Four weeks in, hopeful but just starting!

[KGirl]

I have learned so much and become more hopeful through this board - thank you! I’ve decided to post my own story to help me organize my thoughts and hopefully get some advice/tips on how to proceed given what’s happened the last several weeks. I’m a pretty detail-oriented person so I apologize for the length.

Background: H and I are both 28. M for 2.5 years, no kids, started dating in high school and have been together for 10 years with a few “off” periods. Bought a house a year ago.

Dec. 14: H is particularly cranky/not very nice. Not responsive to my questions about going out to dinner, maybe going out and doing something fun, etc. I ask what his deal is - he replies he’s not happy with our marriage - that we’ve become more like roommates or good friends than H/W and that we’ve been taking our own separate paths. This isn’t necessarily surprising as I haven’t been super happy as of late either, but didn’t realize he felt similarly. I’m not too worried at this point. I ask him about reading a Gottman book that I’ve heard good things about. He agrees that we could read one chapter at a time and do the exercises afterwards. I download the ebook.

Dec. 15: I see H is reading the ebook. I ask him where he’s at and if we can schedule a time to do the exercises together. He says “We could try it but I don’t see any of this working. All of the examples in the book of people who eventually get divorced sound just like us. I don’t want to get your hopes up because this is just how we are and neither of us are going to change”

Of course, I do everything wrong after this and completely flip out. For the next week I cry, plead, mope around, beg, promise I’ll do anything, ask him what’s wrong, ask him how he can just give up so quickly, remind him about how hard we worked to buy our house and get to where we are. His responses continue to be along the lines of “I’m done. Nothing is going to change. There’s no point in telling you why I’m unhappy because you’ll just argue with me about it. You’re not respecting what I want regarding this.” However, he sees no problem with us living together until things are “finalized” because he thinks we can con’t to be good friends. I move all my stuff immediately to the guest room/guest bathroom. Everything I do makes it clear that I’m super depressed and that my life is over.

December 23: I send him an e-mail stating that it may be best if he goes somewhere else for awhile so we can have some time apart (probably also a mistake). Between Christmas Eve and NYE we alternate spending 1-2 days at a time away from the house by visiting our families. We see each other briefly in the mornings/evenings but I start cutting off my contact with me - any conversations we have are purely logistics/household stuff and I’m very cold/uncaring.

December 28 - I read DR and realize my errors! I also realize while we’re apart that trying to be cold and having no contact is just making me miserable and probably not helping things given that it’s just perpetuating what he’s stated has been going poorly. I make it a point to start instituting techniques - 180’s, GAL, some of the things from the LRT that I can do while still living together like not initiating R talk, being attentive and listening, not leaving the room if he enters it and I’m already there, not asking where he’s going/when he’ll be back, etc. In general, acting more like he’s a friend/good acquaintance than someone I’m angry at and want to avoid!

After reading DR I slip up a little (maybe? maybe not?) and initiate an R talk when we’re both done having our holiday travels where I calmly ask if he can tell me more about what he's unhappy with, and that I will not argue or try to fix it - it would just help me understand him better. I just want to listen to his thoughts. This seems to work as he talks to me for 1-2 hours about everything he’s thinking/feeling. Some of the reasons why he wants to leave:
-Lack of ML. His ideal frequency is 4-5 times a week (I had no idea!) - we’ve been more around 3-4 times a month for the past year or so.
-Lack of romantic connection/attraction to me now. He sees me as a really good friend and still wants me to be in his life.
-I bring up negative things from the past and can’t let them go (true)
-He doesn’t feel trusted and he feels like he always has to report back to me and can’t just go out and have fun if he’s out with friends/coworkers (true. There’ve been several times over the past 10 years that he’s done things that have disappointed me that I blow out of proportion and bring up constantly whenever he's in a similar situation)
-ultimatums/feeling pressured into decisions he didn’t want to make. He says he wasn’t really ready to get engaged when we did, but felt he had to because I gave him an ultimatum (kind of true, longer story to that). He’s not sure if marrying me was the right decision, though he says he did mean everything he said when we said our vows (?). It’s becoming clear that I’ve been attempting to control too much in many aspects of his life (his decisions/timeframe for making them, his activities like how much time he spends on fantasy sports, who he hangs out with, etc) and that I really need to work on this.

Throughout the conversation I just listened and validated, didn’t argue or try to point out what I could fix. Afterwards he said he felt a lot better about our situation and that I was willing to just listen/respect his feelings, but that it “didn’t change anything”.

From New Year’s Eve onwards (even after the slip up below) we’ve been in this strange holding pattern of going about our normal activities, but not bringing up anything about R, D, etc. I’ve tried to detach myself somewhat and follow the DB techniques but it’s hard to be mysterious/GAL when we live together and share a car (that he purchased, so I can’t exactly just take off and not let him know when I’ll be back because he has first dibs on it). It actually feels better than it has in a long time, but I’m not sure if it means my small changes/attitude shift is actually working or if he’s just checked out already so he’s happier in general. I’ve begun working on small goals like going to the gym regularly as one just opened nearby and looking into getting my own car so that we’re not so dependent on each other’s schedules.

January 2: I slip up again - grr! I went out to dinner w/ a friend who said there must be someone else he’s interested in or else he wouldn’t just say he’s done without going to counseling or making attempts to repair things. During my flipout phase I asked him multiple times if there was someone else and he said no - I believed him. I got really fixated on this and when I get home ask:
Me: I’ve been thinking more about what’s happening, and it’s hard for me to make sense of it all. It’s very confusing that you’re not interested in working on things. I have to wonder if maybe there’s something else going on that’s factoring into this. Maybe someone else you’ve been talking to or even the idea of someone else?
H: *long pause* I’m not seeing anyone or having an affair..
Me: Maybe it’s not even that. Some people have emotional affairs where they confide a lot and get attached to someone else, like they would with their spouse.
H: *another long pause* Well… there’s kind of something. It’s really messed up though.
Me: Sounds like it’s been hard for you. Do you want to talk about it? I’d be happy to listen if that would help.
H proceeds to talk to me for 2-3 hours about the following situation. I’ll try and summarize through his viewpoint: Over the past few months he’s been talking with a woman at work (26, married, pregnant w/ 3rd child) about their marriages and things they’ve been unhappy with - complaining basically. He’s developed a friendship with her, finds her attractive, and says they are very “compatible” and have similar interests. And yet, he says she reminds him a lot of me in terms of what she’s like and her interests (but we don’t have similar interests? Curious.)

Talking to her has “helped him realize” that there are other people out there that he could be happier with than me, even if it’s not necessarily her. He sees potential with this woman for something more than friends, but realizes that would be a bad idea for a number of reasons. But, just the idea of is enough for him to take the chance to leave me and explore these “other people” who may or may not exist. He fears if we stay married that he’ll have to have an affair at some point just to see what it'd be like with someone else, and he doesn’t want to be a cheater. He mentioned that who knows what may happen in the future, maybe some time after getting a D he’ll find that it was a mistake to D and we could very well get back together (??), but that “nothing changes unless there’s a change” and he needs this change to find out. One of his coworkers has been egging him on to see how far he can take it with this woman (grr!).

It sounds like he hasn’t done any actual research into the process of getting a D or investigated options, beyond a friend handing him a business card for a family lawyer. That makes me hopeful that I’ll have time and that he’s not eager to take initiate action (but who knows? I need to stop mind-reading!) After all this talk he says again that he feels much closer to me, especially since I didn’t “go crazy”, but he still just thinks of me as a really good friend.

So, here are some specific questions I’m wondering about, but general advice is also welcome:

1) ML. He’s identified this as an issue. I’m certainly interested. Should I try to initiate and see what happens, or is that considered pursuing? Maybe there’s a way to do so w/out “pursuing”? Rebuilding that aspect may help him see whether or not I’m truly “just” a friend. And this wouldn’t be just for him, it would also be for me, as I now see that I was terrible at initiating things or making it clear that I was interested.

2) How should I approach living together in terms of day-to-day logistics? For example, I was going to the grocery store the other day and he asked if he could come with to pick out some food for himself (at least he knew he shouldn’t ask me to get things for him!) I wasn’t sure if I should say yes, or say no and try and separate our activities more. There are a lot of things like that that I’m not sure how to address and if being friendly/following his lead is best, or if I should try to go more “gray” and not do things like watch TV in the same room, go on errands together, etc. I think living together is what needs to happen for now because I’ve read that I shouldn’t be the first to leave, and he’s not leaving either (he thinks he may be able to refi and buy me out of the house - I have no interest in fighting for it because I can’t afford it on my own.). Eventually if he does start the paperwork, I guess I’ll have to think about whether it’s in my best interest to get out and rent an apt. sooner rather than later. I feel torn on this because part of me feels like he needs to see what it’s like to not have me around at all, as I’m not really interested in being friends with him/letting him have it “all” if we do D, but I also fear that if I’m the one walking out it will validate all his thoughts and push him further to take action.

3) How should I approach questions/statements about logistics of D/life after D? For example, the other day he mentioned something about how maybe we could continue to have a joint cell phone plan and he’d just send me money every month. I said I didn’t think that would work because the point is that we’d be separating all parts of our lives, including finances. He said it’d be expensive to have individual plans, maybe he could get added back to his parent’s family plan, etc. I ended the conversation by saying “I don’t know that I can really talk or think about this unless it becomes necessary.” He’s also mentioned things about selling vs. keeping the house and I’m just not sure how cooperative to be. I certainly won’t provide him suggestions on what to do!

Phew, those were a lot of thoughts. Thanks for reading if you got this far!