UPSIDE DOWN and struggling badly.

[Eskimo Nell]

Hi everyone
Despite being in the same DB’ing trench as many of you that I have been reading about, I fear that my situation is quite different due to being quite literally, alone in the world. All the books and self-help literature that I have been reading are full of surrounding oneself with friends and family and getting out to do stuff so that the lonely times become filled – well here’s the thing …

WAH and I emigrated to Australia four years ago this coming October after picking ourselves up and getting on with life after I was incorrectly diagnosed with a terminal illness. We wanted a fresh start and as we have always loved it being just the two of us – the emigration thing held no fear that we were going to be here alone and making a new life - just the two of us, madly in love and utterly faithful to one another, so cosseted and the envy of our friends for the past sixteen years.

I have struggled quite badly with the whole process, whilst H has taken to it like a duck to water. He can’t understand that I have been desperately homesick (despite me having lived abroad as a child) and it’s a shock to me too, as it was mostly my idea to leave the UK. I have been home to visit twice since we came out – once alone and once back in October with H.

Over the time, we have made a few friends here but none seem to work out for long – most ex-pats appear to have a hidden agenda. H says that I have stopped him from making friends as I have threatened that we will go back to the UK or move on to another country – I may have said that over time but I have also tried to give this my all and settle in to a life which I knew that H was loving.

Struggling at work, it was a joint decision that I give up my job back last February as the pressures were far to much for either of us to bear. It was starting to affect us both as I was constantly upset. Since then, the global crisis has hit hard and suitable work has been increasingly difficult for me to find within my professional capacity. The result of this is that I now have no financial independence and have become entirely reliant upon WAH for every cent.

Over the sixteen years of our marriage, WAH has actually been quite distant at times and wouldn’t ‘let me in’. I have tried everything to get him to open up to me – including explaining, shouting, threatening and finally telling him that I would walk if he did not come to the party and tell me what the issue was. Our s*x life suffered as a result and over the past few years, once every seven months seemed like the norm! He now tells me that our physical R was ‘average’ but I think that is purely a message to cause as much hurt as it has. We discussed his low libido no amount of talking improved the situation. I finally decided that he was a good H, it was not worth rocking the boat and so settled back into a marriage that was filled with love and mutual respect – or so I thought. He appeared totally content in a brother/sister R and so we carried on …

However, it seems that things for WAH were much worse and he seems to have been coming to crisis point without having said a word to me. He disputes this and says that he has told me over and over that he was unhappy. He did ask me once to go for MC with him but I refused – not believing that we had problems of that magnitude and not believing that he felt as desperate as he evidently did. He now says that he actually asked me lots of times to help sort out our problems but I know that he did not. We have always talked, put a band-aid over it and moved on.

On the 17th anniversary of our first ever meeting (have been married for 16 years on 11 Sept), WAH drops ILYBINILWY bomb. Shocked beyond all recognition, I immediately did the knee jerk reaction and flew back to the security of friends and family in the UK – which turned out to be a big mistake. He told me that I should only book a one way flight, which I foolishly did, taking as much of my life with me that I could pack in to a 20kgs bag. After 2 weeks of staying with my sister and in a permanent state of numbness, I got a call from H’s friend who said “get back home – go now – you will regret it if you don’t”. I called H and told him that I was on my way back and gave him the date that I had planned to return when bombshell #2 hit me in the guts.

H had planned a weekend away – turns out that he was going to see the ‘work colleague’ with whom he had been confiding in for the past few months. The tramp lives interstate and so the date that I had chosen for flying home was now “not convenient” for him to pick me up at the airport. I was livid – but not as much as when I got home and finally found out that plans had changed and he had brought her to our home instead. It took him about three weeks to acknowledge that it was a selfish act and that he should not have done so. He swears that nothing happened, though he admits to having slept in the same bed – fortunately not ours. I believe him on that.

Since then, things became as bad as you would imagine them to be. I hit rock bottom, called him on all of his actions and started to release the emotion that I had kept locked away, whilst staying with friends and family in the UK over the past month. Meanwhile, he was hatching his poison and sending out nasty emails to all our friends, which has in turn alienated them all from me – from us both, if what he says is true. I have little or no contact with them now and his parents have totally cut me off – though I have done nothing wrong. One night, before H became WAH, I knocked over a photo-frame, H called the police to report that he felt that his personal safety was under threat. Ten minutes after the police had left (and sided with me, I might say) he was sat on my bed, holding my hand and asking how we had come to this – where had our trust gone. Two nights later, he moved out. Is this MLC? He says no and is sick of everyone saying that it is.

As if it could, it went from bad to worse after that. He has hung up the phone on me, ignored emails and generally made me feel like the most worthless creature crawling this earth if I say one word that he doesn’t like, or he feels offends him. To add to my humiliation, he is now threatening me financially, saying that I have to find any work that I can to pay my half share of the mortgage and bills. H is evidently struggling to afford the mortgage and bills on our home, whilst he has taken himself a rented unit and the bills that also incurs. Of course, it would appear that he has, until recently, been flying interstate twice per month to visit ‘the colleague’ but last week something changed and I now feel that the situation is over – just stuff that he said, nothing definite and I didn’t ask – but neither did he deny when I said that I hoped that it had all gone pear-shaped. He had told me earlier in the week that he was in a bad mood, which appeared to persist all of last week. He came to see me on Friday to discuss ‘practicalities’ and he seemed quite at home and almost sad when it was time for him to leave. He was curled up on the couch the whole time that we were talking and he appeared to be more receptive to our conversation than he had previously.

However, when I tested the water (which I now know to be against DB’ing rules!) he was adamant that he will not consider MC as he never intends on coming back. In temper during one or two previous conversations, he did say that he would D me as soon as the year is out, as per the law here. Also in temper, I told him that I would go back to the UK so that I could file and, by mutual consent, this could all be over in a few short weeks, which was a bluff on my part. Nevertheless, he said NO, which excited me until I learned his reasons … he said that he would be financially disadvantaged and continues his stance on that.

In July, H ignored my birthday, which was particularly hurtful. He did send an SMS at lunch time which said “hope that your day is better than anticipated” … he has shown no remorse over that, though most birthdays with him in the past have been long weekends with champagne, roses, strawberries – the whole romantic nine yards. Knowing him as only I do, I feel that this has become a terminal situation for us but after having found DB’ing in the library last weekend, I am now so desperate to utilise the techniques and see if I can get the positive outcome that many others have achieved.

For now, it’s a tough uphill climb …almost broke off there to send him an email or SMS but I stopped myself, phew! He has left me alone in our large home and has little or no contact with me, despite him saying the contrary. I have had to work out the pool maintenance and other such domestic activities, which I have never been involved in. I’m proud that I have achieved those things so far! He is upping the pressure on the financial side all of the time but as I am not working, how can he expect me to contribute? I have tried for dozens and dozens of jobs in my professional capacity but am getting nowhere fast – he feels that it would be OK for me to get any job – whatever it is, no matter how much that may offend me professionally.

So, not working, no family, no friends, being told to cut down on the phone bill (mostly spent on calling his mobile as he doesn’t have a land-line phone) and still battling the builders who have been screwing us around with our new home for the past two years, I am DESPERATE. I am so very lonely here on my own and all I want is my best friend - my H – to come home. We are all that each other has here and I know that he is lonely too – but he will not consider anything that I have to say. He does not want to talk about where our M went wrong and says that it’s just going over the same ground that we have done over the years ... and he is tired of it. I am so frustrated. Other people’s WAS appear to give them time to talk – despite their situation. Why won’t my H do the same? Meanwhile, I sit in the house – cold now that it’s winter and afraid to put the heating on as it will just elevate the bills which we can ill afford. I can’t go far as I don’t like to take advantage of the petrol that would use and I am keeping all my ‘bills’ to a minimum, as best I can. People say to go join groups but as this is the most isolated capital city in the world, there just don’t seem to be any – unless you are over 60 years of age! All I hear is go out with girlfriends, have a make-over, go to the movies … nice but it just can’t be so for me right now.

Initially, I accused H of feeling guilty leaving me with all of this burden and he said that yes, he did feel very guilty. Three months on and he said that he sometimes has ‘pangs’ of guilt and misses me on occasion but overall, he’s no longer feeling such guilt and is moving on … all I can feel is the desperation each day that I wake up and realise that’s a day less that I will ever spend with him. He’s just moving so far away from me in such a short space of time …

I’m struggling to sort out my DB’ing techniques and I am on day two of my 180 in not contacting him … it’s killing me. I have been trying to do some useful stuff for myself, like going to the optometrist and getting a mammogram (!!) and have even set up some counselling for myself, starting tomorrow. H is aware of these things but purely says that it will be good for me to start looking after myself. He also said that if I could now meet someone (meaning a man), that would be great too … he states that he would be very pleased as I deserve to be loved and that none of this is my fault. I have been a good wife, according to him, so why won’t he talk and why isn’t he prepared to work on that …?

The very latest is that WAH is threatening me with putting the house on the market, which he can’t as I would have to agree. Instead, he’s threatening not to pay the mortgage in September and so the bank will end up repossessing - we both stand to lose everything that we have worked for over the past 20+ years. It’s pure blackmail.

Any pearls of wisdom at this point would be gratefully received. It’s just all eating me up and I’m so scared living in the house on my own. I can’t cry any more – I have no more tears left and yet the physical manifestation of this on-going torture has caused me to drop three dress sizes, with my eczema having returned with a vengeance. H sees all of this, when he does visit, but says that I look really well.

I’m so desperate – PLEASE HELP.