I am separated from my DH for a few months. We are in our mid 40’s with no shared children. He has children from his marriage who live with us part time.
We separated after a very difficult spate of escalating disagreements and miscommunication about long standing unaddressed resentments, and differences in our personalities/values that got worse and worse, to the point of me feeling like I was experiencing emotional abuse. I think it’s relevant to state that I was not emotionally abusive towards my husband. I have underlying PTSD from my past, which he knows about, and during these experiences I pretty much shut down. I was present, but silently rocking back and forth internally panicking. When I did this, he escalated dramatically which made it all worse.
He is sorry to some degree, and accepts some part in the breakdown of our RS, but we got stuck at this point when his behaviour was awful and I found it too hard to move past that. He is no longer being as awful to me, (although it’s not gone away completely) and he has attempted to reconcile a few times but to do so, he wants me to accept my equal share in the breakdown of our RS, which feels mostly related to my PTSD reaction to his behaviours that have hurt his feelings.
We are meant to be divorcing and selling our house, however there is little to no equity in it and there is a hefty redemption fee until the end of the year.
We have no spare bedrooms to split into, and I have no local family who can put me up to move out. He does have several local family options, but he has DC who he wants to keep stable, so we have been living in a rotation of who is sleeping where on certain days and sometimes this has meant one of us sleeping on the sofa.
Neither of us can rent a property while on the mortgage and neither can buy each other out.
Its a shit show nightmare at the best of times, and his DC are apparently too upset to speak to me, so I either have to be out, or hide in our bedroom when the DC are there. I have offered to see the DC and talk to them but the whole thing is unbearable and I don’t want to cause them any more anguish.
I am talking to strangers on the internet now so I am going to be fully candid about my situation.
I have made this situation worse by becoming involved with another man since my separation. He was a friend who offered me somewhere to go and moral support when I needed to get out of the house, and after spending time together we developed feelings for each other.
My exDH does not know about this man.
I’m self aware enough to know I could be making a horrible mistake at a vulnerable time so I am cautious. He is understanding, kind and generous so far but I have made it clear I can’t move in with him as I need my own assets, I want to buy my own property and be independent. I don’t want to owe him anything or lean on him as an escape route. If there is something good between us then it needs room to grow to be healthy and not based on him rescuing me. I try not to see him too frequently or dump all my problems on him. I believe he wants a serious relationship with me, but we have agreed to take things slow and just take one day at a time, and be up front if it’s not working or no longer meeting our needs.
I don’t know how I am going to get through the next few months like this. My living situation is already dreadful even without the added issue of a secret relationship. Do I tell exDH? Do I end it with this person? How should I manage my living situation?