"MY HUSBAND SAYS HE CAN'T CARRY ON THE PRETENCE"

Therapist A is a counsellor and life coach with experience of working with alcohol and addiction issues as well as with eating disorders.
I have read your e-mail several times and each time I can only sympathise with you - how difficult it must be for you to come to terms with how your husband feels after having been married for thirty years, especially having no idea he was unhappy.

If he has started to see a psychiatrist to get some help, this is certainly a positive sign that he wants to resolve his unhappiness and, yes, it will take time. In the meantime it could be very helpful for you to have some individual counselling to support you in coming to terms with how you move forwards both emotionally and practically as well as working through the resentments you have.

Is there any truth in what he says about being a poor listener and interrupting? Perhaps in his own way he has been trying to say how unhappy he has been and sometimes our fear of hearing our worst nightmare can also make us unavailable and bad listeners. This feels a blunt observation and possibly unfair - however, talking to a therapist/counsellor can help to see our part in relationships and how to find a way through even if the outcome it not what we want at the time. After thirty years of marriage it certainly feels worth it for both of you to seek help individually and possibly eventually some couples counselling.
Therapist B is a Relate-trained counsellor with experience of working with relationship issues and is an experienced couples counsellor

I'm really sorry that you find yourself in such a dilemma after 30 years of marriage & can understand why you say you are suffering terribly. It must have come as a great shock to discover that your husband has apparently been harbouring such unhappiness for all these years, & despite making all these joint plans, is now planning on a future without you.

I'm glad to hear he has at least started to talk to a psychiatrist to find out more about his depression, but I imagine that you are being left in an enormous, unhappy limbo at the moment?

You asked if you should see a counsellor even at this late stage & I would have thought it might well help you to explore your own feelings of resentment & lack of support from the past. I know this doesn't necessarily move you on as a couple, but perhaps the process might give you an outlet for your own emotions at such a difficult time.
Even as a couples counsellor, I don't ever guarantee any 'success' or resolution when couples undertake counselling together, but it usually helps to look at options & the possibilities of making some positive changes in behaviour & attitude. At the very least it tends to help couples understand what has gone wrong in the past & even if it turns out to be too late to save the marriage, it can, in some cases, help both individuals move on with less guilt & anger...................

However, I note that you say your husband says he has always found it difficult to communicate with you & it may be that he needs to investigate his feelings with the psychiatrist for however long is needed before he can begin to explain how he feels.
Meanwhile it leaves you with some very practical & emotional issues to deal with -perhaps you could try writing down the difficulties in order of priority, & work out what you feel about the property & where you'd really like to live now, given the current circumstances - perhaps it hinges on where you feel most supported by friends/family who might become quite important at the moment?

If you think that seeing a counsellor might be useful and I know you speak French fluently but sometimes it helps to talk to someone from your own culture? Perhaps you could start with one who suits you & see if she would be prepared to talk to you both if it becomes appropriate, even as a way of improving the communication between you?

These are just a few suggestions which might help, please feel free to write again if you feel you need more online support at the moment.

Therapist C is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with experience of working with relationship and many other issues.
From a psychoanalytic perspective it is difficult to give you a definitive solution to your dilemma. Your letter is very much asking for a solution to the problems that you say your husband has introduced into your life. It is very possible that your husband is suffering from a depression which may be causing him to review his life and to assess where he wants it to go. You mention that you are both planning for your retirement. Retirement can be a stressful issue and can evoke fears and uncertainties about what the future holds for both partners in a marriage.

In your letter you say that you have had moments of emotional crisis but you don't actually say how these manifested and what brought them on. I would suggest that this oversight may be indicative of the way that you are presenting your difficulties. You seem to be very focused on your husband's difficulties and when you do talk about your difficulties, you do so with reference to your husband. I wonder whether there might not be painful issues from the past that are contributing to your present difficulties. One of these issues might be to do with control. You ask whether you should let your husband go. The truth is that you can not actually stop him from going if that is what he wishes to do and I would suggest that this might be very frightening for you. Issues to do with control may stem from a fear of not being in control of one's own life, of being at the mercy of others or of circumstances.

It may also be that both of you are angry and that this and other feelings have built up over your years together and have not been addressed by the two of you. Again, for both of you the feelings may also have roots in what happened in the past. You might want to consider psychotherapy for yourself to try and clarify how each of you is contributing to the difficulties that you are experiencing in your marriage. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is not an easy undertaking, especially as its focus is on how client is contributing to the difficulties in his or her life. Also, as you mention in your letter, psychotherapy can be a lengthy process. However, it has the possibility of enabling you to see how you might be restricting yourself in the way you live your life and, by doing, so enable you to live in a less restricted way.