The words no wife ever wants to hear, and an extra whammy for good measure in Juggling with Hedgehogs

I honestly never thought I would write an entry like this one. I don't want to write it, but I know if I don't, I will have nothing to come back to later for perspective, insight and all of those useful things. I suppose I should add some context before I write the rest of this, but it's weird, because most of the people who will read this were already reading my diary in the other place, and I don't want to waste my time, or theirs, on back-story. Suffice it to say I've been happily (or so I thought) married for almost 21 years. 21 years this month in fact. My husband and I have been so close all that time, always busy doing things together and separately and we've brought up 5 kids (2 of mine, 3 of his) with a considerable amount of stress and chaos and challenges. I expected this to continue, but on Friday, my husband told me that he loves me, but he's not 'IN' love with me any more.

To be honest, I think I could have handled it better if he'd said he was having an affair.

There's a lot to this, there's a lot of stuff that's been going on that I haven't been happy with, for a long time, and I've brought it up but it's been mostly dismissed. Until now. NOW, it would appear that there's been stuff I've done and said over the years - THAT HE'S NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT - that has accumulated into this big announcement of his.

I just said 'OK, who is she? And if there's nothing going on yet, who do you have your eye on?' - because seriously, when a guy says that, that's usually what it is.

He insists there's no-one else.

In some ways, that makes it worse.

And if I've done and said things to make him feel this way why the fuck didn't he tell me at the time? How do I deal with 21 years of historic misdemeanors, slights or hurtful remarks I may or may not have made?

My initial reaction was total disbelief. And I was very calm and rational and reasonable. That was Friday night. By Saturday morning, I was raging. I spent the whole of Saturday incapable of looking at him, and although we went out together on Saturday night (ridiculous!) I couldn't bear it and had to get my daughter to come and pick me up and take me home.

Sunday was spent talking it through with friends and howling like a dog.

By Sunday evening, we were back to being able to talk somewhat calmly about things, but no conclusions have been reached other than he doesn't know what he wants, he needs 'space' to work it out (I've yet to find out if that means physical space or he wants me to stop talking to him altogether), and that I'm not to get my hopes up!

I, meanwhile, have completely fallen apart. I had the good sense to take myself to the doctor this morning and get some anti-depressants. He signed me off work for 2 weeks, which is also sensible, if somewhat worrying as I've had a lot of time off lately with various different types of stress, and I have a feeling there will be discussions at work when I get back.

On top of this bombshell, I had a call from my sister on Saturday, to say that our other sister has stage 3 breast cancer.

Either one of these pieces of information would have put me on my knees. I just can't handle any of it.