I Want My Husband Back, Is There Any Way To Reach Him Now?
I want my husband back!
My husband left 7 months ago but didn’t file for divorce until 4 months later. He told me he wouldn’t come back no matter what I said or did. The back story: We met almost 19 years ago when I was dating another guy. He and I hit it off immediately but because I was in a relationship, we had to be “just friends”.
For a year and a half he followed me around as I did things with friends and invited him along, in addition to him showing up and calling me at work a lot to “check on our computers” (since he was our computer repair guy). My boss said we never got that kind of service from him before I started working there. He’d take me out as “friends” when my boyfriend was working or out of town, etc., and we always had a blast.
As soon as my then boyfriend and I broke up, my now husband was there to catch me when I fell. The blinders came off of my eyes and I finally saw what a wonderful guy he was and I fell for him, hard. We dated, moved in together months later, lived together over a year and then married. We were a couple for 17 years and we’ve been married for 15 years, plus the 7 months we’ve been separated. About 4 years into the marriage (about 7 years after we were were a couple) I started rescuing dogs and placing them in new homes whenever possible, until the homes started drying up.
We had as many as 12 dogs (and a cat) at one time. When he left me we still had 9 dogs (and the cat). He told me he left because I wouldn’t get rid of the dogs as he kept asking me to do, and that I was emotionally abusive to him and treated him like a doormat. I disagree, and I reminded him of how I had been in a severe depression for over 5 years, and that’s why I couldn’t part with the dogs then, because I needed them more than they needed me (I hadn’t been feeling the love from him for a long time, but they made me feel loved).
Since he left (saying he wasn’t coming back no matter what I said or did) I told him I’d get rid of the dogs and go back to marriage counseling, but he said it’s too late. Later, I found out he told his best friend (who’s also my best friend) that he would have gotten rid of the dogs the next day if I left him and they were his dogs.
When he left he said he wasn’t coming back, no matter what I said or did, but I still tried to find the dogs homes one by one, in case he would change his mind seeing that I was able to let them go now. He told the friend he didn’t think I was serious about placing them.
Anyway, now that 1 dog has been placed and 2 have since died, and the others will be placed very soon, he’s saying it no longer matters because he’s just not coming back.
Now he says his counseling is helping him learn about himself (from the marriage counselor we had both been seeing, but that I had been seeing with him but had left for good reason), and he says if he would have known himself then the way he does now, he wouldn’t have gotten married. This from the guy that followed me like a puppy dog for a year and a half, while I was with another guy, and even dated my roommate at my request so he could spend more time with me (he told me this a couple of years after we were married).
I don’t know what to believe now. He wanted me, waited for me, married me and now says he knows himself better and wouldn’t have married me. All this was said AFTER I got rid of the dogs that he said he wanted me to get rid of (the ones that were supposedly the main reason he left me over, in addition to my supposed emotional abuse of him). I feel he thought I was emotional abusive because he kept things inside and I always tried to get things out in the open. He hates conflict of any kind, because of his parents’ tumultuous relationship during his childhood.
Is there any hope for us? Does anyone out there know what’s really going on inside his mind (and NO, he’s never, ever been unfaithful, ever, me neither), and how I can reach him? He’s VERY prideful and doesn’t want to admit to ME that I hurt him by not letting go of the dogs and that he felt I didn’t love him enough and loved them more than him (which was NEVER true).
He’d tell me that in the past, but I didn’t think he was serious. Now he’s told friends that too, but he won’t tell me now that it’s part of it (mainly the biggest part of it according to our friends, and to me). Please help if you can figure him out and have answers for me. And please hold the negative and mean comments, I’m very emotional right now and raw, and I don’t need that kind of thing, trust me. All legitimate helpers with possible helpful answers are much needed to reply.
Thanks.
Related Information:
Tagged with: 17 years • 19 years • 4 months • 7 months • blinders • boss • Computer Guy • computer repair • divorce • dogs • doormat • just friends • long time • love • marriage • new homes • quot • relationship • repair guy • severe depression • wonderful guy
Filed under: How To Save A Marriage
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
You should take a cue from your ex-husband; find a therapist (not the same one you’re both going to) and find out what caused you to be depressed for five years. You also need to understand why you needed the affection of so many animals to make you feel loved. You don’t mention how you dealt with your severe depression, and if it continues to be an issue for you. Before you can understand where your husband’s mind is at, you need to understand what affects and motivates you. Frankly, you may find that maybe getting married wasn’t a good idea. Or maybe you’ll make sense of your feelings, evolve into a happier person– with our without your husband back in your life.
The first step is to understand and make peace with yourself. Everything else will fall into place after that. If you don’t, you’ll continue to be miserable, whether with your husband, someone else or by yourself. Leave your husband alone for the time being and work on yourself.
OMG ! You need to just move on. With or without the dogs.
wow, that’s a story all right. I honestly can’t figure out what he is thinking by this description, so I can see why you are confused. The dogs is just an issue to cover up something else he is feeling. That sounds like your life’s work and I certainly wouldn’t change your feelings about your job at this point. My best advice would be likely to just leave him be for now, if he wants you back he knows where you are… let him do the chasing and meanwhile, keep at what you were meant to do. If you are meant to be together, you will be… but you can’t put your life on hold or change it because of him.
guys like to keep things bottled up inside. just give him his space to figure things out. and if u are depressed then need help as well. i understand that u wanted to give the dogs a home but u have a marriage that is more important and a guy who was trying to explain to u how he felt and now that he is gone every things seems loud and clear to u now. don’t pressure him into telling u his true emotions. support his decision and let that be it. he will come around.
No hope. You are totally focused on your dogs. I am sure you will feel comfort by them. I personnally have 4 dogs but my wife does not want to take second place to them. They live outside. I have kids too. They are are higher importance than my canine family. Yes it is true that dogs will love you no matter what. That is cool but it seems like you lost focus with humans. It happens.
Ok this guy is a complete jerk. Where was he when you were depressed? Just stay single for a while. Soon enough you will find someone way better than he was.
Uh maybe he has met someone while separated from you and isn’t saying? I find it hard to believe that since the dogs are gone pretty much that he wouldn’t reconsider if he loved you or there wasn’t someone new now. Follow him one day, see if there is someone else, or ask him straight out. One thing I believe is yes fight for the marriage, but only to a point…don’t ever force someone to love you or be with you, it will haunt you later and they will resent you. If he decides to come back, consider it, but don’t force him to come back, but do let him know you love him and want to counsel and try to work it out and that the dogs are gone.
Several questions, several answers
- the fact that now he doesn’t want to see you, yet in the beginning he followed you like a puppy: In the beginning you did not have 12 dogs around you. In the beginning you did not live together. In the beginning, he did not know much about you, and what he did not know, his mind filled with his own wishes or beliefs, usually idealized. So he behaved that way then, and after 12 dogs, the other way. Natural.
- your depression: the question is if he tried to help you with your depression? Also, did you let him to help you? Even staying married to someone who is in a depression for 5 years in a row is taxing – after all, at some point he can think that he deserves a normal person and not an "out of order" one.
If he tried to stay with you and to help where he can, it’s a big plus. If he ignored your depression and did nothing, that’s a big minus and a sign that you can’t count on much.
- Dogs: you must understand that there is a list of priorities and that a spouse ranks way way above a pet. If you felt there’s not enough love between you, then you two should have talked and tried to fix it. Instead, you gave more to dogs than to him. What happened as the result is the only thing that could happen.
- Is the situation fixable? Considering that you knew each other for 19 years, were together for 17 and married for 15… that’s a lot, a mind-boggling lot of pent-up frustration. If a fix is even possible, it will be neither fast nor easy. And there’s a fair chance that at this point it’s not possible.
- What do do? First decide what you want in life. If you want a husband, make sure that the amount of time and energy you dedicate to him is appropriate for that position, and that the amount of time and energy for the pets is appropriate for that. Talk to him. Make him see that you understood.
Because, if he feels he’s less important than a pack of dogs, there’s no way in hell that he will be back. So the first step is that you yourself understand that, and then to make him see that you understood.
And I’m not saying there’s no his fault in all that. So the next step would be that you two talk about your lives, what you do want, what you don’t want, and see if you can help each other, if you still have enough in common.
If you two can start seeing things more or less equally then it’s the beginning of the road to recovery.