I somehow thought that my husband was past the "I don't love you anymore and want a divorce thing". I guess I was just believing what I wanted to believe.
I have been on this site before and gotten a lot of wonderful advice and I really am trying to follow. Just a short background…Walked away from emotionally unavailable husband after last straw moment in May and move to parents w/ 4 year old daughter. He pursues like crazy but I don’t believe him because promises have been made time and time again and never kept. I come to my senses about breaking up 4 year old dauthers family and come back on June 21 completely commited to making my marriage work. My husband now has, in the meantime, had an affair (which he says since ended) and doesn’t want reconciliation, makes appointment at mediator, we go, he changes tune slightly and says he will try, we go to counseling and Retrouvaille (crisis marriage encounter). Come back from Retrouvaille on 9/13 in worse shape than going in and he is adamant that marriage is over and wants out but has no money to leave our house. Since then, we are living like friends with benefits. He comes and goes as he pleases, joins daughter and I on family things when and if he wants, is affectionate when he wants to be and cold when he wants to be. Is overspending his own money and dipping into “ours” even though he was adiment about getting his own checking account. He is ADHD w/ depression issues so sometimes life skills are hard for him and checking accounts are just NOT his thing.
Last night, out of the blue, during a mundane convo, H says that he is just “there in the house because he can’t afford to move and still wants a D”. My response was “and why do you want the D?” He said “Cuz Im not happy”. My response was “Have you considered the fact that the marriage isn’t whats making you unhappy but, perhaps, internal issues such as ADHD/depression are making you unhappy”. He said “Yes, I have considered that”. I asked what the next steps where and he said that he didn’t have any plan to leave due to finances and he felt that it was best for all of us if he stayed to help financially until all debts were paid off and he could leave when he was financially ready. I said nothing more, went upstairs, he came upstairs, climbed into bed and pleasantly chatted with me until he went to sleep.
How do I deal with this? I cannot move out of the bedroom. My 4 year old was so freaked out that we were sleeping in different bedrooms that it was painful for both of us to watch her so sad and unhappy. We live in the same house, eat meals together, do things together…but, ultimately, he’s just waiting to divorce me. I mean, how to I mentally deal with that. All this time I have working hard on me, my issues, my part in the breakdown of everything, therapy, getting my own life, interests and detaching. Where do I go from here? I mean, if you want to leave me…LEAVE. Don’t stay and stay and once I work my *ss off to get our debts paid off, THEN you’ll leave? I have a 2 year plan for the debt repayment and I am the one with full responsibility for that. He simply can’t handle the finances. Heck, this past week he didn't even give me the full part of his budget deposit so I was left to find the other $100 that needed to go to mortgage payment. He said he overspent and doesn’t have it…which I can’t prove because I have no access to any of his accounts. UGH…advice please…just a little lost and frankly very sad today. Trying to stay positive but it’s getting hard. I'm finding it sooo difficult to set boundries with a man that is so very much in my life, in my home and emeshed in our finances. I really do appreciate that he feels the sense of responsibility to us financially and, for him, that a BIG deal. I also feel that I need him to understand that he can't just "use" me to get to a better financial place and then leave. That's very, very wrong. The issue is though, that i will be financially broken if he does leave. All debt is in my name and if he walks away, my credit and everything I've work for will be lost. This is just so hard and I love him so much.
Erwin gave me wonderful advice about preparing for a life without him and I'm really trying to do that emotionally but living in this house KNOWING he's going to leave is almost like having an fatal illness and waiting for death. The hope that he will get the help he really needs is just a dream of mine and I am almost certain that he won't. As far as our daughter goes, I'm really trying to do the best I can for her not to feel any of this but I know she is. She is 4 but I know that even though we are amicable, we aren't modeling a loving, healthy relationship for her. That said, I read this on a SmartMarriages website and really thought it sort of explained best where my head is at in terms of my daughter and wanting to save her family for her...even if it means that I'm unhappy:
“I'm not advocating for loveless marriages. But it's also the case that marriage
doesn't make us happy every day. No marriage does, but your marriage serves
as so much more than just a vehicle for immediate individual adult needs. It makes
one world for your child, and children will tell you that means everything to them.”
(Elizabeth Marquardt, Between Two Worlds)
I know she won’t understand for a while but she will know someday that I did everything I could to save our family because I knew it meant the world to her….and that meant the world to me.
Thanks for listening....grateful
Try to manage
Submitted by tarjavj on
Hi!
I just read your post and fully sympatize you. My husband of 15 yrs left me 1,5 months ago. We have 2 daughers, one diagnosed with ADD and one that most likely has it, but yet not diagnosed. My husband had an affair this summer, left the other woman, said will try to get our marriage to work, but left me afterwards anyway. This period of uncertainty was the worst. I felt terrible. Now, that he is not here anymore, I actually feel better. Of course some days are worse and some better, but that is normal. I feel sad for all the dreams that I lost, but releefed that there is peace in the house. No more stress and shouting and no more disappointments and loneliness.
Do you realy think it will get better? Why do you hurt yourself? If there is no real hope, let go of him and try to move on with your life. How hard it may seem, it will most likely be the best for you.
Be strong and take care of yourself!
Knowing instead of hoping
Submitted by gratitudeiskey on
Tarjavj:
Thanks so much for your response. The roller coaster of emotional ups and downs is very, very hard. I think I'm ok and detaching but then I get sucked back in. I am working really hard to stay even and not let my emotion state be determined by HIS emotional state. It's really hard to do though. Especially when you love someone and you want to save a family from coming apart at the seams. My mom always says that the "anticipation is greater than the doing" and I agree to that to some extent. I also know that I can get through anything. I will NOT die if he leaves and neither will my daughter. BUT...when I left him in May, I know what it did to her. She was so confused and so sad. She would cry herself to sleep every night. It was torture. That's when I realized that my unhappiness was secondary to her pain. When I brought her into this world I almost feel like I made a contract with her to always do what was best for her. The quandry is ......is ultimately what's best for me best for her...happy momma = happy daughter. I don't know.
We never shout, we never even argue, so I tend to rationalize that me staying is not as harmful as if there was abusive behavior going on in the home. There is stress and disappointments and loneliness in HEAPS AND LOADS.
I don't think it will get better and I'm hoping against hope that he will "get a clue". Like I said, I know it's a dream. In all of this, my daugther will pay the ultimate price and will always be disjointed somehow. Every holiday she will have to "miss" the absent parent and one of us will feel the pain of being without her. I sometimes think there shouldn't be anything such as "no fault" divorce. People couldnt' just walk away because they are unhappy or dissatisfied or in mid life crisis. Children look to us to make the right decisions as parents to protect them, keep them safe and make sure they are loved and cared for.
Melissa O told me that, for me and my circumstances, happily ever after might not come in a neat mom and dad in the same home package. I think she may be right but I'm trying everything I can to stay and give her a 2 parent home and STILL keep my sanity and soul in tact. It's certainly not a task for wimps.....maybe martars but not wimps.
I weep for all of us going through this. It's almost unbareable.
Thanks again for being so kind and supportive.
Gina B
What happens when your
Submitted by brooks30 on
What happens when your daughter turns 18 and goes off to college? Or at the point that she will inevitably move out? Raising her in a loveless marriage household to "protect her" just to have her deal with all of this as an adult is no better than her dealing with it now.
Life is hard and is full of trials. From what I can tell, the only think keeping your marriage togerher is your daughter. When she grows up that divorce eventually will come. Why will this be easier later on? As someone whose parents divorced when I was 1, well I will say that when I watch people now my age (late-20s) have their parents divorce, it tears them apart. Its their only link to childhood and innocence and it gets ripped away from them as an adult...right at the moment when they are realizing how cruel life really can be. I am happy my parents split when I couldn't remember them together.
There is one more thing I want to get you thinking about...
From what I can tell, you really try to get your husband thinking about his ADHD/Depression. I ask you, have you thought about your own possible "issues". I know you are really considering your daughters feelings in all of this but, from what I can tell, I also see a lot of dependency on your behalf. You say you are "friends with benefits" which I take to mean that you are still having sex with a man who not only had an affair but tells you he doesn't love and wants a divorce. I guess what I am trying to express is that it seems to me that a part of you may be hiding behind your daughter as a reason for you not wanting to divorce your husband...to have him want to part of this marriage again.
Remember, you left this May and I am sure being apart made you realize a lot about your feelings for him and your marriage. No matter the relationship a person is in, change is still change and humans just don't handle it all that well. Divorce is scary. What I encourage you to think about is being in a loveless marriage for the next 14 years (pretty scary) and having to put your daughter through all of this at one point anyway. Maybe better to do it when she won't remember it all that well.
My Issues
Submitted by gratitudeiskey on
Brooks:
Thanks for your repsonse. I appreciate you weighing in. There is a great deal of dependency on my part. Absolutely. I am in therapy AND I go to CoDA meetings every week and I am working my program with a help of a sponsor. I have only started going in the past 2 months.
Yes, you assessment about our intimate life is very much on the mark. That's exactly what I mean about benefits. I think hiding is a strong word for how I'm relating this issue and my daughter. The reason I say this is because I already KNOW that this is the case. Two things are happening here...I love my husband and would like to see our marriage work because I love him. I love my daughter and would like to see our marriage work because I think that living in a two parent home is what's best for her. I also know that we need to be modeling a healthy, loving relationship. I know that doesn't mean moonlight and roses but what it needs to be is a far cry from where it is now.
I do see what you are saying about divorcing nor or later and if it's inevitable, doing it now is best for her. Believe me, that's what I'm having such a hard time getting my brain around. I'm just having a hard time in deciding what is best for her...because, believe me, if I did not have her I would be gone. That's the difference. SHE is the only reason that I'm tolerating this from him. It would be hard making the decision to leave because i love him so much but I would still make it because if the decision is "wrong" I am only hurting myself. BUT, now I have this other factor, my daughter. Even though I love him...I would leave if it was just me. But it's not.
I guess you could say that she is the only reason the marriage is holding. She is the reason I tolerate what I'm tolerating. Personally, I think that may be enough of a reason. I wish I had some crystal ball that I could see the future and just "know" she and I will be ok. I as sitting at dinner with a 45 year old woman that talked about the fact that when she was 5 years old, her Dad left and she never even watched him pack or saw him leave but when she got home, she noticed all his stuff was missing and she ran from room to room looking for him and his stuff and she still remembers that feeling. She cried as she told me. She said her dad and mom yelled at each other every night and that it was a horrible home life but she said she would've given up that first few YEARS as a child of divorce for a lifetime of them yelling and screaming. My neice remembers her stepfather leaving the house when she was 4 and she ran down the road crying trying to catch his car. She's 36 and remembers that moment. I just want to keep my daughter from that kind of pain. BUT...I also know that there are tons of kids who grow up in perfectly happy marriages that are strung out on drugs and a complete mess.
This is just so difficult and the decision to tell him to leave or let him stay is tearing me apart inside. I go to my CoDA meeting tonight and hope to get some clairity. This has just really sent me reeling. I don't want to seem like some simpering, wimpering, doormat..... I've just gotten the wind knocked out of me again and I'm trying to end this cycle because it's getting harder to get back up each time and I NEED to get back up. If nothing else, to prove to myself that I can.
Gina B
Gina, You are so much
Submitted by brooks30 on
Gina,
You are so much stronger than I think you know. All I can say is that no matter what, if you love your daughter and do what is best for BOTH of you, you will be okay. Your husband is wearing you down now...imagine another 10, 15, 20, 40 years! As a person who left my ADHDer becuase of how worn down I was after only two years I will say that I am the happiest I have been in a long time. Sure I miss the man that loves me so much but I look at how he lives his life after the break up and I see that he is who he is. Even with his treatment so many of his ADHD copping mechanisms are so ingrained into his brain that he doesn't see anything wrong with all of them. After two years he finally admitted to me that he never saw what he was doing wrong. Sure he understood how it could be frustrating but didn't thing it was as big of a deal as I made it. On his own he is living the same way he lived here. Just floating through life like a balloon, only concerned about the shiny object in the corner.
Your friends' stories are sad ones indeed and of course those feelings have always stayed with them but no matter how hard you try, no matter how hard, you daughter will feel pain in life. Sure you can sort of control if you will be the source of the pain or not but even then....
I do not envy you situation and I know you have a lot of decisions to make. The only thing I would emplore you to do is make sure you are saving some of your love for yourself. My best friends mom is with a man that doesn't bring her happieness yet she feels as if he is her only option. She saved no love for herself and instead gave it all to her daughter (her only child). Now, her health is almost non-existent at the age of 55 and she is tired. All the time tired. The only thing that brings her joy is my best friend but my best friend is also grown up, has her own life and in all reality would like to move out of state but never will because she is afraid of leaving her mom. As much as you want to do everything for your daughter at one point this selfless act almost turns selfish becuase as your daughter ages, she will feel that she will have to make the same sacrifices for you. No matter what you do you are leading by example.
Stay strong and I wish you the best of luck in the future. Your daughter is very lucky to have you as her mom.