To end my marriage tomorrow

[Shedding123]

Apologies for the dear Deirdre style title. Sat in shock on couch and just need a quick unbiased metaphorical talking to here.
DH and I been struggling for a long time now, stress of 2 kids one with physical disability and one with mental health challenges. Anger has been simmering in him for a while, he’s made digs about putting the kids first, not meeting his needs (we no longer share a room as I’m in with our dd who is on oxygen overnight and I can’t sleep unless I’m next to her, this is one of many many many examples).
we’ve been bumbling along essentially as flatmates under the same roof and I guess I thought once things more stable with the kids things might improve. Anyway it all kicked off tonight and I’m utterly devastated. We are away for half term in a placr
dear to our hearts and he’s been so moody for the last few days. Tonight the kids were squabbling and I eventually
had enough trying to deal with it solo so went into the room he’s been in all evening reading and asked if he was planning on coming to help me at all. Passive aggressiveness never good, I know. He lost it, stormed through, swore at the kids, my daughter told him it’s not nice to swear and he just started ranting on about how she’s too much like me, rude, how dare I be so rude to him, how dare I blame everything on him, I asked him calmly to stop in front of the kids and said this needs to be an adult
conversation between us and he laughed and said no chance, it’s good for the kids to hear how manipulative I am. It was horrendous. Our daughter was crying, our son was just stuck begging it to stop. He then calmly put the kettle on and handed me a cup of tea and told me to be grateful and is now reading in the other room again. I have no idea how a divorce would work, he is 68 so has said in spiteful moments he will retire if I leave him so he won’t pay anything, I earn low as am a carer for our daughter, I literally cannot imagine how we could run 2 houses. But there is no coming back from tonight is there? I know he will blame it all on me to the children but this feels so abusive towards them too having had to sit through that😭

It does sound like the end. He sounds pretty awful, but also like he's at the end of his tether. And while I can see why most posters are latching on to his age, I also wonder: Have the two of you been at odds over parenting style?

When you said you were having an awful evening with the kids and wanted him to come through and help I assumed you were talking about 6 or 7 year olds. A 9 and 13 year old really shouldn't need "managing" to have a decent evening.

Is it related to their additional care needs in some way? And have you been disagreeing on how to cope with those?

I think he sounds like the exact type of person to try and get 50/50 custody.

He’s already told OP that he won’t pay and he won’t be expected to if he has them 50/50.
He’ll also get half of the disability benefits on top.

He sounds like he’d try and be spiteful in the event of OP leaving and so I wouldn’t put it past him to go for 50/50.

That’s so kind. I’m definitely not perfect, but I genuinely don’t know why he hates me so much now. I think I have been clinging onto the thought of the good days when he’s nice and fun and wants to be with us all and I’d really looked forward to this 3 day trip after a long hard winter of hospital admissions, but by day 2 he was snappy, hiding away in a different room reading. And tonight is just a new level of awful I think as it involved the kids through his choice to do so. Even when I said “please stop in front of them, let’s talk about this another time away from them” he just carried on saying it’s a full family argument everyone needs to hear” and to me that’s complete madness/ absue.

We do have different parenting styles, he is much more hands off, kids should go off and play. Because of their needs, I’ve adapted to a much more attachment parenting style. Tonight was hard as DS
who has autism was very dysregulated and was being overly physical play fighting with DD which is a big no due to oxygen, and after 45 mins of refereeing the squabble/ play / fight I wanted some support. Admittedly I asked
for that support passive aggressively “erm not sure if you can hear the thumps
/ door slams/ yelling but are you planning to come out the room this evening to help me with our kids” type thing but for him to read a whole book and not even pop his head out to say “need a hand?” Just blows my mind

Why do so many men have an issue with their kids needs being prioritised.

This is a cautionary tale for people that say age is just a number. I have no advice for the OP, just wishing you luck as you need to get your kids away from this horrible man.

I'm so sorry for you and dcs.

Is there any way you can move to a different cheaper area? Lots of people from the south have moved to our northern village. They love being by the sea. There's plenty of hospitals locally. Some decent schools. I understand if you don't want to move dcs though. I moved mine at similar ages. They're glad we did but youngest wasn't so sure at first. Pm me if you want to chat about it.

Sending much love and support. It's awful when the blinkers come off. I know from personal experience.

This may be more of a problem than the no sex then. If you don't have a consistent team approach to parenting it makes everything harder.

If you're on the attachment side your DH is more on the warm authoritative side, he may see a lot of the issues you have with the DC as being self inflicted, and as being unfair on him and the DC. Hence the losing patience with it all.

This man's behaviour is appalling and concerning, you must escape from him.
Please keep a log of all events.

In what way, shape or form is that helpful? OP was 28 and he was 55 when the first child was born, but it's done, nothing can be done about that but OP needs to do something to make life better.

I've no idea how that can be done.

I can only imagine how difficult this situation is. He's got a 9 year old at 68 years... that should be the age of his grandchild.

Then special needs, health issues with DD in the mix and a room mate marriage. It's to stressful and he's unable to deal with it maturely.

It's not healthy for anyone in the family. This was a ticking time bomb.

There was only an 8 year difference between my parents and the difference in their "vigour" for want of a better word was obvious. My mother expected my father to have the energy of someone her age. As she hit each of those older years, she had similar capabilities to what he had at the same age. I think your husband is at a different life stage to you and physically can't manage what you can.

Not sure what you do. Using abusive language is not on and I wouldn't tolerate it. But honestly I cannot see him be able to take care and run around after young kids.

what was he thinking to have a child at 60. That’s purely selfish. I’m not surprised he’s moody all the time. He’s 68 and ready to retire. He’s got 2 young kids one of whom has a disability. He doesn’t want to deal with stupid squabbles that shouldn’t take 45 mins to dissolve. For both of you you need to split. Courts will be interesting though because you need the house security for the kids but him retiring means he needs security too and as you can work probably means he’ll rightly keep his pension.

I think that’s what worries me though, while I work I’m on a low wage as work from home to manage our DD care needs and this will never change. I think he thinks he will retire to live off his pension in order to not have to pay anything towards our DC, despite him having a good salary. It doesn’t feel right.

68 is retirement age so he wouldn’t be doing anything wrong by retiring . It’s a crap situation. He can’t work forever for that good wage and you can’t force him too sadly.

I don’t mean I want to force him to work on, he always says he loves his work and would be bored at home, it’s more that it feels wrong he can say he’ll retire immediately so he doesn’t have to pay anything towards our children, both of whom have additional needs.

Hi OP, I'm sorry to hear of your woes. It all sounds like a complete mess and no one is happy. It also sounds like the only thing stopping you from divorcing is the money issues. I expect you would keep the house and he would keep his pension, if he stopped work. And really, you have to plan for him being on a pension, anyway, since he's 68 and really anything can happen at that age, healthwise. Any extra working years at his age are an unexpected bonus and could end at any time.

So, assuming he's on a pension and you're on 29k, what would most likely happen is that he would get housing benefit, and maybe universal credit, and he would need to rent a one-bed flat, possibly in a cheaper area. You would keep the house since you paid a lot of it off and since you have two children with additional needs. You would also get universal credit, since you only earn 29k and have two dependents and wouldn't get much, if anything, from him.

Yes, you would all be worse off than now, but when you consider that the 58k salary from him is very much non-guaranteed due to age, you might soon end up without that 58k anyway - AND having to care for him!

You would be worse off, but you would all be OK, thanks to this country having a good safety net for vulnerable people like your children and their carer (you) and for seniors like your husband. And everybody would be happier. He might be in a one-bed rental, but he would have the peace and quiet that I bet he wants at his age to just read his book. And you and your children will live without his moods and temper, and you won't have the demands of being a partner, which it doesn't sound like you have time for anyway, caring for two children with no help.

It won't be easy to break up, but I think it will be an easier life afterwards.

Before you say anything to your husband, I think your very first order of business should be a solicitor and maybe also Social Services, to see what you'd each be entitled to, in terms of UC and housing benefit.

Best of luck to you. I escaped a marriage to a man with intense anger issues, and my life is a million times nicer, even if I have less money and won't be able to retire. I'd rather work until I simply can't anymore than live with a man like that again.

I think i would have let it go with both barrells shouted back and said similar words to the effect of ," How dare you shout in front of the kids like that, frightening Dd so much she was crying , spitting out insults in front of them and telling DD she's as rude as I. Is this what you want her to model her relationships on with you as the main example ...letting her partner in the future call her names and teaching her to blind do as she's told? What a fine example you're setting Who do you think u r?!"

Thank you so so much. Sorry I don’t mean to sound mercenary, I’m just scared at the prospect of living without his contribution. I’m mainly just sad it’s come to this but I think this evening has just made it impossible to come back from given the damage to the children and the anger that just poured out of him. I think it’s just too broken now.

OP probably wanted to do just that, as would I, but she was being the adult in the room. Someone had to be!

Also, men are super-scary when they're really angry. I have a lot of experience of this, and it's really not as easy to stand up to them as you might think when they're on the verge of loss of control. Not for nothing would I never, ever live with a man again.

I wanted to, I tried to say you are being so out of order speaking to her like that but he just raised his voice and it all got worse.

This😥I’m so sorry you’ve had this too.

I don't think he hates you, I think that he hates his life. He is 68 yrs old, all of his peer group will be retired and enjoying having grandchildren to treat and tease and he is still working and his two children with significant needs.

Is it worth divorcing him? It sounds like he won't be around too much longer anyway with the stress he feels under.

He realistically doesn't have much longer he can work. Maybe 2 years full time. So after that you lose the £59k a year, he's even more angry and abusive, you are all even more ground down, and you will have the guilt tripping from him of "I can't believe you want to divorce me now I'm old and vulnerable". Also bear in mind he might get much worse when he retires if being around the children stresses him so much. He also won't be able to avoid the health implications of his previous addiction much longer. I'd expect a sharp decline any time now.

In short, now is the time to divorce before you get truly saddled with him with no escape.

He doesn’t get to express hating his life by shouting abusively at his wife and daughter without their being consequences. So I find this irrelevant.

I agree with the poster who says you should divorce him asap before he retires.