This will be a little long so bear with me.
My spouse and I have been together for going on 11 years, married for technically nearly 5. A bit of background. Previously we both identified as lesbian women. I am 31, and he is turning 40 in a few days.
He has always been loving and caring, attentive and affectionate and VEHEMENTLY against cheating. And he has been this way with all of his previous partners too. His current behaviour is very out of character for him.
He has never had much of a libido, in all of our time together, and it was the same with previous partners (i spoke to the exs) and last year he agreed to see a couples therapist with me to see if we could get to the root cause of it. To see if it was a trauma or if he was just asexual. During this time he started exploring his gender identity as well. He became a bit distant, but was still willingly engaging in the exercises at his own volition.
He told me in February that he had started remembering, through individual therapy, about childhood sexual abuse and I was very supportive and assured him that it did not change how I feel and that it was not his fault. He had started remembering it the previous September so my therapist and I put the distance down to trying to process the trauma and gender identity.
A month later he left in the middle of the night after a hard session with our therapist where I confronted him about not defending me against something a friend of his said to me that was over a line.
He told me he just needed time, that he wasn't leaving me, that he loved me and needed to find the person I fell in love with again, he told both of our families and friends the same. He told the friend who took him away that he couldn't handle my anxiety (I have treatment resistant Bipolar 1, but it's mostly managed) he was also diagnosed with anxiety, ADHD and Bipolar 2 a week before he left.
He reiterated that he wasn't leaving me and that he loved me to all of the friends, both sides of the family and me for 3 months. And during this time he came out as transgender to me (female to male). Again I was nothing but supportive, I reassured him that I love him, that I'm not going anywhere, that I still want to be with him. That he just needs to let me know what he needs from me.
During the 3 months he was open about being confused about being married, he told me on the one hand he wanted to be because then there was someone that loved him unconditionally but on the other he didn't because he didn't want to consider someone else's feelings in all of this.
He told me the one thing he was the most sure of is that he loves me more than anything.
He implemented a ‘reintegration’ plan into coming home. So that we could redefine the roles in the relationship slowly so that he did not get overwhelmed. He would tell me how he was enjoying spending time with me, how it was feeling like home again, he was loving and affectionate.
I found out he stopped taking his medication about 2 weeks after he left and stopped seeing his therapist a month later.
During all of this I had been working on my anxiety and he even commented on the improvements I had made.
At the beginning of June he came for the weekend, again he was loving and affectionate, he did say that he felt that he was at a crossroads, that on one hand he could see himself with me but that he is scared if he comes back that we will end up where we were march but that he doesn't want to give up what we have built over the last 10 years and that he knew we could work through it, but on The other hand he sees himself without me, but that he knows we can work through it. He was even making plans for our future. Both immediate and distant.
Then 10 days later, the next weekend he was supposed to spend with me he walks in and asks for a divorce. I was confused. He told me he loves me, that there's no one else and probably never will be, but that he doesn't think its working and that he thinks it's unfair to keep me in a relationship his heart isn't in. He was still telling me he loves me every day until this point.
I reacted badly and impulsively, I overdosed on all of my medication while he was there and landed up in ICU for 2 days.
We were both told to not contact each other, to give each other time and space. He didn't pay his share of the bills at the end of June and my mother contacted him about it. He told her he could afford only one of them and has been paying it since. But he also told her unprompted 2 weeks later that he loves me very much but just thinks we bring out each others anxieties.
I respected the space. I did not contact him and for a month and a half he did nothing. Then he blocked me on tiktok, that was followed by removing that he was married on facebook and then blocking me there too.
Then he started changing his name, back to his unmarried name.
I had written him a letter, explaining why I felt the anxieties had been heightened for us both because he also said he had felt this way for years, but he never said anything to me or his friends. In fact he was telling people how much he loved me and how lucky he was to have me all the way up until he asked for the divorce. He was telling me every day while he was away that he loves me and he would call to talk to me almost every day. And he had agreed to meet my mom who was going to give it to him. We had been through a lot of health scares, employment upsets, COVID, family worries, loss of pets, his memory of childhood sexual abuse, his gender identity discovery in the past few years. I believe that it contributed a great deal to the heightened anxiety.
He then lost his job of 5 years for ‘lack of integrity’ and was kicked out of his friends house, where he had been staying this whole time. I dont know why, but they are no longer speaking and she has been his best friend of 15 years.
He turned up on the 1st of September to pick up his office keys to give back to his boss unannounced. He looked terrible. And I asked him about the cutting me out like he had, he told me my family had told him to. I asked about why he never said anything in the few years not even in therapy and he deflected it and said he felt attacked in therapy, even though I gave him 2 chances to stop going and he chose to continue.
I asked him about him telling everyone how much he loves me and he got defensive asking me who told me that. I asked about him telling everyone how he wasn't leaving me and he told me he just couldn't explain it
Again. I was reassuring, understanding, and calm. I reiterated I wasn't giving up on him. I asked if he wanted me to give him the letter then and he said yes that it may be a good idea.
He told me he had felt more like himself in the past 3 months than in the past 5 years. Which i believe is due to him having come out as trans and not me being out of the picture. I asked about the fact that he was still telling me he loved me and making plans for the future etc 10 days before. He said he decided to stop lying to himself and that walking away wouldn't be a failure and that he felt the relationship wasn't good for him, that we were too codependent and not independent. That he decided it was time to put himself first.
Now he never looked after me in any way, I was always the caretaker in the relationship. And I asked if the 6 months had not proved that we had managed to establish the independence again and if he doesn't think that things could be better now.
He then told me he doesn't love me anymore and when I said I don't believe him and that I think there's something else he snapped at me and told me I could believe whatever I want.
I gave him the letter and he promised to read it and I told him I loved him and I'm not giving up and that everything will be okay. I was calm and loving the entire time.
Now he had stayed in the apartment and family whatsapp groups until this point and I decided to start being active in the informal apartment one, as a show that I really was doing everything he had asked, that I had been making the changes he said were a problem. And he was still active in the group. The moment I became active in it he left it.
So I started drawing again and I was posting progress pictures as statuses on whatsapp. And he was checking them religiously. He had been checking all of the statuses I posted since June, which he had never done before.
He met with my mom yesterday. She said she thought the meeting went well. He was open and there was no defensiveness. No anger, no negative anything. He had read the letter he told her he had read it a few times and that he thought I had made valid points and he agreed but that he didn't think it was all that was a problem. He said he could see I was making the changes and working hard. I had also sent a voice recording, rebutting some of the things he had said when he turned up at the house and he asked my mom to send it to him without her asking him if she could. He willingly listened to it in front of her and again in the driveway of his parents house which is now where he is staying. He never once mentioned wanting to continue with the divorce he said he was processing a lot of things he said he was trying to find work. He deflected the fact that he was fired, he blamed his boss, and he told my mom that he agreed that we need to talk to each other and that he has no problem seeing me.
Then an hour later he blocked me on whatsapp and left the family whatsapp groups too. He has also removed the rest of the family from Facebook. He is still in the formal apartment group.
I found out this morning that he is seeing someone, a girl half his age, a girl I know, who was still in school when we were still dating. The daughter of one of his mothers friends.
I had a suspicion about this, I thought it may happen, I had discussed it with my therapist months ago that if as part of his transition. He needed to explore I would give him a temporary hall pass to do so, but he was posting pictures of them online, he had a petneme for her, he NEVER had that for me ever.
I want him back, my therapist doesn't know if this is a midlife crisis or the Bipolar since he stopped his meds and therapy in April, but he is destroying his life. I keep being told to give him time and space, that the ‘relationship’ he has going on is temporary and will end but I don't know. I cant help feeling like just sitting and waiting is counter productive. The letter and voice note were my only chance and they seem to have fallen on deaf ears. I dont know why he had read the letter multiple times, I don't know why he wanted the recording. I dont know why things changed so drastically so suddenly. Initially we thought this was just because he needed time and space to redefine himself as who he is now that he is out, outside of the marriage, but now with the side piece I dont know. Nothing makes sense. All I know is that I have been nothing but good to him, I have been nothing but understanding and supportive and caring and this is all spiralling and I dont know why, this recent behaviour is so out of character, he has never been like this, not even with his previous partners, I keep being told he will hit rock bottom at some point and realise he is making a mistake, and that I need to be patient. That he just needs a wake up call, but no one knows what that could be or when. It is killing me, seeing what is happening, it is killing me just sitting doing nothing and being progressively cut out of his life like a cancer, but that I want to get him back. I just don't know how to. I just need advice on what to do, how do I get him to wake up, how do I get him back?
