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.

You know what @Sith12 just get divorced if you dislike your wife. I'm on DH2 and he's a vast improvement.

With kindness and respect, your plan to stay is bonkers ... and also a tiny bit selfish. You can't put yourself or your kids through this for the next 10+ years (probably longer, with the cost of living these days). He has no respect for you - and, I'm guessing women in general - and this must be so damaging for them to see (more than you think, anyway).
I'm sorry for your situation and wish you well

While I have every sympathy for you and understand your motivations, I got very upset on behalf of your kids while reading this post. While you may not feel you're being abused, you have a part to play in emotionally abusing your kids. I know this sounds harsh, obviously he's the main abuser, but you are also enabling abuse by proxy, in terms of the kind of environment they grow up in – permanent survival mode for their developing brains, even if they're not being directly targeted.

Plus also, the crucial messages they absorb. Your kids will take decades to – or very possibly never ever – learn that silent treatment and emotional abuse is not something they should ever put up with themselves. No matter what you tell them, actions speak louder than words.

I'm someone who grew up with this – not to me – as a norm in my childhood, had lots of exposure and literacy to emotional intelligence/abuse theories growing up, and yet never really put the dots together. My own relationship choices were really poor at best and abusive at worst – I just wrote all kinds of disrespectful and shitty behaviour off as okay and exceptions. That was what I was most comfortable with.

At worse, your kids go on to make the same kind of extreme choice you did, or worse. At best, they learn to ignore red flags, have no idea about the existence of green flags like respect and affection (or rather think it is always mixed up with toxic elements in the same package), and go for less than ideal partners below what they deserve.

I can really relate to your awful dilemma @Nevisonspad .

After knowing for a few years my ex was abusive I left when my youngest was 7 which felt old enough to cope with the separation from me, and I knew the older siblings would support the youngest. It was/is awful, and there is no good solution when a parent emotionally abuses their entire family. After a couple of years separated with 50/50 I can see my children are happier because my home is safe and they see me being myself, even though the post-separation abuse continues and they have to deal with him still. But they also see me modeling healthy relationships in our home, so they can see the difference between dad's house and mum's house.

I highly recommend a woman named Torna Pitman of Talking Wise who has helped me greatly with how to deal with my ex and support my children. In situations like ours, the children need language that does not put down their dad but is clear that his behaviour isn't ok.

He will almost certainly start on the kids as they get older. They will say/do something "just like their mother" or not up to his standards and he will abuse them as well as you.
He most likely will not want 50/50. My ex threatened it to hurt me, he never actually wanted it.

I hope that this is a troll. Are you really suggesting that when men abuse women, it's the woman's fault for not "giving" the man sex or for talking too much?? Why the fuck is it the woman's job to "feed" a man? Even with outdated sexist stereotypes, I thought the man was suppposed to be the one bringing home the bacon.... And you're actually suggesting that this is always the case? If you are verbally abusing your wife for not "giving" you sex, you are problem.

OP, I don't know what the answer is, I'm in a similar situation but the child is much younger and the behaviour of DP much less frquent, so it's a real dilemma. I also think people are too quick to minimise the effects of being shipped from post to post, of living in much poorer households, of step parents and half siblings being thrown into the mix. Also, it's true that when we have children, we should prioritise them, but why is it always the women who are expected to be matryrs? Giving up half your time with your kids, when so much time already is spent with them at school, is such a big ask. Of course you want to make sure it's the right decision for them before you do something that will be awful for you.

Maybe OP you subconsciously believe a fake "socially perfect" family is better for the kids than a real smaller family? I would suggest giving them a real family where they can feel safe and belonged and authentic. Depending on which one you give them, that sense of either insecurity or security carries permanently into friendships and romantic relationships.

It's actually hugely damaging for them to smile, laugh, act like oblivious/innocent kids and play the part – whether to keep the overall peace, whether it's because they're copying Mum, or whether it's because they realise from Dad's Jeckyll and Hyde behaviour (horrid to Mum then nice to kids) that one day they may lose favour with Dad too. They might be doing that now to some extent, and certainly will as they grow up, much sooner than you think way before their young teens. I speak from experience. Kids see a lot and adapt prettily.

For me, it meant I could give them some time away from him. Teach them the tools to deal with it.