Anyone else unhappily married, depressed, anxious, isolated, with small children...?

[toddlerhip]

Is there anyone out there unhappily married but financially trapped, socially isolated with very small children and suffering from anxiety / depression / sleep problems? I would love to know it's not just me and to hear your survival/ perseverance strategies?

Our second dc is due in a month. 2 months ago my husband emailed to say he was leaving us and giving me a months notice but my dad persuaded him it wasn't fair.

My husband and i then agreed that he would stay in his current job for 6 months, where he works mostly at home,rather than going consulting as the extra money was not as important as both of us being at home during this time with toddler and baby. Today he announced he has been planning the opposite & is going to start working away all week from next week.

He also said he wont guarantee to be around for the birth (which i'm really worried about) unless i choose a another c-section which i don't want, partly because i am worried about recovery with a 2 year old to look after.

There is no point arguing as it is a fait accompli but I don't dare say anything either (after the initial shock) in case he threatens to leave us again. Also because he is aggressive & quite violent (throwing and kicking things, stamping, yelling) and I am worried he will attack us. He has also threatened suicide. He says he wants me to "nurture" him as a valuable asset. He baits me til i cry and then laughs. He tries to draw me into arguments in front of our son, but i have refused to talk to him unless our son is in bed and so he just gets angry. My parents think he has done nothing wrong and make excuses for him but they never see the way he is at home.

I keep thinking i'm turning corners but it just seems to be one thing after another. I have lots of qualifications and had a good job before kids - i never thought i'd feel so powerless.

I want to just walk out of my life, escape for a while. But i couldn't leave my son behind & anyway, my parents would probably leave messages that he was hurt to bring me back. And at 36wks pg, its not that easy to go away with him. So i feel trapped.

[Haribosmummy]

Oh, I'm so sorry. I really don't have any advice, but couldn't leave your message unanswered.

it sounds dreadful for you. Why on earth does your DH want you to have another CS if it's not what you want? (FWIW, I'm really pro CS, had one with DS and will have one with DBaby - but it's MY choice - not something I feel at all forced into)

I can appreciate SO MUCH that you would never leave your kids... though it sounds like your parents are quite involved in your marriage? If you don't mind me asking, was in an arranged marriage? It just sounds like you are expected to be a dutiful wife no matter what?

As for him working away, maybe take it as a blessing? With him away, you have time to get your ducks in order / see a solicitor without him being about. You are entitled to maintenence and CS. Find out about your rights.

I'm so sorry I don't have any proper advice.

HM xxx

[toddlerhip]

Thankyou HS. i don't feel me leaving isn't an option though just now. I couldn't afford to financially & don't want to be a SM with a baby and toddler, and i especially don't want to put my kids into full time childcare at their age.

No, it wasn't arranged. It was a one off that my dad spoke to my hb as a last resort when it looked like he was leaving. I was going to my parents (who live within 1/2 hr) after the birth as a section was quite likely and with 2 small children & in a house with lots of levels and stairs recovery & childcare would've been hard without much help from my husband - now it looks like essential since he wont be there.

[theDreadPiratePerArdua]

What other friends do you have? And have you told your parents how he is? That you're frightened of him? I hope they wouldn't want you to stay knowing these circumstances, unless they have some serious issues themselves?

[Haribosmummy]

Honestly, I think it might be the best thing him working away for a while. It gives you a chance to think abotu things without having to make any decisions.

I think going to your parents is a good idea, you need the emotional support if not the physical support (which would be required after a CS anyway)

Please DO have the birth you want.

Do you think there is anyone else? Or do you think maybe it's the committmenet?

[toddlerhip]

It's the commitment. And he's worried about his own family who are abroad, long term ill, need money...

While I am supposed to go to my parents house for a month after the birth, i did something similar with my first son and it didnt work out so i am dreading it. If i have a section i wont have a choice though. My parents keep putting up barriers saying they wont do this and that and they want to go away at this and this time during the month etc. I became quite ill recently when staying overnight at my mums, and though i said i wasn't feeling well my mum wanted me to keep preparing our lunch and the dinner for her guests when i really needed to be in bed. She later got the virus and went straight to bed.

I have told them how he is & it worries my mum, my dad stays out of it for the most part. But as soon as she sees him it's as though she forgets what i've said. He is like Jekyll and Hyde which somehow seems to make it hard for her to either believe me or remember what i've told her.

We haven't lived here that long & i've been tied up a lot of that time first of all moving in, then getting our life going here adn then organising complicated renovations so only have casual friends. Before that i moved every 6-18 months so staying in touch with older friends in the south has been challenging and most of them don't have kids.

[theDreadPiratePerArdua]

Second Haribo - him working away could be a blessing. You'll start to feel more confident if you're not being undermined all the time, you can make some new friends through a post-natal group (check out where Surestart is in your area). He sounds like a man that if you begged him to make sure he comes home every weekend he'll deliberately stay away - so you can have eben more time to yourself and you DCs?

It must all feel overwhelming right now, but you'll get through. If he's not around then your depression and social isolation may also magically disappear... The rest is down to logistics, and you can work it out.

xx

[theDreadPiratePerArdua]

It sounds like your parents aren't going to be very supportive then either. Can you afford for a temporary mother's help to come in for the month after the birth? Do the laundry, cook some food, clear up the worst? Move yourself and DS onto one floor temporarily, so you don't have to worry so much about lifting etc?

[MargotBeauregardesGavel]

He sounds like an albatross round you're neck. You need to get rid of him and move on. Can you stay with your parents while you build a new life for yourself and your children? Your Dad sounds supportive.

Your being upset is a a NORMAL reaction to such uncertainty and such upsetting behaviour from your husband. I was on anti-depressants before I left my x. I wasn't clinically, chemically depressed. Just trapped, miserable, bullied, controlled, desperate, sad, you get the picture.

Anyway, I took anti-depressants and perhaps they did give me some clarity and strength as I left. I hope that you leave this guy. I'm pretty sure your life would be easier without him.

[kittywise]

I have nothing useful to add, I just wanted to give you my support. What a really awful situation to be in your poor woman

[MargotBeauregardesGavel]

Sorry I've just read that bit that your parents would leave messages to say he was hurt. Be 100% honest with your parents about the way he is treating you. You are being bullied and controlled by a very screwed up individual.

"nurture him as an asset" how did you not laugh out loud?! HOnestly, what nonsense. Although I'm sure you know that, but I remember well that nightmare of trying not to inflame a tense situation. He sounds dilusional and narcissistic. "nurture him" I would like to throw a bucket of cold runny poo over him for being such a self-absorbed whinging wanker.

GL to you, hug

[toddlerhip]

Thanks kittywise.

You made me laugh Margot which isn't happening enough round here! And i love the albatross idea! I have been dp severfal times before, and on meds which i hated. It started same time i met my hb (then bf). I think in the past it's been a combination of things but bullying by hb, bf or bosses has always featured.

DPPA - you have got him in one. And it's true that if he wasn't so against me having people round to the house things'd be better socially as i'm quite outgoing. I think i am going to try and get someone in to help with the bedtime rush after no 2 arrives. I'm moving to the flat so that we are on one level but hb has just said he wont help with that either - he wants me to organise it. It has been the same story for everything that has happened during most of the last two years. I am already maxed out preparing for the baby and if he'd only told me his plans I could've arranged to get help before now.

Because we have been doing renovations for 6 months our toddler has been sleeping in my room. The idea had been his daddy would sleep with him when the new baby arrives so he didn't feel pushed out but now it turns out that while he went along with it, my hb had no intention of that, because he wont be there. One of the things that really worries me is that now i will have to manage a new baby on my own and a toddler who is not used to sleeping on his own. I think it's just going to be a question of getting on with it though.

[theDreadPiratePerArdua]

Don't worry about sleeping arrangements - plan on cosying up with both kids maybe? Enjoy having your real family so close, while your H makes himself miserable somewhere else? Plan out how things are going to work for you, and if it doesn't suit him, he can do something else/be somewhere else.

If you just keep in mind that you're getting things ready for yourself, without expecting (or wanting) any help from him, then you'll probably find your head is a lot clearer. You can do it - and these next few weeks with DS and new baby could be some of the most enjoyable of your life so far (and a precursor of your life to come).

[theDreadPiratePerArdua]

(Also loving Margot's bucket of cold runny poo idea )

[Ozziegirly]

Honestly, would it be so terrible if he did leave? He would still have to support you, but you wouldn't have him around, being, frankly, AWFUL to you.

He really sounds utterly dreadful. Is there anything at all that you like about him?

"nurture as an asset" - "nurture as an asshole" more like.

[MargotBeauregardesGavel]

Toddlerhip, you CAN do it MORE easily on your own.

I spent years with an antisocial depressive man whose coping mechanism was abusing me (verbally, emotionally etc).

I was scared to end it for a long time. Like you, I was also more sociable than he was. For a long time I thought I could suppress that part of my character, for an easy life I guess. But in the end nothing I ever did or didn't do led to an easy life.

Life with a man like this is hard. He is sapping your energies and resources. YOU are the one propping HIM up. Make NO mistake about it.

You will turn to ashes if you stay with this man. I almost turned to ashes, but I left just in time. And guess what, all the normal obstacles and challenges of life suddenly seem a whole lot less insurmountable without 90% of my resources being taken up 'managing' him, dealing with his moods, enduring the tense atmospheres.

He is pressuring you in to what kind of birth you should have!!!!???? Control freak. Run for the hills, please, while you have the chance. Before both your children have social lives and schedules that you have to consider. I left in the months before my dd started reception because I knew if I didn't break free then I never would.

Don't tolerate this albatross a moment longer. You have strength which you're wasting on this guy. I know you have strength because you live with this and you are still sane!!!! You have qualifications and you have parents (who although not totally understand at the moment, would support you through a rough patch I think).

Take care of yourself. I'd be happy to chill that runny poo in my fridge!!

[MargotBeauregardesGavel]

Justaboutback, that makes sense to me. I was so afraid of the alleged 'stigma' of being a single mother that I endured a relationship with a man who was unsupportive in everyway. Financially, emotionally, practically. I got nothing. I held it all together, so that from the 'outside' to the outside World I would look happy.

When I realised that to be happy I had to start from the inside, not the outside, I finally realised I HAD to leave. For so long I thought I had NO choice. I'm not sure why I really thought that, why I felt SO trapped.

But toddlerhip, if you are worried about being a single mother, please don't. everybody I've met has been incredibly kind, supportive, friendly. NObody has judged me or thought less of me, in fact people's stories come out of the woodwork as they tell me about their sister/cousin/friend and her awful, awful husband. People will be 100% rooting for you if you grab your chance to be happy. Your life is not a sacrafice to an ungrateful depressive abusive man.

[toddlerhip]

I do think he has good qualities - i think he is very agreeable to people outside of family life, and he is quite responsible in many ways. But he isn't cut out for family life. He says he never wanted children, and the decision was all mine (which isn't true). Once he said the day his son was born was the worst of his life. Though now our ds has turned two and is doing proper play and speech he has suddenly taken a lot more interest, has become a lot more helpful, has started taking our ds out to the park for example, playing with him rather than just leaving him constantly with me. He baths him these days and does things he never did a year ago & is quite a good father in many ways. Margot is right though, it is exhausting living with him and not getting anything back but financial support. He even resents the 2 hours a week i have to myself at an evening class and says things like i have "betrayed our sons love and trust" by going. Even though i have said i would obviously be fine with me if he wanted to do an activity too. He said the place i should really be having the baby is in the local psychiatric hospital. I've learnt not to say anything back because he is baiting me and that's what he wants but he knows it is still hurtful.

Amazingly, after refusing all my efforts for months to do anything as a family, even going for a walk, today seeing how badly these announcements have affected me he is being ultra-reasonable, even wants us to walk into town together which almost made pinch myself in disbelief. Except it is a familiar pattern - as soon as he sees he has hurt me badly he starts wooing me back so he can do it all over again. He just reeks of insincerity. Starts talking at long last about how we must all pull together as a family. We had agreed he would work from home 6 months after the birth then we would think about him getting a contracting job abroad next winter and all going together somewhere sunny and tax free so we can replenish our savings that have been eaten away by the renovations and new baby expenses. And avoid the horrendous heating bills our house racks up in winter. But he went off the idea & refused to talk about it and forbade me to mention it to anyone. Except that today he has been dangling it like a carrot in front of me again- would i like to go to this country or that country. It is so manipulative it's just insane.

Yesterday morning i found out about him working away from next week, then in the evening he said he would only guarantee to be there for the birth if it was a section. But then he went on to phone my parents to confirm plans for a special day at a spa today that we had planned with them. I can't do much more than a short swim just now so the day was mostly going to be for him to try the different activities and for our son to have fun swimming. Only i was in too much of a state to agree to go at that point. I told him to go with my parents, so he told them i was refusing to go and so therefore he wasn't going either. They told me i should think about my son and go for his sake but i was too angry and upset to agree to anything. Then he phoned them several times last night saying i don't know what but the upshot was it was all going to be my decision. Today when i was a bit calmer i agreed to go so that our son could enjoy it only my husband said he didn't feel like it. Now my parents think i have let everyone down and been selfish towards my son. It's no wonder they seem to forget/disbelieve when i tell them the things he does and says. He comes across as model of propriety & reasonableness whereas i am the one seeing the psychiatric nurse for depression & anxiety.

I do know the kind of misery & hatred we've lived with for most of the last 2 years is no sort of life for any of us. After months of refusing he eventually agreed to Relate but we haven't got a place yet and now he is going away i don't think it's going to happen. Today i feel we are past that anyway now. Its not the first time someone's thought he's narcissistic and he freely admits his work is more important than his family. He also admitted today that he isn't leaving because of the money but because he doesn't want to live at home. But then he comes out with this thing about going abroad together in 6 months. It is like living in a mad world.

I think the thing is to have the baby, let things settle and think about things for a bit. I feel so angry, shocked & betrayed at the moment i can't think straight. And i'm really focused on the birth just now. I have had sleepless nights for months about things going wrong with it for ages & the baby being damaged. Now i have to get my head around being in labour alone and between that and getting everything ready i don't have headroom for much else.

I think you are all right & the best thing is to look on it as a positive. Time alone as the 3 of us with no aggro and manipulation to fend off.

[MargotBeauregardesGavel]

Wow, it is your perogative to see 'the good' in him. But he is ruining your life, and ruining your chance to enjoy family life and to enjoy your children while they are small.

You are angry and depressed because he doesn't want a family. Or he wants you all there sitting neatly on a shelf but all the sacrafices must be yours. You must be no trouble to him.

You definitely need to get out of this situation. Please talk to your HV and be completely honest. This man may have good qualities but that doesn't mean that you owe him your life on a plate!!!!

[MargotBeauregardesGavel]

"He comes across as model of propriety & reasonableness whereas i am the one seeing the psychiatric nurse for depression & anxiety."

This comment speaks volumes by the way. My x came across as the reasonable, sane, steady one and for a while even my parents thought I had PND and that nothing he did pleased me.

This insidious form of abuse is all the more damaging because it's so hard to articulate precisely why it is you're so upset. But you're constantly walking a tightrope of having to argue your case, but you have to argue your case from behind a veil of sorts. The mood, probably already tense, mustn't be inflamed. You mustn't insult him. God forbid. I can imagine. My x was so outraged by many of the correct things I said to him, eg, he was totally unsupportive and controlling and verbally abusive.

You have qualifications. You are an adult. You can get yourself out of this awful situation. Move in with your parents if you need to, until the divorce settlement is sorted out. You do not have to spend the rest of your life pandering to the unpredictable whims of a depressive unreasonable man (even though he may have some good in him).

Your parents may not understand why life with him is so hard, but you don't need their 100% approval. You are entitled to make your own decisions. You are entitled to end a miserably inequal and damaging relationship.

[toddlerhip]

The thing that worried me at the time my husband said he was leaving us was that my 10 years of savings are tied up in our house which is in negative equity now, and though it is in both our names i brought 2/3 of the deposit to the house. If he left & tried to sell the house i would lose everything. I looked into my rights at the time and i would basically get 1/2 the house (i.e. nothing becuase of neg. equity) and child support only. A friend of a friend who is going through a divorce said it is a much rawer deal for women if you live north of the border. After what happened I am paranoid about him forcing me to sell the house next time he goes on a bender. And he has agreed to put the house in my name.

It isn't any stigma about being a SM that worries me, it's losing 10 years worth of savings to buy our house and most of all having to leave my toddler and baby in full time daycare so i could work. Apart from it being a lot harder and all the upheaval of finding somewhere new to live. I have lived in 40 different houses and i really want some time now of not moving. Our house has a flat underneath which we normally rent out but I am going to move into it after the birth and hopefully life will be calmer. If i left & got custody I would feel guilty i was depriving the kids of their father. But not getting custody would be unthinkable. I want to go at the right time, but i don't think it's when i've got no finances, no confidence and a baby and toddler to look after.

I have been seeing the psychiatric nurse for a few weeks when i finally told the midwife i was depressed and anxious. He is supportive, seems to think i have a lot on my plate, says i'm doing the right things in planning and not just giving up & is helping with positive thinking.

[MargotBeauregardesGavel]

Ok, half the house isn't great if you've paid for 2/3rds of it and I feel your frustration. I lived with my x for 8 yrs. To start with he just wouldn't marry me. He wouldn't get a joint mortgage. Everything was in his name. I wasn't happy with this, but he was very controlling. Anyway, after years of trying to improve things I no longer wanted to marry him, but I was trapped, knowing that if I left it would be with two kids and not a pot to piss in.
I left with the clothes we stood up in (this is extreme and I'm not suggesting you do this!!), but just trying to reassure you that if you do lose out financially you are still going to come out of this with your freedom, which is utterly priceless. AND a deposit on a smaller house which isn't brilliant but as you said in your very first post, you are a woman with qualifications and you CAN build your life back up again.

You WILL get custody. He would have to prove that your deprssion has caused you to neglect your child, which I'm sure it hasn't. If he doesn't want a family, I doubt he'll fight you for FULL custody!!! More like he'll agree to seeing children once a week, which might be a break for you.

[Babieseverywhere]

Isn't there a legal way of living in the house (without your husband) until your youngest child is 18 years old ? I am pretty sure I have read this on these boards. If you could do that, hopefully the house will be worth something positive by then...worth asking CAB and/oe WA about.

[toddlerhip]

I dont think so Babieseverywhere - not according to CAB when i went 2 months ago. I had thought he had to maintain us in a similar manner to the present. But apparently he only needs to pay child support. That the woman gave up her career to look after the family seems to cut no mustard, at least up here. And even though i brought most of the money to the house, he woudl still get half as it's in joint names at the moment.

I have started back at a mother and toddler group recently - i couldn't go before because of all the renovations. But i have some casual friends and meet a lot of mums who all seem to have calm family lives and great husbands and it is hard to pretend, cover up or skirt round the truth all the time. It sounds bizarre but I am hoping to go to a group for mums with depression where i hope i wont feel so out of place & build up confidence slowly.