Just made this throw away account. I’m going to try my best to not make this a novel but also give the necessary details. My husband (31M) and I (30F) are currently separated. We do have two young kids, under 9. Together for 13 years. Back story, I initiated a separation in 2022 because of his obsession over his hobbies and never put us first. It was a constant battle that wasn’t changing. We both thought we were headed for divorce and agreed to separate. This lasted about 3 months and we ended up getting back together (I reached out to him to try again). We did BUT we never talked about the issues. We literally just picked back up where we left off and pushed all the issues under the rug.
Fast forward to a couple months ago (June), I asked for another separation BUT this time, I told him I did not want a divorce. I just needed time and space to think. I said maybe like 3 months. This was due to the same issues we had before and every time I would bring up an issue, he would gaslight or dismiss me. I felt like I couldn’t talk to him about anything and I felt like I was going crash, seriously. I needed to just step back and clear my head. He was veryyy against it and wanted to just sleep in separate bedrooms and go to couples therapy. I told him no, I needed actual space so we could sleep at our friends house and rotate being home with the kids for now. I also said no to couples therapy because I had been asking him to go to individual for months and he always refused. So I said no for right now, go to individual, and then we can talk about couples. About 2 weeks go by and he’s going to individual weekly (we’re still in the same house at this point) so I say okay lets try couples. This is when he did a complete 180 and said he thinks we should move forward with the separation and he isn’t interested in couples right now.
Since then, its been about 4 weeks and I have had so many conflicting conversations. He is now at his dads majority of the time and the kids do not know anything. He comes back and forth. At first he was saying things like “I don’t want to be with you right now”, “I don’t see this working in the future”, “I don’t want to work on us, I want to work on myself”, “I think you’d be happier with someone else because I don’t think I make you happy”. I told him how that wasn’t true at all. He was pissed that I declined therapy but now I want it so I tried to explain the reasons why but he just didn’t want to hear it. He told me he doesn’t know if he wants a divorce or not.
Now he’s saying things like “I don’t want this right now but I don’t know what the future holds”, “I don’t want to tell the kids anything until something is permanent”, “I don’t want to do this again in 4 years when our kids are older”. He also told me he still loves me and always will but he needs time to miss me because he doesn’t know if he’s still IN love with me now. So he needs this to feel “real” to know.
I have tried to explain my reasons for it this time and how all I wanted was for us to do it CORRECTLY this time, by addressing our issues. I’m in therapy already so I knew he needed to go and then we would go together. I never had intentions on divorce. I told him separation in my mind only meant space. It didn’t mean divorce. I apologized for not clarifying that when I said it but I swear, it’s like nothing I say matters right now. I’ve explained how I don’t think this would ever happen again because we would be addressing the issue this time and not putting a bandaid on it.
So right now, I’m just in limbo and driving myself crazy with the thoughts of “does he want a divorce or not”? I hate this so much and I’m trying my best to just give him space and time to clear his head, but I’m so scared of losing him… any advice or success stories would be great. Also there is 100% NOT someone else on either side. This isn't about other people.
Please don’t give me any of the you asked for it and you made your bed now you have to lay in it comments. I obviously know where I went wrong and what I would do differently if he gave us another chance.
TL;DR: I can't even begin to try to sum this up.