Old enough to know better

[AmyTanFan]

Hi, I’m asking for your advice, but also dreading it too because I know I am largely to blame.

I’m 50 and I’ve been married for 24 years. We have twin teenage daughters. My husband and I have barely communicated for over three years while living under the same roof. On the rare occasions we do communicate it ends in a row.

He hates me because I have been financially irresponsible; he has paid the mortgage and bills over the years. As the girls have got older I have gradually increased my working hours and I’m now almost full-time. I pay for our food, give the girls an allowance and pay for their clothes, trips etc. I have debts which he doesn’t know about (almost £9,000) which I’m repaying through a bank loan. I have frittered money away on clothes, hardback books etc when I should have taken some of the financial strain from him.

Ideeply resent him because he is virtually emotionless and has been for many years. He works away all week, comes home on a Friday night, switches on the TV and watches until 1.00 am drinking beer. Saturday he wakes up at 9.00 am, switches on the TV, watches it until 1.00 am and goes to bed. Same again Sunday. He rarely turns his head to speak or communicate with the girls and certainly not too me although he does give them lifts to their Saturday jobs etc and I know he loves them. He rarely speaks to anyone and doesn’t see any of his mates. He seems to prefer total isolation and the TV.

If you’d told me that you could live under the same roof with someone in a situation like this for years I wouldn’t have believed you but we continue. It is easier not to speak rather than row in front of our daughters and a divorce would mean selling the house and breaking up the family home.

I can’t stand the TV on all day, his drinking and the mutual resentment but can’t bring myself to start the divorce process and I feel ashamed of my own part in this, too.

[akawisey]

So what is keeping you together Amy?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Sounds like your spending is a form of self-medication. Others - and there are many in your situation - use prescription drugs, alcohol or food for the same effect. Also sounds as though you haven't quite encountered the straw that breaks the camel's back yet i.e. things are only just tolerable and the alternative is too daunting by comparison. But that will come.

In the meantime, be as independent as possible. Start imagining life solo and prepare accordingly. Tell him about the debts and get them paid off because you're going to need financial independence for the next phase of your life. It'll also be good for your confidence to stop hiding this secret.

[HoneyandRum]

Amy you are in a deep freeze emotionally as you have become climatized to having absolutely no emotional support from your husband. It sounds like the ice is starting to crack and thaw out. I would start seeing a counselor, if you aren't already and figure out what it is you really want. Financial issues sound like they have become a proxy for power games in your marriage. You screwed up but so has he. You can still salvage a wonderful life for yourself. Who knows what that will look like? The first part is seeing someone in talk therapy and listening to yourself so you can discover what it is you want and what you are going to do about it.

Although you are anxious about the idea of breaking up the family home - it sounds like your marriage has been over for years and your children will know it. I hardly think it will be a surprise to them. Also, do you want your daughters to think this is normal and have no other expectations from a relationship? You have most likely decades of life ahead of you, don't resign yourself to a life in the emotional twilight.

You have a job and financial independence so you already have some important pieces in place if you decide to formally end your marriage.

[Jan45]

Breaking up the family home??? This is not a family unit where you all are involved in each other's lives and discuss each other's feelings and hopes and fears so I don't get what you would be breaking up apart from a home of isolation where your husband clearly would prefer life on his own and doesn't even communicate.

I really don't know how either of you can stand it, get out, you'll both be a lot happier in the long run, regardless of the upheaval, surely better than living in limbo land.

[Shoutymomma]

This Friday night, lock the door, take the plug off the tele and insist on communication.

[ZombieMojaveWonderer]

Sounds like my EX op that's why he's now my ex see what I'm doing here? Don't put up with it if it's not making you happy. God I just couldn't live with that crap anymore. It was draining the life out of me so I left and took my kids with me and have never looked back. I am happier now then ever and my new husband worships the ground I walk on good luck in whatever you decide to do op.

[AmyTanFan]

Thanks for your replies and advice. I know what I need to do.

[Joysmum]

Your relationship sounds like my parents before they split up. My dad was protecting himself from my mum by switching off as he knew her heart wasn't in it and it hurt him. HE was the victim and she stayed with him because she had a better quality of life with him even though she didn't love him.

She eventually left him and paid off her debts with the settlement. Since then (this was over 20 years ago) she has twice more got into massive debt.

I'm glad for both of them that she left, my dad is happily married and my mum isn't affecting anyone else by her spending.