Hope you are doing ok! Hang in there. I see a lot of similarities between our two situations-- my H travels a ton for work and so I single parent a lot (a week a month or so) and work full time. I had a lot of resentment about the burdens of all of that plus was totally consumed by being a mom, and was not very interested in sex with him. The last few years he went out on his own and his business the last couple of years hasn't been as successful as it was at first, and I know this was really hard on him (plus I wasn't exactly supportive generally since I was also a little resentful that I had to do the 8-5 gig and as a consultant that worked for himself he had a lot more control over his time-- felt like he should just get a real job). I also think he's struggling somewhat with MLC-- turned 40 this year, went on a dieting binge, stopped going to church, is majorly fighting with his dad.
We finally went to MC a little over a year ago and basically fought about all the above plus his anger management in front of her. Same here, he did not want to commit to working on our M and instead (unbeknownst to me at the time) started a long distance EA which is still going. Finding out about her was really hard and continues to be awful but it does help make more sense about why he's acting the way he is and not interested in working on the R with me. I guess I wouldn't be surprised if there is an OW in your situation.
The main differences are that post-MC (and potentially application of some DBing) my H actually got WAAAY better at doing his part of the household/kid duties, and while he hasn't moved down to the basement yet I know he is thinking seriously about it. I've been attempting to DB for about six months, and he has gone from flinching at my touch and being very uncommunicative to back to being good friends. The DBing has helped tremendously in our day-to-day communication and we rarely fight. However, no magic elixirs from me here since (a) he still is talking to his AP and doesn't know that he wants to be married to me and (b) while I've been good at parts of DBing, like 180s and GAL, I am terrible at detaching and still hold a lot of anxiety and fear over what happens if he walks out the door (or down to the basement). He has this fantasy D in his head where we would still vacation together, eat dinner together, he would just go next door to his house with the AP.
Question-- so your H got way better at helping out and then post-BD has completely stopped? Is he around for the kids at all these days?
And Woosa, if you read this-- he's doing his own laundry!!
Me (46) H (42) M:14 T:18, D9 & D11 4/19 - 12/19: series of escalating BDs 9/20 - present: R and piecing
