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Mbluish
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Default Jun 11, 2020 at 09:35 PM
  #1
My husband of nearly 26 years has started looking for places to live away from me. We have certainly had our issues, on both sides, but I have no doubt he is going through a mid-life crises, an identity crises, and I am concerned about the genetic dementia on both sides of his family. We are both 50. He told me yesterday he found a place on the beach (We’ve bern looking here for awhile) and has two days to decide if he wants to take it. I overheard him telling his cousin he will take it today. He thinks taking a break from us, his family, my family, work...will help him,. I’ve asked him for a long time to see someone together. He has seen a therapist for over a year and I have recently started. I fear his time away will be a romantic place and he will never come back, a place he has recently developed a hatred for. I don’t know what to do. I don’t think him leaving is the best thing for us.
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Default Jun 11, 2020 at 10:09 PM
  #2
I am so very sorry you are dealing with this incredibly painful situation, M. I have been through something quite similar. What I realize in retrospect is that, when she refused to do couples' therapy, that was a sign that she just was gone. I should have just divorced her then. It would have saved a ton of misery for me. I was denying reality.

I am 56 and have had two long-term (more than 10 years each) marriages/partnerships. What I have concluded from that experience is that there are not very many people at this point in American history who, when they stand up and say "...forever...", they actually, really do mean that. What most people mean to say is, "...I will be with you for as long as I choose to be with you..."

People are inherently unreliable and fickle, in myr experience. Others have had very different experiences, I am quite sure, but this has certainly been mine.

So, what I am saying is, this really is not about you at all. It is about him and his inability to maintain a commitment made long ago over time. It is really the rule, not the exception.

While there were many bad things about the era, I really should have been born in around 1930 or so. I have much more in common with the values of those in their 80s now than I do with anyone in my age group. In those days, people who married in the 1950s, a whole ton of those people, they meant it. They stayed come hell or high water. Forever meant forever. People do not really mean that in our age group, at least, this has been what my life has taught me.

Love and support to you. You can get through this. But I receommend against chasing him around. I suspect that is the road to nowhere.

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Smile Jun 12, 2020 at 08:08 PM
  #3

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Default Jun 13, 2020 at 04:47 PM
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I don’t care if he has mid life crisis. If my husband said he wants to go live in the beach house by himself, I’d not stop him. But i definitely wouldn’t be married to him anymore. He’d be served divorce papers. Right there at the beach house.
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Default Jun 15, 2020 at 02:24 AM
  #5
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Originally Posted by divine1966 View Post
I don’t care if he has mid life crisis. If my husband said he wants to go live in the beach house by himself, I’d not stop him. But i definitely wouldn’t be married to him anymore. He’d be served divorce papers. Right there at the beach house.
You go, divine.

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Default Jun 15, 2020 at 08:51 AM
  #6
Hi...
I'm so sorry you are going through such a painfull situation...
I just wanted to help you think about something. When you say "I don’t think him leaving is the best thing for us", you are considering there is a common feeling of "us", that is shared by you and your husband. But maybe there is no "us". There is a "me", and a "you", and the us that used to be is no longer there. If there is some kind of "us" there, it will not be the time he spends away that will end that, on the contrary. But if he has moved on beyond that "us" you once shared you should prepare you heart to handle the grief. No one dies of it, you know? It hurts like hell, but we can go on with our lives, one day at a time. It's better to live a real life than a fake one, even if it hurts so much. There is life beyond the pain, and it will be an honest, real life, instead of a fake one. No one deserves to live a fake happiness.
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Default Jun 15, 2020 at 03:48 PM
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Originally Posted by bpcyclist View Post
You go, divine.
My bigger concern is that it is more than a mid-life crises. He has Alzheimer’s on both sides of his family. He is not acting like himself and says he feels he needs to be away from everyone, including his best friends. He keeps saying he needs rest. Yes, I am hurt, I am confused, I am concerned. He loves he and tells me all of the time and shows me. This wanting a separation came out of the blue. I know it is not an affair. I want him to see a doctor but he doesn’t think he needs to and his problems is with everyone else. I want to be supported but damn, I am heartbroken.

Last edited by Mbluish; Jun 15, 2020 at 04:58 PM..
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Default Jun 15, 2020 at 05:52 PM
  #8
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Originally Posted by Mbluish View Post
My bigger concern is that it is more than a mid-life crises. He has Alzheimer’s on both sides of his family. He is not acting like himself and says he feels he needs to be away from everyone, including his best friends. He keeps saying he needs rest. Yes, I am hurt, I am confused, I am concerned. He loves he and tells me all of the time and shows me. This wanting a separation came out of the blue. I know it is not an affair. I want him to see a doctor but he doesn’t think he needs to and his problems is with everyone else. I want to be supported but damn, I am heartbroken.
Maybe im misunderstanding, but are you attributing to him not acting himself to alzheimers? Because based just off what you told us, it just sounds like he's dealing with personal issues.Him suddenly wanting to separate may have been something he's deliberated on for a while, Especially given the fact that he has been in therapy, has denied couples therapy.

I can certainly understand the concern for him long term if he were to separate permanently, and it sounds like you've expressed that to him.

He says he wants to be away from everyone. Does that include cutting off communication with everyone? Maybe if he were to go through with it, you can still maintain contact? And I'd assume you'd know where he lived.

Furthermore, do you know his reasons for wanting to do all this? You say rest and wanting to be away from everyone. But what does he want to rest from?And does it have anything to do with the issues you guys have had in the past?

Im sorry I don't have much to say in terms of dissuading him from that particular course of action, or trying to resolve the issues in the relationship. But he seems determined, has denied working things through in couples therapy ( Do you know why?) and has been in therapy himself. There's only so much you can do if he's not meeting you halfway
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Default Jun 15, 2020 at 08:13 PM
  #9
He’s had dizzy spells and vertigo. Insurance wouldn’t helps with a CT scan. He got really dark last summer and had a hard time getting out of bed. He was really depressed. He just finished a PhD. He feels there is nothing left. He said it wasn’t


me at first and now blames me, his family, my family...He has not cut off with friends but it was odd he mentioned he could easily do it today. He did say we can do couples counseling. He will come home for the day or we can do it via online. We will maintain contact but I am not sure how often. He loves Zoom and FaceTime with friend but because of his changed personality, I know some have distanced themselves. I want him to get better. The man I married and have known for all of these year wouldnÂ’t recognize who is is now. He says he has worked so hard his entire life and now need rest. The only people who knows we are separating are myself and a cousin he had recently become close to.

I know there is only so much I can do but telling him it is he stays or itÂ’s over doesnÂ’t seem to be the right answer now. I want to but that may only push him further away. He did tell me if he stays, he feels our relationship will end, but, if he goes he feels there can be reconciliation. There was a time when he was really dark that he couldnÂ’t even show affection. He now shows affection much more often but I still see the darkness surface. Just vented here. Thanks for listening.

Last edited by Mbluish; Jun 15, 2020 at 10:29 PM..
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Default Jun 16, 2020 at 02:21 AM
  #10
I learned today he has been planning on doing this for weeks. I get to come visit him and he’s asked others to as well. At least a month he’s planning on getting a place away form me.
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Default Jun 19, 2020 at 10:04 AM
  #11
It could be that he is having a depression or is burned out after getting PhD but I am not sure why is it him wanting to live apart is a sign of Alzheimer
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Default Jun 19, 2020 at 05:45 PM
  #12
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Originally Posted by Mbluish View Post
He’s had dizzy spells and vertigo. Insurance wouldn’t helps with a CT scan. He got really dark last summer and had a hard time getting out of bed. He was really depressed. He just finished a PhD. He feels there is nothing left. He said it wasn’t


me at first and now blames me, his family, my family...He has not cut off with friends but it was odd he mentioned he could easily do it today. He did say we can do couples counseling. He will come home for the day or we can do it via online. We will maintain contact but I am not sure how often. He loves Zoom and FaceTime with friend but because of his changed personality, I know some have distanced themselves. I want him to get better. The man I married and have known for all of these year wouldnÂ’t recognize who is is now. He says he has worked so hard his entire life and now need rest. The only people who knows we are separating are myself and a cousin he had recently become close to.

I know there is only so much I can do but telling him it is he stays or itÂ’s over doesnÂ’t seem to be the right answer now. I want to but that may only push him further away. He did tell me if he stays, he feels our relationship will end, but, if he goes he feels there can be reconciliation. There was a time when he was really dark that he couldnÂ’t even show affection. He now shows affection much more often but I still see the darkness surface. Just vented here. Thanks for listening.
I think you are right in your instinct thinking an ultimatum isn't the right answer, after all, he did agree to couples counseling, and just based off your updates it seems he's becoming less closed off. I hope the couples therapy comes to fruition and ends up helping.

Feel free to keep on updating us if you want.
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Default Jul 12, 2020 at 08:37 PM
  #13
You sound exactly like me 10 years ago. My husband left for a week when he was 50, then came back. I had caught him in an online relationship and I said that if he would go to counselling, I wanted to try and work things out. At the time, I thought it was a midlife crisis AND, like you, have been concerned about his cognitive state (dementia in his family). He went to three sessions where he lied to the therapist, then he refused to go back. From age 50 to 61, I caught him in several other compromising online situations--he always denied he was doing anything and made me feel like I was paranoid and being distrustful of him. Long story short, in April I found him talking on the phone (to the same woman from 10 years ago), checked my phone records and could see he had been talking to her everyday for over a year. When confronted, he admitted he had never ended his relationship with her and that for the last 7 years it was more than online. He is gone, I am struggling to make sense of my complicity and role in this and it is hard. My advice to you, is let him go and don't waste 10 more years of your life.
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