I have taken my children and moved out. Is it a huge mistake?

I left my husband last summer. We have three young children, who live with me but see their dad regularly. Things are cordial and he is financially supporting us. However, the separation has highlighted the distance there’s always been between us in our decade-long relationship.

My husband is a hard worker but emotionally distant and can be blind to my needs and those of the children. We’d been living abroad, rurally, for nine years, doing up a house – and I home-educated the children. I have become increasingly depressed and am kicking myself for decisions I’ve made and gone along with.

During our relationship, I kept trying to convince my husband that we should move to a town, but he was adamant we couldn’t afford it. Eventually I cracked, moved into town and enrolled the kids (one of whom I think has special educational needs) in schools.

My husband says he wants to move in with us again at some point.

What I want is time and space to get settled, to support my children and prepare for a return to work. He’s very focused on keeping the family and marriage together.

I just wonder if I’m making a huge mistake. I’m doubting every decision, having intrusive thoughts and feel out of control. I want to be a strong, stable parent, but I feel lost and wonder how I’ve ended up like this.

First things first: when you have these dark thoughts, please contact Samaritans in your country (they do operate there, I checked). Going back to your letter, you ask if you’ve made a mistake, but not about what. Leaving your husband, or possibly letting him back into your life?

In your original, much longer, letter, you told me about your traumatic childhood and emotionally distant father; your lack of sex life with your husband; your dalliance with another man just to “feel something” again.

You have made incredible progress these past few months and do have a road map for the next stage (whatever that ends up being). You’ve moved into town to have contact with people, you’ve got your children into a school and are having more of their needs – and, hopefully, yours – met.

I contacted Murray Blacket (cosrt.org.uk), a couples psychotherapist, who observed: “A difficult and protracted house renovation in a remote location in a different country does not sound like a very emotionally connected project. Did you share this dream?”

I wonder if you hoped that, if you kept trying, you’d get some warmth from your husband, but this seems to have come at the expense of your mental health. It’s time to think about your needs.

Blacket felt you had made some “big, decisive choices”, none of which can have been easy. He also says it sounds as if you’ve not been happy anywhere along the way. Would you say this is true?

I think you know what you want but you don’t trust yourself. Your husband wanting to keep the family together is a laudable aim, but I think you both need to decide, and agree, what a marriage actually is, and I think this is at the heart of your issues, because you seem to have very different needs and expectations.

I would urge you to get some counselling (together if possible), and sit tight on any decisions – including whether your husband should move back in with the rest of the family– until you know what you want. You clearly feel very unhappy and must listen to these feelings even if they seem to defy logic.

If you would like advice on a family matter, email ask.annalisa@theguardian.com. See gu.com/lettersterms for terms and conditions

It sounds as if you’ve not been happy anywhere along the way