Please help, husband of 5 years leaving

I hope it is okay that I have joined here. As far as I am aware I do not have AvPD. Please forgive me if this post seems a little focussed on me. I am really very concerned about my husband's feelings. But my own feelings are also overwhelming me.

Last Friday he told me he doesn't love me anymore. Last Saturday/Sunday a psychologist offered the opinion that he has AvPD. I am as confident as I can be that he was not suspicious that he had AvPD before this. I had no idea. But of course in hindsight I can see signs.

Before he told me that he didn't love me, only one and two days prior he was telling me that he loved me "eternally and entirely". I had no idea this was coming. We had some things we didn't agree on but I had no idea it was heading this way. He says he met someone in the last two weeks who likes him and he likes her.

We have 3 children, the youngest is only a baby.

I am willing to read, learn, try, change, anything, to try and achieve something he is happy to stay in. What can I do for him? What should I not do? Has anyone here been in this position and had it work out favourably? I am so stressed I have been unable to eat yet I'm still vomiting. I am seeing a psychologist myself. Please.

This is the second post like this in two days. Did you see the other one?

But this doesn't sound like that so much. This guy sounds like a heel. It sounds like he met someone younger and hotter and who doesn't have kids. Is there anything else that might have happened in the few days between him saying he loved you and then saying he didn't love you?

I don't see why you would want to be with a person like that. Get a lawyer and make him pay support for the kids.

I haven't seen the other one.

I am beginning to think he is a plain heel.

I don't know if I could accept AvPD as a reason to do this to me anymore.

I just don't know. I want to make the right choice for the kids cause nothing can make this nightmare go away at this point. I can't believe anything could repair this. I used to. Before it happened and he didn't care. When I pictured discovering infidelity it was with a husband who was crying cause he betrayed us, not crying cause he is with us but wants to be elsewhere. I want to do the right thing for the kids but I want to cause him the same pain he caused me. It's awful. I have to be wise responsible and mature when I have been treated like a useless idiot. And I don't even get to blame him cause it's AvPD.

century,

Looking after your kids, getting on with life will hurt him enough.


My other thoughts.
The avoidance may have caught up with him and having another person to go to could be a way to keep the his avoidance at bay... almost like running away so the avoidance doesn't catch up.

I can't help to think (a guess) if there wasn't the other person he wouldn't of left.
This isn't a reflection on yourself, maybe his only way to deal with the unknowns of AvPD.

Until he hits rock bottom and starts to understand is when you will see a positive change in him....
It will be too late for you guys but he might then be a better father to your kids and a good friend to you.

Warm wishes

I still remember seeing that old 70s movie An Unmarried Woman. Her husband leaves her for a yoounger women who dumps him after a while. A dated film but still interesting. Your husband will get dumped by this other woman eventually. You have children. You have to be thinking of their well being now. Get a lawyer and get child support out of their father.

Dwight wrote:The avoidance may have caught up with him and having another person to go to could be a way to keep the his avoidance at bay... almost like running away so the avoidance doesn't catch up.

Can you flesh this idea out more for me please? Thank you.

I am looking after our kids to the best of my ability and we are discussing child support independently of lawyers at this point and I have no concern yet that he would set out maliciously to harm the kids. Thank you.

He could have been avoidant the whole of the time he was with you. You supplied a safety for him... ITs possible he was never really " with you", from the beginning.. Avoidants are secretive... They might take a safe structure and tell you what you want to here and what they need to hear...

As for him leaving and finding something somewhere else.. I would suggest you see a therapist and prepare yourself for his departure...

centurythozvo wrote:

Dwight wrote:The avoidance may have caught up with him and having another person to go to could be a way to keep the his avoidance at bay... almost like running away so the avoidance doesn't catch up.

Can you flesh this idea out more for me please? Thank you.

I am looking after our kids to the best of my ability and we are discussing child support independently of lawyers at this point and I have no concern yet that he would set out maliciously to harm the kids. Thank you.

You mentioned about his recent diagnoses.
I'm guessing things have been noticeably hard for him (Maybe you have seen the recent changes in him) and for what ever reason he's ended up seeing a pysch, I can't help to think it's been boiling in him.
Life didn't work out the way he planned.. When fantasy is replaced with reality we feel like failures.

I would say he's was/is very dependent on you and I do believed the comment about him loving you to be true.
Maybe with the new found diagnoses, he now feels open and he's now he faced with poking the internal monster called AvPD that will bring up the past memories.
Past memories that we have spent a lifetime running from.

All speculation of course.

We are good people and have a heart of gold, though it might not sound like it.
Dwight

I had no idea this was coming. In hindsight I can see changes. But overall he was keeping it exceptionally inside himself. The psych is a friend and only saw him as a friend after he left me. There is yet to be the official diagnosis. I believe you are right and it has been boiling for him.

I don't know how to believe he loves me.

I want to know how to do the right / best thing while he is nutting out the AvPD to maximise the chances of keeping our family together. If I can still trust him on this one he says he loves the kids and they love him. I definitely see the better solution as remaining a family unit. But at this point he is saying "it's not you it's me" but in the extreme. Like I have told him I will turn our lives and myself completely around and seek to meet the needs he feels have not been met in the past 5 years but he isn't receiving it at all, he says I can't do anything, wants me to stop being encouraging showing affection talking about the marriage. Just wants to focus on the boys and himself.

What is the best thing to do? If I step back so he can sort himself out will he feel abandoned like with the tests I have read some AvPD people test their friends and family with? If I keep telling him I love him and the door is wide open here and I want to reignite the initial joy of the early days of our relationship will he feel like I am cornering him into something he wants to choose and resent me for being controlling still?

Is there much of a difference between AvPD and AvPD tendencies? If he is a rather social man who enjoys all sorts of social events what are the chances he has full AvPD. In his past he has bullying, emotional neglect, family violence, shyness etc.

Hi Century,

He has run so far and now he needs to find himself.
Century, Internally he knows there is something inside wrong with him, but doesn't know what it is.
And I guess this is where he's at.

It would be nice if he had his own pysch at this point... No family friends just someone who will be constant in his life.
(sorry no offence that's not you, he needs someone who he's not emotionally attached to)

Until he hits rock bottom he's going to use everything in his arsenal to try and escape the avoidant thoughts. When there is no where to run and hide he will be out of excuses, options and fantasies and will then start his own process into understanding himself.

Avoidance is personality you wake up with it and you go to bed with it it's not something that is curable and all we can hope is to control it though understanding.
So even when he's feeling better, he's still not cured all he has done is better managed it that's all... But he's not even remotely close to this point yet.

What can you do?
Stay friends with him, that way when he has gone through the emotional wringer your not out of his reach.
Important that you get on with your life and be strong and happy for your kids and yourself that way when he gets better you can continue where you left off (be it the marriage or a great friendship) this way he doesn't have to rebuild your life.

There is a lot that will come up such as being angry with you (which is really angry at him self for letting you down)
Seeing a pysch to which he'll go a few times then leave (when the psych gets close we run) until there is no other safety... This will be difficult to get him to unless he's ready.

You got to be ready and sometimes you have to be very desperate to get better. And getting better isn't being a new man just being a little better prepared that's all.

It's possible to be social and have AvPD.... AvPD is very easy to hide, as most of us have spent a lifetime perfecting it.

Wish you well.