Help please

[Maybell]

Last night S8 couldn't sleep because he was crying for missing his dad. So I had him send a text video. He got a reply a few minutes later and went to bed slightly less miserable. H texted me a little while later asking what he could do to help with these things and I said "send him messages before he gets so miserable that he's crying."

He said ok and I said that everyone here was ragged from the last two months. He said "I'm tired. I can only imagine how hard it's been for them. And you. I'm sorry. I feel bad that I've created so much pain and hardship for everybody." I said "I'm sad that all this has felt like your best option." He said "I don't know what to say to that. I'm sorry that it seems that way. There don't seem like any good options right now."

I changed the subject to a book he had bought on our joint kindle account. It's called "This is How We Say Goodbye" and it's about a guy whose wife cheated on him and then told him she was pregnant right before his father dies and he has to go sit shiva with his dysfunctional family for seven days. My H told me not to read too much into the title of the book and then was too embarrassed to talk about it because of the cheating part. So there was that light conversation down the tubes. We said good night at that point. (He really is very tired after way too much international travel; this would be a really tough time for us even if we were happily married).

This morning S6 woke up with a tension headache so I texted H and asked him to FaceTime the little guy to see if that would help. After the call I just missed him a ton. I texted him "Are you in the middle of anything?" and while I waited for his reply realized that asking him if he still values my friendship would be pursuing so when he answered I said Never mind, sorry. He pursued it a little bit and then said "I'll be here if you need me. Was just getting into the office before."

I don't know how to proceed. It's hard to DB and act cheerful when my children are struggling so badly. He would never believe it anyway. I have always been capable with all his travel and there is no 180 I can do in that area that would be a positive change for him to see or me to feel, because his career has demanded that I manage everything except the money (and our financial problems a few years ago meant that I took some of that over and he lost even more authority in our household).

I'm starting to feel like his Love Language for giving love is acts of service, and the difficulty is that he's home so little to give acts of service. And I'm competent enough that there doesn't seem to be a lot of space for him here. And his love language for receiving love is physical touch, but of course that's off limits right now. My 180s have been responding with more patience to the kids and to him, and responding to things that frustrate me more slowly, to not nag or pursue him, and to place the boundary on our friendship while he's in contact with OW. I guess reaching out to him to help me with the kids when they are upset has been kind of a 180, in that I never tried to demand that from him before... But it's never been needed like it has been lately.