My marriage is in a terrible state and I am deeply unhappy and anxious. A lot of my stress is caused by H and I am so confused by his attitude and denial of any wrongdoing on his part. It feels to me as though he is totally divorced from his emotions and refuses to acknowledge that his behaviour might impact on me.
I know I am biased and this is solely my viewpoint but when we first met he gave the impression that he was a reasonably motivated person who enjoyed travel and had his own business. As we got to know one another we talked about how much we had enjoyed visiting Italy (separately before we met) and how it would be lovely to go there together one day in the future. He told me that he hadn't gone to university despite wanting to, because his parents would not support him while he did so, I found this a bit strange as his two siblings who are both very close in age to him did get a university qualification and one was a student for about 12 years.
I think part of my confusion may be because we are different nationalities, although I understand my female friends who are the same nationality as him perfectly well. I did think it was a bit strange that he was still renting a flat when he was in his mid 30s but probably because I suffer from massively low self-esteem I agreed to marry him. I had doubts while we were engaged but stupidly went ahead with the marriage as I didn't want to let people down.
I have discovered that he is completely incapable of doing anything for himself, all of his travel in the past had been facilitated by the people he travelled with, the reason he didn't go to university despite the fact that he could have obtained a full grant, was because he couldn't be bothered and chose to get a minimum wage job and live with his mates.
Basically he is helpless, he earns a pittance and gradually we have got poorer and poorer. I earn a reasonable amount in a professional job but we are on a downward spiral and I am terrified we will end up homeless. When I try and articulate my fears he won't listen and he has this peculiar Walter Mitty like attitude where he talks about maybe buying a holiday home in the country. When I ask where the money would come from he can't answer.