He's The Sh*t And I'm Knee Deep In It

Hi,

I am 2 and 1/2 months out from D-Day on July 3rd. He's British, I'm American so my independence day came a day early this year. I try to make light of the situation but is is actually heart-wrenching.

My (30F) STBXH (39M) and I had been together over 10 years, married 6 years. We had just closed on our dream house. Not like it was some mansion or anything, but it was perfect for us and ticked all our boxes. He started acting weird in June. He was leaning into me thinking my mental health was bad and that's why I was so up and down that entire month. Turned out it wasn't my mental health but the evident zipper issue with all of his pants. I felt so crazy, and sad. Such a deep sadness.

I finally looked at his phone one morning while he was still asleep. He woke up and pulled me down, wrestling the phone from me but I saw enough. And the fact he was willing to drag me down to the ground to get his phone back was heartbreaking in and of itself. I was shattered.

I went to stay with my sister. Did the back and forth thing for a few weeks then I realized he was putting little to no effort in, instead he was burying his head in the sand in the home I fell in love with and spent hours furnishing. I didn't get to sleep a single night in that home. My dream house. While trying to reconcile, we had come back from a date and he had gone to sleep. I felt...uneasy and looked through his phone again. He made it harder to find but was still messaging her. This woman has kids and a partner of her own, knew he was married, still decided a married man would fill the gaping hole she has. And it sounds like he did, or tried.

I told him to leave that night. He groveled and kept pacing back and forth trying to figure out the "cheat" code for just the right words strung together to make me believe him or stay. I told him to leave again. The next morning was a doctor's appointment for me that was important and had been scheduled in advance that he was to take me to. I asked him to do me that favor still.

He took me and he was crying on and off in my doctor's appointment, like inconsolably so. He kept trying to touch me, touched my hand and was crying while holding it. Would go back out to the car to sob, come back in, ad nauseam. He could hardly look me in the eye. He didn't want the appointment to end (and if I'm honest, I didn't either) because we knew this was the last us together and then it would break off into two separate lives.

We went back home before he was due to leave again and gave a final goodbye. Again, he was sobbing uncontrollably, almost in hysterics. He told me he always thought he was born to love me because it was the one thing he was good at, like how some people are natural born athletes or artists. And he was, he was the picture perfect husband, until he wasn't.

There seem to be other things going on with him as well. He's obsessed with his youth currently, says he doesn't know who he is and he is scared of the person he may become because he liked who he was. He said he felt detached from all emotions and himself, almost like out of body. He disclosed to me he has abused some prescribed pain pills by taking more than he should then when he ran out he took old pain pills he had from a previous procedure. Found out he suddenly started buying alcohol which he didn't really drink before and he was getting random types because he said he didn't know the best type of alcohol to drink. He has been driving reckless and almost endangering himself (and at a time me) by his driving. He has done a complete 180.

I have been living with family to get on my feet financially and had blocked him everywhere except the occasional message regarding the divorce process, etc. I had to unblock him again this weekend to sort out some details. Of course, he waited exactly 24hours to the minute to respond, when I know he is currently on PTO with his mom so...very indifferent and unbothered of him, for sure. Then he responded vaguely that he will get back to me with a proper reply when he looks at finances, as if he doesn't know what he gets paid or what's in his bank or his outgoings. He has been unresponsive since, like a typical avoidant or just wanting to control the situation when I stripped all of his control previously by blocking him and leaving. I think he's grasping at whatever control or manipulation he can have now.

Anyways, life is hard. I'm surviving but some days it feels like barely? Other days I feel mighty and can take on the world. It is all so disorienting how someone can change so drastically. His parents both cheated on each other so it probably runs in the family. Blood type: F***Around positive

8 comments posted: Tuesday, September 17th, 2024