I found out in July that my H of 10 years was having an affair with his assistant. Since then we have been back and forth through him seeing her again, then not, then again. I have been trying to plan A it for sometime. He swears he hasn't spoken to her since beginning of September, I really don't believe him. He just started on AD a week ago. He told me today, he is just not happy here and doesn't know if he can stay. We have two Daughters 5 and 7. We have been together a total of 17 years. We had a very good marriage up until the beginning of this year. When he started the affair he became distant and depressed, never wanted to do anything with the family. I'm so tired of the ups and downs. He keeps telling me he doesn't have feelings for me anymore and he is so unhappy here. Should I just throw him out and let him see what it would be like living without the kids and me? I have always taken care of everything for him, I don't know how much more of this torture I can take. At times he is mean, can't talk to me or even look at me. I'm feeling very lost at this point, like giving up!! Does anyone have any advice. Thanks.

Welcome to marriagebuilders. I think I would stick with Plan A for awhile longer. Your husband might be depressed and it will take awhile for the anti-depressants to work.

You may notice a change in him in a couple of more weeks. My WH was depressed before he had his A, and I begged him to see a doctor, but he refused.

So, you two are in counseling? If not then go alone if you have to. I know that you can stick this out because I did it for almost a year. Give the meds some time and if you are in counseling, make sure the counselor makes him take responsibility for his own happiness. What does he like to do? etc. He can go to night school or take a fishing break while he is still married - but other people do not make us happy. And - happiness is a by-product. The most miserable people in the world are the ones who are constatnly chasing happiness - they are always looking and never find it. Don't buy into the pressure that YOU can make him happy either. That is just too much for a person. The way I handled this was to seperate myself from my H's problems - I didn't take ownership of them. I treated him well, despite the way he treated me most of the time and I was firm with what I would tolerate. When I didn't like the things he said, I went in the other room. Sometimes that is enough of a scary proposition, when our worlds are not shaken by their moods. It got better.

Thanks for the insight. It is just so hard. I feel like he can't stand to be here. It's so hard because my 5 year olf said to me last night, "are you and Daddy breaking up?" How do you answer that when I feel like I'm going to come home to an empty house one day. We are both in counseling. It started out with both going for marriage counseling and now we are seeing her separetly. She said he is not in the position to save the marriage yet and he needs some individual counseling to deal with his issues. He constantly says it's been 4 months and I still don't feel anything for you. I try to tell him that every time he went back to her, which was only 2 months ago, he set us back to square one. I tell him if it took a year to fall out of love, how do you think it will be back in 4 months? This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. For my kids sake I want to try, but I don't no how much I can take.
Thanks.

Hi jkh- I feel for you concerning living in the house with your H saying he has no feelings for you. Mine did the same thing for months. He even met with divorce lawyers and filed for D even though I had made it clear I didn't want one. I could only stand it for around 6 wks before I asked him to move out if he couldn't make any effort toward me and our kids.Every time I asked about our marriage we would end up in a fight. He lied about where he was going and ended up staying at OW's place. He came by to see the kids several nights a week but was very cold to me. It was agony and I really believed he meant it when he said he didn't love me anymore. I realized later that he was in a huge depression and Mid life crisis that was triggered by the death of his last parent and frustrations at his job. He displaced years of depression and anger onto me because I was a convenient target. It was actually OW's urging him to divorce me that finally made him snap out his MLC coma. It still took months though before his feelings for me came back. My best advice to you is to detach emotionally as much as possible. Think of him as temporarily insane and take what he says with a grain of salt. Have you read the book "Divorce Remedy" by Michele Weiner-Davis? That has alot of good ideas in it for you right now. Also there is a great website called midlifewivesclub.com. They have a forum there to post in and tell about how to survive these difficult times. Is your H still working at the same place with the OW? Take care- lifeismessy

Thanks for the advice. My husband is still working at the same place but he told her to quit (he owns the business) and she did. I feel like he is being so mean so that I say to him, get out. He has never taken responsibility for anything in his life and I think this is just another thing he doesn't want to work for. I just don't know if he will ever get to the point where he wants to work at this.

Well that is a good thing that they are not working together on a daily basis. In my case both H and OW worked for a huge company and the OW had a job promotion where she got transferred and right when she moved was when I asked dh to move out since he was being so cold to me. I figured they wouldn't see each other then but I was wrong because she offered him the keys to her condo while it was up for sale and drove back to see him on weekends.Of course he was calling her and pining away for her during the weekdays.In an intense affair they seem to lose their minds believe me. My H used to tell me he didn't know if he could ever get his feelings back for me- OUCH! Have you suggested he live elsewhere for awhile to get his life together? My H did move out for 2 months and at least then I had some breaks from feeling constantly unwanted and compared to OW. I had to tell my daughters that their dad was making choices that led to him needing to live elsewhere. I spared them all the details though. If nothing changes you'll need to consider what boundaries need to be set.Take care- Nancy

He did originally leave in August for a week. Then he begged to come back. He said he couldn't stand to be away from me and the girls. I think he just needed his laundry done. I have been considering having him leave because it is so hard to deal with the rejection and confusion. I just feel bad about the kids. They know something is wrong and they don't understand.

Dear JKHippy,

I too found out about my husband's affair on Haloween sunday. We are in marriage counseling right now. I originally asked him to move out for a couple of months so that I can sort out my feelings without being so upset with him being there. The counselor strongly advised against this if we want to make the marriage work. He since has cried several times and appeared to be remorseful. I let him stay in the house but I stopped cooking for him and doing his laundry since then.

My husband has yet to be remorseful. He keeps saying he's trying, but he avoids me at all cost. He moved out of our bedroom, he barely talks to me, or even looks at me. He says it's been 4 months and the feelings haven't come back. I keep trying to tell him that every time he has gone back to her it has sent us back to square one. He has had NC since Sept 12, so really only 8 weeks. But if he doesn't let me get close or doesn't try himself, how will those feelings ever come back. Sometimes I think he doesn't want them to.