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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Just don’t know what to do

20 replies

Goldfish13 · 17/12/2018 14:10

I hate my husband. He’s untidy, dirty, selfish, antisocial, obsessed with his iphone & totally disinterested in me. He takes no responsibility for anything and has no initiative. I have to spot that something needs doing and ask him to do it - then I’m nagging. He doesn’t organise anything, and if I didn’t make plans, every single day would just be sitting around at home. I’m absolutely sick of him. I want to leave, but we have a 5 year old and a baby on the way. I earn reasonably well so could just about manage, but my daughter goes to a free paying school and I couldn’t afford that so would have to move her. I feel so bad at the thought of moving her out of her lovely school and away from her friends, when that would be the only consistent thing in her life. I want to give her the best, so part of me wants to suffer this so she doesn’t have to move. Also, I can’t imagine her not being with me all the time and I just know she’d be so so upset not to be. Her Dad wouldn’t care and would fight to have her for his 50% of the time even if that meant she was upset. I really really don’t know what to do. I have cried all day today. Any thoughts welcome. I have tried talking to him but he just wants to blame me. He thinks I’m unreasonable asking him to pick up behind himself, do something towards Christmas or pay a tiny bit of attention to me.

OP posts:

DonkeysEars · 17/12/2018 14:13

Any chance he would continue to contribute to her schooling?

pog100 · 17/12/2018 14:14

You just know you can't take a lifetime of this. Sounds like you can be financially independent of him, though he would have to pay maintenance, so it's a good time to sort out out. You know he won't change, so don't talk, act.

ohwellinthatcasetryprunes · 17/12/2018 14:22

You can't carry on like for ever. If it means taking your dd out of private education, better now than when she's older.

favgirllabels · 17/12/2018 14:40

i read your message with great sadness...i can relate to the untidy phone obsessed husband! have you tried marriage counselling?
life gets busy with kids and we often neglect our relationship. your language is really strong. do you ever stop to think why you fell in love with your husband in the first place? at times when i feel like its me that does everything, i ask myself that question.
i once read that marriage isnt 50/50 its 100/100 meaning we give our best to each other, not your leftovers after you ve given your best to everyone else. good luck and i wish you all the best

ShatnersWig · 17/12/2018 14:41

Shame you chose to have a second child with him as I doubt he changed overnight, but what's done is done. The majority of kids don't go to fee paying schools and it doesn't automatically follow they will do any worse educationally or later in life or not amount to anything. Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, Jim Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher and John Major all rose to be PM without any private schooling.

One of the best things a parent can do is to ensure their children see what a good relationship is like so that they hopefully don't settle as many have in the past for being taken for granted, treated like dirt, or abused. Please leave and start a nice new life for you and your children.

Original poster

Goldfish13 · 17/12/2018 15:11

It’s not about her not having a private education (except for the fact that the schools around us are rubbish) - it’s that at a time when her family is falling apart, her school life and her little circle of friends will fall apart too. She’ll be starting again. I just don’t know if I can do it to her.

The whole thing would devastate my little girl. I can’t help feeling that just trying to carry on would be better for her.

Plus, the baby wouldn’t know him. I can’t possibly let a new born baby go to daddy for 50% of the time.

I feel like I have to hold on until they are older.

OP posts:

ShatnersWig · 17/12/2018 15:16

NO. No, no, no.

It would be MUCH harder for her if you waited until she was older.

You're really not thinking straight. You think you are putting your child first but you really aren't.

AttilaTheMeerkat · 17/12/2018 15:18

Why do that to yourself?. Staying for the sake of the children rarely if ever is a good idea and in your case a particularly bad one.

It is better to make a complete break now from him rather than when they are older. Do you really think that carrying on with this man would be better for her and her as yet unborn sibling?. No it won't and things for you all will turn much worse. The longer you stay with him, the harder it will be to make the break because all he will do is further break you.

What do you want to teach your DD about relationships and what is she learning here from the two of you?. There is really no good reason to stay with this abuser of a man. She will adapt to her new life and her mother will be happier too. That is far more valuable to her and her soon to be born sibling than an education in a fee paying school.

And as for this 50% comment, you really think he would be at all bothered with either child that amount of time?. I doubt it very much actually, those are your fears and supposition talking.

AttilaTheMeerkat · 17/12/2018 15:21

Do not enter into marriage counselling with this individual. He will likely refuse to go and no decent counsellor in any event would want to see you two in the same room.

If counselling is to be done I would do this on my own to work out exactly why you have chosen to stay in this relationship to date.

StormTreader · 17/12/2018 15:21

Your daughter is 5. A fee-paying school is making no real difference to her above a normal one at that age, and making friends at 5 is easy.

Original poster

Goldfish13 · 17/12/2018 15:34

He’s said he would fight for 50/50. I can’t imagine not being with my girl. I can’t imagine her just being left to cry for me, and being ignored while he sits on his phone, and spending that 50% of her life in a messy dirty flat somewhere, and being fed junk, and not being free to choose to be with me instead if that’s what she wanted (and I think it would be) ;(

OP posts:

AttilaTheMeerkat · 17/12/2018 15:44

Abusive men say that sort of thing primarily because it works; it keeps their woman whom is regarded as a possession in line. Saying this to you works for him, that is precisely why he says it. He wants to use your kids as a means of punishment to get back at you for having the gall in his eyes to leave him.

I would suggest you contact Womens Aid and the Rights of Women organisations asap. They can and will help you here. You certainly need a Solicitor who is well versed in the ways of such manipulative and abusive men.

AttilaTheMeerkat · 17/12/2018 15:45

TooOldForThis67 · 17/12/2018 15:47

How on earth can you stand to be with this man until your unborn is 18? At 5 your daughter will make new friends easily. It really is nothing in the scale of things. It's really the best time. I doubt your husband would fight for 50/50, it'd cost him. Also, what about work? He's just saying it to scare you most likely. Sounds as if the reality of having them 50/50 would be too much for him.
Please please don't stay in such a dire relationship.

StormTreader · 17/12/2018 16:05

Tell him 50/50 would at least free up some of your weekends and let you date again when you're ready, he'll change his mind pretty damn quick.

TatianaLarina · 17/12/2018 16:14

50:50 would require him to make an effort. He clearly never will. It’s just a control tool.

I understand your concerns about changing schools but I’d much rather change then when it’s easy to make new friends and she can build a nee friendship group, than later.

Would there be any option to move somewhere near a decent primary when you split?

Original poster

Goldfish13 · 17/12/2018 16:42

He would say I am the abuser. All I ask is for him to tidy up behind himself & show some interest in family life. Apparently those standards are too high. Today my daughter has started being rude to me and taking Daddy’s side - I’m scared he’ll turn her against me. So so sad right now. It’s meant to be Christmas.

OP posts:

TatianaLarina · 17/12/2018 17:56

Well he would wouldn’t he.

Sistersofmercy101 · 17/12/2018 18:28

goldfish make a diary of what interaction your h has with your dd, including the times. I say this because family courts are very interested in the continuity in a child's life. If your h does 5% of the "work" with your dd (does he do breakfast, school drop off, school collection, tea, bathtime, homework, story or bedtime? Doctor /dentist, sick leave? ) the parent that does these should continue to do them as the resident parent - in the childs best interest to have continuity of care.
My point is that he can ask for 50/50 but if care isn't already 50/50 and you have a diary detailing his behaviour that would likely lead to neglectful behaviour towards dd then the court isn't likely to see it as in dd's best interests to be forced into a 50/50 situation. Hope this makes sense. Good luck OP.

Itwasatuesday · 17/12/2018 18:30

Re schooling go in and speak to the bursar or the head. To maintain the charitable status private schools have to offer some places to kids who can't afford it. There is normally something ear marked for children who are already there and run into problems.

As for everything else, I think your kids would benefit from a happy mum, and particularly you are teaching your daughter to value yourself and that can only be a positive.

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