told dh its over -feel nothing - is it normal??

[evaeoin]

so i have been in a miserable marraige for a few years now.
we have seperated in the past but got back together. i thought this time it might actually work. but it isnt. i am so unhappy. its like living two different existences - one for the world and my dc's and one inside my head/heart where i am so lonely and confused.
i made a terrible mistake in marrying a bully and i am living to suffer the consequences. he has been abusive in the past but has now gotten contol of his temper but guess what he still isn't a nice person. not at all. not alone am i unhappy i am also bored rigid. he is just so boring aswell.
we have spent the past few weeks sleeping in seperate rooms. my decision. i dont he even understands why, he prob thinks im just in a mood and it will blow over.

last night i just came out with it. i told him i am deeply unhappy, that there is nothing left between us and i want out. he seemed totally shocked. he said 'i dont shout anymore' and 'its just the recession and we need to stick together til things improve'. he is totally unaware of what a relationship is about. he uses lack of money and stress as an excuse for bad moods and insults and generally being a changable freak. he said he isnt happy either but he is the type of person who doesnt give up on anything and hes not going to give up on marraige.

he seems to think i am the one with the problem. that if i understood him more, or tried a bit harder that we would be fine, that i sulk to much and that i dont understand that all marraiges have arguements. and im sure the do but he thinks he can insult me one minute, or do hurtful things and be nice as pie the next and i will just go along with it. but i cant anymore. especially given the past - where he has hurt me so much.

i am shocked at how detached i feel from him and our marraige. i really couldnt give a sh*t if i never saw him again. but we have dc's and i worry on their behalf that this is the right thing to do.

i also want out as self preservation in other ways too because he has made a complete mess of his business and owes tens of thousands in tax (apparently he didnt know you were supposed to pay it). also he has a health problem that will likely get worse. i am sick of standing by this man and always saying its ok etc etc when i get nothing in return.

great to get this off my chest

he said we will swap bedrooms for now until we decide what to do for the best (up til last night i was sleeping in the spare room and he was in our bed).

not over yet by a long shot. the man literally has no emotional intelligence and really hasnt a clue what is going on. am a bit nervous of what he is going to do next.

i just want to be happy and to have a normal life with my dc's

any advice??

It sounds like he's shoving his head in the sand, as he has done with his business and his health.

You've told him how you feel, you should see it through. Or he may think that you just threaten stuff when you're fed up, but don't mean it.

Good luck

You are feeling nothing because so much has gone on for so long that you now probably beginning to feel indifferent to him, which will make splitting up so much easier. You probably find his presence an irritant
Try and physically part as soon as possible for your own peace of mind.

My advice is to look after #1 because no-one else will. If he's not taking you seriously and you've had enough then you'll have to keep taking the initiative and progressing the separation and divorce in due course. That means things like getting legal advice & understanding your rights and responsibilities. I would also suggest you get the information out to friends and family so that you get RL practical support.

If you are 'nervous of what he's going to do next'... understandable if he's got a record of being abusive... then your safety and that of the DCs is paramount. There will come a point when he realises it's all over and it sounds like you need to have some distance between you when that happens. Another reason for not keeping the new status secret.

Good luck

I think this detachment really is your friend in these circumstances. I experienced something similar recently. After all the ups and downs and confusions of living with exP I suddenly had a 'penny drop' moment & everything changed. I no longer cared about the drama. The relationship ended - Poof!!! Now he finally gets what I ment by "love is like a butterfly"! And his heavy verbal anger killed all our butterflies.

I felt completely detached and still do 2 months later. What is so fab is I can deal with exP calmly and unemotionally. He is still in shock and can't get over how I am. He functions best in heightened emotions and drama. Now there is none. It is changing him - he did leave straight away and is staying with family, but he is trying sooooo hard to be a good Dad. We still haven't even really discussed what happened - I felt no need to. I've been talking, raising issues, trying to communicate and improve our relationship for years. Then I didn't want to any more - it became too one sided. It's been a huge relief!!

Take one day at a time evaeoin- you are in a great place to start building your new life.

thanks guys
all true
yes he shoves his head in the sand over everything - its like he wants to be somebody else but he just cant be - its not in him
yes the main feeling i have towards him is irritation - i only have to look at him to irritated and my god sometimes having to listen to him i just to tear my hair out.
and yes i really need to tell people but i just find it so hard to start the conversation with my family and friends again. i know they will be supportive but such a huge part of me feels like a failure and i hate all the pity that is bound to come my way

thanks becool - great to see i am not alone. i suppose its all very text book really. you get let down and so often that you are bound to just switch off one day. thing is my dc's think he is wonderful - so they will be broke hearted - but i think they are better off having a happy mammy who is actually living her life than this groundhog day existence

"such a huge part of me feels like a failure and i hate all the pity that is bound to come my way "

Block pity as soon as it starts. OK you may get a few 'not again' comments if you've separated in the past and got back together because it's tough to fully commit if you think someone might change their mind again. So present things as being very much your initiative, your decision, final (v important) and a positive step towards a new life and people will quickly respond in kind.

How old are your DC? You might be surprised. Mine (1.5 & 5) were upset a bit - but they are flourishing in our new tension free environment.

The contact days were a little fraught for a couple of weeks (why aren't you coming Mummy?), but they quickly got used to the new routine and became secure with it. Now it's all quite settled - after only 2 months. The school has also noticed DD1 has been MORE settled & happy since we split.

Agree with Cognito - head high, you are moving on from a place of pain & futility yes, but moving towards a bright and better and happier future. You are in charge, you're now the Captain of this ship!! Your co-captain has been fired for sleeping on the job!!! Cut him loose and focus on the things that really matter now.

my dc's are 2 and 4. so young enough to adjust i suppose.

i feel like a really bad person though cause dh is gone to work - left early this morn so havent seen or heard from him and i suppose i should be worried (or at least the old me would have been worried). he is a very emotionally insecure person behind the tough guy thing and i dont think he will handle this at all well. thing is right this minute i dont care what happens to him. does that make me awful? this is totally at odds with the person i am really (ie kind).

too right about the sympathy - i really think i can be strong enough now not to care about what other people think. its all in the frame of mind isnt it??

"i dont care what happens to him. does that make me awful?"

Not at all. Why waste 'care' on someone that doesn't return the favour? Worse... someone that has been abusive?

A problem a lot of women face is that they have been brought up to be selfless, putting others before themselves and generally rewarded for being kind and caring etc. So anything a woman like that does for herself can appear to her like selfishness. It really isn't, it's just that the threshold has been set really low and set lower still by a bully of a husband, demanding his own way all the time. If you really didn't care you wouldn't have started this thread, you'd have no doubts and you wouldn't even be giving him head-room. He simply wouldn't be on your radar.

Where you are now is being assertive. Putting yourself your life and your future top priority which is absolutely how it should be. You have to go a long, long way from that to be actually selfish.

I understand you.
It was only when I had totally detached that I realised that the marriage was gone and was able to really finish it.
Haven't really been upset at the end of it.

I'm in the muddle of separating from my h, and feel a lot of detachment from him. I'm pretty busy, I work hard, I have lots of interests so I'm not moping around, and I'm planning pragmatically for myself and for the dc, how to go forward and make a good happy life for us.

Tbh, I think for me, I realise now that the marriage was abusive in a low-level way that gradually 'killed the butterflies' (good metaphor). I've given and given and given of myself to h, given and forgiven him so much, and I've reached the point where there's nothing left to give. I don't feel like this about my dc, my job, or any other aspect of my life, just my marriage. Someone said to me 'you give out, and you give out, and you give out, until you give out.'

It's so true, and makes me feel a bit less guilty about looking forward to spending this evening watching a film that h would have hated, eating chocolates and thoroughly enjoying my Friday evening before the busyness of the weekend starts.

I'm in the middle, not the muddle! Although muddle works too. :)

i hope very soon to be planning a nice evening for myself too.

thing with h is he will leave me to do all the planning for his leaving. he will want me to tell him where he should go and generally have all the answers. he will almost want the date of the divorce! he wont even be able to take responsibility for his own leaving arrangements!
how do ye think i should handle this?? he will probably say he has nowhere to go (even though he would have options)

Same here Lueji. I think by that point I had got the measure of him and although I was still very frightened of him, he'd been such a bastard that I no longer had any love for him, he'd killed it all with his nastiness.

I felt absolutely nothing after he'd gone, I remember crying once but that was with relief that I no longer had to fear his general presence.

evaeoin mine did that too. It's not your responsibility, though as a decent human being you will feel like it is.

He's a grown man, it's about time he started behaving like one.

You should definitely give him a date.
And if it speeds it up, find a handful of flats/rooms to rent for him.
Or give him the contact of a couple of estate agents.
At least he'll have no excuse.

After I left, mine pestered me for about 2 days supposedly trying to find a place to live in. Until I told him to f* off (well, not in those exact words :) ), because they were all too expensive, or would entail living with other people.
He ended up living with his parents, about 1000 miles away.

Does he have a medical diagnosis of something?
When was the last time you had time away from him?