Mleigh - I just caught up. Sorry, I know I am late to the table. I ditto Irish.

Several things stuck out at me. First, wow, your h has a lot of hurt. I hear a lot of hurt out of him. It's hard to know if it's projection, an immature understanding of marriage/raising kids or a bit of both. Marriages change when people have kids. Everyone has to work harder at most everything. And yes, both spouses neglect each other and even themselves. It's just something every couple needs to work through. His comments came off as a pretty immature. Did he think it would all be easy and his life would be unaltered?

And, it did surprise me to hear him say he didn't know if he was happy. I think that's the verbiage he used. He said sometimes he's happy and sometimes he is not. I am curious to know in what moments he's happy and in what moments he is not. Hmm. All that time off by himself and he's doesn't get the fact that nothing is ever perfect; we all have to find a way to make ourselves happy.

The last thing that resonated with me was that he seemed hurt that you said you are happy now with the way things are. One thought here. If you're going to have a conversation with him soon, maybe you consider addressing this? I know this whole scenario is not your ideal and you never wanted all this, but it came off that he thinks you did. No? I am just thinking this may need to be clarified as there sounds like there's a lot of hurt behind that? Just a thought . . .

You are a tough cookie! Kudos to you on all your hard work.

Me 41, H 47, M 15 yrs, S11, S13
BD 1: 11/4/14 we work on it; really I pretzel myself
BD 2: 3/31/15 H goes down to "dorm room"
8/15: H back to MBR
10/15: H back in dorm room
1/18: H files, now divorced