Stringing it out - how do I stay sane?

[schrodcat]

Hello. I really need some input from people who have been there. I just don't know what 'normal' looks like anymore. Okay, at Christmas I asked for a divorce. We have an 18-month-old. I work full time. DH is the stay-at-home Dad. I don't think I love him anymore. I want him to be taken care of, to have clean clothes, be fed, housed, to have people to hang out with ... but I don't want it to be me anymore. I feel like if I carry on with this marriage it will wring me dry. He 'persuaded' me to stay (threatened to sue for custody; yes, I know that is not the correct legal terminology anymore). He is digging his heels in over the issue of childcare. He does not want DS to go to nursery until he is 3. I feel that this is because he knows that I will therefore have to stay married to him if I have no childcare options (obviously I do; it is just very hard to arrange e.g. nursery visits if your DH's face is like thunder and he stands all brooding while you talk with over-done enthusiasm to the key worker). I think I have just married the wrong person. I am quite an active person. In all honesty, I love my job. That doesn't mean it is always super-easy. It can be quite physical, but it is also a mental challenge and I have great colleagues. I don't want to stop as it really is my life - my social life and the roof over my head, too. I don't feel that this makes me a bad mother. I walk to work in the morning and come home for lunch; sometimes I can get away at 4/4.30. I am pushing on for the time being but my heart is not in it. I don't want people to say I should have tried harder. We are going to go for counselling. I hate his family. His mum is quite intimidating. She rang me on the Saturday night of the weekend I had asked him to make himself scarce and intimidated that I had made him suicidal. Apparently he had been on the phone to her earlier, a bit upset, as you would be if your wife was trying to leave you. I feel like I am living in another place in my head which is totally detached from the here and now, and I am just taking deep breaths and keeping going - he has agreed to 2 session of nursery from May; it is a start. He keeps making doe eyes at me and asking if I wouldn't like another baby? I will never get away if we have another baby. How do I stay sane in the meantime?

[jeaux90]

You might get more responses and help if you get this moved to relationships.

I hear you. I'm a single mum and I have a great career and good balance and it's way way way easier than being in a miserable marriage/relationship

They threaten suicide and never do, this is emotional abuse by the way. Sorry to say that to you.

You don't need his permission to divorce him. You have one life.

Consistency in messaging to him is the key, eventually it will sink in to him.