nhmom, I've been reading your thread over the past few days, and wanted to comment.
When my h was going through this last summer, he had a completely different look through his eyes. I'd look at him and wouldn't see my H. There was no love or warmth there, it was as if someone took my h away and left me with someone else. I think they call it "shark eyes".
So, the other day this topic came up with my h and I. He dropped the bomb on me on July 3. When he was looking through some pictures of the 4th of July, he said, "What is wrong with me here? I look weird." I said nothing for a moment, and he kept pressing on about how strange he looked, and I said, "You had the shark eyes". So I explained to him how he looked so much different because he was different and very distant.
We had a good talk about this and he explained to me.... that he thought he looked that way because he felt that if he didn't maintain his distance, if he didn't stick up for himself and allow himself to be too close to me, that he'd lose his ground and be "miserable forever".
That is where he was coming from.
Throughout the entire time he was going through what he was going through, he said he loved me often, and would send emails from work, but in the evening would have tantrums about wanting to be free and would say how miserable he was and wanted to move on.
His behavior was erratic and it never made sense completely. One moment, happy the next, extremely cold and distant. It made db-ing very hard at times. Trying to be balanced.
In retrospect, my h said the bottom line was... he just wanted things to change in our M, and didn't think it could, or would. He felt that this was all it would ever be.... and he didn't want it this way so leaving was going to be the answer.
He also had an EA with a coworker, never went into a PA. Now that we are in piecing our M, I'm seeing that the EA was all about H, and not OW. It was about H and our M and the big disconnect we had going.
