My partner of 13 years walked out yesterday out of the blue. He has been working 18+ hour days for weeks, he says he’s a workaholic and loves his work so as he is “not happy” it must be my fault and if we split up now he might be happy in the future.
He has been impotent for about 4 years but refused to go to the doctor. In March I discovered he had booked an old girlfriend to go on his next business trip with him. He says he just wanted to feel normal again and to feel like a man although he knew in his heart he would not be able to perform.
In April he went to the Doctor who told him it was all stress related and not to work so hard. The Dr also said he thought he was depressed and offered anti depressants but he refused to even consider taking them. His reply was that the Dr didn’t live in the real world and seemed to spend longer hours in work.
We run a business together and I know that he is actually in work until 4.00 – 5.00 am (from 8.30am). He smokes 40+ cigarettes daily and appears permanently wound up.
I have cried continuously since he left yet he expects me to go into work and behave as normal. I think he’s ill either heading for a nervous breakdown or a wooden box. He says he’s not ill just “not happy”, we live like brother and sister and he loves me but he wants to feel normal again.
When I said that he didn’t even attempt to make love he said that you didn’t have to try to know that you couldn’t do it. The last two days have been hell for me yet he is in work laughing and talking more than usual. Is this because he’s left and that’s what he really wants or is it all show?
He’s 43 years old and his father dropped dead at 47 on his way to work. I am really worried about him but I can’t seem to get through to him at all. Please help I’ve got no one to turn to. His mother went on vacation on Wednesday morning and he packed up and left on Wednesday night as if he could’nt face telling her, so this way he has 2 weeks grace. I don’t know if there is someone else and he just doesn’t want to hurt me any more by telling me or if he is ill.
What should I do? I love him so much and it’s breaking my heart. He talks to me as normal in work as if nothing has happens yet he has booked into a hotel until he finds something permanent. When he said he was moving out and had packed a bag – I thought he meant an overnight bag, but when I came home he had cleared his wardrobe.
I don’t know what to do. I have had no contact with him outside of work other than asking him if this was a permanent decision and he said yes. When I asked what he wanted he said he didn’t know, when I asked what he was thinking he said he didn’t know what was going on in his head he just wasn’t happy and he had to change something. So he has decided that dumping me and the 3 step kids is what will make him feel better.
Is this just a load of rubbish or is he confused in general? Please help I’m desperate for answers and he can’t or won’t give me any. — Liz
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Liz, no doubt this man has been a workaholic since you got involved with him so that shouldn’t be any surprise to you. You’ve lived with it up to this point and accepted the fact that he isn’t going to make a lot of time for you and your children.
Now he’s probably re-evaluating his life and thinking about all the things he hasn’t done and the things he wants to do before he dies. Given his age and the age his father died, he probably sees very little time left to do a great many things.
There isn’t anything you can do for him. You can’t make him return to his old self. You can’t make him slow down or talk to you about his problems or stop blaming you for whatever it is that he thinks is wrong between the two of you that is causing him to want to run away. It is his inner confusion and he has to find his own answers in his own way.
You have to take care of yourself and your kids. Protect yourself legally. As confusing and daunting as it may appear right now, you can get through this just as hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of women have done before you and just as women around the world are doing right now. You’ll come out stronger but you have to have faith in yourself.
Take care of yourself. — Queenie