I've been lurking here for a couple of weeks, trying to find my way...

4 weeks ago, my husband of almost 18 years told me that he wants a divorce. That was literally the first time he told me he was unhappy. I think I've known he was unhappy, but we didn't talk about it.

We have three children (16, 14 and 13). The middle child is a boy with autism. I am so frightened of the future and what it will hold for us, and want so badly to fix what is broken in our marriage so that we can move forward and have a good life together.

The issues are complex, made more so by the fact that we have terrible communication problems. One big problem is money. We're not good managers of our income and even though we make decent money, we spend more than we bring in. 5 years ago we bought our first home and shortly after that my husband lost a chunk of overtime income. It's been a struggle ever since.

We have had infrequent sex over the years we've been married. I've been depressed and not very interested. We've really just gotten into the habit of not being intimate. I'm struggling to change this. I've started on an antidepressant and another med that was prescribed years ago that I never faithfully took (for hypothyroid problem). Physically, I feel better than I can remember. Unfortunately, I think it's a case of too little, too late.

I've attempted to initiate sex numerous times in the past month, only to be rebuffed. I've begged, pleaded, tried to touch him. He rolls over, moves my hands or just says no. Tonight he told me he didn't know if he'd ever be able to make love to me again.

He's not interested in trying to patch things up. We're still living together, because setting up separate homes will be financially devestating to us.

I think his initial plan was that he would move out, and I would stay in the house as the kids' primary caretaker. My revised plan is that I'll move into an apartment (I can't afford to keep the house on my salary and it needs a lot of work to be comfortable), and we'll share custody of the kids (true joint custody).

To complicate things, I don't own a car, so any apartment must be near our current home and on a bus line. I think I found a place I can more or less afford, but I feel so strongly that this whole thing is wrong.

18 years of marriage and I didn't even get a warning? Not a moment where he could say to me "I am so desperately unhappy that if things don't change I'll have to go." Just a "I'm so unhappy that I need to leave now."

I take a lot of the blame for our problems. Communication is two way, and if we had bad communication, it's on me too. The sexual issues were largely mine, but honestly, he didn't ask that often. I assumed we both had low sex drives. Dealing with my depression and with the thyroid problem seems to be helping, but he's not interested in sex now, so it's a moot point.

I don't think he's having an affair, and he denies it pretty believably. His only affair is with his job, where he spends 60-70 hours each week.

Anyway, although I am trying to remain optimistic, I also need to be realistic, and at this point, I'd say I have a less than 10% chance of turning this around.

Lisa E.
43 years old,
DH 40
Married 18 years in November

Sorry Lisa this is happening to you. I think we all handle things differently in the breakup of our marriages, I hope that you find the strength to dig deep on what works best for your situation.

One thing I have done, that helped me get out of my marriage, was to listen to my gut. He was cheating, I knew it all along, just didn't want to believe someone could be that cruel, insensitive. The signs were on the wall, staying up late(staying on the internet at night), money taken out of the bank that he said he bought me things with(never saw the items), working on projects and not talking about them. When I confronted him, he wanted an open marriage and was actually glad I brought it up!!!

Trust your gut. There are alot of patterns here to see in what has happened, fact vs. perception of the facts.

Just my 2 cents