MLC Hubby wants to move out

[RegretfulLA]

Hi friends,
Glad this site is still around and thriving. It was so helpful to me 10-12 years ago when I first started DB'ing. (YES, it works, and we survived!)

I can't say the last 10 years have been easy... many bumps in the road but reading my old posts, it's a GD miracle that we didn't D back then. Things were really brutal at times, but with time, we've mellowed... old hurts have healed, we have come back together, and drifted apart again...

Yesterday we celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary, and it was actually lovely and we had some good conversations about "us", but H is dead set on this idea of moving out and being a "bachelor".
We are approaching an empty nest with S18 leaving for college in Sept and H is just convinced that he needs some time on his own. The problem is, we have no money for this.

I'll try to keep this story short but H had a semi-traumatic upbringing with a very unstable mother who was in and out of the house. She also had psychiatric problems. She was loving, but extremely unreliable. (I am the opposite: extremely reliable, not super lovey-dovey).

Last summer, H's grandma died and H's mom, who was already in poor health, ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Now H's mom has her psychiatric issues under control, but has lost nearly all of her motor function and will probably be in a nursing home from here on out. Understandably, this has taken a toll on H.

H worked for a company that had an unsuccessful IPO and we went from being fabulously wealthy (on paper) to having a little extra money for a nice vacation in reality. This also really set him back emotionally. He was also laid off from this company in their scramble to resurrect their stock price, which couldn't have been too great for him either.

H suffers from depression generally and has been taking meds for a while now. H has never really resolved his mother issues and they have filtered through into our M. He has always been somewhat reserved and never truly vulnerable. H is now able to hear this and accept that he needs to work on his mother issues to get over this R hump.

One day, in November 2023, I was looking at my Kindle and I noticed some new books in there (we had a family account). MLC's take all different forms, but my hubby's MLC apparently is all about kinky sex; the books were about BDSM and polyamory. All fine, not really my bag though. It came as a shock but sort of opened up some lines of conversation. (The lines of conversation started with "WHAT THE F, H?!!!")

I had surgery back in October 2023 and H has cut off sex since then. H could have gone to sleep in S20's bedroom (he was at college but is home now) but he did not.

Fast forward to now, H has decided he needs to live alone to figure out his [censored]. The good news is that we're talking more, communicating better, through all of this. He has also mentioned that he might want to see other women but he didn't want to open the marriage. Then he said he wanted to talk to our sons about this and I said ABSOLUTELY NOT... Not until he has a plan... which he doesn't. H has said he doesn't want a D, he just wants some space... is that having his cake and eating it too? I don't know.

This fool is probably thinking about liquidating his 401K so he can fulfill his MLC fantasies. That's reason enough for a D! We have a guest house in our backyard but that's not enough separation for him. I told him (and he listened) that he was being EXTREMELY selfish and he actually agreed. Ironically - he's been nicer, kinder, more open, listening more... and maybe it's because I have just backed off...

The first thing I did when he started the "I want to move out" conversation and I could tell he wasn't just blowing smoke this time - i bought another copy of DR. I had given mine away to a friend whose H walked out on her. I feel like a DB pro at this point... these techniques feel like second nature after practicing them for so long, but they work.

Other books I have been reading:
The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands by Dr. Laura Schlesinger - I don't subscribe to a lot of Dr. Laura's theories about feminism and whatnot, but she makes some good points about not being a bitch and treating H like a man and not a child.

The Shut-Out Wife: Breaking Through Your Husband's Midlife Crisis by Debra Macleod, BA, JD. - I'm about halfway through this one - pretty similar to DB/DR but really focused on MLC and all it's fun flavors.

Anyway - glad to be back after such a long time and looking forward to hearing from y'all.