I don't think he's a workaholic, but he seems to be working much longer hours and also doing work social stuff a lot more than before he left, I think to fill up the hole in his life. Or perhaps he just can't cope with the workload as he's getting older and more burnt-out so has to work harder. I did mention to him recently that he never used to work at the weekend and now it seems to be a common occurrence, and he didn't agree with me. But I've rarely seen him work at the weekend before for many years, so it's true. I think he might be depressed and lost about the future, yes. But he is a lot less emotionally abusive than he's ever been in the past. In the past he never would have apologised for the toe stubbing incident. Maybe part of the separation for him is protecting me and the kids from his black moods and anger, I don't know. He has been a lot less angry at me for many months now, and if he is critical it seems out of habit, it's much milder than it used to be, and a few times he's corrected me and said it wasn't me he was criticising but a particular thing or situation. So he is definitely working hard on behaving well towards me and the kids. Maybe he doesn't want to reconcile until he thinks he's cured himself? I don't know.
I think you're right, I'm not sure he's capable of any more right now. I told him when he first left that he'd chosen his job over me and over his family, and this kind of proves it. But he seems stuck in where he is right now, and I don't know what will force him to decide to change his unsustainably stressful lifestyle. He is enormously strong and enormously disciplined, but he's not superhuman and I feel he's at breaking point or will be until he changes something. It's not a conversation I feel I can have yet, he's in too bad a place and it will be seen as controlling or interfering. He doesn't see himself as suffering from SAD, though he did say this morning how much he's looking forward to seeing daylight soon when the clocks change.
At some stage: I'm thinking May/June time. That's usually when he snaps out of his SAD funk and hopefully he'll have a chance to have some time off. He will spend about 5 days in 2 chunks with us at Easter, that's probably not enough to lift his cloud but maybe enough to let some light in. I think he needs some proper time off to get into a state where he can even think straight. His life is miserable, and it doesn't seem to have got less miserable since he left. He needs to see he has the power to make it less miserable and that no amount of money is worth killing himself and his marriage for. I don't have a fixed deadline though, maybe he does. I think that leaving us all for good would destroy him, he is in self-destructive mode right now, but I hope that self preservation will kick in eventually before I've moved on.
Incidentally he's sent me 2 texts already this morning, one saying thanks for the lift and wishing me nice weather for a trip I'm taking, and the next congratulating me on last night. Neither asked a question so I will let him stew a bit with the picture of me on stage in my beautiful dress in his mind
