My marriage is over....

[Moocow72]

Hi - fair play to anyone who makes it to the end of this post but I just need to get all this out !

I have been married for 18 years and with my husband for nearly 30 and he just told me he wanted a divorce last week.

We have two kids aged 16 and 11 and I know he has been unhappy for years, mainly because he feels as if I am quite cold and numb in our relationship. I feel a lot of this is due to me being on antidepressants for years due to anxiety/depression issues. But I guess I thought due to the time we'd been together that we would always stay together and make it work.

He says he doesn't want to spend the next 40 years of his life like this but I feel trapped. Our eldest is about to do his mock exams and will do his real GCSEs next year. My husband says he originally wasn't going to tell me until after he had done his final exams.

But now I know I am just so mixed up - I want to try and make it work and am looking into coming off my tablets in order for me to hopefully feel more human as I am fed up of the anti-depressant numbness. However I don't know what my husband expects me to do - I feel like I have to just pretend everything is alright until next summer but I don't know if I can live like this. I don't even know how we would do it - but I feel if I told my husband to leave now that it would cause such upset particularly with my eldest that I just don't feel I can do that to him at such a crucial point in his education.

I told my husband he should have just kept it quiet until next summer and he now agrees but I have no idea where to go from here. Plus money wise I don't even think I could buy him out so would risk uprooting the kids and going through all the heartache and disruption and I have no idea where we'd end up.

I asked my husband if there was any hope for us to make it work and he said that things had changed before but would always go back to him feeling as if he is in a loveless relationship with me due to the way I act. Obviously there's always two sides to every story and my husband has admitted he has drunk too much for many years (he says due to feeling empty in our marriage) but when he was drunk and would complain to me I just didn't know if it was the alcohol talking and if I'm being honest I probably didn't take it that seriously as I thought we had too much for one of us to throw it away.

There is so much more I could write but I fear it would make little sense. I just don't know where to go from here - do i just have to just get my head around pretending everything is ok to the kids and rest of the family by keeping the home together until next summer ?? I just feel so confused and shocked, as if my whole world has crumbled around me. Generally in life I'm not a quitter and I guess even though I knew things were far from perfect in my marriage, I was never considering ending it.

If there's anyone else out there in a similar situation please shout so I don't feel so isolated..

I should add there's no arguments or violence in the marriage so the kids are perfectly safe. I just feel such a failure in my marriage that I haven't been the wife I should have been.

[Jixy8731]

Hmm, when I read the above he does seem to put a lot of the blame for the current state of the marriage into you.. even his drinking is your fault! If he isn’t willing to see it literally can’t be all you then then there is nowhere to go. You can’t fix a marriage by yourself essentially..

[TwitterQueen1]

It's daft to continue until next summer just because of your DS's exams. Children know exactly what's going on - even if you haven't had any rows in front of them - and very resilient. My DC got through A levels with cancer diagnosis & major op hanging over her.

The "we've been together so long I never though this would happen" is also a non-argument. Why spend another 30 years or so being miserable just because you've spend the last 10 (or more/less) being miserable. It makes no sense at all. You don't invest in the past, you invest in the future.

Have you ever thought your depression / anxiety might be because you're in a rubbish relationship?

I do sympathise Op and I'm asking the above to try to encourage you to a) think about what you want and b) to help you understand a divorce really isn't the end of the world... Better 4 happy people who may live in different houses and get on OK than 4 miserable ones all in the same house.

[Moocow72]

Thanks for the replies - I just feel so confused at the moment and to me, a divorce feels like the worst possible thing that could happen to me at the moment.

My husband admits his drinking has been a problem and that he hasn't behaved very well when he's drunk and hasn't always been the best husband. That could probably explain why I've been cold at times - if your partner drinks and isn't very nice to you when they do, it's bound to make you distant surely just to protect yourself (mentally) ?

I just need to get my head together and know that whatever happens I will get through it.

x

[Ivyholly]

Well I could have written some of that! I'm ending my marriage due to my dh being unfaithful. He blames various things wrong in our marriage (supposedly all of which were my fault) but I didn't think things were so bad that he needed to do what he did. We've been married over 20 years with 3 kids and youngest is 8. I've been keeping things together at home whilst i decided what to do (I found out 3 months ago what he'd been up to) and it's not been easy pretending things are ok. Thankfully I work full time and he works long hours so not too much time together, and we do still get on. I just don't love him,but he will always be our kids' father and we will always be a family in that way.

I'm sorry you're going through this; some days are easier than others, honestly.

xx

[Moocow72]

Thank you - and I'm sorry you are going through this too xx

I do love my husband (although admittedly I have only just realised how much when he suggested the divorce). Now I don't know if that's just because I am scared the marriage will end so I am now fighting hard to save it and realise what I've got purely because I could lose it rather than be objective about the situation and perhaps come to the conclusion it would be better to be out of the marriage.

I am thinking maybe Relate (even just to discuss the practicalities of a separation if things have gone too far to fix them) and then a trial separation. Although financially I can't see how he could afford to move out and pay rent etc as well as still give me enough for me to keep the house going. We both work full time with decent wages but it would be such a stretch.

I just hate failure and I feel like I've failed...

[Ivyholly]

You mustn't feel that. My dh also drinks too much and for years I've blamed myself for being boring/blamed his job for being stressful etc but when he tried to blame me for his decision to be unfaithful I realised he'd always put everything onto me - counselling has massively massively helped me understand this so definitely go to relate or similar. they do a scale of costs based on earnings but first session is about 60. If you want to go together, you have to go separately first.

Have you talked to any friends? I talk to a couple but have told no one else and don't intend to until we've told the kids plus any more would be too much as I don't want it defining every conversation I have, and I don't want other people's advice, but being able to offload hugely helps.
x

[Moocow72]

Thanks a lot for your advice. Feeling much more positive today about things (I seem to be very much up and down these days).

I've got a couple of friends I feel i could talk to about this and am due to see them in a couple of weeks for a meal out so maybe a good time to tell them. Other than that we really want to keep it quiet due to kids not knowing etc.

I've even been googling house prices today and hopefully our house is worth a bit more than I thought so if we went ahead and sold it should enable us to pay off most of our debts just leaving us with one car loan each which is manageable. So if the worst came to the worst, financially it should be "do-able".

We've agreed to put everything on hold until after Christmas now so we can hopefully enjoy this time of year without making the kids associate it with the time their family broke up and also allows the eldest to get his mocks completed without any disruption.

Then if nothing has changed come mid January at least we can sit down and put a plan together. I would love to hold onto the house as the kids are settled and I love it, but if we have to sell so be it - there are plenty of rental properties in this town and perhaps a fresh start would be better.

Can't believe I'm talking about this situation as if it could be a positive thing and I'm sure I'll have many bad days to come but maybe putting the tree up today is making me feel more positive !

Xx