Those of you who’ve been through it, how did you initiate the conversation about separating, and the reasons for it?
Dh must know I’m not happy. He must know I don’t like dtd as I literally ‘lie there and think of England’ while he gets on with it (and we did have discussions years ago when he wouldn’t speak to me for days till we agreed 3x pw). I know that’s not fair on him, but it’s a long story and I can’t change it now. He can’t deal with our autistic son for anything other than the happy times. Although he earns most of the household income, he does very little of the housework and i have the entire mental load. He is miserable all the time. He hates our house. He hates that ds behaves and reacts differently to the way he wants him to. He won’t eat meals with ds - well actually he will, but it either ends up in dh storming off to eat somewhere else or yelling at ds who then won’t eat. Anything I do or say comes back with a negative comment. He is mentally draining to be around.
Note that I don’t underestimate how he must be feeling, to behave like this. But I’ve tried asking about it, and he just says he’s fine.
Lockdown, i do agree, has made things worse. I had just sorted out counselling for myself before lockdown, which obv now hasn’t happened. They’ve offered sessions in the last few weeks but, as dh is still working at home I can’t think of an excuse where I get to leave the house for a couple of hours on a regular schedule, given Cv19 etc.
How do I initiate a conversation where I explain all these things? How do I say I think we should separate, but I don’t think you should have ds overnight as despite the fact you love him, you can’t deal with his behaviour? The prospect of Dh having to deal with ds alone every weekend is the main reason I’ve not had this conversation yet. It would damage ds’ mh, and dd would step up and end up as the buffer between ds and dh, which would affect her mh.
I know many answers will say that we both need counselling. I don’t think that would happen as a) I can’t imagine a time when my libido will ever improve - which isn’t fair in a marriage and b)I don’t think dh would do it and c)even if he did, the things I would have to explain re,libido, housework, inability to deal with ds...they’d send him into a tailspin and he’d just shut down, be miserable and not talk for days, weeks.