![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Dear Prudie: husband just takes off
Jun. 29th, 2015 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceretaBeen trying to catch up on some of the columnists lately. Here's one from a Prudence chat.
Q. My Husband Did a Disappearing Act: Six weeks ago my husband of almost three years took off. I came home from work to find him standing in the kitchen with a suitcase, saying that it was nothing personal but he needed to get away for a while, and then he left. I didn’t hear from him or see him for five weeks. I was hurt but I was also frantic with worry. I thought we were very happy, and this came completely out of the blue. He didn’t go to work (they said he’d taken a leave of absence), hadn’t spoken to any of our friends about this, and his parents claimed he wasn’t in touch with them. He came back last Thursday. He refuses to answer any questions about where he was and what he was doing. He is also a little angry with me for “involving” our friends and family in “his” personal business. I am torn between thinking that he was having some kind of crisis and thinking that he’s spent the last five and half weeks with another woman. Now that he’s home, he seems to want me to forget this ever happened and pick up right where we left off. I have told him that he needs to tell me where he’s been and what he’s done, or he can leave again. He says he’s not talking about it anymore and is not going anywhere. What should I do?
A: Unless he can introduce you to his CIA case officer, who explains you can’t be privy to the details of his mission, you have a huge problem. What he did is a gross violation. Maybe he was shacked up with someone else, maybe he was involved in some kind of crooked enterprise, maybe he was going cold turkey. But whatever was happening, what he did, and his attitude toward you, are inexcusable. He reappears and is pissed that you tried to find out where your husband was? This is the kind of thing that makes people reassess the words husband and wife. There’s no way you can just pick up and go on, wondering if any day may be the next day you come home and he’s holding his suitcase telling you “it’s nothing personal”—nice touch, that! If he won’t tell you what was going on, and won’t go to a counselor with you, then go by yourself. You tell him he has put your marriage in jeopardy, you’re not simply going to pretend this didn’t happen, and you have to do some serious thinking about your future.
Q. My Husband Did a Disappearing Act: Six weeks ago my husband of almost three years took off. I came home from work to find him standing in the kitchen with a suitcase, saying that it was nothing personal but he needed to get away for a while, and then he left. I didn’t hear from him or see him for five weeks. I was hurt but I was also frantic with worry. I thought we were very happy, and this came completely out of the blue. He didn’t go to work (they said he’d taken a leave of absence), hadn’t spoken to any of our friends about this, and his parents claimed he wasn’t in touch with them. He came back last Thursday. He refuses to answer any questions about where he was and what he was doing. He is also a little angry with me for “involving” our friends and family in “his” personal business. I am torn between thinking that he was having some kind of crisis and thinking that he’s spent the last five and half weeks with another woman. Now that he’s home, he seems to want me to forget this ever happened and pick up right where we left off. I have told him that he needs to tell me where he’s been and what he’s done, or he can leave again. He says he’s not talking about it anymore and is not going anywhere. What should I do?
A: Unless he can introduce you to his CIA case officer, who explains you can’t be privy to the details of his mission, you have a huge problem. What he did is a gross violation. Maybe he was shacked up with someone else, maybe he was involved in some kind of crooked enterprise, maybe he was going cold turkey. But whatever was happening, what he did, and his attitude toward you, are inexcusable. He reappears and is pissed that you tried to find out where your husband was? This is the kind of thing that makes people reassess the words husband and wife. There’s no way you can just pick up and go on, wondering if any day may be the next day you come home and he’s holding his suitcase telling you “it’s nothing personal”—nice touch, that! If he won’t tell you what was going on, and won’t go to a counselor with you, then go by yourself. You tell him he has put your marriage in jeopardy, you’re not simply going to pretend this didn’t happen, and you have to do some serious thinking about your future.