my husband and I have been married for 9.5 years and have two kids. This past Friday he told me that he does not know if he is still in love with me or just loves me because I am the mother to his children. He doesn't know if our marriage is fighting for anymore.

He told me that he is tired of everything I do. I asked him what everything meant. He said as far as he could tell me now it was the bickering/fighting. lack of cleaning the house and my spending issues. He said that there were more but he did not know how to say them with out it sounding like I was to blame for everything. He told me that he did not want to talk about it anymore and he would let me know when he was ready to talk again.

OK so yesterday I picked up the house. He complimented me on the house when he got home. I was supposed to go grocery shopping so I called him and asked for a limit and I stayed with in that limit. I gave him some money that I had gotten back from the pharmacey yesterday and apparently the way I spoke he thought I was mad. He came in the house and asked if I was mad at him, I told him no. He complimented me on dinner.

I don't know what to think about all this. He is acting like everything is all better but I know it's not. He did say he would give it six months. I'm going to group therapy and I asked him if he thought we could affored it and he said we would find a way b/c it was helping.

I know it's only been one day, but I'm really having a hard time waitig for him to tell me the other things he doesn't like about me. I feel at a stand still. I decided not to say anything negative to him and see if that helps. He did kiss me this past weekend but he said that doesn't mean he still loves me.

I'm just very confused. Can someone tell me what is going on.

Why did you post on the surviving an affair board...do you think he is seeing someone else?

This is almost always (99.997%) the first sign of an affair.

Yeah, its sad but true...Gack is right, sorry Megan.

Megan, you need to start snooping to find out if there is an affair. Check cell phone records for starters. I would also check email accounts, Facebook accounts and any other accounts you can get into.

A lot of what you are describing is very common behavior when someone is in an affair.

It's time to start snooping. He is somehow involved with another. Whether it is emotional or physical at this point you need to know. Has he been away alot? Calling on the phone or texting alot? Going out without you?

Tell us more.

Sorry you're in this spot, Megan.
When I let my boundaries go & the married woman with whom I got into an affair started confiding to me inappropriately about her personal problems with her husband, this was one of the exact things she told me about him: "I love him but I'm not in love with him." Until I found this website, I naively thought that this must've been a fairly unique sentiment/expression. But as it turns out, it's such a ubiquitous stock phrase among adulterers or about-to-be adulterers that it's almost as though it's from some cheater's manual, as common as water in a rainstorm. I'd be willling to bet my house that your husband is in some variant of affair, whether emotional or physical.

Others will be along shortly who can advise you better than I re: how to confront this. Tossing up a prayer for ya.

Please provide more details:

Do you have free reign over marital finances?

Does he work and you don't?

Does he expect you to do all the housework or is it a case where it doesn't get done unless he does it?

Get some intel, because the odds are very high he's flirting with someone and/or having an affair.

In his mindset he's being a goodguy to give you six months so that when he leaves with OW he can tell himself he gave you a fair shot and that he "tried" to save the marriage but it didn't work.

Snoop. Get into his emails and that will tell you much.

Has he been out a lot? Working odd hours? What does he do for a living and could it be a work affair?

You have red flags flying.

Megan, the others are right, an affair needs to be ruled in or out.

The fact that he said he doesn't know if he is in love with you, likely means he has a new point of comparison. It is a CLASSIC statement of someone who is in affair. We hear it on this forum every day.

If he is having an affair it would have to be with someone at work b/c he is home very soon after he gets off work. He either stays at home or is over at his best friends the next house over riding horses. The horses are who I think he is having the affair with. I do have free reighn over the finances. I stay at home but get SSDI, while he has a full time job at as a service plumber. He expects me to keep the house up. I notice when I do keep the house up, he is willing to help in other areas. I just checked his email and nothing. He does not text b/c that would cost more $ out his paycheck. He is not very electronicly inclined so if he is cheating it would be face to face.

Sounds like an affair. Do you have a way to 'pop in' when he's riding horses? Does he have a base for his employment, a company he works for where he reports each day? Do you have a way to go to his workplace to suss out the employees and/or his relationship with them? If you can't go inside, can you wait in the parking lot (ala "Hi hon! I thought I'd surprise you - let's go out to dinner!" or "Hi hon! I thought I'd surprise you - I brought you lunch!" to see if he walks out with anyone, or is in the lunchroom with anyone)? I see that he is a plumber, which can make his workplace irregular. Can you get an idea of where he 'should' be at any given point in the day, and BE there?

If you have complete control over the finances, why did you give him the money you didn't spend at the pharmacy?

As far as trying to catch him with a co-worker, there is only one woman he works with. I can go over at anytime to check on him when he and the kids go to ride horses. I've started going and he says he likes that.

I gave him some of the money to have on hand b/c I have the debit card.

as far as knowing where he is during the day, that's hard b/c he doesn't even know where he is going until he gets a service call.

I'm going to snoop on his work laptop. The only problem there is that you can not load any program with out adminstrator privilages. I'll see if that has been turned off. I could do a key logger.

I just called him to see if he would be taking our daughter to ride horses today and he said he didn't know when he would be getting home b/c two people called in sick today. There are only 6 plumbers in the department, so it could be a ligetimate reason for being late, but it will be on my suspicion list. At the end of the conversation he ended with I love you. something he has not said in a while. He also said that last night was the best sleep he has gotten in a while.

Megan,

Let me start you on a different path. I agree with the others often what you heard means that as Pep put it he has a different point of reference and that can mean a co-worker, the lady pouring coffee at the diner, etc. It may not be a physical affair, but it could be emotional.

HOWEVER, there are some strong clues he is at least being partially honest with you if not completely. What are they? When you clean up the house he responds positively. When you involve him in the spending and you do what the two of you agree to do, he responds positively. One of the 10 top needs that Harley lists is Domestic Support, and apparently you have failed at that.

I would urge you to read the articles on this site about needs and then print out the emotional needs questionaire and take it. Offer it to your H to also take it. Your needs don't need to match, but what is important is that you KNOW what your H's top needs are and that you try to meet them. Here is where negotiation is required. You must understand how he wants these needs met, just as he must understand how you want your needs met. It does no good to try and meet the wrong needs or to meet the correct needs in the wrong way.

Please read the articles and then I think you might have a better insight into what is happening in your marriage. I would not rule out the affair angle, but what you definitely KNOW is how he responds when he feels you are supporting him on the domestic front and on the finacial front, another huge need many have.

God Bless,

JL

I'm not playing his little I love you game. If he is having an affair, I will be so pissed. I don't know if I would want to do a plan a or not. My gut says to do a plan a but I got to get the info first. is there a password finder program that can load by bypassing the administrator on the computer?

I know about the emotional needs questionare and I would love to give it to him so I would have a clue on what to work on but he specifiacly told me not to bring anything up until he is ready. So I guess I have to wait until then. Otherwise, I take the chance of pissing him off majorly and destorying anything that I have done postivily.

Megan, you are getting some good advice, and I can sympathize with some of your problems, even the ways you may need to improve (never come to my house unannounced! :)) But I was mainly writing to let you know that I have bipolar disorder too. It can a had whole new fun deminsion to M problems, can't it? Just wanted to let you know there's another "BP" floating around on here!

Well I read the domestic needs article and alot of the other like love bank, love busters ect. . . so I'm going to try those, but it is so hard when you don't know what the needs are. I can only guess.

I know my BP has had a huge impact on our marriage but my husband said my new meds have brought the real me back whatever that is supposed to mean.

I'm going to group therapy as well as finding a one on one therapist. So I am trying to make changes in myself, for myself.

Right now I just feel like crying b/c I don't know what else to do. I keep getting mixed signals, but yet I can't get any kind of confirmation until he is ready to discuss it.

I'm at the point now where I'll keep the house up b/c I actualy like the house looking clean and work on my therapy and that's it. If he is not going to tell me what I need to work on and wants to blame me for everything, then I feel the need to prepare myself to be able to take care of myself and the kids on my own.

Twas not me.
I have not posted to Megan.