Feeling so hopeless

[Lucy105]

Hello everyone.

I am brand new to this board, just signing on today. I'm going to apologize ahead of time, this is going to be a very long post.

I have read through the book Divorce Remedy, but am hoping for more support here, and help with implementing my detach. We are completely separated, and have no children, so I'm worried without a reason to contact each other, he's just going to be OK moving on.

My husband walked out 3 weeks ago today, stating he wanted a divorce, and threw the whole gamut of negatives at me before going. It really hurt, we had a good relationship, but after reading in the book not to believe anything I hear, it made me feel better.

He was extremely extremely angry, and the anger just didn't make sense to me. I wasn't a perfect wife, but hadn't done anything that bad to warrant that much anger. I did all the things initially that the book says not to do........crying, begging, pleading....etc etc etc. As the book says, nothing worked. So I switched my mind completely into a more positive, upbeat frame of mind. That didn't work to bring him home, but it did get him to mellow a bit, and at least take divorce off of the table for now.

My husband and I have been married 14 years on 5/5, together 17 years. We bought a small business together 2 1/2 years ago.....a restaurant......and we both worked at the restaurant. The first year there it was all about him and I, building this business, and getting to know our customers, and our customers getting to know us. We created a family type atmosphere, and we were all like family with our staff and regular customers. I also worked from home, doing behind the scenes things like marketing, paperwork, dealing with emails, etc. etc. etc.

I whole heartedly believe this started last year for him. He just started to change, and become more distant with me, and more into having fun with his staff. Joking around, and acting more like friends with them. If I was around, sitting next to him, he couldn't carry on a normal conversation with me, he'd turn his back to me, but when his girls would come in, he would then turn towards me, just lite up with smiles, and became Mr. Chatty. At that point he'd pay attention to me because he knew I would be upset.

He started to become more distant, spending more time there, and paying less attention to me. I wasn't asking him to pay attention to me all the time, I was totally satisfied with sitting together a few minutes out of his day.

The restaurant became all about him, and he was beginning to push me out, and keep me home. My husband is way more than just the owner/manager, he is also the head cook, and spends his day in the kitchen, as well as trying to run and manage everything. I know it is extremely stressful on him, but it was his was his choice, he didn't want any help from me, and often criticized me. He said I tried to control to many things. I tried very hard to understand that he was stressed, but he put himself in that position. He would leave at 7:00 am, and not get home sometimes until 1:00 am.

I found out a week after he left that he had been having an emotional affair for a while before he left, with one of his staff members. She didn't have a vehicle, and it started when he would pick her up, and bring her home. The day he left our home, the affair became physical. Three of his staff members warned him about this woman. She is not a nice person at all, she's downright nasty. She physically pushed two of our girls, and called them the "C" word to their face.

Those three staff members chose to stand up to him, and have been quite angry with him. He lost their respect, and friendship. It has made it very awkward there for him, but he still defends this woman to no end.

He has chosen to defend her, and her actions, she is still around. She started out as a waitress, and when she couldn't get along with any of the staff, or our customers, he pulled her into the kitchen. Even the customers verbally complain to my husband about her!

Fast forward to this week. My husband has been making negative comments to one of the staff, who is also my friend. He stated that she is a raging alcoholic. He said last week that he is going to break it off with her, but hasn't yet, and knowing my husband as well as I do, he doesn't like confrontation at all, and gets nervous with heated situations, so he will put it off as long as he can.

Nobody likes this girl, she is well known in the community, and has a very bad reputation with anyone who knows her. My husband doesn't believe any of it he said. So when one of our staff was speaking badly about her, my husband had this woman call this staff member "to defend herself". The argument got heated, and this woman was harassing the staff member to the point she threatened to call the police, and file harassment charges.

One thing that confuses me about this, if he is seeing things about her that he does not like, the alcoholism for example, and knows he needs to break it off, why is he having her call our staff member, and allowing her to use his phone to do so, and then defending her? When the staff member confronted him, my husband said she needed to defend herself. I'm so very confused by this.

I know for a fact that if he is letting her use his phone, she is reading my texts to him, so at this point I have definitely decided it's time to detach from him.

The only only thing that makes sense to me about this, is that he sees this woman as a safe place right now, in spite of her flaws. He's feeling pressure from every direction, and I know he is dealing with the guilt because of what he's doing to hurt me. I've tried to remain extremely upbeat with him, and not blame, accuse, or get angry, and I don't think he expected that at all. I feel that's where his guilt is coming in, he expected me to blow up.

This woman is very much a person that will tell you EXACTLY what she knows you want to hear. She has her claws in deep with my husband, for her own benefit, thinking she's going to get something from him I believe. She loves the fact that he is respected by the community, and views him as someone higher up.

Over the weekend, my husband passed out in the kitchen. He has only done that one other time in the 17 years we've been together. It was shortly after we bought the restaurant, and the pressure and stress he was feeling was very high. So I know he is feeling pressure and stress right now.

I'm actually very worried about him, and our business. But I have chosen to detach right now. My only issue is that he controls the money now, and I have none since I also worked at the restaurant. I have to ask him for money to pay the house bills, since he is living outside of the home.

I'm trying to sell some items that I have, so that I can remain detached as long as possible. I'm feeling hopeless at this point though..........and worried.