My husband and I have been together for 7 years, married for one. About 4 months after the wedding, he changed jobs and I supported him completely. Things were going great, so great that we decided to try and start our family the next month. Things continued to go well – he had to go on a couple of business trips, but nothing major. Right after Thanksgiving he had to go to Japan for 3 weeks and got back right before Christmas. We had a great Christmas, in fact, he said it had been his favorite holiday of the year.

For New Year’s, he surprised me and took me away for a long weekend. We went up to the mountains and played in the snow and often talked about how we hoped we’d start our family this year. The next week he was sent back to Japan for about 5 weeks, though he e-mailed me often and called me as often as he could – he got back right before Valentine’s Day. We had a good Valentine’s and he wrote me a poem about how much he loved me and how perfect our life was/is together.

About a week later it was like a light had just been turned off. Suddenly he was very distant, easily irritated and had a short fuse with his temper. He was never violent or anything, he just seemed to lose his temper more easily than in the past. I asked him if everything was ok and he would always say that he was fine. Finally, he told me that he was unhappy in our marriage and had been for about a year. He felt like he was taking advantage of me and that we’d made a mistake in getting married. He said that he thought I could do better and maybe he’d be better off alone. He says he doesn't want children at all now. I didn’t understand this, if he’d been unhappy for a year, wouldn’t I have noticed something was wrong??? But he never told me he was unhappy, in fact, he had told me how happy he was all year long, right up until this point where he now says he was unhappy all year. So this unahppiness he is feeling was very surprising to me.

We are now in marriage counseling, completed our 2nd session on Friday, though he seems unwilling to really “get involved”. He points fingers at me and makes issues over minor things, things that are really not marriage ending problems, fr example, that I haven't been camping with him...except the truth is, he hasn't been going either becausehe's been traveling so much, plus it was winter. At the same time, he confides in me about all the problems/frustrations at his job. He is frustrated and thinking that maybe he should look else where. He’s been working close to 60 hours a week and is often out of the country on business. He’s been back to Japan several times, just got back from Germany, is about to leave for Texas and then will head to Taiwan later this month. He doesn’t agree with many of the decisions being made by the management at his job and that frustrates him because it effects him and he can’t do anything about it. I just try to be loving, patient and listen to him and just be supportive, though I'm being torn apart inside by how much he distances himself from me. To look at a picture of him a year ago and then look at him today, he is completely exhausted, there are dark circles under his eyes and you can see the stress in his face, but he says everything is fine.

Everything is not fine – he continually points fingers at me and brings up minor problems as major problems. I can’t seem to win with him right now, he is stuck in his thinking that we shouldn’t be together. While we don’t fight with each other at all, in fact we actually had a great weekend and we laughed and joked a lot, there is still a very weird distance between us. This person has been my best friend for 7 years, he’s a wonderful man who I love deeply and up until this period in time has shown me nothing but love and treated me like I’m the center of his world. I’m scared he will not “see the light” until he’s completely destroyed our marriage. It just seems like he's looking at our relationship in a very "skewed" perspective, one that really has little to no truth backing it. I don't know what to do other than to be loving and patient, but I fear for his health.

Is it possible that he’s suffering from depression? Any other thoughts on what might be going on in his head? Is there anything I can do to help him to see the truth of our relationship? We’ve had a wonderful relationship, but I’m scared that the stress he's feeling at his job is being placed on our relationship just because I'm right there and an easy "target".

Thanks for any ideas or thoughts...
STINA

Welcome to marriagebuilders. It could be depression, but my guess is there is an other woman somewhere. Maybe he met someone in Japan.

One of the hallmarks of an affair is rewriting the history of the marriage. It seems like that is what your husband is doing.

If you ask him, he will probably deny it. If he uses the computer, I would install a key logger.

Also you might want to post on general questions II.

I agree with Believer, there probably is another woman and yes I think he is depressed because he feels guilty. This is exactly how my husband started to act, then about 3 years later the truth was finally revealed when the other woman's husband called me. During those 3 years he constantly told me that I was paranoid and imagining things and that if there was any problems with our marriage it was me. UUGGHH !!!!! I started to believe him !!!!!!! Well let me just say that once it all came out in the open then he treated me like I was a queen. Attentive, affectionate, loving, understanding, bought me diamonds !!! Took me on vacations, made love alot more often. Just as I thought we were close to relaxing and putting things behind us..BAM....he starts to withdraw, then starts to ignore me, then he starts to stare at me with hateful looks, but would not talk about anything. Then he decided that he would move out to "think things through".....THEN I FOUND OUT HE HAD CLEANED OUT OUR CD'S AND SAVINGS ACCOUNT.....then he demanded a divorce.
I don't want to depress you but PLEASE PROCEED WITH EYES OPEN. By the way, I have found my peace in knowing that God has consistantly been walking beside me and I have seen Him work miracles on my behalf that I never thought could be possible. At the same time i have seen my STBXH lose his job, lose his car, have health issues, including surgery and broken bones,and saw him lose the respect of his grown son and teenage daughter. Now he really does
have something to be depressed about along with his guilt.

You guys may be right...about three weeks ago I did a little "investigation", didn't mention it in my original post - guess I was embarrassed or in denial. I found some questionable text messages on his cell phone. Things that I would consider inappropriate for someone who is married. Also noticed on his cell phone bill where there are numerous calls to this same number at times of the day where I wouldn't be around. I confronted him on it and asked him if he was having a relationship outside of our marriage and of course he said no, but he didn't give me any excuses for the proof I found. I want to trust him, so I tried for the last couple of weeks to give him the benefit of the doubt.

So then this week I thought we had a really good week. We talked more, we had fun together. But he's got to go out of the country on business again, for a week. Leaving this morning. So my curiousity got the best of me and I checked his cell phone again, questionable messages are still there and there may be a few more - I wasn't sure which ones were there from before and which might be new. Got his cell phone bill in the mail and looked at it. Calls to this number are still there. I did a phone number search on it, it's someone, I believe, that he works with.

So today I'm going to our counseling session by myself, since he's off to Japan again. I intend to bring this up. I'd also be interested to know how I can confront him about this. If he really does have something going on on the side, I'd rather just know.

Any ideas on the best way to confront him and get him to own up to what is going on?

Check out imanotherone's confronting a spouse post on General Questions II.

Sorry you found this out, but all the signs are there.

Once you are able to expose what is going, things will get better in your marriage.

Believer,
Things got even worse after I posted this morning. He left for the airport and I noticed that he had used our home computer to log in to his work e-mail, but he'd forgotten to log off.

First I wanted to check and see if the person he's been text messaging with was who I suspected it to be, sure enough, the person is the office manager where he works. So then I got to looking through his incoming and sent e-mails and BAM, found my proof. It looks like this has only been going on (the more intimate part) since the middle of February. Prior to that all the e-mails between them are very professional.

At any rate, now I have more than enough proof to confront him when he returns from his trip on Thursday. I'm trying to figure out how best to proceed. Husband and I had what I considered to be a really good week. We hung out, talked, laughed....then I figure this out. Marriage counselor says that it's possible he was/is starting to see that I'm still there and that he does still have feelings for me and that is why things changed so much in this last week.

I'm just not sure how to move forward. The angry part of me wants to send him an e-mail, tell him I know and just get it out there. The other part says that I should wait until next Thursday when he gets home and then one more part says to wait until our MC session on Friday morning and then confront him there. I know he'll try to deny it again, fortunately I printed up the most damning evidence so he won't be able to deny it for long.

So I guess there is my delima, 1) when and how do I confront him and 2) how do I manage to cope, knowing this, for the next week? The only thing I know for sure is how hurt I am, but that the man I love and married is worth trying to work through this for.

And finally...do you really think there is hope for this to get better? I feel so lost right now - thanks for your support.

Yes - there is lots of hope. Hundreds of folks here have saved their marriage, and gone on to a much better marriage.

I hope you will post on General Questions II, and that you read the confronting post by imanotherone.

Keep that counseling appointment.

Also realize that he must be willing to quit his job. They can't ever work together again.

That's the strange thing, this past week, I've tried to kind of roll with the punches. I've just "done my own thing". And we had a really good week. We had fun together, talked, laughed...things we hadn't done in months. And it was nice.

He also has said that he was unhappy at his job, supposdely he met with an old co-worker from his previous job for lunch the other day. That I can confirm, when I was searching his work e-mail I saw the e-mail confirming that lunch "date". He has sense said that he sent the old co-worker his resume and has mentioned numerous times that he will be looking for something new. I wonder if that is his way of trying to end things on his own, with the hope that I won't find out, but he'll still be able to stop it. I just can't see where, if he changed jobs, that they'd be able to keep up this relationship.

I will definitely go post in the other area - I'm finding your support and advice invaluable, I'm hoping to get that from others as well - I need it!

Good, please post there. You need lots of ideas now.