Long post here. Apologies but tried to keep everything relevant. Just feel very disheartened by marriage and at the end of a road.
Been married circa 20 years, two wonderful teens. Overall an okay marriage - nothing bad, we never fight, just different personalities, so more roomies with good benefits. Till....
Husband pros:
He's overall a great guy, good heart, kind, gentle. Has never raised a voice, stopped me from doing anything, interfered, drank, slept around, even come home late. What I want, I get, eg if I say I want to go on holiday, he will painstakingly look up itenaries, book tickets, take us out. Spends a lot of time with kids, divides housework in half, takes care of all expenses without expecting me to contribute a dime. Doesn't care about my spending (on his card) , very supportive of my job like coming home early or adjusting work schedule to suit me. Protects me in front of his family if anything ever crops up.
Cons
So main one has been that he's emotionally unavailable. He doesn't talk, at all. We can drive for hours, or weeks can go by, before he makes conversation. He will speak if I ask him or start talking, and listen when I chatter, but he will never come home from work and talk about his day, or share his plans over breakfast, or ask how my day was, or just talk, in normal people speak. When I raise it sometimes he makes an effort, but otherwise no.
He also had a bit of a difficult childhood (nothing major, just midly neglectful and immature parents) and as a teen he took care of them and his siblings etc to keep peace (he is a very gentle person, peacemaker type). But he admitted that it took an emotional toll on him, and at some point after his parents and siblings gave him a hard time, he decided he would close his heart and "never love again". So he never says I love you, you look nice, have semblance of "affection" or love, companionship.
So all of that continued and because there was so much good I kept going, and had my own busy life with job, friends, loved ones. But it did bother me, learned to live with it but it wasn't easy.
Now comes the HARD part.
We both have good salaries (joined income circa £300k, this is relevant) neither of us are big spenders but I've always said one thing I want is a nicer house, at the moment it's tiny so my family can never come and stay, kids have box rooms, hard to entertain etc. He's made some big investments over the years, including some I begged him not to as they sounded stupid and risky and I said do what you want as long as we fix the house which is breaking down and un-liveable as that's a priority for me. Well guess what, he invested, and we lost everything so essentially now have a massive mortgage and no moneh after working really hard for decades and living fairly simple lives. This was gutting. One was a particularly stupid one where the guy essentially ran away with cash, and I was absolutely fuming because I had specifically told him not to do this one.
Anyway he was contrite and admitted his mistake, and I kept saying, this is really big for me, we really need to work better together after this, etc etc.
Last week he told me he had a job offer he was considering. In another country, so essentially he would move and come back every 2 months or so. Turns out a friend had told him of a good job opp in a tax free country, he explored it, discussed with friends, went for interview, did research, and one he got offer, went back to negotiate, and THEN told me. I was FURIOUS. I just couldn't believe how 6 months of a decision making process went by and he couldn't be arsed to share any of that with me. He insisted that he thought he'd share once he got the offer, otherwise there was nothing to discuss. I was aghast, I mean isn't marriage/life meant to be about sharing, talking, discussing - I felt incredibly disrespected that my voice only came in a few days before a major decision was to be made and I didn't factor in any of the thought or decision making. We both wfh so just felt betrayed that there was lying going on for 6 months, not once did he say he was meeting recruiter /interviewing etc. This huge decision means we would see him twice a quarter or so, my kids would be gutted, I'd need to fly out every half term as part of visa arrangements, it would just result in a major upset for everyone.
He then said that he needed to do this to pay for the house, so I said essentially I'm sacrificing a husband for a house. I'm also basically paying for all his financial mistakes.
Most of all I'm just fuming at the omission of any sort of discussion and am just really, really hurt. We've been through a bit of up and down, but for me this feels like the straw that broke the camels back.
I've just told him to do whatever he needs to do, accept etc, I just don't care or am invested in this marriage anymore.
I don't know what to do. Not sure what I want but just feeling incredibly hurt. Is this what 20 years of marriage looks like - you are still a nothing in somebody's life.
Am I being unreasonable or overreacting or is his behaviour ridiculous?
Thank you for reading if you got this far!