I'm in the position of the person referenced in the original article, it really resonated. I don't love my husband anymore. I don't fancy him. He's not a bad person, although self absorbed and I could list hundreds of small things that have just dripped away eroding our marriage and my love and respect for him.
So, why don't I leave? I'm the high earner (and primary care giver). He pays a pretty nominal contribution to household finances. I'd be absolutely fine running the house paying bills etc.
I haven't left yet because of some martyrdom complex either. Sacrficing my happiness for my DC. I haven't made that conscious decision in the way the article suggests.
I haven't left yet because it's a huge decision. It's not just my life I'm upending. I haven't left because I worry if my dc go off the rails as a teenager they won't have a single secure home base to support them. I worry about how horrible a teenager I was and how that would play out with two parents not together.
I worry my husband wouldn't co-parent in the way I would. That he'd be lax with rules or too strict and I won't be able to moderate or enforce discipline. He's not a bad parent but he is lax about things like tech and let's dc mess about in the iPad without supervision. It's ridiculous but I worry about what would happen if they get groomed because they're vulnerable because of their parents breaking up so more susceptible and he lets them have the iPad in their bedroom whenever they want. I think I worry about the lack of control really.
I worry about how other parents at school will judge me. It's fine to break up as our partner had an affair, or some other big unreasonable incident but I can't (and don't want to) explain all the stupid little reasons which have built up. So they'll judge and think i'm the unreasonable one. I'll be selfish.
I don't know how I'd explain it to my family. They'll think that I shouldn't have thrown away a marriage and upended the dc's lives by being selfish and I should have given it more of a go.
I worry because it's just such a huge bloody decision and it's not the societal norm and am I being totally unreasonable? For hundreds of years people have just got in with it, am I throwing away more than I think and the grass isn't greener? Am I obligated to keep trying because I made these decisions and had the babies and made the marriage vows?
Then there is inertia. It's easier to stay than to go. Sometimes I get in my car after work and I'm so bloody tired and the idea of going home and sitting down and having huge relationship discussions where we decide (I decide) to break up is just out of reach. When do you do it at the weekend when dc are around all day. How do you even start the conversation out of the blue on a Saturday night?
And then it gets a bit better for a while and I think actually, this isn't grand movie love but it's not awful, I just need to pull myself together and get on with it. Movies are unrealistic anyway. Maybe everyone lives like this and I'm being desperately precious. He's self absorbed but he's not a bad person, as much as upending my dc's life it's his too. He'll be devastated and I don't want to hurt him I just don't want to be with him.
So that's why I stay. For now. Until I work up the courage or I lose my temper and do it in a fit of temper or he does something. I don't speak for everyone some people will hang around because of finances or they take a conscious decision to be selfless for their children, but I wonder if the majority of it is just sheer bloody inertia and fear of the unknown.