How do I stick through the next few years?

[StuckInT]

I'm sure that if I was reading this, rather than writing it I'd be screaming just leave but I can't.

I'm nearly 50, got married to 2nd DH 3 years ago. I've sunk all of the money I have into the house we own, so has he.
A mixture of fixed rate mortgage and other factors means that I won't yet get back the money I've put in, I would need that money as a deposit for a new house.

There isn't much long rental property here and the rental properties that do exist are hideously expensive.

If I was 15 years younger I wouldn't be so bothered but I'd like the option of retiring even if I don't actually do it in my early - mid 60s, that and my age being a factor in the amount of mortgage I can get all adds up to having to stay in my marriage.

So I'm staying in this marriage and it's shit.
Not terrible, just shit.

As examples: one of the things that attracted DH to me was my sense of fun and laughter. I've come to realise that if life is getting in the way - it's been a crap day at work, it's Thursday, I've got a cold, whatever - and I'm not full of joy and brightness he is miserable and snappy.
He could get a PhD in passive aggression, I swear. He can turn filling the washing machine into an act of silent vengeance.
He's dull and doesn't have much to say for himself. Instead, he criticises me for not starting conversation.

This is the short version but it's a death by 1000 paper cuts.

I can't move to a cheaper area, my family, including DCs and new DGC are here, to move somewhere cheaper I'd have to go 100 miles away. I've turned it every way I can and there's no way out.

So I can't leave, I have to stay for at least another 3 years. How do I get through it? Does anyone have experience of this?

I don't know if this will help but have you tried talking to him about how you feel? Was he always this way or has he changed sine you got married?
If nothing changes then 3 years of your life is too much to lose for a house/money.

If you really have to stay in the same house, can you have a frank discussion and tell him that it needs to be as housemates. The marriage is over, separate rooms and you both see new people if you want. He is presumably unhappy too. It would be messy and awkward, but at least you'd be living.

I've tried talking to him.
He wasn't always like this. At least, he was a milder version of this before and that was behaviour that easily fell into the category of 'human'. Everyone has faults.

What's changed is that he took a big promotion, it's a FTSE company and I think he feels that he has to work twice as hard to ensure his position isn't taken by someone younger and probably cheaper.

So he's under loads of pressure, works long hours, wakes in the early hours and is completely exhausted. I think this has caused his exaggerated behaviour. He's in his early 50s too and I don't think he can maintain the pace.

To add to it all his team are young, trendy, socialise together lots of all day drinking at the weekend, Prosecco nights and meals out if we lived nearer I'm sure he'd join them.
So his work WhatsApp group is constantly updated with photos of beautiful young colleagues having a great time.

I'm already feeling middle aged, fat, dowdy and unloved so the WhatsApp messages don't help me to feel any better about my situation.

Please don't think I'm patronising when I say that if I was in my mid 30s I'd be telling me to leave and it's not worth sticking it out. It turns out that as I've got older my perspective has changed and I realise that I need to stay to ensure I'm not destitute in old age.

I'm not sure I'd want to have any relationship again, Diana, I went into this marriage with so much hope and optimism. I feel completely spent. I've failed a second time and that's at least once too many for me.

He can do what he likes. I'm feeling so low, my self esteem is shattered and his behaviour is wearing me out. If he wants to sleep with other people then good luck to both of them.

Separate rooms could be a plan.

I should have said that when I've tried to talk to him he's short tempered and too knackered to engage.

Have you definitely decided that your marriage is over? Or is it something that can be salvaged with some work? Maybe a nice holiday? Plan some date nights? Might help you remember what it was that you both fell in love with about each other

If not I second the pp that you live as housemates rather than a couple! A lot of people will chime that you need to leave him etc. But I fully sympathise with you, I really do, as there are a lot of practical ramifications of ending a marriage that make it really complex

Dont look at the mortgage ending when you are mid 60's. Mos5ckendersxwill take it to age 70/75.....some even longer. Not saying you work to that age, but apply for the longest term possible & then pay it off as quickly as you can. Use your pension lump sum to pay the final bit......or your dh's if you divorce him (pension sharing order must be worth something if he's high up in a FTSE company).

It is not a dead end. See a financial advisor & crunch the numbers. Everything is doable if you try hard enough

*sorry. That should have read "most lenders will"

The one thing I would advise is to stop saying to yourself that 'I can't leave' and change it to 'I am choosing to stay because......'

One day, hopefully soon, you will choose otherwise.

I'm 54 and I would leave (I did)

'Then one day. Boom. You are gone'.

That's why I left my boring bastard of a husband

Boom.

You are gone.

None of anything you've mentioned in your post is counted as important at The Pearlie Gates.

What do you want to see and remember on your deathbed?

Would you consider renting a room in a shared house or being a lodger for a while? Or buying a bedsit (at least it would be yours)?

Buddysmama no, I haven't decided that my marriage is definitely over, I'd like it not to be. We do have a holiday booked in August and we're doing dates days (instead of date nights) once a month. The date days are going well, it's not like we go back to the way things were but we do have a good time.

Unfortunately with the date days he's still knackered and short tempered because, well, he is! We went to a place with a cathedral recently, we did other things too but it was me who wanted to go to the cathedral. I'm not in the least bit religious but I like the history and architecture. He was bored and said so loudly. So the date weekends work if we're doing what he wants to do .

hadthesnip2 I know that mortgage lenders will lend well into your 70s now but I don't earn very much at least, not for the area I live in so even though I can borrow over 20 years I can't borrow much IYSWIM.

He does have a good pension, yes. But we've only been married for 3 years. Anything under 5 years is considered to be a short marriage so my rights to his pension are negligible unless I wait for another 2+ years. Which, of course, is when the mortgage ends.

Christmasfluff ok, I can say 'I'm choosing to stay because'...

When we're in the swing of our holiday and he's suitably rested I do plan to say to him 'do you realise that this is how I feel?'. I don't think he has any idea. I'm not sure that anything will change long term, I don't think he's meaning to be inconsiderate and nasty, he just...is. Because he's like it, in part, because he's knackered he can make an effort in the short term but he will slip back.

He does love me, I know he does and if he realised what a prick he was being and how willing I am to end the marriage he'd do anything to sort it out but I don't know how to communicate just how desperate I feel.

OhioOhioOhio! I know that one day you're gone, but leaving wouldn't make my life any better. Certainly I would leave my marriage and that would be better but my personal circumstances would be a lot worse, right now.

He's unpleasant to live with but I only see him for 3/4 hours on a weekday. I just have to front those hours out.

Can't leave?. There is always a way out. Digging a hole for yourself like this does you no favours at all, you're merely continuing to dig the hole he has anyway partially dug for you. You do not have to grow flowers in it for the next three years.

Have you actually sought legal advice to date or are you going by supposition?.

He sounds inherently selfish and self absorbed and staying with him for your own reasons is not going to work out at all well for you. I would think his first wife left him because of how he is towards you now. This is really who he is and has been throughout.

No reasons you cite are enough to stay for even another month let alone the next three years. He will continue to wear you down and your date days (and I would go out on my own instead) are all on his terms. You're staying really for your own sake, fear of him, fear of the unknown and potential penury. I would urge you to feel the fear and do it anyway.

Fronting it out as you put it will not work and will only serve to further wear you down. You certainly won't be able to put up with it for another three years. He is anyway unpleasant to live with. You may be somewhat poorer for leaving but that is not certain. You will certainly have your life back which is far more valuable a commodity.

BTW what did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?. What sort of an example did your parents show you?.

You have family around you; what do they think of your H?. Do any of them know how awful he really is?.

I guess you did not see the interior of this cathedral then given that he was bored and expressed so loudly.

I think he does know how you feel to an extent but he at heart does not care about you. He loves only his own self. All this man perhaps wanted after his ex wife was someone else to look after him.

There may well come a tipping point where you will leave, sometimes our hearts just overrule our heads and if that point is reached it's usually explosive and damaging all round. Better to start talking to him now, maybe try Relate. This could just be a communication breakdown.

Thanks Attila yup, you are right.
I've never read feel the fear and do it anyway, maybe I will

I'll go to see a solicitor so that I'm properly informed although I've done plenty of reading around and then at least I'll know for sure.

Honestly, I don't know why my DH's 1st marriage didn't work. I have a very good relationship with SDCs, they are both adults too. Sadly and I do think this is really sad SDCs don't want to live another day in the house with either of their parents.

My DCs can see exactly what's going on, the youngest challenges him when he is being crap in their presence. Surprisingly, DH doesn't hold it against them.
DC1 is talking seriously about buying a house with a granny flat for me when they trade up in a couple of years. I'd love that.

One of my parents has passed away but they had a good, strong marriage from when they first met at school until the day one of them died. They talked and despite all the stresses and strains they brought up 4 kids and built a good life for themselves.

His own adult children's reactions are telling, they really are.

Good luck to you Stuck, I hope you manage to leave sooner rather than later here. Abuse is not about communication or a perceived lack thereof, its about power and control. I would imagine your own adult children wonder on some level why you are with him at all and my guess too is that he is a lot different at work. He does this because he can and it works for him.

I'm sure he is very different at work Atilla but there he still has a lot of power and control and people do jump when he tells them how high, whereas I don't necessarily.

My DCs don't wonder why I'm with him on some level, they are vocal about the fact that they understand why I was with him in the first place, they think I should leave but they understand why I'm staying put for now.

Thanks Margots I agree, I do think it's a communication breakdown and that he doesn't realise what it's like to live with him and the effect it is having on me and our marriage. Things aren't always bad, but they certainly aren't always good either.

Can you move into a separate bedroom? Just be housemates?

How do I get through it? Does anyone have experience of this?

I have experience of this, also with a passive aggressive husband. If your husband has a PhD in passive aggressiveness, then mine is the King of it. He is incapable of expressing any kind of feeling, emotion or disagreement with me. Even about the most minor tiniest inconsequential things. If I say, for example, I'd like to paint the dining room yellow, he won't say out loud to me that he doesn't like yellow and doesn't want to paint the room yellow. Instead, he goes silent, shuts me down and walks out of the room. And then he silently punishes me behind my back by moving things and then denying he's moved them, pretending he hasn't heard me when I've spoken, and lying, swiftly changing the subject and withholds any intimacy and affection.

I realised that he needed me around so that I could be his rubbish bin for all his life's ills. Boy, does he enjoy complaining. It's his number one favourite thing to do.

He can't take being asked to do something at all. Even when it's not even criticism, even if it's as minor as me saying "oh you're going to the shop? Would you please get me some crisps while you're there?" that infuriates him. I can see the anger flit across his face. But because he's incapable of expressing this, he says nothing but will then be cold and distant with me. He is often irritable and uses low-level hostility with me, but not quite bad enough that I can call him out on it - if I do say "you seem irritable - what's wrong?" he'd without fail deny it and look at me like I'm crazy.

He's always out to wrongfoot me, doubt myself, get me to snap. I eventually do snap and I find myself raging at him and he then seems satisfied. It's like it pleases him or calms him to get me to that point. I think it makes him feel in control and in power. But of course if I say that to him, again he denies it and looks at me like I'm crazy. He is a master at getting me to doubt myself and feel guilty. He's a master at getting me to the point of despair and close to hating him, then suddenly being lovely to me, and making me think that awww I do love him after all.

I'm a similar age to you, OP. And in a similar position money wise. I thought if I could just stick it out a few years I'd be in a better position financially. I stopped engaging with him. I didn't rise to his attempts to get me to rage at him, I spoke in a neutral time to him, I acted happy even when I found him infuriating, I played music loudly, sang in the shower, and so on. I made an effort to get out of the house more - joined the WI, went to classes, saw friends.

Anyway it didn't work. It just infuriated him that I wouldn't engage in his games, so he just kept on ramping up and ramping up his usual tactics until it became intolerable. I then avoided him as much as I could. If he was in the kitchen, I'd use the living room. If he was in the bedroom, I'd stay downstairs.
I'd go out as much as possible. I was still always polite to him though, but I barely started any conversations or anything. Eventually I think he got worried and he started being lovely again, bought me flowers (flowers fix everything you see! ), and generally being nice to be around.

So that's where we're at at the moment - we're in a cycle of him being really lovely - the man I thought I'd married - then that slowly fades and he starts being a bit cold, then I go "grey rock", then he ramps up the irritability, I back off even more and start avoiding him, he realises I'm avoiding him so then he starts being lovely again.

I'm quietly getting myself ready - finances, going through all my stuff, having a big clear out, getting copies of important documents in the cloud. I'm having counselling, exercising, meditating, eating well. I'll see a solicitor at some point. I'll be ready in around six months. Ideally I'd like to wait for the new divorce laws to come into effect. The process of getting ready to go, getting organised, focusing on my own mental and physical health, having secret counselling - it's all very soothing to me and makes me feel strong. Which I need to be, because he'll want to destroy me once he knows.

I guess you have to process the thoughts of ending your marriage first. You mention the whatsapp group but I would ignore any feelings of doubt it causes to you, as he likely to be perceived as the old man of the group.

A question, do you have a Will? If you stayed he would be next of kin and would he inherit, rather than your children?
Could you afford a house similar to what you left, if you were able to use joint savings?

I an afraid it maybe that this is him, very common for a switch to his real self after marriage. The selfish man who needs you to pander to his needs. I hadn't appreciated how much ExH needed me to be the cheerleader & organiser in our marriage. However it had to be stuff that he enjoyed.

A move to a big job gave him an increased sense of entitlement so his behaviour escalated into abuse.An insecure childhood and then having power later in life can lead to abusive behaviour at home. Is he charming to the outside world?

Likewise it was on a holiday where his behaviour was awful that I realised I couldn't excuse, justify, explain or deserved his treatment of me.

You are not old, financial considerations are more relevant at 50 but there will always be a way. You can rebuild and perhaps it will lead to a more enjoyable life.