Married 17 years, 3 kids. Husband retired from the Army last year and became a firefighter. I’m 38, he’s 40.

He said in August that he wanted to go to counseling. He went once, I went with him the next time. When we were asked how strongly we felt about saving the marriage (1-10), he said 3 and I said 10. We have come close before and I read Divorce Busting in 2000. I remembered some of MWD’s points of view and tried using some of them. For one, I stopped being afraid of what would happen if I touched him. I started kissing him before I left the house, rubbing his back at night…

Saturday night he got mad about me calling a coworker by his last name ("He’s a teacher, he deserves the respect of his position. You don’t just call a teacher by his last name. That is so rude!") and out came the We-Are-so-different comment. It was that night that he said he wanted to end things completely.

He immediately assumed that he would leave and get an apartment someplace, come to the house and babysit the kids when I needed him to. I said no… I would leave and let him run the household and I will take care of the kids when he needs me to.

I did this for a couple of reasons… I see the scenario all the time in which the guy leaves, lives the life of a bachelor, gets the kids once in a while on the weekends, and they think he’s the best thing since popcorn while she is the main disciplinarian and deals with all of the day to day problems. I don’t know how long he would even keep seeing his kids. But I know I would! I felt like leaving them with him makes sure they still have both parents.

I got an apartment near work but can’t move in just yet. So he’s letting me stay in the house until the apartment is ready, but he leaves each night to stay with a divorced buddy of his. As of yet, he refuses to be in the house when I am here.

Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to be married anymore either. He yells at me a lot if I disagree with him on something. He threatened to divorce me if I voted for a particular party. I’ve always tried to become involved in his interests, but I feel like that’s all our marriage was about – HIS interests. If it was something to do with MY work, or my friends, he was distant and looked like he was sulking the whole time.

But I don’t believe in divorce. I want a good relationship. The night he said he wanted to end it, I took his hand and said that I realize we haven’t been very close – that I don’t want to just be married, I want a meaningful marriage. I said I want a loving relationship with him again and that we can have one. We just have to cultivate it. He mocked me, “You can call it <finger quotes> cultivating all you want. I call it work and it’s too much work for me.” I told him I really thought we could have a close relationship again and he said, “But I don’t want it with you.”

There are more factors. For one, his two best friends are recently-divorced girls age 24. He insists this doesn’t have anything to do with his change in feelings toward me, but he goes out with them while I’m at work and he has fun – the movies, riding a boat on the river, etc… I’m not accusing him of doing anything with them, just saying that it has an impact on our marriage and his feelings toward ME.

I move into my apartment on Oct 1st. Advice? What should my next step be if we have any chance of keeping it together? I know that pleading, pushing, and crying would only push him away. Refusing to leave at this point would only make him mad. Is there anything I can do to stop this path we're on before it's too late?