I met my husband online two years ago. A few months into the relationship, he proposed and wanted us to get married straight away. I advised that we wait a year to plan properly and get to know each other better, but we ended up marrying just six months after the engagement.
After the wedding, things changed — and gradually got worse. Whenever we had issues, my husband would go silent for days, not just toward me but also toward my children from a previous relationship. He began leaving the house without telling me where he was going and would return whenever he pleased.
I later discovered that he was discussing our private issues with his mother and brother behind my back. This led to his mother cutting off communication with me. Even during holidays, she would text him asking only about him, ignoring me and my children. He would send her photos of us, but she never acknowledged me. Over time, he became guarded with his phone, refusing to open messages from his mother when I was present.
We sought church counselling, where he was advised to resolve issues privately between us and stop involving his family. But he continued. His brother visited recently, and I took my children out Christmas shopping to give them space to catch up. When I returned, my husband’s demeanor had changed — he stopped speaking to me and didn’t take my son to football the next day.
He continued going out without explanation. When I asked where he was going, he said he didn’t need to tell me. I eventually sent him a message asking him to find somewhere else to stay until we could resolve our issues, explaining that I no longer felt safe.
He returned immediately and started an argument that escalated into him grabbing and roughing me up. My children called the police. I refused to press charges, and he told the officers he would leave for the night. The next day, his father and brother came to collect all his belongings.
Later, his mother sent me a message asking what her son had done that was so bad I had to call the police to remove him from his own house. I told her he had told the police he wanted to leave. She responded by saying I now had the big house to myself and my children, and that I wouldn’t be keeping it after the divorce.
She has made other inappropriate comments, including questioning why I left my home country to come to Europe. She once asked me if I was still working five days a week, and when I said yes, she turned to her son and asked if he was still working three days. When he said yes, she replied, “That’s good.” Her tone and behavior — along with that of my husband’s brother — have always been dismissive and cold toward me and my children. Nothing was ever good enough if it came from me.
I tried to save my marriage. I work a full-time 9–5 job, come home, and cook — often still in my work clothes — while my husband worked from home. His excuse for not helping was that he couldn’t cook to my standards.
Whenever we had issues, he would ask me to return the money he contributed toward food and household expenses, only to send it back when things settled. He constantly told me the house was his, simply because he contributed a larger portion of the money when we bought it. He kept saying that the judge would tell us to take what we each brought into the marriage, and that the marriage was only a year old.
I know this relationship is not healthy and not good for my children. But I feel heartbroken that my husband that I have everything does not respect me or my feelings. I need help I don’t know what to do I feel all alone