I'm new here, although I've been a lurker for about a year. I'm looking for advice.
Last week, my husband of two years, partner of five years, told me he was leaving. We have a 4 year old and a baby. My husband left the house screaming at me that he hated me, called his parents to say our marriage was over, and then told me all this over the phone. He has, apparently, been miserable for months and has been planning a future without me. While our marriage has been very rocky for the last year, it did seem like things had settled down. He has stopped smashing in the walls and doors when he gets angry (and I do mean literally smashing), and we have not had big blow-up arguments for a long time. He says that he has been detaching himself emotionally for months. He also blames all of his unhappiness and depression on me and on our relationship--which is frustrating and unfair, because there are many external factors (him not being able to get a job in his field after many years studying; his alcohol problem; the very pronounced financial difficulties we've had for the last two years; us being far from our family support systems; etc.). He says that things have been really bad for four years--ie, most of our relationship--and that he has a lot of anger towards me for the way our relationship has been. I am not being naive but I genuinely don't know what he's angry about. He won't say.
After huge amounts of begging on my part he finally agreed that we could try "one last time" to make this work. We have just started in therapy, and he has just been to his own therapist for the first time in 18 months (I have been begging him to go for about a year now). He does sound committed to trying to make it work--although I know from an email I saw (oops) that he had told his parents that it was a question of when, not if, our marriage ended. He wrote this after he'd repeatedly promised me otherwise.
At this stage, I'm trying hard to believe that we can save this. I love him, despite the hurt, anger, and betrayal I'm feeling, and I don't believe we've tried hard enough for long enough. But I'm finding it hard to trust that he won't just walk out again. I'm really just waiting for him to say, once more, that he's had enough. Moreover, separating would be exceedingly complicated in terms of the kids and custody, as neither he nor I share the same citizenship (and neither of us are citizens here, although we are here legally.) I can't help but think he's changed his mind because he doesn't want to lose the kids, which doesn't necessarily bode well for us changing our relationship and its dynamics.
My questions are these. 1) I think he's already made up his mind to leave, even though he's now said he's committed to trying again. Can marriages really come back from someone having decided to leave and then changed their mind? 2) Any suggestions for how to get through the fear and lack of trust I have right now, so that maybe our marriage might stand a chance of repair? Thanks!
[I do know that my problems might seem small, as he hasn't, in fact, left. But right now this all feels huge, and I'm trying to a) get through the day-to-day so I can care for my children even as I work full-time (agh!) and b) protect myself and my kids.]
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