I need some opinions on this email

[Gymandtonic25]

Me and dp haven't been getting on for a long time maybe two years. We have young kids, I'm a sahp. He works full time and also has a very time consuming hobby that takes him away a lot, costs us money we don't have and surrounds him with undesirables. He used to smoke weed until we had our first and has continued to do cocaine on occasion. He wants to quit and i was trying to help him. I haven't been very happy for the past 8 years I had a few bad experiences in my teens and was raped by one of dp friends around the time of my first pregnancy (he is the twat in the email). There are also problems with us getting on with his family. I get angry with dp often and find being at home with the kids exhausting. Anyway dp left on Boxing Day after an argument over something stupid, we can't seem to discuss things very well and go around in circles. He sent me this email as I asked him if we are really over. I don't want to go into to much detail and have left a few things out as I want to get a unbiased opinion. This is it..

I really don't know what you want from me anymore. I care about you more than you'll ever know, god I still love you but I can't say I'm happy with the way things are between us. You have a certain idea about me and believe I need to change for us to work, but I can't change who I am and if you don't like that person theres nowhere to go. Im tired of excusing myself. I feel suffocated and anxious about you constantly. Im always worrying about upsetting you, Ive got no spirit anymore. I can't live with someone so volatile and who blames all their worldly problems on me. Your perception and attitude towards me brings me down nigh on a daily basis. You being frustrated or annoyed by me is not an excuse for the things you say to me. I don't think you understand where I am. Ive slept on a sofa for more than a year, I am the butt of all your issues. Im allegedly mentally abusive and a shit father. You belittle and abuse everything in my life and throw me out of our house repeatedly, (not without good reason on occasion but certainly quite a few times due to your own issues). I want to be with this idealistic version of you I have in my mind but maybe that was never you in the first place or maybe everything that has happened between us has meant they're gone.

I recognise I have my faults, Im infuriating to live with, I know that. I am disorganised and habitually late. Im outspoken and opinionated about everything. But thats just who I am and you've always known that. I try my best to better myself where I know I irritate you.

I want a life living with my family, I want to put my girls to bed and wake up with them in the morning. I don't want a single life. Im so past that shit but I cant stay with someone who has no respect for me.

I cant tell you how sorry I am for the other day but I truly didn't know about that twat being there. Yes I wouldn't normally go to Friends house, I understand but I needed to speak to a friend, I had no where to go. You overstepped the line again and fucking hurt me, I snapped and was horrible back and I'm really sorry for that. I suppose I don't want to be put in that situation again because I don't want to be that person.

I don't fucking know what to do! I want to be with you and the girls but its clear from your messages you feel that Im to blame for everything. And if thats the case and you have no intention of taking some of the onus on yourself then we're not going to move forward.

Im mentally shattered at the moment, Ive missed you three so much and don't know what to do with myself. I want to be back home but I know something needs to change otherwise we'll be back here again sometime. Im willing and want to try but stuff needs addressing.

In many ways your my perfect partner, you make me laugh, you love a murder mystery, your a great cook and your opinionated about world affairs. Your beautiful, and when you smile at me you make my heart skip. Your the most incredible Mum to our two little girls, and I couldn't wish for anything more for them.

I just don't know what it is that will make you happy anymore and whether it can ever be me.

Please tell me how you feel because I'm distraught over here. x x x

What do you want opinions on? Whether than email means it is over or not?
No-one can say, other than him. At least him intention - you don't have to accept if he wants to stay together.

If the email is honest, my opinion is that you have something to work on in counselling, that there is a chance. It sounds like a very small chance and a lot of work though.

I'm so very sorry you were raped
If he is knowingly socialising with your rapist, there is no hope for your relationship.
If he turned up somewhere and he was there, that's different.

I see lots of words but all I can hear is wah wah wah poor me.

I'm so very sorry you were raped flowers
If he is knowingly socialising with your rapist, there is no hope for your relationship.
If he turned up somewhere and he was there, that's different

Totally agree with this.

Aside from that we only have one side of the story. I have no idea from this whether or not 'the first' is right in her analysis or whether your dp has some stuff right in his assessment. How can we possibly comment further with only this information?

Sounds an Ok email to me, he's being as honest as possible, it doesn't sound like he wants it to end but he realises you are really unhappy - perhaps you should look at why you are unhappy, how much of it is his fault, how much of it is unrelated to him?

It's difficult to gauge from your post how much of a problem his occasional drug use is or if he does other things that are bad, too?

Sorry really hard to tell but it looks like a genuine, non manipulative email to me.

Maybe consider some counselling together/apart so you can put things where they belong, and not always at his feet?

I think he is prepared to leave you if you don't help yourself.

what I mean is get some training in communicating and in managing your feelings - yes you were raped, no he didn't intend to socialise with the bloke who did it, therefore how is it his fault?

Did you have any counselling in regard to the rape? You seem still very angry about that now and maybe it is affecting your relationship/your mood in general

It's hopeful. My first thought was lots of grist and a good attitude for counselling.
What do you think Gym?

It is saying that he is not prepared to change. I assume you keep asking for him to adapt his behaviour and he is saying he can't or won't and if you can't accept that it would be better to split, although he doesn't want to.

He basically wants to act like a twat and you not call him on it.

Why has he been sleeping on the settee for a year?

Have you repeatedly thrown him out of the family home? If so, why and are there any reasons to think that this will change?

Whilst it sounds miserable for you it sounds even more so for your DC. The email does sound as if he would like to come back and try to work on the marriage but that takes two people who are committed to making it work. Are you both?

If not then stop flogging a dead horse and repeating this damaging cycle.

Sorry for not going into much detail it's quite hard to write it all down. No I haven't had any help after what happened, I suppressed it for years then told dp everything a two years ago. I don't think it does affect me anymore since distancing myself from said group of dps friends. I think he did know he would be there as it's the friendship group and they are always together.
I don't really know where to start, I am not unhappy everyday. I'm always around for the children taking them out and spending time with them. I find dp sits out of a lot of home life also doesn't help around the house. I'm left on my own with the kids a lot. His drug problem has in my opinion changed us and caused all kinds of problems. If I feel upset about something he shuts me down and tells me I'm overreacting. I don't feel like the email is fair at the beginning, I have been trying to piece everything together and make our home happy while he has just ignored my efforts and me. He has been sleeping on the sofa for a year because he snores so loud, I had dd2 last year and she NEVER sleeps I'm up on my own all night with her. He knows this so why say that?

Whoknewitcouldbeso has got it right

I don't think this is something you're going to fix just between the 2 of you, I think you need a 3rd party, like a Relate counsellor, or a family counsellor or similar.

I see him attempting to acknowledge his faults, but in the same breath blaming you for not accepting him the way he is, because he's always been that way. But if "that way" isn't working so well for him, then he has to decide how much staying with you matters to him - is it worth enough for him to realise that those behaviours need to change? And some of them clearly do, from what you've described (the drugs, the thoughtlessness, the money-spending on his own hobby when you've not got enough elsewhere).

I also see him blaming you for making him unhappy, without him stopping to fully realise why you are unhappy - he half says that he knows some of his stuff is at the root of it but then at the same time wants you to take responsibility for it!

He needs to realise that you aren't going to "put up and shut up" and learn to live with him the way he is now, and just choose to be happy with that - his behaviours affect your happiness, and he needs to accept that.

But as I said - it's going to need an objective 3rd party to tell him any of this, as he doesn't really respect your feelings/thoughts on the matter.

DO you want to stay with him, do you think?

I read the email as "I know I need to change but this is who I am so I'm not even going to bother trying"

If the things he needs to change are things like whistling through his teeth, talking over films or licking his knife then I'd say there is room to be worked with, but it seems from your OP that those issues that he won't try to change are serious - drugs, selfish with money, continuing to socialise with the man who raped his DW (seriously, WTF with this?!)

Honestly, for the last one alone I'd personally give it up, but I also wouldn't want to stay with a man who chose to spend more time with his friends than his family, did drugs and then got stroppy if I dared voice an opinion about it. Start looking at your finances and work out your options.

Do you still love him, OP?

If you do, it would probably be worth getting some couple counselling.

You also say that you found being a SAHP exhausting, which of course it when the children are so small, but maybe there are other changes you could make yourself that would make your life more enjoyable. Could the children go to a nursery part-time, for example?

If it weren't for the drug problems I would see this as a heartfelt email, from someone who genuinely wants family life.

However, if he cannot/will not stop taking drugs, then they will always come first, and you and your DC will always be a lower priority.

I am not sure couples counseling would work if he isn't willing to stop taking drugs, but maybe it would be a start?

I have had the misfortune to be in a relationship with a cokehead and it was exhausting, unfulfilling, and frankly boring. Never again.

He sounds half decent to me. He might well be happier with shared access to the kids and a life of his own, as might you. You sound as if you need to work out your issues first.

Do you get any respite from the kids at all? An hour daily or what ever? Does he cook? Does he have the kids a couple of nights at the weekend while you get some sleep? Does he clean at weekends? What does he give to the family apart from cash? He doesn't give attention to the kids?

I suspect he loves you but is self indulgent and also a lazy/selfish family member.