To end my marriage tomorrow

It’s not clear whether he’s worked long enough to amass any meaningful private pension entitlement and OP doesn’t know what happens to the rest of his wages after he has covered his contribution. If he retires and is in receipt of state pension alone, he will be classed as in receipt of benefits and the ‘flat rate’ of £7 per week will be triggered.

I was the child ( without the disabilities) in this scenario playing out in the 70's and 80's. My father was 26 years older than my mother and loved the idea of children when we were young and cute. (And my mother stayed at home and did all the hard graft) By the time he was late 60's and we were teens, he was frankly disinterested and checked out completely. It has affected me my whole life, in many different ways. By the time he died, I think my parents hated each other, my mother was eaten up with resentlemy and my father was ill, old and tired.

Having said that, the way your husband behaved was completely unacceptable - can he reflect on his own behaviour? Is he likely to apologise ? Yes, this was a terrible scene, and things need to change, but is he able to accept his part in the mess you are in now and work to shape the future? If not, then yes, I think your marriage is over. If he IS able to consider how he might change, and what might be needed for this to be a happier home / relationship, then it needednt be the end.

What do you actually want ? Possibly right now you don't know, so I would visit a lawyer and gather as much information as you can, knowledge is power. He is 68, realistically he does not have many working years left. I'm 61 and much more tired than I was 10 years ago.

Take some time, if you can, to process this and see if anything can be salvaged. Yes he has behaved very badly, but why is he so angry? does he need therapy of his own to explore his feelings and ( possibly) disappointment with the situation he is in ?

I’ll help you understand.

He’s has an entrenched misogynist addict dry drunk victim and blaming others mindset.

He may not be drinking but the whole dry drunk personality is contemptuous and resentful to the people they see as denying them their wild free abandon - even if you are not actively surveilling him. Maybe sub consciously he feels he needs to be dry for your DD?

Ask me how I know? Because mine (after years of therapy) was honest that his whole mindset to me was he thought I ‘was a cnut’ - he had never raised his voice to me but our relationship (4 DC, all ND one significantly) was fraught / unbalanced / exhausting but I couldn’t put my finger on how or why as he was quiet (and my experience of a bad man was angry, aggressive, loud, volatile) - but it was grim. Addicts live in their heads, constantly emotionally detached and plotting and obsessing about their next manoeuvre and anyone who gets in the way has to be annihilated. I think this mindset stays as the dry drunk - the unconscious simmering anger, selfish behaviours that they need to keep them sober (hobbies, zero contribution to family life emotionally or practically, indulgence in his social life etc).

I wonder what your own family background was to tolerate his behaviour as normal.

You deserve much more. As does your DD. Money is nothing if your DDs MH us screwed by the emotional violence of her DF directly to her or what she saw her DM endure.

@DotAndCarryOne2 Really?

"Why does he refer to her as manipulative and rude?"

Because "manipulative" is code for "pointing out things I have done that I don't want to admit are shitty" and "rude" is code for "isn't doing as she's told because I am The Man".

Ah. The classic "he wants a wife and kids but doesn't really want to be a husband and father" scenario. He goes out all the time, goes away alone, you don't share money, and he sits in another room when you're on holiday.

This is dead in the water.

The child maintenance service is clear that pension income , including state pension, is included as income for calculating maintenance. He will not be classed as on benefits. It may be however that his pension income will be a lot lower than income when working so a much lower sum.

Responsible adults within a relationship, who love and respect each other, take responsibility for each others’ behaviour if they recognise that they are even partly the cause of it. If a man posted as OP has here, he’d be handed his arse on a plate for allowing the relationship to deteriorate to the point where his partner had to have a melt down in order to get his attention. There is fault on both sides. If her husband felt listened to he wouldn’t have exploded in front of his children - that’s a last resort when the pent up anger and resentment has reached boiling point. Why does he refer to her as manipulative and rude ? Why do you think that only the woman is allowed a point of view here ?

Two things stood out for me here. The fact that OP insists on sleeping with her DD every night. As far as I can see there is no actual medical need for this - OP admits she can’t sleep unless she is next to her. She also admits that they have been co-parenting essentially as house mates. This will undoubtedly have been a factor in DH’s outburst. It sounds to me as though he has tried to approach this in the past and has been stonewalled because OP is entirely focused on the children, to the exclusion of all else. And that isn’t a healthy foundation for any marriage either.

He sounds utterly selfish. He takes little to no interest in his kids, even though one of them needs high level of care, he indulges in his hobbies twice a week and trips away and at the first serious sign of resistance from you he threatens to leave you penniless. He basically wants to swan around doing whatever he pleases and leave you to run the family. That's not being hands-off, it's being totally detached from being either a husband or a parent. I also can't believe he wasn't prepared to agree to specialist treatment for his daughter, utterly despicable.

First things first, he doesn't get to say how the finances will be worked out if you divorce, lawyers and courts will decide that. Second, you and your children can't tolerate this. I know you put your kids first as you should, but that doesn't mean you need to martyr yourself to an insufferable relationship that will steadily erode your own mental health.

You're worries about money are almost certainly overstated. However the finances pan out though, you will make it work because you have to and you're clearly very strong.

I wonder if he's angry because he was looking for a carer for himself?

You really will be ok OP. I know it will be a struggle but you have a lot more money than many and your life will be so much easier without this horrible man. I wouldn't trust any man who chose someone 27 years younger anyway.

Make sure you take as much money as you possibly can. I didn't do that and I regret it because my exH never appreciated how fair I tried to be. You don't owe him anything so do this for you children if you can't do it for yourself. You've got so much life ahead of you at 41 so don't waste any more of it with this man.

The age gap jumped out to me too. Having kids with a man 30 years older should come with greater stability and security. And him beimg annoyed at not having “picture perfect” children is odd but even odder considering that the risk increases with parental age.

It's a mess, but women have been in worse situations and gone on to have a happy life.

Your husband envisaged keeping you happy and around to look after you, if he provided kids. I have absolutely no idea why you decided getting together and having a kids with a man so much older was a good thing to do but it was never going to end well.

The kids have got health issues, you aren't ( in his eyes) providing your wifely duties to him so he has checked out of family life. You are all just inconvenient noise to him. He stays at work and goes out a lot to avoid you all.

At least if you split up you will avoid the inevitability of being his carer, as well as a carer to your 2 children. Yes money will be tighter but you will all be happier and have more stability.

I very much doubt he will want much contact with the kids anyway, he certainly won't want them overnight, but you will be able to get respite care for your daughter. I wouldn't trust him with them anyway.

Start the splitting up process as soon as you can, no need to rush it. A good solicitor will be needed but the house will probably need to be sold if he doesn't agree to just move out and fund a flat on his own. You are mortgage free so that is a huge bonus.

Good luck!

Because we live in a patriarchy and their needs are far more important than the kids will ever be.

You sound like an amazing mother. You were a young adult when an older man took advantage of you, and he turned out to be a horrible, horribe person. I know that most of the relationship choices I made in my mid 20s were pretty bad, the human brain isn't fully developed till our mid to late 20s! It doesn't mean we shouldn't have relationships, of course, but a 50-something year old man SHOULD KNOW BETTER.

You have your two very loved children, and it's not going to be easy, partly because of his age and partly because of his abusive nature, but you've got this. You can do it.

OP just to reassure you that if you sold the house with your share you could buy outright a house somewhere a bit cheaper in the UK. I know how important your friend network probably is right now but if it came to it you have options.

I am in a nice area of Glasgow and bought a 3 bed home for £130k. You could buy the home, pay off the debt and have a chunk of money left over to top up PIP and carers allowance.

This is such a shit situation you're in, your husband sounds like a real prick. Maybe like others have said you're actually dodging a huge bullet getting rid of him now before you need to care for him too.

Sending love ❤

Your only 41

bin him off

you don’t want to get stuck caring for him too the miserable twat he is

yes you will be more hard up
but it might improve your child’s and your own mental health which is priceless

I don’t think those are unreasonable expectations. He sounds like a nightmare and l can see why you want a divorce. He was out of order the other night. In general he sounds lazy, selfish and checked out lm afraid. Why does he leave you sort everything and prioritise his own social life all the time?

Newsflash.

The OP is not responsible for her husbands behaviour. She does not have a responsibility to examine what is motivating him to be abusive. She does not need to make an effort to accommodate his unreasonableness. He is not a fucking child who needs to be parented by the OP in his behaviour. If he is struggling he's grown adult who can sort his own shit out.

The OP only has responsibility for herself and her children.

As I say on these threads, its always telling to look for comments about whether the poster loves her partner. Go through all her posts. Not once does she make a comment about loving him or feeling loved. Unless you have that as your foundation, then a relationship has very little to fall back onto except a sense of duty.

A sense of duty is not a healthy foundation for any marriage.

The state pension is about to rise to 68 if not 70 anyway. (Edit. Some posts here) Fawning over him for not being retired like it's some great hardship when it is going to be standard for most ppl within the decade

And he didn't realise that his age meant you were much less likely to have (in his view) 'picture perfect' kids?

For those of you sympathising with a 68 year old man having to still work,
need to read all of the Op's replies - this man has barely worked in his life !

he didn't do much, if any work, in his 20's 30's and 40's !!!

Thus he is barely eligible for the full state pension !!! as it doesn't appear he has worked for 35 years in total
( that was google btw @WearyAuldWumman :) and more than one reply has said he will need 40 years contributions ! ( @WearyAuldWumman again and I believe she is right )

The Op can only think of a few years that he has contributed to private pensions tho hopefully some more may appear. I doubt he will be eligible for pension credit due to having some but not a lot ! of private pension.

So of course he still has to work ! due to his choices / addiction/s in his earlier life

The Op has paid a large amount of the current home due to inheritance.

The husband will probably have to rent, due to his age he may very well be eligible for 55+ / 60+ social housing if so - he will get a whole one bedroom flat all to himself and pay a low rent for it.

This. To all the women who say 'there's nothing wrong with grown adult men starting relationships with much younger women', here's just one of the outcomes of big age/experience gap + manipulative/abusive man.

Ah, but the kicker is...he doesnt share his money. He is out all week until late and is going away for a week to indulge his hobby. If he can't help with childcare he should be paying for help. He's not depressed, he's not poor, he may be old but he's clearly always been a failure as a husband.
OP has clearly been incredibly naive, but there are children now and they must come first.
Of course, if he had actually sorted some help years ago he might have miraculously kept his young wife....but its too late now. A future in a bedsit drinking himself to death seems likely.
Dont let him drag you down OP

It's the classic ad hominem attack tactic, isn't it? This person would rather insult PP than actually address their points.

Whenever I see this, I immediately know that the person has well and truly lost the argument, and has embarrassed themself in the bargain.

A lot of men do this. It's not the flex they think it is.

OP, I think he actively dislikes you. That's the one point that I, personally, would have at the front of any decisions from here on.

OP you seen very focussed on the effect your DH shouting at your 9 year old daughter, but in a later post you state her teenage brother had been physically attacking her for the last 45 minutes. This is the most worrying thing in the whole thread for me, a 13 year old male who is going to get bigger and stronger repeatedly hitting a younger disabled child even when he is told to stop. I appreciate that this is a really difficult situation for you, and I understand it's hard for your son to control himself due to his own disabilities, but this needs addressing by both parents in a united way, even if it means your son ends up living with his dad and daughter stays with you.