Shylawyer Fri 01-Feb-19 13:38:17

Long time lurker. I’ve been with the same man for 32 years, married for 19 of them. We have two grown up children (22 and 18). Last night, out of the blue, he left me. He says he’s still in love with me but feels that I’m just in love with the idea of him, but not the actual him and he can’t accept that situation. I have no idea what he’s talking about. Admittedly, we don’t do a lot together these days, and our sex life hasn’t been great for years. I’m not really that interested any more but I never really have been. He's known that from the outset, and if it is about the lack of sex, it’s the first time he’s said anything about it in three decades!



On my side, I feel left out of his life. He spends hours with the children playing in bands, going to their gigs, and messing about in the music room he built with them (he’s from a musical family and the children have inherited it). They (and their friends) waste hours in there playing guitars, drums, singing - it’s an endless racket. They constantly embarrass me by giving me a tambourine or some other foolish thing to make a noise with. I feel that they’re just laughing at me.



If they’re not in there, they’re messing about with old cars. He has always had an interest in fixing and restoring them and the children have been dragooned into helping. They all waste even more time fooling about with an old convertible and a horrible old 4x4. Very often, I sit in the house alone watching television while they’re outside in all weathers. They think it’s hysterical when one of these old wrecks breaks down and one or other of them has to be rescued by the others. I find this really embarrassing rather than funny. I can’t understand why they are so blasé about it.



If I can finally get him to spend time indoors with me, I have to share him with his mobile phone. He is passionate about politics and is constantly posting on forums about homelessness, the state of the NHS, Brexit, education - you name it. He’s a very liberal person and he always has some worthy cause or other to get excited about. Radio 4 is never off. Again, I have no interest in any of this and his constant pestering to get me into conversations that can turn into serious debates is quite tiring.



He is a partner in a large accountancy firm and we don’t have any money worries that could cause this behaviour. I’m a solicitor so have a demanding job myself. My career is very important to me and I work long hours but when I get home, he will not leave me alone. He is constantly fussing around me, wanting to talk - and when I’m cooking, he is constantly putting his arms around me, or kissing my neck until I have to shoo him away. He tries to help but he’s pretty clueless in the kitchen and I can’t keep things on time if he’s under my feet. So I shoo him out of the kitchen and then he sulks for hours and spoils the meal.



He says the straw that broke the camel’s back for him was my refusal to fly away to our friends’ place in Italy over the Christmas holidays. He had (once again) organised it as a surprise when he knows I hate that sort of thing. I like time to plan and prepare - not just jump on a plane and head off. He’s done it so many times and I’ve always made it clear I won’t play along with his half-arsed arrangements. But still he does it! It’s maddening.



We have a lovely home, a good life and he is throwing it all away for no reason that I can understand. I don’t know what to do. We’ve been together since I was a teenager and he was just 21. How can he say that it’s my fault that I’m not in love with him and he can’t live a lie? I do love him. He claims he needs me to love him the way that he loves me and in his opinion, I don’t. He’s acting like a lovestruck teenager. I feel that I’ve more than demonstrated my love for him by putting up with living with a man who acts like an overgrown child for all these years. How can I talk sense into him? I’m at my wits end.