I want to end my marriage but dont know how

[millymollymonkey]

Hi there i have just re-registered my membership on here as been away for 2-3 years due to having breast cancer but used to come on here all the time. I need your advice please. Will try and make this as concise as possible.

Been married to dh for 10 years, have 2 dc (8 and 4) and all was well until 2008 when i was diagnosed with breast cancer. Had chemo, radio and mastectomy and all is well now thank god. BUT it has been at the expense of my marriage. He has become a control freak, asking me constant questions about where ive been etc. I dont like being with him, he bores me and irritates me. I have changed since having cancer and dont have the patience i once did. I have become more selfish and want to do the things i want to do.

This has been going on for 18 months, ive told him i want to end it but he wont leave the house and i have nowhere to move to with my children.

Whenever i talk of leaving he starts threatening me with talk of not letting me have any money and me having to give my car up etc.

I have made an appt to see a solicitor this week but really need some advice.

I dont love him as i should love him - he is my mate and that is it.

Have you thought about counselling for both of you, you've both been through a damn traumatic event and are bound to have changed.
Is he paranoid about losing you (because he thought he might lose you before to the cancer), thus asking you where you've been all the time.

If your sure its over, I would still say try counselling even so you may be able to part on good terms, it would be horrible not to after all you have both been through.

Oh and a big congratualtion on getting through it.

thank you - yes, i think counselling is the way to go even if it is to help us break up amicably. I do know that i cant be with him anymore though - i just dont love him.

Thanks for your reply

Huge positive wishes for you continued good health! What you've been through I hardly dare to imagine..

And experience changes us. But whether you go or stay, it would be better for all concerned if what happens next is amicable. If you go, it would be so much easier to extricate yourself without having to fight for what is rightfully yours. Sounds like your DH would like things to be 'back the way they were' and is searching for signs of that in you too, hence needing reasurrance. Counselling for you both?? May seem like an unnecessary irritation right now, but will help both of you see what you've all been through (and continue to) and where you all need to go next. If your DH is helped to see that by someone other than you, he is more likely to see the light and provide less for you to have to push against.

Just a thought... good luck!! It doesn't seem right for anyone to expect things can just go back to how they were before you were ill - this has obv been hugely transformational for you, and you're only just beginning to discover who you are now, so going back isn't really possible.

thank you for your reply. I feel very lost and trapped. Want it to be a year down the line with it all sorted but i know i need to go through the crap to get to where i want to be. I tell him i dont want to be with him and he just says im confused due to the cancer and stuff!!

I cant just up and leave so have to co-habit with a man i can barely talk to.

Its horrible.

Would he be open to the counselling?

yes but he would be going into it in the hope of saving the marriage whereas i would be doing it just to enable us to break up amicably

even if you are going into counselling for different reasons it could still be useful for both of you.

I filed for divorce this week. I am sure that when my dh gets the papers he will suggest counselling and i will accept and we'll be the same as you, me doing it to break up amicably and him doing it in the hope of saving the marriage.

I am 100% certain that my dh won't leave the family home without a court order though - all the counselling and mediation in the world won't make him leave voluntarily - i am certain that any husbands solicitor would advise him to stay put unless ordered to do so by a judge.

Start your research here. Find out what you can do, how to do it and what you are entitled to. If you are able to rescue this marriage it should be because it's what you both want, not because one of you is trapped.

it's simple: if you want to the end the marriage, you're going to have to be the one to move out.

No doubt it will be only temporary - if your situation is typcial the kids will live you, and after a period of time, once the reality has settled in, you'll end up back in the family home again with them, and him somewhere else. But actually being the person who first moves out, which makes the problem and the break suddenly real, is highly symbolic, and I can completely understand why he doesn't want to be that person.

you want to end it, you need to get up and leave.

things will move quickly after that, I reckon.