Destabilized by high school sweetheart declaration he never really loved me anyway.

Tldr – the man I have given more than half my life to now says he never loved me. What the hell is really going on and how do I recover from this?

My high school sweetheart husband has decided his 17yr old self was not really capable of making wise life long decisions and our marriage was one of the choices he shouldn’t have made. I agree that a 17yr old is pretty clueless now, but we didn’t marry until 21, and after significant counsel from pastors and family about the seriousness of the decision. There were several points where we had the chance to back out or change minds, and we had to go though some pretty tense times with our families over it. I thought we were a story of love conquering all.

However, He now thinks he didn’t actually love me afterall, but 17yr old him didn’t know how to get out of the relationship. He said he wants to still live together and be friends for the kids sake and out of honouring the family we have made, but he doesn’t want to pretend to be in love anymore. He’s having an identity awakening and making conscious choices about his life now. Part of this is he has done some psychology classes and thinks has identified he has an avoidant attachment style due to abuse and neglect as a child. He doesn’t accuse me of coercing him into marriage but is convinced we were not meant to be together and my heart and the last 25ish years of our lives are unfortunate collateral damage in this.

I’ve been blind sided by this. We’ve been ships in the night with work and kids lately and we lost some spark, but I figured that was normal for our age and stage, and that we were just in need of a holiday and some effort to reconnect again. It’s a shock to hear he thinks he never really loved me, after he fought to prove it early on and years of reassurance and statements that he does since.

It’s been weeks since this blew uo and I just keep crying at the drop of a hat. I just want a hug. I’m shaken to the core and it feels like the fundamental foundation of my whole life has cracked and become destabilized.

What do I do now? How do I come out of this able to trust anyone ever again? I’m miserable and in more empowered moments pissed off, but that doesn’t give me my past or my future back.