Been married to DH for coming up on 10 years, together for 12. Two kids, 7 and 5 years old. Had a very rocky relationship since kids were born - he has drinking problems and although he’s now been sober for 1 year, he hasn’t dealt w the childhood trauma that led to them. He has very low self-awareness in general and is fairly emotionally unavailable (rarely says nice things, doesn’t show up for me when I’m down etc). We have grown apart more and more I’ve the years due to all our problems (also had a rough time w unemployment periods for us both and relocating to my home country where things aren’t easy for him in terms of language and settling in etc, also we moved during Covid, so forming new bonds has been slower than it would under normal circumstances). I feel quite lonely and like we aren’t at all on the same wave length anymore. I guess we used to be, but I have become more settled and mainstream whereas he has become
more alternative right, without realizing himself that’s what he’s becoming. But he idolizes Elon Musk and people like Jordan Peterson. The last straw for me is that he is quite sympathetic to Russia in the current war (his place of birth but haven’t lived there since he was 17). He says he is against the invasion and doesn’t support Putin and wants the war to end, and he also helped some local Ukrainians, but all he ever says and shares is excuses for why Russia invaded and pointing fingers at the West’s shortcomings and “provocations”. I work for a western government, so his views are even harder for me to stomach as I’m daily occupied with delivering messages of the other kind. Things have come to such an impasse that we don’t discuss politics at all anymore, as it just ends up in shouting matches. Whenever I try to listen to him
and be empathetic and ask him questions rather than lecture, he becomes angry regardless as he isn’t stupid and realizes what I’m trying to do (gently and subtly guiding him out of his delusions) and I genuinely think he suffers from cognitive dissonance and the more my questions makes this clear to him, the more angry he becomes. I’ve got to the point now where I have lost respect for him and feel angry at him almost all the time, for his belief in conspiracy theories and general approach to the world (he is very negative and stubborn in general too). I’m fantasizing of leaving him very often. The only thing that keeps me with him are the kids, who adore him. He is a really good father, he does all the shopping and the majority of the cooking, we split the school run equally, he does at least as much cleaning as me and he very loving and attentive to the kids, plays with them and plays board games with them etc. He genuinely cares and shows it. He also has taken my ultimatums that he had to quit drinking seriously and has been sober for a year and I belief he will stay so. He is also very supportive and kind to my elderly parents and support me in my career (I have more of a career job than him and tend to be out for work events at least once a week and he fully support this and looks after the kids). I know that if we split up, the kids would be completely devastated, and it would be hard for him to stay in this country financially, as we are just managing to stay in the flat we are in on our joint incomes. If he had to live by himself he’d have to accept a very small place with no space for the kids. I think he knows how hard it would be for him to stay in the kids lives if we divorced and thus doesn’t want to, but he’s not doing anything real to make our marriage work either. Seems he’s just accepted now that we jog along with no real closeness between us, as every time we try to get closer to each other it becomes clear how different we are and things blow up. The thought of divorcing truly breaks my heart because I want an intact family, both for me and the kids, and a trikes we do have a nice moment or chat, but at the same time, I feel like this is no way to live. We have finally got to a place of truce I guess, where we just avoid the issues we know are explosive and don’t often argue anymore, but now we just live as almost strangers who don’t trust each other. I feel so sad and like there’s no god solution. I am having therapy and in therapy I have realized how I cannot conceive of a divorce and how at some level I still love him, but I’m so desperate about his lack of insight and just wish he’d get therapy and treat his childhood wounds which I’m convinced are also the reason for his belief in conspiracy theories, as is often the case. At the same time I fantasize about a lighter life with a partner I truly respect. Any advice for how you’d handle this situation? Is it worth it to stay or do I need to face that divorce is the only way to achieve a level of happiness again for any of us?