Dear Mulder00,

I can understand where you're coming from. I'm the one who left after years of debating it, mostly because we have kids together. I withheld affection and it wasn't always that way for me. It wasn't until I realized I resented him for not being the love of my life and not being able to accept that he was enough. Towards the end he did some similar things to what you mentioned - I'd always said I wanted to move to FL when he retires from his job and all of a sudden he was forcing me to look at houses with him in FL. In my opinion it was a last ditch effort and I felt it came too late. I was convinced for years of him telling me I was asexual because we had sex maybe 1-2 times/month and didn't offer affection when his idea of affection was to smack my butt as hard as he could or guilt me in to sex because "he couldn't take it anymore". In the end, I was the one who couldn't take it anymore. I'm disappointed to say it was an affair that opened my eyes to reality. Even in the midst of the affair, I asked him to see a marriage therapist with me. After a terrible night of screaming at each other his idea was that we needed a family vacation - and that's what we did instead of therapy. Now, less than 2 months after I moved out (divorce is filed) I know in my heart things will get better. We're still in each others' lives because we have two little people that we care about more than the rest of the world. I suffer anxiety and depression and lately I've had more down days than up, but I'm trying to remind myself I'm doing the best I can. My advice to you is if the only reason you're staying is because you don't want to hurt him, then perhaps you already know the answer and you're just working out the details in your head. Feel free to private message me if you want to continue the conversation.