When I answer this question for you, I can answer it for 1000 other women who are married to men I call “Chaos Kids”. That’s because this list of 17 things that you are reporting (below) is a description of the famous midlife crisis. So your husband is in a midlife crisis… Are you really surprised? Of course you are! That’s because you knew nothing about his childhood when you married him. You believed that his childhood would have no effect on the rest of his life but you would be absolutely wrong. You, like everyone around you, continue to believe that your childhood has nothing to do with the rest of your life. You believed it was just a memory and that you have complete free choice to do anything you choose and so does your husband. All of this is completely wrong and everyone I talk to refuses to believe it. When I say “everyone”, I’m really talking about the people who are not in pain.

1. How can I meet my husbands need when he is no longer in the home.
2. married for 22 years
3. He said he loved me but didn’t love me anymore.
4. Said he wanted to be friends,
5. he isn’t acting like a friend.
6. he left wouldn’t tell me or the kids where he went.
7. he moved into an apartment but he won’t tell us which one he is living in.
8. He is going to bars during the day and until 2 in the morning.
9. He doesn’t care about anything.
10. He won’t communicate with me or the kids
11. I ask what he’s doing he lies
12. I ask if he would go for coffee and he comes up with a reason not to.
13. How am I supposed to meet his needs if he won’t be the friend he said he wanted to be
14. I love my husband and will do everything to save my marriage.
15. I don’t know the right way to do it.
16. I feel that If i don’t keep contact that he will forget about me and the kids
17. He is acting like we never even existed.

The people who listen to me about Chaos Kids, or people married to them. Why are they in pain? It’s because they married a “Chaos Kid.” What is a chaos kid? It’s a boy or a girl who is raised by a mother and father, or a single mother or father who did not give them the 2 things a child needs most. I call these 2 things “The Kids Standard”. Number 1: “mom and dad, enjoy each other.” Number 2: “mom and dad, make me feel important and valuable.” Your husband most likely got neither of these things. In fact, he most likely had an extremely negative version of a mother and father relationship, a relationship with arguments, blame, tension, perhaps even physical violence. On the 2nd part of the Kids Standard, make me feel important and valuable, he could’ve been put down, criticized, blamed and or loaded down with guilt from one of these adults.

Now you are writing and explaining the result of his childhood to me. You are asking what you can do. But if I told you what to do 8 to 10 years ago, you wouldn’t have listened to me. That’s because you believed you married a normal man. A chaos kid is not normal. What you must do now is understand what your husband is going through by being possessed with this childhood pain.

What makes a chaos kid is a machine. That machine is in his brain and is loaded with instructions on how to re-create the marriage of his parents. I don’t even need to hear his story because I have heard hundreds of them. They are all virtually the same. The Kids Standard is destroyed in his 1st 10 years. Today, as an adult, the machine in his brain is raging at him to re-create the marriage of his parents. The pressure of this machine is so great, he is running far away from you because you are the source of the reminder. You continually remind him that he must stay and suffer like his father or mother did. He wants no part of it and so he is doing highly irresponsible and completely self-centered things.

You must understand that as a child, he wanted the kids standard which means he wanted to be what a kid is supposed to be… Self centered. Children are supposed to be takers their 1st 10 years. They are supposed to be taking from the parents and the parents are supposed to be giving. The parents are supposed to be giving the 2 elements of the Kids Standard. But instead, your husband was given nothing and even worse than nothing, he was given very negative things. Now this machine in his brain that carries all of these terrible instructions is causing him to become the child he never was able to be. He wants to take and he doesn’t want to give. He doesn’t have the emotional security to give anything. Many of these midlife crisis men can’t even keep a job.
You must accept that you have become a single mother. Midlife crisis in both men and women can last 2 to 5 years.

Your question is “What do I do now?”. The answer is 1st that you will need to learn something different than what you have always known. Everything you did has brought you to this spot. Both you and he contributed to where the 2 of you are now, you trying to save the family and him trying to destroy it. You must do something different. For most people in your situation, they start searching the Internet and asking for help and answers. There are plenty of people to help you but not all help same way. There is the conventional world of therapy where you go to an office and talk to a therapist. There is the world of coaching online and on the telephone with organizations such as http://www.pathpartners.com founded by Christine Schaap in 2003. She actually went through a midlife crisis herself and wrote a book to help men understand what they’re wives were going through. She now offers coaching programs to women and men. Michelle Weiner Davis has what she calls “the last resort of technique” which she admits doesn’t work for everyone but it is worth a try. http://www.divorcebusting.com/blog/how-to-prevent-a-divorce-the-last-resort-technique/ . Michelle’s organization also offers personal coaching.

Whether you work with my program, The Environment Changer, http://www.stopyourdivrocein4weeks.com or someone else in the coaching world, you need help now. You need to learn what you never knew and now you have to decide who can help you because you cannot go through this alone and expect everything to be fine. It’s time for you to learn… And we only learn when we are in pain.

How can I meet my husbands need when he is no longer in the home. We have been married for 22 years and together almost 23. He said he loved me but didnt love me anymore. Said he wanted to be friends, but he isnt acting like a friend. When he left the first time, he wouldnt even tell me or the kids where he went. Now he has moved into an apartment and we know where the apt. is but he wont tell us which one he is living in. He is now going to bars during the day and until 2 in the morning. He doesnt seem to really care about much of anything. He wont communitcate with me or the kids. When I ask what hes doing or where hes been, he lies or gives vague answers. I ask if he would go for coffee or ice cream and he comes up with a reason not to. How am I supposed to try to meet his needs if he wont be the friend he said he wanted to be and wont let me know where he is. I love my husband and am willing to do everything that has to be done to save my marriage. But at this point I dont know exactly the right way to do it. I feel that If i dont keep up some form of contact that he will go off and just forget all about me and the kids because thats the way hes acting. He is acting like we dont and have never even existed.

You said you did all the wrong things after we talked, but in truth, you just Treating her the way your father always treated your mother because that is the ball of instruction in your brain. If you are like most men I talk to, that program from your father is simply a marriage killer. You had no idea. I hope you can do all you can to secure your kids. Thank you for your kind endorsement.

Larry

You have just described the famous “loveless marriage”. It’s not violent or full of conflict, it’s just dead. Question is, how did this happen?
I want you to know that if I could have the two of you complete your Flag Pages and The Invisible Lifestyle and I would know EXACTLY how you ended up here, and exactly what you needed to do to change course. Right now, I can’t know how it happened. I’m telling you this because I want you to know there is no mystery to this. It’s predictable.

The predictableness of it begins with the first ten years of your lives. I’d encourage you to listen to my radio interviews with what I call Chaos Kids. These are people who did not have a positive or nurturing first ten years. The secret is, if those ten years are bad, your entire adult life will suffer and the place that suffering will take place is your intimate relationship.

I have much more to say on this but in the mean time, you’ll get some understanding of your husband and yourself at http://www.fulfilledcouple.com/blog . List to the Chaos Kid Radio Interviews. You should also watch the video Why You Fight.
Thanks for writing SanDee,
Larry