Sorry in advance for the long post!
I have no idea where to begin with divorce. My parents were two people who absolutely should have separated but didn’t, and my childhood was miserable because of it. I’m terrified of making the wrong decision for my own children.
I’ve been with my husband since 2017 and married since 2021. We have a 4-year-old about to start school and a 2.5-year-old. We’ve been under huge strain for the past few years. Introducing a second child has been particularly challenging, and although he’s doing well developmentally (we’ve had health visitor and Toddler Talk assessments and they have no concerns), the exhaustion of parenting two young children has really affected our relationship.
We also moved closer to my husband’s parents when I was pregnant with DS2, expecting more support. They do pick the children up from nursery once a week and help in emergencies, but otherwise the support is limited. FIL is very hands-off and most of the childcare falls on MIL, which my husband himself finds frustrating.
His parents have also made various passive-aggressive comments over the years which I’ve largely ignored. However, something happened on Monday which has really tipped me over the edge.
DS2 had been overtired and was crying. FIL put on his noise-cancelling headphones and carried on playing his Switch. Later, he started asking my husband whether we had compared DS2’s development to DS1’s and whether we had videos/photos to benchmark them against each other.
This really upset me because his parents know we’ve already sought professional advice about DS2’s speech and that everyone is happy with his progress. It felt less like genuine concern and more like frustration that DS2 isn’t where FIL thinks he should be.
What hurt me most was that my husband didn’t shut the conversation down. Instead, he engaged with it and then brought me into it by asking whether I had any videos. I eventually said, quite bluntly, that we had discussed this extensively, that we had sought professional advice and that there was no point comparing the two children.
It resulted in an argument between me and my husband afterwards. I was trying to explain that I felt unsupported and, once again, put in a position where I’m made to look rude for setting a boundary with his parents. He thinks I’m being overly sensitive and that there was nothing wrong with the conversation.
This has happened several times now. I feel like I’m constantly being put in situations where I feel undermined by his parents, and my husband won’t stand beside me. I’m not asking him to cut them off or choose between us. I just want him to recognise when something is inappropriate, redirect the conversation and support me.
I’ve been incredibly unhappy for a while. My husband wants us to work on our relationship, and I’ve wanted that too, but the actual work never seems to happen. Something has changed in me over the past couple of days. I’m exhausted from pretending everything is fine and sweeping things under the carpet.
I know this incident sounds insignificant in isolation, but it genuinely feels like the straw that broke the camel’s back. Pre-kids we had a wonderful relationship, and even after DS1 things were good. DS2 pushed us both to our limits, and I think we’re now at the point where we’re surviving rather than actually being a couple.
I’m just so tired. I don’t want my children growing up watching two unhappy people stay together because they’re scared to leave. I would much rather they had two happy parents in two homes than two miserable parents under one roof.
But equally, this doesn’t feel like a “good enough” reason to end a marriage, and I don’t know whether I’m throwing away something that could still be fixed.
Has anyone been in a similar situation? Did you manage to turn things around, or did you ultimately call it a day? I honestly don’t know what to do anymore. I just want to be happy again.