Dear Elizabeth:

A summary of your story: you met him when the two of you were 23. You moved in together in NC within a few months and then moved to ski towns in Utah and later in Colorado for a total of about 3.5 years, where you “spent time skiing, having fun, living a carefree lifestyle”.

Next the two of you moved east, he studied,  didn’t work, you worked full time, supporting him financially in addition to using his savings and his parents’ financial help. Once he finished school he started a business with his cousin, you continued to support him, purchased a home together and later, October 2017, the two of you got married.

You didn’t spend much time with him during the first and only year of living together as a married couple because he was busy with his business and you had your high stress job. March 2018 he hired a young,  attractive woman for the business and she became his friend and your friend as well. October 2018, you found out that he was having an intimate relationship with this employee/friend.

Following your discovery he told you that he didn’t love you anymore, that he loved her. You then pleaded with him to fix the relationship with you and he said that “he didn’t know if he wanted to do that”.

Later on he as well as his lover told you that they intended to end their relationship but two weeks after that communication, he told you that he didn’t feel anything for you and that he was giving up. You then told him that  you loved him and “was willing to do whatever it takes.. to make it work”.

Nov 2018 he told you that he was unhappy, has been unhappy for years, hates owning a business, resented his cousin, had “no  idea what he was doing”, missed you every day, still loved you and that you were his best friend.

Next he left you, took some of the furniture, lived with his employee/lover for six weeks and then rented his own apartment in the same building where she  lives. December 2018 he traveled with her to Montana to visit her mother for Christmas.

You wrote: “The way that he’s acting is completely out of character and I worry about him emotionally”-

My input: In Utah and in Colorado, life was easy, a “carefree lifestyle”. When he started a business back east, life was no longer carefree. Soon after life was no longer carefree for him he started a relationship with another woman and was unapologetic about it, simply telling you that he doesn’t love you anymore and that he loves her.

My question to you is  what was that character he used  to have that he no longer has?

anita