What would happen if I wanted to separate but DH refused?

[MrsHR]

I'm going round and round in circles. Most of the time I think I'd like to separate from DH and when I've broached the subject he point blank refuses to consider moving out as "he'd miss out on the children" as he claims.

We rent, have 2 DC (2 and 9 months), he works full time, I work part-time at the weekends and look after the children Monday to Friday.

In the past, when DC2 was only a few weeks old, I also asked him to move out and he said that if I'm the one who wants to end the marriage, then I'd have to move out leaving the kids with him.

Is that really what would have to happen? We live in an extremely middle class commuter town with pretty much no other rentals so I'd have to move further away leaving behind what little support I have here. My family is all abroad.

My point is, this is unfair. It seems they have had kids almost on a whim. What happened to putting a bit of effort into a marriage? I find it hard to believe somebody can go from marrying somebody and having two kids with them to not being able to stand anything to do with them within a year. A cynic might say this was always the plan. No doubt somebody will report me for this but bollocks to it - that is what it looks like.

Really simon? It doesn't look to me as though it took him a year to start bad-mouthing his wife.

Simon it is well documented that abusive behaviour often starts or escalates during pregnancy and when the relationship dynamics change regarding working, finances etc. It doesn't mean people have had children on a whim, just that the reality is different to what they had hoped. I doubt the OP had a plan to end up a single parent in a separate country to her entire support network. Lay off.

I'm sure that if he decided to put some effort into their marriage, she would not be wanting to leave.

OP, I'm sorry to hear things are not good. He doesn't sound very nice. Do you think he wants things to change?

Right OP that's it. Simon has spoken.

You must stay in your marriage and work at it. Simon says so. Stay there until..... I'm not sure..... Hang on.....

Simon! How long should she stay for?

Then when Simon thinks you've tried hard enough, you can go.

We didn't have children on a whim. We've been together nearly 10 years. It was all thought out. Only I didn't think that my feelings would be a problem. That after the first in love stage, I'd stop fancying DH and not see him as a partner but a friend. But by that point, I'd dropped out of uni and moved country leaving everything behind. And never having lived with married parents, my dad left when I was a baby, my mum was abusive and never had a partner again (not trying to justify my behaviour, just trying to give insight), I thought the most important thing to me was that somebody wanted to marry me and have a family with me. I thought that was enough.

As it turns out, I only see DH as a friend I don't want to be intimate with, which is of course rejection for him. So he feels bad about himself and our relationship which makes him angry. Which leads to him being short tempered with me.

Simon yes, this is unfair. I don't deny that. But what are you implying? What do you think this cunning plan of mine was? Live in the UK? Hahahaha. Sorry. I like where I live now but overall my home country offers a much better living standard. I came here to be with DH ironically enough. Or was my plan to just get someone to knock me up so I could have children? Again, I could have stayed at home to do that where I at least have family support. So I could stay at home with the children and not work and then live of the great benefit system? Wrong again. I do pretty much work all the time. I look after my children and not in a "put them in front of the tv sort of way", I study, I work. I feel hugely inadequate for not having finished my first degree and having a career when I was a high flyer and would never have expected to end up in this situation. Which is why I'm having a second go at the degree thing. So I can have a career once my children are in nursery/school. I'd really like to know what you think my plan was, what makes my situation so desirable?

And that's part of the problem. What happened to putting effort into a marriage. I see how that works when it was right to begin with and you hit a rough patch as you inevitably do. But I just think that I should have never married him in the first place as the feelings weren't right and I didn't want to admit it. What do I do about that? Can I still work on that? And that's a genuine question. Because if that's possible, I will.

I did wonder if your parents relationship was poor, given that you try to settle for something really poor yourself.

Yes marriage isn't all sunbeams and rainbows but it's meant to be better than what you have.

Also you can't work on a marriage by yourself, two of you have to work on it. All your DH seems to do is snipe at you and blackmail you into staying.

OP - my husband behaves the same way as yours. This evening I have been called a 'stupid c*nt' because I told him to stop exaggerating about something. As others have pointed out, this all started when our son was born and I stopped working. Another example from this week:
I work one day a week, he has DS at home (DS at preschool all morning). He does no housework at all. Claims 'the amount of housework I do is proportionate to the amount of rent you pay'. Never mind that I pay the council tax, TV licence and food shopping.

So Simon, everything was just dandy in our relationship until we had our son. No game plan. I'm shocked you've even suggested that to OP.

Yes but the OP hasn't mentioned abuse as far as i can see? She has just suggested they are not right together. OP - is he abusive? Was he abusive before you got wed and had kids?

Define abusive. There have certainly be abusive moments in our relationship, before and after marriage but that doesn't make a whole person abusive, does it? Plus I'm just as much to blame for that. I'm not an easy person to be with at all so I don't see how this is relevant.

Simon fucking behave yourself and stop asking inappropriate questions.

Who cares if he is or was abusive and whether it started then, now or at some point in between?

ITS NOT RELEVANT.

OP to put it very bluntly I think you have gone from one abusive relationship with your mother, straight into another one. It might be a less abusive relationship, but it is not a normal healthy one.

I think you are going to be fine though. You could probably do with counselling or therapy but really you sound very capable and determined.

I wouldn't try to play cards too cleverly but staying in the home is probably a good idea if you can. As you are main carer and married it's likely that he will have to pay for most of your rent at least for a while. A solicitor will give you the best advice.

You do need to get rid of your mother's demons though in order to flourish in the longer term. Tried the Stately Homes thread?

I was on the the Stately Homes thread during my first pregnancy under my original username and I did have counselling before I got married for a while but I can't say it helped. To be honest, I thought was over my mum. Contact is minimal and I don't generally pander to her rubbish anymore. I've had to set some boundaries during my pregnancy so I'm not sure it's still affecting me but I'll pop ever again and have a read.

I'm determined to stay in the family flat. Like I said, no other rental properties in our town and moving away would mean giving up all our structure (I run a local toddler group) and what little support I have (neighbours). I wouldn't want DH to pay rent. I think if I was struggling, I could rely on my dad to help out financially. t would just be very hard talking to him. I'm not an asker. He's not thoughtful enough to be an offerer if that makes sense.

But I keep doubting myself anyway. Like tonight, I'm sitting on the sofa studying and DH is at the table working and it's fairly peaceful. We even had a little laugh just now. Maybe this can be fixed. Maybe I'm stupid to throw this away. All I know is that I'm not in love with him. If we had a bigger home where we had separate spaces, we could co-parent quite peacefully as friends. Our issues stem from the pressure of having to be a couple I think. Because I don't feel like that about him. No idea if any of this makes sense.

OP - take advice before you do anything.

It may well be that if you can't afford the flat on your own, your landlord will give you notice anyway. Some landlords insurance forbid benefits tenants, too, rightly or wrongly.

I posted a lot about my mum back then, 2011 it would have been. She was the one who took the hot water bottle from my dying cat for herself and would walk around in her underwear in front of DH, amongst other highlights. The cat thing seemed to have been remembered by a few people on MN.

Yes, Infinity, I know that and that can't happen. But I obviously have no idea what sort of insurance my landlord has or how to find out about it. can't leave our town, not sure there even is social housing.

I am in a similar position to you. He makes my skin creep. The reason for this is that he has hurt me emotionally and is still capable of it so there is no trust. For someone to continue to want an intimate relationship with someone so obviously hurt means there is something seriously wrong in the empathy department. You can't gloss this over as a bad marriage, there is pain and someone is inflicting it. He probably doesn't even know he is doing it.

Are relationships maybe like this? Is it normal that after the first couple of years everything turns into a more platonic thing? I can honestly say that if we hadn't wanted to start a family after the first two years there wouldn't have been any sex. Ever. As it happened I conceived in the first cycle both times so in the last 7 years, there were 2 separate weeks where we were intimate. Surely that's not how other people feel about their spouse, or is it? I've never really liked kissing him either. It's been very odd because I like kissing. I remember the awkwardness of our wedding day...

Some marriages are like this MrsHR and some are not. I've had one of each. My first was just like yours. Skin crawling and all. My present marriage is lovely. Sometimes there is less or more intimacy, there is always kissing, there is never skin crawling. Sometimes there are arguments but there is never nasty, mean name-calling and my DD doesn't have to cover her ears

This can't be what you want your DC to model in their relationships, can it? Find a way to end it.

And then I think if I worked on myself and was less offensive to him, at least there wouldn't be arguments. They are because of me. So if I changed, things would be better for the children. I still can't see myself ever sharing a bed with him again but maybe that's not important.

I can only tell you about my relationship but no, it isn't like that. Yes, the at it like rabbits stage has eased off, but many other things are much better because we are so much easier around each other. We do argue but we also fix things. It isn't generally crazy exciting but there is more depth.

And I think my idea of platonic involves two people who like each other, support each other and care deeply about each other. Whereas you have just 2 people who don't like each other not having sex while one of them shouts a lot.

I'd agree with WIlkommen, I think your idea of a relationship has been warped by your childhood abusive relationship, and although this relationship may not be as bad, it is nowhere near healthy and your conditioning led you to put up with it even to the point of getting married and having children. On your wedding day you should want to kiss your husband.

I can hear in your tone that this marriage is over. I am as torn as you in truth about what's best to do. But this:

DH said the other day that he's the best thing that ever happened to me and that no man would ever look at me again with my 2 children

is not nice at all. That made me go hmmm as to his character.

and this it basically ended with him shouting at me how I was lazy, useless etc and that maybe he should write me a little book about how to do house work that I can high light in like I do it with my little uni books, Maybe that would help me.

I can't believe some of the messages you've had on here! You are not required to stay in a relationship, he doesn't have to have been abusive for you to choose to leave. This is 2014, and you are entitled to split up if you're not happy.
In terms of who lives where, including the DCs, that depends on what's in the best interests of the children. You are their main carer, and therefore they should live predominantly with you. It sounds as though you'd be best staying in your current place. This is not about punishing him, or taking his kids away! It's perfectly possible for both of you to have plenty of contact with them.
The logistics are of course more complicated, but don't be bullied by him, or guilt tripped by what you read on MN.