This is sitting in my draft emails until I can find the best time to send it.
us and the future
[Draft]
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Saved on: Thu 28/04/2016 15:56
We need to have a frank conversation about us. Not the kids, not living in Germany, not moving home. Us.
It can't have escaped your notice that we live like flatmates and have done for years. We show little to no emotion or affection towards each other and we live increasingly parallel lives. We've become more and more detached from each other over the years. We are both mentally and physically absent from our relationship at the moment.
There are a lot of things that need to change if we have even the slightest possible chance of moving forward from this.
Firstly the way we deal with money. I have brought this up many times over the years but it is so telling to me that that you do not view us as a unit by the way you treat money and the very fact nothing has changed. You very obviously do not see the money you earn as 'family money' but as your money. I'm not disputing the fact that you spend it on the family but your frequent mentions that 'I have to pay for everything' show in a very bright light how you actually feel. You do not consult me on big purchases. You have bought 2 family cars without actually asking me what I think. We have no financial plan for the future, I have no idea if you have savings, if you get a bonus at work, no idea if we can afford things. I gave up a job to come out here because you wanted this job and I am hugely financially disadvantaged in many ways because of it. I have a huge amount of resentment built over years of financial disparity. This is not the first time I have brought this up by any means either but nothing has ever changed. I will not bother to go over previous financial issues which were discussed prior to us coming out here but suffice to say, the past grates. There has never been a financial 'us' only a me and a you. It is not good enough.
The disparity does not end with finances. It runs all the way through our relationship deep in a very large cracks. You seem to have a disregard for me as an equal. I am convenient to have around, to do the cooking, cleaning, washing, homework and to ensure the kids are around for you to see when you are here. The Christmas just gone was the worst Christmas I have ever spent and I spent a lot of the day feeling extremely upset. Not only did you not sort out even small presents from the kids you didn't even apologise properly. It was like you could admit something was wrong by saying 'I dropped the ball' but could bring yourself to use the word sorry. Even then I still bought and paid for my own present. The fact that you thought it was OK to leave me and the kids waiting outside your work on the pavement for half an hour whilst you decided to drop someone somewhere despite promising the car would be there an hour earlier so we could collect YOUR parents from the airport. We have been left waiting numerous times for you, sometimes up to an hour or more. And when I get cross about these things you tell me I'm being stupid and overreacting and you have a go at me for being cross. Even when we came to do the look-see your work meetings took precedence over our family moving here. I felt (and still do) very manipulated over how the move over here was planned and executed. You quite clearly had no intention of seriously looking at any other positions in any other companies which forced me into an extremely unfair position. These are just a few examples out of many. I'm not here for convenience and my contribution to our family is just as valid, valuable and important as yours. If this level of disrespect continues then we are at a fork in the road.
I'll be totally honest, I do not think either of us are 'in love' with the other. For what it is worth I'm not sure you have ever been in love with me. I don't recall you ever being emotional about us in any way. I know you don't believe in marriage but to say I felt we were going through the motions is an understatement. And when I changed my name in my passport you could have made a nice comment, of even just a polite acknowledgement but you chose to say ' you know I don't believe in all that shit'. That did nothing but reinforce how I'm feeling.
I know you care about me, don't get me wrong, and I care about you but whatever spark may once have been there has currently been snuffed out by apathy, resentment and all the above. We need to ask ourselves some deep questions and be completely honest with how we feel about each other with no bullshit, no child related guilt and no job related guilt. Only then can we move forward in some way, however that may be. I simply cannot spend the next 40 or so years of my life living like this and I doubt you want to either. On top of this we are not setting a good example of what a healthy loving relationship is like to our children.
This all looks rather stark written down and I am by no means clear of fault. It takes two to be as dysfunctional as this and I have done my fair share of enabling. I don't really want to have this conversation but I can't live with myself if I don't. All I ask is for you to be completely honest in your feelings about me, about us and about our future. We are both nice people and we both deserve more that our current situation.