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:
But perhaps I don’t need one. I’m not a masochist, I think I’m just sentimental. I like bringing back old happy memories and it makes me cry. I broke up a few days ago with my fiance, and I could not describe the pain. He has been treating me bad, verbal abuse, sometimes physical, even in public. I always found ways to forgive him since I love him. I did hope that maybe he could change. But I realize that people don’t change. I’m not going to elaborate on how we broke up. The thing is that I finally found the courage to stand up for my dignity and "fight back". He sent me messages on the phone today that he got so used to me and felt good around me, that he misses me. I answered him sarcastically that he could use other girls, but not me. I added that I am no longer his doormat. 
