A few days ago, my husband came home from work and asked me to sit down. He then told me that he hasn’t loved me or been happy for years and that he wants a divorce
Dear Coleen
I’ve been married to my husband for 20 years and I thought we had a good marriage. We’ve had our ups and downs and we bicker quite a bit. But nothing out of the ordinary and my friends seem to be the same with their husband. We have three children who are 18, 15 and nine.
A few days ago, my husband came home from work and asked me to sit down. He then told me that he hasn’t loved me or been happy for years and that he wants a divorce.
He said he wanted to wait until all our children were older but he’s run out of patience because he feels so unhappy.
He promises me that there’s nobody else involved and I believe him. I’m absolutely devastated and I just don’t know what to do. I feel like my whole world has fallen apart and I just can’t believe it.
I haven’t slept or eaten since he told me and I’ve only told one friend because I can’t face telling anybody else. I don’t even know how I’m going to tell the children.
He’s still living with us but he’s moving into a rented flat in a week so I’ll have to start telling people then. How will I ever get over this?
Coleen says
At this point, of course you feel like you’ll never get over it, but I promise you that you will. Things are going to feel scary and sad for a long time and you won’t be able to think straight or see the future because the future you thought you were going to have has been taken away from you.
After 20 years of marriage and three kids, it’s awful this has happened to you, but there’s not a lot you can do about it. But you will get through it. You never know, he might move into his own flat and have a bit of time on his own and think, “What the hell am I doing?” But don’t rely on this to happen.
As for telling your children, this needs to be his responsibility so don’t let him push that on to you. It’s his decision to leave the marriage so he needs to be honest with your children and explain his decision without hurting them further.
Having said all this, I can’t say that he’s an awful man and a bad person because he can’t help his feelings. I’m so sorry