Before we discuss the next 18 months and the move back home we really need to talk about the elephant in the room, us.
It can't have escaped your notice that we don't talk, live like flatmates, show little to no affection towards each other and live increasingly parallel lives. We've become more and more detached from each other as the years have passed. This level of emotional and physical detachment leaves me feeling completely indifferent to us. Our relationship does not set an example of what a happy loving relationship is to the children.
The more time goes on, the less I know about you. I have no idea what your personal plans for the next 5 years are, or where you want to be at that moment in time. I don't know what things in life you find important apart from work. It certainly doesn't feel like I'm important, more like I'm convenient. I don't feel respected. You left me and 2 small children waiting in the cold for 30 minutes outside your work when you decided it was ok to give a client a lift to the station. You had agreed to have the car there at 3, I was walking there at 3.50 which is when you called me to tell me it wasn't there. I needed it to pick YOUR parents up from the airport. You then didn't seem to actually understand why I was angry with you and that it isn't ok to do this. On the not very frequent occasions I want to go out with friends in the evenings you think its ok to turn up from work at the time I need to leave. Or you just forget that I'm going anywhere at all despite reminders. Or the countless times I have come to pick you up and you have left me waiting, sometimes for the best part of an hour. You don't put in the excessive hours solely to be a provider, but work is your main focus, the thing that makes you want to get up in the mornings.
It's not that we don't get on but we are so far apart on so many levels, we currently exist as a convenient friendship and nothing more. Getting married was a deal breaker in me coming over here and whilst I understand that you don't really care about marriage as a thing, this has also translated into feeling like you only did it to get me over here not like you actually love me enough to want to make a lifetime commitment. There is absolutely no emotion there, just practicality. Same with changing my name. Your reaction to it made me feel like I just shouldn't have bothered.
For my part, a lot of what I feel is resentment. For not insisting on complete joint finances years and years ago. For having to give up my job which I loved to move out here. For being the one who has had to sort everything out since we've been here as you are always working or away. And that comes first for you. For your complete indifference when I was having such financial trouble that I had to switch our daughters nursery days so I could work from home to make it affordable (your comment of get another job then didn't exactly help my feelings or the situation). Your verbal reactions when things need to be paid for ('I have to pay for everything') really show exactly how you feel about money - what you earn is yours not ours. I do not feel equal. We are not a unit.
I'm not saying by any means that this has all come about as a result of one of us. We are definitely both to blame. I'm terrible at opening up communication but that is also because I feel shot down quite frequently when I voice my opinion. I know I should have been more forthcoming with things I wanted and needed earlier in our relationship and for that I can only apologise for not making myself heard. I know I'm a people pleaser and that too often I let things slide that actually really bother me. When we were on holiday you made a very rude comment when I was getting changed along the lines of 'christ, look at that!'. I felt belittled and upset. I told you this and you told me I was being stupid for being upset. I should have stood my ground and had that argument with you. Instead I think I just cried.
I don't know where we go from here or what your perspective is on the things I've just said. But whatever happens things cannot continue as they are. You are never here and when you are we are no more than flatmates. Something needs to change before we can decide on the path for the future.