Hello everyone. I am new here, just wanted to share my story.
I am going to be asking my husband for a divorce after the summer. I have been married for 10 years now, with 1 child. I moved to my husband's country after my child was born and have lived here ever since. He started being emotionally and verbally abusive in the 2nd year of our marriage. He NEVER shown signs of this behaviour before.
He was working full time and I was home, raising our child. I didn't know the language, so I was learning. I had no friends. I had no family. He started taking out all his frustration of the financial issues on me. I would be his punching bag. He would come home, call me names (I've heard it all. Literally every single swear word you can think of, I have heard it.), he would slam cupboards, closet doors, punch walls, throw everything out in a manic state, while I was holding the baby and trying to stay as quiet as possible for the baby not to be scared and traumatised, until it was over. He would then leave the house, still hurling insults and I would have to pretend like nothing was wrong, for my 1 year old baby not to understand.
This continued for 3 consecutive years. All because I didn't learn the language fast enough and have a job. When my child was around 7, I finally had enough time with him being at school, to start to learn the language at a level enough to have a part time retail job. I was working 3 days a week and spent all my money on groceries.
I changed 3 jobs before I settle at the one I have now. My husband does not lift a finger around the house. I mean that literally. He leaves home and his dirty towel is on the floor, along with his underwear, shirt, trousers and whatever else dirty item of clothing. He NEVER cleans anything. Literally. NEVER. Our child can die of infection in his room if I am not interested to clean it every other day. You must think I'm exaggerating....He doesn't bend over to take something that he dropped. He doesn't put a SINGLE dish in the dishwasher. Nothing.
He has NEVER (I mean that literally) helped me emotionally. My husband is a very cynical and practical person. He cannot connect emotionally at least with me because as I see, he treats his friends and family just fine. It's me he has issues with.
The abuse stopped for a while because the financial situation was a bit better. Things started to improve a tiny bit and I had SOME flicker of hope. Until recently, about a year ago, when everything started deteriorating again. The abuse begun again and I am now all out of chances to give. My child is old enough now to understand what's going on. When we argue slightly (I never let it get out of hand in front of him, if I don't stop and back off, my husband won't, he will just scream and yell and call me names in front of him) I just stop talking and leave the room, which results in my son taking my side and arguing with my husband about what happened. I hate that he has to be put in this position, so I want to get out before it gets worse.
My husband is stubborn and when he gets like that, he gets incredibly mean, to the point of evil. He never admits his mistakes and he refuses to even consider having failed. We have talked about a divorce before but he gets immediately extremely defensive, angry and stops talking. He doesn't want a divorce because he is fine with the situation as it is. I take care of our child, I am his personal maid, I do everything. He goes to work, comes home and relaxes, having nothing to do. Maybe he is happy like this. I don't know and honestly at this point, I don't care. I know I am profoundly unhappy and I cannot hide it from my child anymore.
I am waiting for the summer to be over, for my child to have a great and carefree summer with friends and family and after that, I will begin with the divorce procedures and with talking to my husband about it. I am afraid what I'll be faced with. I have nobody here to talk to and all my friends and family are in my country, which is far from here. So, I have no support.
If you read it so far, thanks. I hope to get some much needed support here at times. Take care.