To put up with him to see kids 100% time

[Nevisonspad]

NC, been around a while. Looking for some support/advice please.

Been with husband over 20 years, married for 10. 2 DC, 8 and 5. Since children came along, he’s been increasingly emotionally abusive. Big cycles where he doesn’t speak to me for many weeks other than to shout that I’m a vile and nasty person. I used to argue but now I barely engage. No trigger, no rationale, he just goes into a mood and it lasts like this for weeks. I try to minimise the impact on the kids by staying cheerful and eventually he comes out of it and we’re ‘normal’ for a while, then he starts calling me a nasty piece of work again. Kids seem happy enough though I know it will have an effect on them and I hate that this demonstrates a ‘relationship’ to them. He only shouts this stuff at me, not at the kids.

No affairs or anything that I know of on either side. He’s had some big stresses in his family over the years whereas my family is tight-knit. His dad was a serial adulterer and alcoholic but they kept up appearances until his parents eventually divorced quite recently. ‘D’H hasn’t I think dealt with this, puts his dad on a pedestal and claims I have a problematic relationship with my family, which I don’t. He doesn’t have an alcohol problem and apart from all the shit he gives me is otherwise a good dad.

The years go by and at least a third of the year he isn’t speaking to me. Obviously I would have left him years ago, but I don’t want to see the kids only half the time, which is what would happen I think if I divorce him. I know it’s crap for the kids to see him shouting at me but most of the time it’s the silent treatment and I try to minimise it to the kids by just saying dad is grumpy again. (I know the silent treatment they see him giving me is also damaging, but it seems better than constant blazing rows). I’m financially ok, work full-time.

My plan is to leave when my younger one leaves home, and until then put up with it in order to see the kids 100% of the time rather than 50/50. Once they have flown the nest there is nothing keeping me here, as he knows. The ‘down’ bit of the cycle where he ignores me and shouts at me has grown longer over the years so that it makes up a bigger proportion of the year, but otherwise it hasn’t gotten worse - nothing physical.

I have a sense of humour and I’m not depressed. I’m busy with work and kids and have family and some friends, though never enough time to see friends. My closest friend knows the situation and agrees with my plan to put up with him until the youngest leaves home, then leave. I don’t act as a doormat around my ‘D’H, I avoid him as much as possible when he’s abusive.

My AIBU is can I put up with him for the next 13 years (say) to see the kids 100% of time? I’ve gotten very close to leaving at points, even engaged a solicitor, but I can’t bring myself to do anything which means I can’t live with the kids 100% of the time. On mumsnet I see lots of people saying LTB under many scenarios. I’m not physically abused, and I’m strong enough and with enough family and friend support that his emotional abuse doesn’t hurt me other than for me to think what an entitled pillock he is to impinge his moods on my and my children’s lives like this. I think there must be lots of people on mumsnet who have made this same bargain with themselves - put up with crap from their ‘D’H so as to live with their kids 100% time. Or is it somehow impossible to do so and everyone ends up leaving before the kids have left home?

Obviously he could leave me, in which case the choice is made for me. I don’t hate him, and I’m happy in myself, but the love I had for him has really ebbed away and I imagine myself single when the kids have flown. Posting now as yet again we’re 3 weeks into a ‘down’ cycle (started just after a genuinely happy Christmas) and I’m fed up with him impinging his moods on me and the kids. We’ve been to counselling, didn’t change anything.

Thanks for reading this.

AIBU - leave him, even if it means kids shared 50/50

YANBU - it’s not really getting worse, even if it is crap, so it’s reasonable to stay to see the kids 100% time.

it is a) bad for their developing brains to live in a household like this and b) how will they feel when you finally divorce having stayed with an abusive husband for them (they haven't asked you to do this) c) it won't kill them to have him around 50% of the time and might be better for them

in short: go now.

A couple of my school friends had parents separate when they went to uni. It was quite damaging for them knowing they'd stayed together and been unhappy for them.
Their homes had been unhappy places as teenagers as they both felt their parents should have separated earlier.

A) would it really be 50/50? Who is main carer? What are your respective work arrangements?
b) spending time away from your children isn't that bad. Honestly.
c) you're modelling a terrible relationship to your children and then planning on pulling the rug when they are all 18 and making them question their whole childhoods. They won't be unscathed.

you only get one life. Don't waste it like this.

Imagine hearing your H's nasty words coming out of your child's mouth, aimed at you, aimed at their future partners. Imagine seeing your grown child putting up with this treatment in their future.

Staying is not making some heroic sacrifice of yourself for them - it's sacrificing their long-term happiness for short-term convenience.

(Not saying every child from an abusive household replicates it, but when that is their fundamental model, they have to work harder to do things differently).

You would be keeping your kids trapped in this mess for your benefit. At least they'd get a break from him if you left. Saying he doesn't do it to them is minimising the effect its going to have on them. You need to leave for their sakes.

Leave, my mum (70) recently admitted she meant to leave my stepdad years ago but there was always something. All of a sudden she's 70, she won't leave now as things have got better with my stepdad since there's less stress in there life's. But sadly I don't think she's really happy. Life's to short.

Hi love

i want to say firstly - I totally understand how the thought of not being with your children all the time is so significant for you

secondly, I want to suggest that you get domestic abuse advice and support around leaving. This is domestic abuse even though it’s not physical/sexual at this time and all of the evidence around abusive relationships is that the risks escalate when the abused party leaves and it can become dangerous.

This will be so damaging to the kids and their future relationships. You owe it to them to leave and let them see pure happiness on both sides. There's no saying it would be 50/50, you'd likely have them more.

If I'd have grown up in a home where that's what my parents relationship was like god knows what type of person that could have shaped me into. My marriage is happy and healthy, both of us came from a happy and healthy home. Please think about the damage to your kids, this isn't normal at all.

Your strategy was what I chose but it imploded

• I cracked when the kids were teens, and he went for and got 50:50 despite having done f-all as a parent other than provide some of the money up to that point. If I’d split when they were little, as a man who knew nothing of their life and never changed a nappy I would have got at least 80% of their time
• when I say I cracked, what I mean is that I had an affair that turned from emotional to physical. It was very brief but it transformed xdhs behaviour. Unfortunately I had lost all respect for him, but I felt I had to try to stay and it cost me two years’ freedom
• our relationship damaged the kids anyway - they could see the toxicity. Dd is anxious in relationships, ds avoids them altogether
• i landed them with a crap dad, and no amount of sitting it out will get past that

I was scared I couldn’t support them on my own and had low expectations of happiness in marriage. But I wish I’d left much much sooner. Not least because there are fabulous men out there and I found one who is now dh2.

I can't vote as on app but you can't possibly stay in that situation for another 13 years. You may not think it's affecting you now, but as each year passes the effects increase.
I can fully understand why you think the status quo might be easier for you and the kids but it's really not and I speak from someone who was once that child. I think you'll probably find your children don't want to spend 50% of their time with someone they've seen emotionally abuse their mother.
You deserve so much more than this.

Your FIL was an abusive dad, which is probably the reason your DH is an abuser, do you want your DC to grow up to be abusers, or put up with an abusive partner? In a lot of child / parent relationships, it's a case of 'monkey see, monkey do'.

I know you are trying to protect your DC, but the relationship you have with your DH is the base line they will aspire to in their own relationships. Leave and show them a strong woman, who isn't prepared to put up with this behaviour and prove to them that your relationship isn't 'normal'

Will your dh go for 50/50, your dc are also getting to the stage they have a say in who they stay with.

This x 100

Well, your DH is the product of a bad marriage and look how he’s turned out. Why are you inflicting the same on your kids? They’ll be your DH in thirty years’ time.

Ah the classic it's the abused womans fault for staying in the relationship

@Nevisonspad
What a difficult situation. I understand your fears about your children, but truly they will be happier if you separate from their abusive father. He is abusive. The lightness you and they will feel when you are free of him, will
hopefully make you for the fact that you aren’t with them all the time.
Courage @Nevisonspad

Ah the classic it's the abused womans fault for staying in the relationship

nope. We all know how incredibly difficult it is to walk away. But there are literally hundreds of studies showing how badly this kind of situation affects the children. OPs reason for staying in the relationship, in her own mind, is "for the children". If people can show her that it will achieve the opposite, it might help her get some clarity of thought.

The blame for the toxic atmosphere, according to what we have to go on, is the OP's partner.

Is it possible you are using the 50/50 thing as an avoidance tactic as leaving as actually too scary/too much hassle? You are damaging your kids by staying. You know this and seem to be minimising this hugely. Surely you can’t put them through this for another 13 years?

My parents stayed together "for the kids".

They shouldn't have. It's more damaging to the children.

it's the abused woman's fault for staying in the relationship

Not fault for being in the relationship. Still her responsibility to make the best decision she can about what to do about her situation.

Return to your legal adviser. Keep a diary of husband's actions. Get a plan together for your future after you have left - you may have to temporarily leave the family home before getting it back. You cannot stay in this toxic atmosphere with your young children. They are being damaged by the actions of their father.

I consider I've wasted my life staying with someone who I don't love and pretty much don't even like.

Children need to be protected. It is the parent's responsibility to do that, even if it means protecting them from the other parent.

What an adult chooses to do for themselves is their own concern

Yep. Agree with everyone else, YOU are being selfish by not purring your DC first in this.

If you stay with your DH your children will, by the time you leave, have learned from you both that this is what a relationship looks like and as adults they will choose someone who treats them the same way because it looks familiar to them. I'm sure that is not what you want for them. There is no easy answer and no damage free way to exit your situation. Better they learn from you that some behaviours have no place in a healthy and loving relationship and that the right thing to do is not tolerate them.

The other point to consider is that you're teaching a son that this is an acceptable way to treat a partner and a daughter, that this is how men behave and it's acceptable behaviour