# need some advice



## mattp (Jun 3, 2013)

Hi, 

I'm sure this is going to be the same as a hundred other forum posts, but I need to get it off my chest. Sorry. 

My wife and I separated after 10 years together (almost 3 married) in February this year. Problems started at the end of 2011. We had always planned on trying for children in 2012, and to anyone viewing from the outside (and to me) we were a really strong, happy couple in love. Then, things started to change. She got a good job at a large company and started spending more and more time 'out with friends' after work. I've never had a problem with her socialising - I always saw myself as the opposite of a controlling husband. Want to go on holiday on her own with friends? That's fine. Weekend away with her family? No problem.

Anyway, the 'quick drink after work' became a 4, sometimes 5 times a week thing. She would usually come home somewhere between tipsy and drunk at 8 or 9pm. I started to feel neglected. Our sex life dropped off a cliff.

Over the next few months, it was like a wall went up between us. There was next to no physical contact. The baby plan went out the window, and the only explanation I got was "I've changed". How? I never did get an answer to that.

Some things happened that led me to believe that, if she wasn't seeing someone, she had at least been unfaithful. 

I stopped being asked if it was ok for her to go away, see her friends, and started being told "I'm away this weekend"

Skip towards the end of 2012, I had spent a fair few months asking how we could fix things. After all, we'd been together for a decade and I didn't want to give up on it when I hadn't even been given a reason for why this was happening. She repeatedly said "I don't think we can fix it"

By about December it was pretty clear I was facing a dead end, so I started to make arrangements to move to another city for a fresh start. I did this in February, initially staying with family, but now in my own flat.

Since then... really, I've been a total mess. She's left me in limbo because she neither wants to make any effort to even try and repair anything, nor does she want to discuss a divorce. I just feel completely dead inside. I don't have any friends where I live now. My colleagues in my new job are nice enough, but quite a lot older than me and don't live locally. I just stay in my flat when I'm not working, feeling terrible. I've never been so lonely.

Every now and again I get the motivation to force myself to get out and about. I went to a concert on my own, went to a meetup.com social thing... but I just come away feeling worse.

I'm drinking and smoking quite heavily, and I don't know why. I've never been that keen on drinking, and I hate smoking. But I do it anyway. My flat is a mess. It looks like it's been burgled. I just can't bring myself to clean it.

I don't feel like I'll ever find anyone who would want to be with me, or that I would want to be with. People tell me I'm handsome and funny and nice, but I feel disgusting and repulsive.

Sometimes I look around and think "how the hell did I get here?" and I have no idea. We were a great couple, we both loved each other so much. I just don't understand what went wrong.

I dont know what to do.


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## coldshoulder (Sep 27, 2011)

Sorry for your crappy situation...but you better pick yourself up and move on, she has. See a lawyer about getting the proceedings going. You need closure to this mess. Let her know that it is over and you are filing. As for finding someone, go to an online singles site. There are tons of them...and you just fill out the profile questions and start going through the people that catch your eye. Send a message and meet someone, it's almost that simple and quick.

Really am sorry for your luck...my marriage just ended two weeks ago, she decided we were done trying after 22yrs together. Like getting kicked in the nuts, but felt worse for longer.

Go meet someone and put a smile on yours and their face, just because you are old news to the wife doesn't mean that someone else doesn't think you are the Prince Charming they have waited their whole life to meet!

Later.


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## zappy882000. (May 23, 2013)

I can feel your pain from your post.

Just do not show any weakenss on your part to her.

I know it is very difficult to do but try to have a very minimal contact her as possible for now.


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## doubletrouble (Apr 23, 2013)

Don't blame you for being depressed. It's a depressing situation. 

However, you're not chained to depression! Like they said to Simba in The Lion King "remember who you are!" You aren't a long-suffering wimp, you aren't dead inside. You're a MAN, and you can take care of yourself. So do it. 

As another poster said, get out there and at least have some fun. You don't have to fall in love with someone, you don't have to prove your manhood to anyone. Just get out, get some new things going on in your life, and pick something like playing music, fixing up an old motorcycle, going shooting -- those are some of my favorite things but you pick your own -- to fill your time instead of just drinking and smoking in your flat. That'll wear you out and slow you down even more. 

If you're depressed, stop drinking. That's the worst thing you can do to yourself.


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## mattp (Jun 3, 2013)

Thanks for the advice guys. The rational part of my brain is trying to get me to go out, socialise. I'm starting to learn the piano to keep myself busy. It's like I can feel my brain arguing with itself - the sensible side telling me to get up and move on, and the emotional side dragging me back down again.

Thanks again


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