

Still insomnia. I have been trying to GAL but seems meaningless without him. I just want my old friend and lifelong companion back.

I did have a strange moment the other night. I went out late and hadn't told him I was going to stay out. He was surprised to find I went out on the town. When I came home he was in my bed! On his side of the bed! He hadn't been there for over a month, choosing to sleep on the couch or in the guest bedroom. I had been abandoned and now thought of the bedroom as my own. It was almost 2 a.m. and my space in the bed was free, with him laying in his old spot!

But I had spoken to Joanne that day, so I was level headed. I quietly brushed my teeth and went to the guest bedroom. I am sure he didn't even know when I got in.

Was this a test? An invitation? After all the coldness.. why back in the bed? Just two days ago I lost my cool and threw all of the DB principles out the window. I begged, pleaded, reasoned, tried to tell him he was selfish and not thinking of me and the kids, only himself. He responded by saying he was not going to sacrifice. He didn't love me and that was final. So why are you in my bed?

I wonder if he wanted me to come in so he could reject me again. Maybe there is some bizarre satisfaction in this. Maybe he would say he was sleeping there to be closer to the kids, because I was out. Maybe a power play.. if you are on the town, I get the bed and you can have the guest room. Of course I hoped that it was an offering or concession. But after all the mean words and rejection, I just didn't want to ask. I have stayed silent on it.

I have decided that if he asks me, I will simply say, "I thought you were in the bed because you wanted to sleep in the bed." That is all I choose to read into it. Tonight he will probably go out, and return to the guest room. If he wants to come to me it has to be with a little more intention and consciousness. I must stand up for my own dignity.

Until my next backslide...

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Last night he did not go out. But he went to bed in the guest room.

A part of me is sad and thinks I missed an opportunity.

The logical part of me thinks if I had gotten in the bed, he would have got out the other side and went to the guest room (although he was snoring like a baby). Please note he has not let me touch him AT ALL, no hug, nothing for about a month. I think he would say that he was sleeping in the bedroom to be closer to the kids bedrooms because I was out. (The guest room is on another floor of the house). And that would have been just a little punishment for me going out on the town unexpected.

Someone tell me if I'm on the right track. What if it happens again? Same response? Urggghhhh... I do think going out surprises him a little. Maybe more of that, and so I don't have to watch his every move or even worse... let him go out until all hours of the night.


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