Can't afford Relate but MIL is offering to pay - WWYD?

[LazyCake]

DH and I have been having lots of problems, for a very long time. We recently started to receive counselling from Relate, but are really, really struggling to pay for the sessions, which take place every week and cost £65. The counselling has been helpful to a degree, it makes me feel calmer as I am no longer dealing with all the problems and worrying about the future on my own. DH says that he enjoys it (a bit odd, but good I suppose?!)

Anyway, our finances are in chaos, and any discussion of how things might be improved leads to long arguments that go nowhere. This has been going on for years, but has got worse recently. Today I am trying to work out how to feed DD until payday, which is ridiculous as DH is on a good salary. So the added drain on our finances caused by Relate's £65 a week fees is not helping matters.

I suggested to DH that we stop receiving counselling, simply because we cannot afford it. He agreed initially, but then said that he had discussed it with his Mum, who had offered to meet the cost of 10 sessions as a birthday present. There are lots of reasons why I think this is not a good idea - to begin with, it's just a miserable, depressing thing to receive for your birthday, isn't it? And then there's the fact that I think that the eventual outcome of the counselling will be separation. MIL certainly does not realise this - she things we are just having 'a few problems'. She is very traditional, strict Christian upbringing, etc, and this will come as a dreadful blow to her. Also, I don't want DH acting the martyr over the fact he has received such a present - I feel guilty enough.

But if I don't accept MIL's offer to pay, am I throwing away the chance to try to work on our marriage and make thing better for DD? H will certainly reproach me with this for years to come, especially if we do end up separating, and maybe he would be right to do so?

Next time he threatens suicide just roll your eyes, it's emotional blackmail.

Put it this way you would inherit and you would have your life back...

Well write a menu plan tonight and a shopping list, see if he actually buys what you ask for.

No, AF, not last year. We were short of money, but that wasn't the real reason that I didn't go - I could have raked together a few hundred £s for a flight if I'd really wanted to. Truth is, I was pretty appalled at being stranded in the Italian countryside for a week with him, his friends and their kids (our relationship was at an all time low), so I cried off.

Thank you, mamas, I shall contact Women's Aid at the first opportunity.

I'm sure he did prefer you fat and depressed - you were easier to control and he got a lot of sympathy, the kind lovely man, so caring, doing everything for this fat unattractive depressed woman when he frankly could have any woman in the world. And you felt so guilty, he was helping you so much, he deserved better than you, you were lucky to have him, he could have done much better than you -- and so on and so forth.

Let's ignore that his behaviour was calculated to keep you fat and depressed.

The reason everything is going wrong is you lost weight, had therapy and better, fell in love with your DD and started to have reasonable expectations of him - instead of being a doormat which is how he liked you.

Lazy he is still preventing you and your DD from eating a HEALTHY diet.

And the reason he wants to make the prep time longer for meals when you have other things to do is another form of control.

He buys the processed crap because its cheaper. Hes a cheap tight bastard.

On a side note this proves that eating healthily is more expensive than eating crap. The fat shamers on AIBU insist the opposite but if that were true the tightwad you are married to would be buying the healthier food!

He is not going to have to give up his job and all those fabulous students admiring his feminism, OP. And he is going to have to give you child maintenance. And as someone else has said up above, go for everything you can financially in your divorce settlement, not to do the dirty on him, but because you have a child to raise, who is also his responsability. He does not love his daughter or he wouldn't buy you rubbish to feed her and want you to stay depressed. He will continue to be a cheapskate and the only way to protect her interests is to take everything you are entitled to in the divorce settlement.

Wolpertinger, yes think there's a grain of truth in what you say. As I've got better, and managed to function more like a normal adult, DH has got huffy from time-to-time.

For example for a long time, in spite of me having a driving license, I was not on the car insurance. I did a refresher course when DD was about 8mths, and DH agreed to let me drive the car, but kept on 'forgetting' to give the insurers I call. Two years on, DM insured me on her car and let me use it to practise because she thought if I re-built my confidence as a driver, it might help in other ways. A few months ago, DH finally put me on his insurance so I could drive his car - hooray! Anyway, [finally getting to the point...] I said that I could start to do the supermarket shop while he was at work, but he got all huffy saying, 'Well if I lose that, then I'll be totally redundant, won't I?'

He is not going to have to give up his job and all those fabulous students admiring his feminism, OP. Yes, I think you might have something there, Atenco.

I don't think you eyes are fully open yet OP. You will get there though, hopefully much sooner than later.

Supermarket shopping, he doesn't want to give up controlling that does he!

Your suggestions prompted me to go on rightmove and have a look at some 1 bed flats in my area. They start at about £950 per month. I'd need to do some sums, but I think that means I'd need approaching £30,000 salary to make us secure

Why don't you move to be near your family? Where you live sounds expensive .

He says that separating would mean that he had no reason to carry on, that life would have lost it's meaning

He's really doing his fucking utmost to force you to stay, isn't he?

Emotional blackmail and financial abuse, plus shit parenting (feeding your child poor quality food when you DO have the option not to, is shit parenting) - he really is a catch.

OMG he is really reading the script for controlling bastards - earns all the money, thinks he is the primary carer, can barely cope with you being allowed to drive and thinks he is redundant if he loses the supermarket shop?!

This is not a normal split of labour and he really should be forced to hand in his feminist card as he hasn't a fucking clue. Insisting your mum is present in all discussions is treating you like a small child not an adult.

I don't suppose he's said any of these things by email or text, has he ?
< hopeful >

Op he sounds awful, have you asked him why he buys cheap crap food? (Btw Cut onions up all at once and freeze in a freezer bag, works really well).

He says he will pack his job in if you leave - very critical you take your full entitlement in divorce.

Can you imagine packing your job in to avoid paying towards your child's living costs?

I can tell you why he will say he buys cheap crap

He'll say he can't afford any more, because the Op wastes money left right and centre. That all the pressure is on him to make ends meet.

That he can t possibly let her do the shopping because she will spend too much .

Then he will burst into tears and say he can't sleep because of all the pressure and worry about finances.

And the OP will feel guilty

Oh good grief, you poor thing, I am only on page 2 and this sounds like financial abuse. This man has also eroded your self-esteem and made you doubt yourself. He sounds like my xH who was building up his nest egg whilst I was running an overdraft to feed this kids. Also had somehow managed to get his parents to sign their house over to him. And spouted right on feminism whilst doing zilch helpful without expecting a medal.

Coffees and make up are normal parts of life.

You asked permission to do the shopping? And he refused?
Um. Yes, he's a controller. Leave.

the more i read about him the more i'm convinced he's a miser....and it isn't due to your personal bias op

my dad was exactly like him when i was growing up. mum had to fight to get on the deeds (and she's not a fluent english speaker), had to fight to get the cb in her name so she could feed us and keep us clothed - dad used to make her account for every penny, and anything he didn't 'approve' of was either denied or we had to make do with 2nd hand.

for years i felt torn between my parents, i remember mum buying the bargain price end of the day chicken to feed the 9 of us, the rest of us could cope with the spices covering the slightly off flavour and being grateful for it....but not my dad. he expected the best - he paid for it afterall

he and DD had a villa holiday in Italy last year and he's hoping he'll be able to get to a Greek island this summer

so his money and time is for him and his dd - where do come into it? if he can't afford for you to go then i don't think you should be allowing him this kind of time alone. Look at it objectively - what does it say? "dad is the one who provides and makes an effort for dd"...he wants to give the impression that you were never able to be 'there' in any real way without his financial help.

he's a sly fucker. and the longer you allow your personal feelings about him to cloud your judgement the harder you'll make it it for yourself.

he's only out for himself in every which way. his money - whether earnt or bequeathed - is his money.

the best advice my mum was given - understand your legal rights and use them to empower you. you 'owe' him jack shit.

OP - you do realise, don't you that his approach to all these things isn't normal ? It's very rare for couples who are togther to not holiday together has with their kids .

It's usually only because of things like

One has a lot more holidays that the other eg school teacher, so they take the kids off with grandparents .

One likes some hobby and takes the kids to do it be cause the other hates it

It's never because one can afford it and the other cant, that's bonkers .

He's abusive

he has said he cannot and will not be parted from her - and he will do anything to keep her with him

OP I know you're not going to hear this easily, but that is an enormously worrying statement which would have me concerned that he will hurt your child if he feels he 'has to'. I used to work for a domestic abuse charity, and we used to see this all the time: men who were financially and emotionally manipulative, who drove their partners to the edge of sanity and who felt that both woman and children belonged to him and he had a right to control them.

In a third of domestic violence murders, the first act of physical violence is the murder. These men will consistently harm their children to get control over their ex, and at the extreme end will kill those children as punishment, or to prevent their ex having control over the children. Please, please seek help now.

fatcathatmat, thank you for your post. Horrible ideas to see materialised in black and white, but actually quite a relief in a way to have someone raise them unprompted, as they've been at the back of my mind for a long time. I actually wrote to Women's Aid this morning (at the urging of some of the posters on this thread), before I saw your post. This is what I said about DD's safety:

At times I have felt very frightened and had some very dark thoughts, the worst of these occurring when my daughter was much younger and I feared that my husband might kill her if I left him. However, these thoughts have been prompted by no specific words or actions on his part, so I believe that they were a manifestation of the mental illness I have suffered rather than any actual risk.

I do think that such a horrific situation as that which you allude to would not happen now (if there were ever a time when it could have happened), because DD is older, more of a person in her own right than simply an extension of me. My main concern now is avoiding an abduction scenario. Again, hopefully this is alarmist nonsense, but it has crossed my mind more than once. This is what I wrote to Women's Aid on this subject:

He has never said that I would be refused access to our daughter, but he has insisted that in no circumstances will he be separated from her. He says that he simply could not accept that happening, also that the courts would have to use the full force of the law (criminal if necessary) to separate him from her - he would not willingly surrender his child. I believe that if I was awarded majority custody, some kind of abduction scenario could be a possibility. This is absolutely what I want to avoid.

Anyway, I shall be what reply I get.

You asked permission to do the shopping? And he refused? The thing is, OutToGetYou, he would say that he wants to do his fair share of domestic tasks - that he's trying to lighten the load on me.

Don'tMindMe, I'm appalled that you had to eat rotting meat while your father indulged himself. That's utterly despicable. Your experiences remind me of how things were between my MIL and FIL before he was widowed, although I don't think her situation was quite as extreme as your mum's.

He sounds like my xH who [...] Also had somehow managed to get his parents to sign their house over to him. Yes, Cocoabutton, my DH has (unsuccessfully) tried to do this with his mum.

Insisting your mum is present in all discussions is treating you like a small child not an adult. It's actually the other way round, Wolpertinger, he wants to be present at all discussions that my mum and I have concerning my relationship with him.

I can tell you why he will say he buys cheap crap Yes, Kr1stina, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Oh, ps. I sent my mum a link to this thread, as I was getting a bit concerned that I may be exaggerating things somewhat, or whipping up some drama. She's read it all, up to 8pm last night and doesn't think that I have misrepresented DH or my situation, although she thinks I may have given the impression that there is less food available than is actually the case.

It's been good to get some new perspectives, and hear the views of people who are not emotionally entangled in this, so thanks everyone.

On a lighter note, I think I shall shortly be name-changing as I'd shudder if my mum could see everything I post on here , but I think right now that's the least of my worries...

Have you brought up the financial disparity at Relate? Have you talked about making a budget, there? Have you suggested that you get your name on the Deeds, and have total openness about accounts, savings, investments etc? How about the way the shopping is done, and how unsuitable it is for you and dd?

What did they say?

If you haven't, then I suggest you start your next session there.

He does sound massively controlling and abusive. And dangerous.

Your husband says some extremely frightening things OP. Like under no circumstances will he be parted from her. I can understand why you had the thoughts you did.

The talk of giving up his job is an attempt to emotionally blackmail you to not leave him.

Then the supermarket shopping is blatant control. He wanted your movement to be limited without a car to drive. It's awful that he wants to control every last thing.

A good husband would have encouraged his wife to regain her driving confidence, he wants you to be restricted.

You say he's not all bad, but the above statements alone are just awful.

I think the talk of taking petty cash is scaremongering. So you think things are so bad financially.

He wants you to be dependent on him reliant on him for everything. Whilst I think you getting a job is a good idea, I think seperating while you are the primary carer is better for you custody wise.

He is scared and threatened by your confidence and probably thinks you can easily leave and be with a better younger man. But yet his controlling behaviour is driving you away.

Why does he view divorce as loosing DD if you have 50/50 custody?

Has he ever suffered from depression?