I don’t have anyone that I can talk to in real life, but I need to get some things out.
I’ve been married to DH for 15 years, and we have 3 DC’s, one of whom has ASD. Over the years I have sacrificed a huge amount in support of my DH’s career, including my own career, organising two overseas moves, plus of course I’ve had to do all the background stuff at home, including looking after the kids, all house stuff, planning and organising things like holidays and trips home, house sales and purchases, renovations, homework, parents evenings and pretty much everything else you can think of. I’ve been the one who has done all of the research for our overseas moves, I’ve done all of the worrying, the parenting, DD's appointments, the broken nights, right down to reminding him to phone his mum. He does the odd thing at home, such as empty the bins, empty the dishwasher in the morning and a couple of other things if I ask, but for the past 15 years I have been there behind the scenes making sure that things run smoothly with pretty much no support or input from DH at all.
In amongst this stuff, I have had bouts of depression and anxiety. When we lived overseas I was incredibly lonely and very unhappy, but I kept putting a smile on because I thought it was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, although DH has been aware of these (medically diagnosed) bouts of depression and anxiety, he has pretty much been indifferent towards me. He hasn’t ever offered to take any of the mental or physical load from me to help, he has never stepped up to offer me any sort of support at all. It’s almost like he buries his head in the sand and pretends he can’t see it, so that he doesn’t have to deal with it. He does things like make excuses to come home late from work or go in early if things have been bad at home.
There is no affection for me (unless he wants sex), very little affection for the kids. It is more like he can’t be bothered with us, than that he doesn’t know how, if that makes sense. I have to ask him to do things like telling the kids that he is proud of them when they have had a good report or something at school. I have tried to get back into work a couple of times, and ran my own business from home at one point, but I had to give it up because he just won’t or can’t find it in himself to be supportive or encouraging at all. I have talked to him about this stuff on hundreds of occasions, but although he promises he will try and be more involved, things never change. After having these promises broken over and over again, I just feel defeated. It’s not that he’s a bad man, he’s never hit me or the kids, and he would do anything for anyone. Except for me and his children. He won’t do anything for us.
So now I find myself in the position where I feel like I am having to accept my unhappy marriage. To others looking in, I have the perfect life. I don’t have to work, I have to do a bit of running around after the kids, we have a lovely home etc. But inside I feel like I am dying. I have no self-confidence or self-esteem, I am overweight, I have these mental health problems that keep coming back. I have also developed a bit of a drinking problem over the past few years, partly through self-medication of the anxiety and depression, partly because I am bored and lonely, and partly to plug the gap in my crappy marriage.
We recently moved back to the UK, and I have started to feel a spark of hope that my life could be better. I have stopped drinking, I am eating healthily and walking every day, so I have lost weight and am feeling fitter. I’ve also started to retrain for a new career, and I am getting great results. It is hard, because I am doing it without support or interest from DH, but I enjoy it, which makes it bearable.
The thing that I’m stuck on is the self-confidence. I am fairly sure that I want my relationship with DH to end and for us to separate, but the last number of years have knocked my confidence so much that I don’t see how I will ever be able to do it. On the one hand, I have this little flame burning inside me, encouraging me to make changes and to look forwards to a new life and maybe a new relationship with someone who loves, respects and supports me. On the other hand, there is a little voice of doubt, picking away at my efforts, telling me that there is no way I could ever earn enough to support myself and our DC alone, that everyone will hate me for breaking up our ‘happy home’, telling me that there is no way I will ever meet anyone else at the age of 44 and that I will be alone until I die.
Sorry, that was long, but it does feel good to get things off my chest! I’m not sure what I hope to achieve by posting. Maybe some support or advice, or to be told I’m a selfish cow and to just forget the whole idea!