SHOULD SHE BREAK WITH THE MAN SHE HAS LOVED ALL HER LIFE?

QUESTION FOR MISSY

I have loved Michael since I met him when I was fourteen.  When I was twenty one we married. I believe Michael did love me for a long long time. He's now fifty and I don't think he loves me anymore. We are a childless couple and that's my fault.

I never spied on Michael but one day I was out shopping and I saw him in a restaurant with another woman. She's got to be in her twenties. I saw them kiss. I'm so depressed. I haven't told him that I saw him.  I just set myself up in the game room and told him no more sex. He said "Ok."

Should I fight for him if he no longer loves me?

I can barely get up.

Melody

Illinois

ANSWER FROM MISSY

Melody, 

It sounds like your depression is serious and clinical.  You should see about some meds, temporarily at least. 

That's what a friend of mine did when her husband of fifteen years announced he no longer wanted to be married. It took a while to realize that he had lied and lied and lied. About moving to another state to be near his family. a state which wasn't a community property state. That he didn't expect her to work. That he had not met someone else.  Yes it hurt.  

She is a person who has rarely been without a man in her life. She did find another, better, man, which would not have been possible if she had stayed with this husband.  She has now been with him for more years that she was married.

She did not put up a fight. She might have had millions of dollars more if she had. She was too depressed.  She was in denial that they could live apart and be "friends" like he suggested. That first Christmas, when he first took a grad student he'd met on an expensive vacation, and then showed up at her house which was the smaller house she went to while he kept their big house she had remodeled, and wanted to be let in and sit around and be family and probably have sex with his ex, she opened the door to say Merry Christmas but did not let him in.

It's my feeling that it's a rare person who does not experience some betrayal or heartbreak and life can be complicated but, if you think back on it, you may realize that there have been indications in the past that Michael was no longer so into you. He has to know something's up, like you know he's kissing another woman, because he's not fighting to get you back upstairs.

Don't blame this other women and keep your issues with Michael separate from his personal issues.  It's up to him to figure out what he wants - you, her, to be free, to stay married.  You figure out what you want.

I feel from your message that basically you blame yourself and childlessness for his lack of interest.

That could be but there are many childless couples. 

You deserve to be free of what depresses you.

So get that help.

Call around for a therapist. If he won't go with you, you go.

If he asks you what you're doing down there in the game room, say you're "thinking."

You can LOVE AGAIN.

Missy

P.S. Some ex couple s are friends. So much depends on the personality, character, values  and if there are children and how it all came down. I feel some time off after a break up is essential.