husband wants space

[inboxer85]

i feel so bad. my husband left and i still don't understand why. let me explain how everything happened.
we got married at 18. right after getting married i moved in with him family. i stopped talking to all my frieds. i am not sure why i did it but i guess it was because i was living with his family and i did want anybody to think about me. ( oh look at her going out with her friends. she should be home taking care of her husband.) thats what i alwasy imaged his family would say. well he also stopped talking to his friends. i would always tell him to go out with them that i would be ok staying home while he went out with his friends for a while. well he did not go out with his friends and neither did i.
we started college but stopped going after only a month. we just loved speding every minute of the day with each other that it was so hard to get up in the morning to go to college. we would rather stay in bed longer.
a year later we moved out and moved to the basement of my parents house. we were both very happy and very in love.
a year later we decided to go back to college. i was very happy i was back at colllege and so was he.
about a month ago. i noticed he started changing. we were not spending much time with each other. he was not talking to me very much. i was so unhappy and i would always cry. he would ask me why i was crying and i would tell him that it was because he was ignoring me but he would never say anything back to me. after telling him what was wrong he would go back to do what ever he was doing before i started crying. about 3 weeks ago he started talking to some of his old friends.
last week he told me that he needed some space. he said that he was unhapppy. that he missed his friends. he said it at all started when we decided to go back to college. there he saw old friends and realized that he had missed out on so many things. he also told me he was not sure if he still wanted to be married.
he is now staying at his parents house. he has been going out with his friens almost every single day. he is having a great time. a few days ago he told me that he had started seeing as a friend before he left. i feel so confused and i was so mad. we were still having sex and actually it was a whole lot better.
well my problem is that i don't know how to handle this. i love him. why did he leave? he said the only problem he had was that he missed his friends. i told him that he could go out with them. i was notstopping him i never did i always told him to go out with them but he wouldn't. he says he is not sure he wants to be married anymore. i guess he wants to be single so he can go out and party. i thought he loved me and now he wants to leave me for his friends. i just don't feel like he is using his time to think. he is just out having fun while i stay home and cry. it just seems so unfair. i feel like i am paying for something i did not do. i know i can not force him to come back. but how should i handle this situation. should i keep my self away from, stop all communication how should i treat hime. what do i do?
please help

[Kate]

Hi there

I am so sorry to hear what has happened. You were both very young when you got married and it sounds as if your husband was not really ready or mature enough to settle down. He has now decided that he does not want the responsibility of marriage at the moment.

What can you do to get out and pick up with old friends and make new ones? There is no need to sit at home feeling down. Why not try and enjoy life a little and give him some space. There are no guarantees that he will come back but there is life out there to live. Why not take up a new hobby or do some voluntary work. Show him that you are getting on with life and making soemthing of it.

There is no need to avoid him, but it may not help to chase after him. The calmer the face you present him, the more chance you have of him wanting to come back. Don't pretend that you don't care, just don't be desperate.

All the best


Kate :)

[inboxer85]

thankyou kate for your advice.
i have started going out with my friends again. i had forgotten how much fun going out with them was. i am trying not to be at the house much. everytime i am home i can't stop thinking about what happened.
i am not avoiding him or chasing after him. but i have told him twice that i need to talk to him about what happened. its just that i was still very confused.
every time i see him i try to look calm and happy.

i told him the other day that i had no idea what he had to think about. what was he asking himself? its not a decision between your friends and your wife. i told him that he should think if he wants to make our marriage work. if its a yes then everything else has a solution. i was never stopping him from going out with his friends. well he answered me that "i think i do want to try it again" but then a few minutes later he said " i need to think if i want to try to make things work " i am starting to feel like i am wasting my time.

another horrible thing happened. i was talking to my older brother and he told me i should go talk to his mother. just to let her see that i still care about my husband and that i would be ok with what ever he decides. well i didn't want to do it. of course not, its his mother i thought she probably wouldn't even want to see me and would blame me for what her son is going through. then my brother got mad at me and told me "you let people do what ever they want with you and you let people step all over you" it hurt so much to hear that, that i decided to call my husband so that he could tell his mother that i wanted to talk to her. when i arrived at her house she was very friendly and she basically said that her son is crazy that he is acting childish and that she wishes he would come back with me. it felt good to hear that but of course it doesn't matter what she says or think what matters is what my husband think. she then said she wants to talk to him and later wants to talk to both of us. i don't know if that is a good idea. i don't think my husband is going to want that. but maybe that way he will start talking and tell me what his true feeling are, why did he leave, and if he wants to try again or not.
i believe he still cares about me and still loves me. i see the way he looks at me. i think that he should probably be making a decision sometime this week because the entire week he was gone he was on vacation from work so he had a lot of time to go out and have fun but now he is going back to work he won't be seeing his friends any more and he will now have time to think about things.

i was just wondering if anybody's wife or husband that needed "space" ever came back? from what i have been reading in this forum and another one, i have only seen somebody's wife come back once. i guess this brings my hopes down. :(

[sufi2112]

I hope it all works out. My wife and I decided not to have the space but to work on the issues at hand, one by one. As you might have read, this still very current and the issues keep piling up but for our kids sake, we're staying together unless we reach a place we cannot get passed. My feeling is that if it gets that far my wife will see what she is missing (I am a great catch!) and she will straighten herself out.

Good Luck To You!

[inboxer85]

it has now been two weeks since my husband left the house. we see each other everyday because he gives me a ride to college but we never talk about what happened we only talk about how our day went and other non important things.

yesterday we went out to eat (actually we got food and ate in his care because it was pretty late) we were just talking and then he started to get near me and then kissed me. i know i shouldn't let him but i wanted it too. i missed him so much that i was so happy he kissed. then he stopped and told me to hug him he was telling me that he missed me. later on he dropped me of at my house and he went back to his parents house.

today i feel so sad and confused. i know he cares about me and i feel that he still loves me but i don't understand why he won't come back. i miss him so much. i am at college right now and i feel like crying. i want this to end already. i feel so lonely. my house is quiet all day. there isn't a single conversation in that house.

i do go out with friends. i have fun but when i go back home i get sad again.

thakyou so much for listening to me and for any advice anybody could give me.

[inboxer85]

i was talking to my husband yesterday and i told him that i needed to know already what was going to happen between us. he said he was not sure yet. he told me he loves me and he misses me but he likes that life he has now. he likes being free and being able to go out when ever he wants and come back when ever he wants. hearing that hurts so much. i feel that he is choosing his friends over me. i love him so much and i would love to have him back. i think he will be giving me his decision in a few days but i don't know what else to do to convince him. i feel desperate and i fear that he will tell me that he wants a divorce. i really hate that he sometimes makes me feel like this is a big joke. when we talk his face is not serious and he is always yawning. ggrr he is so childish and selfish. his mother believes the same thing. he is not realizing what he is doing and i wouldn't want him to wake up and realize what he has done once we are divorced because it will be too late by then.

[inboxer85]

hello everyone. i am happy to say that we have talked things over and over and have decided that we want to make our marriage work. my husband will be coming back home today. we are making changes to make ourselves happier.