Need encouragement/stage 1 advice

[Young at Heart]

My heart goes out to you based on your recent post.

You might want to have a really blunt discussion with your husband. It sounds like your husband is saying that the marriage is over and he wants it to be over and wants to try to end as friends.

You sound like you really want to save your marriage. I know I have seen other places how one should handle this kind of situation, but they haven't been on the SSM forum. You might contact some of the WMD staff or some of the posters in the Newcomers section about what to do or include in such a discussion and which forum is focused on your issues.

If were in your shoes and my spouse wanted either a trial separaton or divorce, I might tell them that I would contest a divorce, but allow a temporary separation on the condition that we both agreed to counseling and certain other things. I might say that I would need the counseling to learn to let go without anger and that my spouse probably should also get counseling so that if there is ultimately a divorce they will emotionally be in a place where they can handle future relationships. I would want my wife (or possibly future ex-wife) to be happy without me.

That desire by your husband to "end the relationship" has to hurt you to the core, it would me if I were in your shoes.

There are other forums on the MWD website devoted to other aspects of marriage busting. It sounds to me that you might get better advice on one of those other forums from people who have a Walk Away Spouse or a Mid Life Crisis Spouse. Your husband has emotionally left you and has no apparent desire to come back.

To me that is a different issue than a husband who is just not sexual enough for you, but committed to the relationship. They are related, but different in my mind. My wife was still committed to our relationship, and so I was lucky it was "just sex," even though it was a lot more of a relationship problem with sex being the tip of the iceberg.

There are some stories in other forums where even after divorce papers are filed the marriage can be saved. In fact there are stories of calling a spouse's bluff by filing divorce papers first and in effect using reverse pyscology to get them to work on saving the marriage. Those are kind of nuclear last ditch tactics that I would be afraid to deal with, but they have worked for others and there is a logic to them.

You might even want to invest in some WMD telephone counseling to see which one would be best for you and get some advice on 180's that might emotionally get to your husband.

My advice would be to do everything you think you can do to save your marriage that is consistent with your integrity and your emotional/physical health. GAL, as you have been suceeding at, is very important.

Ultimately. your marriage will survive or end based on what your husband decides to do or not do. Unfortunately none of us can control what happens in the mind of our spouse. So in GAL make sure you realize that it is not totally or even mostly your fault if the marriage ends.

Also don't allow yourself anger or contempt toward your husband as he will likely see those emotions within you.

Not getting sucked into a fight is very hard when someone is emotionally hurting you, but it is a critical life lesson to learn. Anger directed at others is an emotion that has in the past ultimately hurt me more than the people who have caused my pain. I have done some really stupid things while I was angry.

Bless you and good luck to you. I am sorry for your pain and your fear.