How do I make my husband leave me?

[JackTheSad]

I'm desperate for him to leave me. He seems so irritated by me and the kids and I would find things easier if he wasn't around all the time. I don't love him I don't think.

But if leave him he will make everything impossible. He "jokes" that he will tell everyone I'm a drunk. He has made comments about "winning" if we split. He's v petty.

If he leaves me, we will manage things. He's v good with the kids and we can co parent together I believe. But if I leave him, I suspect the kids will suffer as a result of DH putting me through hell and courts

Am I being totally mad to try and get him to leave me? Just stop making any effort. Am I being really ridiculous or could that ever work?

You're suggesting someone lie about MS??

Forgive any spelling errors / typos!

When it comes to the courts and your children, who left whom is irrelevant.

The starting premise is always that the children's best interests is served by having both parents in their lives as equitably as possible.

That said, I understand how a person behaves can be dictated by the sensibility that they made the decision to leave the relationship rather than being left.

The problem (as detailed by a poster above) is that it's incredibly difficult to engineer the outcome you want with any degree of certainty re: the outcome and his response.

For example, no sex/disinterest may actually be a status quo he finds not only acceptable but enjoyable. He gets to live a "single life" and do as he pleases with no interest from you. When he's unfaithful you don't care.

So why would he leave? He's got all he wants without the financial implications of divorcing. In short you're potentially in danger of creating an environment that's less conducive to him leaving rather than more.

In your situation I would definitely see a solicitor and get my shit together financially and in terms of my understanding of the law/process.

Then I would initiate the separation but my "take" would be a piteous humble pie approach of "not being worthy of him", "setting him free" and "wanting the best for him and the children".

In short, leave him but make him think it's because you can't meet his expectations rather than he doesn't meet yours.

I hoped for about 10 years that XDH would leave. Have an affair. Anything that meant we could separate without him thinking it was my decision.

In the end I broke the marriage up. Yes it was ugly and he was vengeful and petty, but only for a while. He loves the kids so didn’t take it out on them. He moved on pretty quickly and we are now both happily remarried.

i wasted 10 years of my life with him. It’s a regret I will take to my grave.

He's going to make out you're the bad guy no matter what. Everyone who matters will see through that. The kids will work him out too.

I'm so sorry you're going through this and I completely understand you because I'm in the same boat.
I pray every day that he finds someone else but like my friend said, even if he does find someone he won't leave you because he considers you "his". He not only threatened to take my son away from me via courts but also implied he was going to say whatever he wanted to make DS believe him over me in case of a divorce. DS is 14, so I have to wait until he's at least 18 or leaves home as I have neither money nor enough mental strength to take on him.

All the PPs saying leave the bastard will never understand that kind of men. Men who happily make their kids suffer if it means their wives will suffer too. It's not just your regular cheater/liar combo, this is men prepared to drag you through hell in a family court twisting the thruth until they get their result. It's manipulation and gaslighting taken to a next level.

There was a documentary a few years ago (I think it was on Channel 4) about kids who have been taken away from loving mothers by men who took them to court. They took not only the kids away but also the women's sanity and their money too.

If you're saying "leave the bastard" or "see a solicitor and get a divorce", consider yourself lucky to never have experienced fear that a man will take your kids away from you just because he can.

If he leaves me, he'll feel guilty and be reasonable.

If he’s as much of a controlling asshole as you say, I suspect this is nothing more than hopeful thinking.

However you could also be catastrophising and he either won’t be as bad as you think or won’t be able to do any realistic damage. (For example, so what if he tells everyone you’re a drunk? If the people around you don’t see a drinking problem when they look at you, his words will have little effect. Courts will want to see some evidence of serious drinking before they consider it as a factor.)

As other posters have said, focus on restricting the ways he could plausibly inflict damage on you by getting your own side of the street into pristine order. Then pull the plug yourself and let him do what he’s gonna do.

Go for marriage counselling. Might help him to see that it's no longer working.

But to be honest it sounds from his comments like the current set up is working for him. It sounds abusive so your other option is to leave and then get support from womens aid to help navigate his reaction. As others have said you can't predict or control how he would act, you can only control what you do.

How old are your children??

My husband can also be v.petty. drives you insane!

Just out of interest you say in your post that he ‘seems so irritated by you and the kids’ but then later say ‘he is great with the kids’. Other than saying he is irritated with the kids and you and saying he can be vindictive what else does he do?

I think it is all well and good with the posters saying how you can make his life hell or you should just leave him, but you and your family are the ones that will have to deal with the consequences. It seems to be that at the first sign of a relationship going a bit stale the advice from MN is just to split up. Having gone through it myself divorce is hard on everyone and it can have impacts that last many years. Not least of which is the loss of shared memories. I don’t have anyone to talk to about when my children were babies for example and I find that if you don’t have people to talk about a shared past with those memories get weaker.

If you really feel that your happiness is entirely dependent on separation from this man then I would suggest that you are just up front and say you want a divorce. Trying to force him to leave in some of the ways suggested here is not going to end well and making his life hell may elicit sympathy from a judge. If you have not tried counselling and he is willing to give it a go then maybe try that first.

Not good. That sounds like the OP is accepting an open marriage whereas she doesn't want any marriage.

He's already told you he's going to badmouth you, so why give him a genuine, possibly verifiable reason?

Also, what makes you so sure he'd leave as opposed to just starting another relationship behind your back?

From what I've read on here @JackTheSad the reasonableness can be shortlived. It's so hard though, you know that if it'syour decision it will unleash their injured ego.
Suggesting marriage counselling is a good idea. He will either refuse or it will become obvious, with a witness, that there is no point staying together.

I think it's very manipulative to try to get your partner to leave you and want them to feel guilty for leaving, making them think it's their decision. And it's highly unlikely to work, unless he's completely thick. Thinking that if he leaves you he'll be more reasonable post divorce is also highly unlikely to work. I'd say he's more likely to see right through it and play games right back with you.

Unless you are BOTH reasonable about the divorce settlement and child arrangements (and it sounds like you don't want to be either tbh) it's going to have to go through the courts anyway.

If he's that nasty and vindictive that you feel you can't leave him, then perhaps you need to leave stealthily with the kids (get your ducks an a row and then disappear quickly). But what it sounds like is that you want him to go without a fuss, and leave you in the family home with no disruption or upheaval to yourself. The only way you're going to achieve that is if you matchmake him with someone younger and more attractive, which is pretty fucked up.

I’d have been divorced the day we married 🤣

Staying with him sounds like am incredibly toxic environment for your children and will affect them later in life. Just leave him and get it over with.

You can't trick him into being nice so don't do it. Get your financial ducks in a row, find someone who can explain to you the worst case where he goes out of his way to make life hell for you and what you can do to not let that happen.

OMG, I've only just realised (all these years later!) I wrote "perhaps his internal marriage model included an evasive husband and a wailing wife".

He finally left after I'd stopped "wailing" and, indeed, stopped making any effort whatsoever to have an emotionally meaningful relationship with him. My reptile brain must have figured it out back then - that was what he expected, and my instinct instructed me to deny him. He said he wanted me to be more detached but, actually, he fucking hated it. You wouldn't believe some of the provocations I ignored.

@JackTheSad, what marriage scenario d'you think your H is playing out in his emotionally dysfunctional mind? Long-suffering husband of a nag? High-minded professor who must be left in peace? You've only given us a very brief sketch; I'm sure you've got an in-depth view.

@JackTheSad

You say you “irritate” him, that the kids “irritate” him and that you don’t “think” you love him!

How old are the children? How long have you been together/married? How old is he?

You say that life will be easier without him - this might be true, but how is life harder with him?

What does he do to make you think he’s “irritated”?

If/when you decide to leave, take the wind out of his sails! Think of all the things he might say about you, then before you leave, tell everyone you know, mutual friends, family, etc., that he has said that he will tell xxx lies about you, so that when he does, they’re not surprised and they don’t believe him! If possible, try to record him saying these things to you.

You say that he’s “v. good” with the kids - isn’t he irritated by them?

How could you coparent effectively with a man who will lie about you, and “put [you] through hell”? What does that look like?

You are being ridiculous if you think there’s some magic solution that you can fall back on to make your H leave.

Anything you do to try to to get him to leave will backfire - putting on weight, lying about a disease/illness, crying all the time - these things will make you look unstable (not the weight gain).

The only way that you could engineer a scenario where he leaves you, is reasonable and doesn’t put you through hell or the courts, is if you write a script and give him a copy of it, so he can learn his part.

If he puts you through hell and through the courts, your children won’t suffer because they won’t know anything about it, unless you tell them, and why would you?

It seems like you want to get divorced and not put any effort into it, like some magic bullet that ends your marriage on Monday night and all's good by Tuesday morning. That’s not reality.

Get your financials in order, copies of his wage slips, bank statements, mortgage/rent statements, keep a diary everyday of what he’s doing/his irritation/threats of alcoholism, etc., so that you’re prepared and most of all, seek help via Women’s Aid, a solicitor, and anyone else who is prepared/wants to help, find somewhere to live and leave.

A family member (with grown children, albeit they still lived at home) didn’t want to leave the marital home, fought tooth and nail for it and ended up not being able to afford it and selling it at a loss and moving into a much smaller, decrepit house, which 20 years later is still decrepit as they can’t afford the repairs! Plus the ex spouse put them through hell and I said then, as I’ll say to you, no house is worth your mental health!

Some exes can’t be reasonable, so no matter what. Your H may be one of those unreasonable ones. Offer 50/50 for the children, where he has them one week and you have them the next. If he’s as irritated by them as you say, he might not want this, or he might try in the short term, realise that he doesn’t want to be a single parent for 26 weeks of the year and tell you that he would rather have weekends or some other arrangement.

Your H can only drag you through hell, or the courts, if you’re offering an unreasonable (in his eyes) amount of time. So don’t do that. Offer him a proper 50/50 arrangement and let him be the one to say he doesn’t want it.

If he’s such narcissistic, unreasonable and selfish man, he won’t leave, no matter what and he will get pleasure from any weight gain, crying, or any other thing you try to get him to leave. So protect yourself, and seek legal help 🌺

Make him believe that he can get a better woman than you. Inflate his ego and point him into right direction ( away from you).

If he is as vicious as you say, could you get video or recorded evidence of these acts. It might really help.

If you have a spare bedroom, get it sorted as you want it & move in. Stop shopping, cooking & washing for him, just do it for dc & you. Get a TV in your room & treat it like a bedsit, have a kettle, mugs, hot drinks of choice, buy a mini fridge for snacks. As soon as dc go to bed, go to your room to relax, no small talk, just get up & go. Separate as much of your finances as you can, get all your money in your own account, get your ducks in a row, get as much financial information about him as you can, book an appointment with a solicitor to get an idea of where you would stand financially. At home, treat him as if you have already separated & grey rock all his threats, keep a diary of him showing off as it could be useful to prove abuse if you need to.

I don't know what to say to you @JackTheSad but I do feel for you.

I urge you to take advice on how you could work this out for yourself.

Just don't be left like some of who no matter what we did, couldn't get the bastard to move out because it's "his house" - although it's just as much mine! - and can only live in hope of his early demise...

Are you fearful of his behaviour if you walked out?
Threats do not mean he will "win" nor does how he plays you into fearing a split.
The courts see this often it won't be the first idiot or the last.
When he has legal fees to pay, he might change his mind and focus on the actual issues of the children's care, not stories about you as a mother, if not q
Who cares he's a desperate moron.
Keep any notable abuse!

You're going to have to do it OP. I don't think my ex would ever have made that decision. We'd still be living in misery together