Not sure where to start or even if this should be on relationships, money or divorce.
DH and I have been married for 15 years. There are a lot of strengths to our relationship. But we are stuck in a limbo land. About 12 years ago we made the decision to move out of London (where I'm born and bred) to rural Northern England (where he's born and bred). We went via Australia on a working visa so we've been here about 10 years.
DH's career is fairly niche. If you're based in London you can be busy in his job, although your rents will be high. He works hard, but his industry costs are also stupidly high - insurance, professional fees etc. My career is also mainly London based but I've worked freelance for years now.
Our situation is not sustainable financially. Not at all. We've taken out endless loans, remortgaged twice. DH talks about getting a different career (he works the equivalent of 3 days a week and does pull his weight house/childcare wise) but nothing ever seems to happen. Where we live, so rurally, is an area of limited employment. It's not easy mid life here to find a career which earns enough.
When we're busy we're busy, but there are gaps between contracts/late payments/unexpected bills which knock us financially. We cannot now make up the amount of extra debt we have - but can't work out a loan solution as we cannot predict our income from month to month.
I've looked for full time work, but would mean me trying to live in London all week which I'm reluctant to do as I would hardly see our kids. We live in an area where the majority of women aren't working and the majority of men do, very traditional attitudes.
Our children are very settled at school - they're at very good local state schools where they're doing well and happy. We own a house, although we live in a cloud of credit and overdrafts, hitting our limits each month. Our costs are low as we can - we don't eat much meat, we never go out for meals or drinks, holidays are very limited, hand me downs are the order of the day.
I'm unbelievablyl frustrated with our situation. I feel like I'm constantly searching/networking/trying to find new work/new leads/ some kind of more steady employment. DH will take several months to identify one lead, then decide it's not a goer. In the meantime we have wasted another few months. I think he's drowning in the situation - he doesn't' know what else to do. Moving back to London would be too expensive - we can't afford it now we've been out so long.
We live very rurally - we're not even in a village. For any of us to get anywhere we have to get into the car and drive, to get milk is 12 minute drive. We can walk down one lane and that's it. We can't afford to move into a village or town here though as we don't have enough money and we owe family money.
DHs family have lived here for generations. He is very attached to the place. I could happily never see this area of the country again. Every weekend I want to scream endlessly into the rural abyss of nothingness. I want to walk and see something interesting, not just trees and farmer land which I can't access. I've never driven so much and walked so little, as dragging cold children out on cold walks loses its appeal after a while.
I do love him, I see a lot of strengths in him, but I feel his head is so firmly stuck in the sand that it's all on my shoulders. I'm tempted to actually turn down the bits of work we rely on to keep just about in our credit and overdraft limits - just so that we crash enough to wake him up. And I know that's ludicrous because we have children and they need to feel stable and settled.
It's absolute limbo and I don't know what to do. How do you go about changing career mid life, especially for someone who takes so long to even decide whether to have a cup of coffee or tea? Do I resign myself to keeping the rest of my family here and end up working long hours away? I'm not even sure with my accommodation somewhere else that that would work financially.
Where can you live in the UK that's dirt cheap? Is it even possible. How did we get in this mess? Like many people we kept thinking - just one more contract, things will get better- something will change. But all he says is "yes something has to change" he does NOTHING about it. It's affecting us, its affecting the children (although we try endlessly to be as calm as possible, to still have fun as a family and for them to try and enjoy their childhood). And I feel like it's all on me, I'm the only one who can change this because i'm the only one who's going to get into gear and eventually find something - while he continues living in the sort of rural place he grew up in, just without the fixed 9-5 job that his dad had.
We talked earlier today, I got cross with him, he offered nothing beyond bland statements. Everything I suggest he finds a problem with. I know nothing is perfect, but this is dreadful. My mum loaned us money last autumn and despite working my fingers off we haven't made enough money to even start to pay her back. Every time i speak to her I don't have an answer for her.
I want to say that I'm fully aware things could be much much worse, in so many ways we are lucky. But I just need some help if you've got this far. I can't see the wood for the trees.