I’m really struggling at the moment, really really struggling. I got married aged 20 and have now been married for 18 years, two children, nine and three.
Im not happy. There are several reasons but I don’t know if any of them are good enough to destroy everyone’s lives. I’m not in love with dh. I care about him. But I was so young when we married (he’s 11 years my senior) and I just feel I’ve changed so much.
He works hard and has a good job - I’ve been in fairly low earning jobs since the Dc as dh is also away a lot and I have a chronic health condition so I absolutely appreciate that he supports us financially (I don’t have access to the finances though - he refers to it as his money and all decisions are his).
So he works hard - he does very little with the children. Some weeks nothing at all. He can be away in the week and then he’s out most of the weekend. If he left i don’t think my younger dc would notice that much, although my older dc would be more aware. He’s never taken them to the park, swimming, cinema. He’s never done bathtime, bedtime twice in nearly ten years, dinner. But he does work hard so maybe that’s fair.
We don’t do anything together. We don’t go out anywhere. We don’t really talk. He tells me he loves me and the dc but some weeks they see him probably less than four or five hours. Especially the younger one who is in bed earlier. There is an element of control - financially and also he tells me when I can and can’t go out and where I can and cannot go. For example - friends suggested a night out in London and a show - and I’m not allowed to go, supposedly because it isn’t ‘safe.’
But. That said. Is it bad enough to put everyone through a divorce? I don’t want to hurt dh. He would be devastated.
How does it really pan out? Is it all just horrendous? How long until it feels less horrendous? I don’t know where we’d go. I know they always say don’t leave the house but we’d have no choice because he definitely wouldn’t. I could buy him out of this house but it would take time and in the interim I don’t know what would happen.
I feel like I’m living a lie at the moment. It’s making me anxious and fraught. I feel like this cannot be my permanent but then I feel so horribly guilty about breaking up the family for really no reason other that I stupidly got married too young and I just want more - even being on my own I would be able to make my own decisions. I look at my children and I could weep.
Aibu to ask how long it took to ‘recover’?