Can someone properly explain why my DH thinks this?

[Suewiththeredford]

Namechanged, old regular.

Married 15 years, I’m a SAHM, he has a Big Job he’s been doing since before we met. When we met I also had a Big Job and we earned the same.

All 3 kids are primary age, 2 are SEN enough to be Special School material. I do literally ALL the school stuff, every meeting, application, senco stuff, all pick up and drop offs, clubs, therapies, EHCP stuff.

I have no access to any money except the children’s DLA. He pays for the house bills and groceries but he buys shite and I end up tipping that up. I pay to run my car and phone etc. He is spending £140 a week minimum on his leisure/hobby. I am overdrawn. Until recently an unusual financial arrangement I had from the past, meant I contributed £8k a year and he used that for holidays. That arrangement has ended.

We have discussed divorce. He says he knows that the law is on my side but that I am selfish and immoral to split the family because I haven’t contributed to the family finances like he has.

He is an intelligent man. One of the few ways in which we can still communicate is in abstract discussion about general issues. So why can’t he see that it doesn’t make sense to ascribe my contribution to our lives as being without value?

Brilliant op!

I just read your full thread. I'm so glad you have made progress towards getting away from him. He is a horrible human being & you will have a new lease of life once you've escaped him! Sending well wishes to you & your children

Just read this thread and I want to send my love and support to you OP. You are great. Hang tough.

Another someone rooting for you.

So glad to get back to your thread. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. I have a friend in a similar situation and she's just awakening to realising that she's been in a controlling relationship.

Good luck 💐

Presumably now received. Has he said anything?

The petition has been filed with the court but he hasn’t received the paperwork yet. I’ve asked my SHL to let me know when she thinks they’ll arrive so I can prepare. I’m very emotional and scared and have hidden all the big knives in case he goes mad or something. I know it’s ridiculous but it’s how I feel.

We spoke today about one of the children and some issues he’s having. It struck me, as I listened to him mansplaining on a grand scale about our child’s difficulties that he thought he was telling me something new - that I didn’t have an in-depth understanding of his condition. And yet, I am literally surrounded by books on it, I blog about it, I’ve been to the bloody Royal Courts of Justice about it, and despite all this, he hasn’t listened to any of it. He was banging on about the gaps in his cognition and I was sitting there staring at him thinking “yes I know this, because I got him included in a clinical trial about EXACTLY this, three fucking years ago, I know the data backwards.” He has been tuning me out for years and years and years. And only when something enters HIS consciousness does it become real. And he’s left almost all of this to me because he has been doing Real Work.

It was a revelation because I had wondered so many times whether it was my fault, that I hadn’t communicated things properly in our marriage etc. But it’s not me. It’s him.

I couldn’t even be arsed to comment. I just sat looking at him, feeling sad. But not verysad.

What a weird spam!

Wow, that clarity is so powerful. You see him for what he is and that sounds like it's both shocking and somehow obvious in a way it hasn't been in the past. I'm not surprised you are feeling so much emotion. I also don't think you're being ridiculous at all in hiding the knives! I would too and I think it's wise to think of him as an unknown quantity in terms of how he'll react. Stay safe. And hold on to that wonderful clarity you have gained to keep going strong

Good luck Op! Hope it all goes well for you.

because he is a misogynist pig.

My friend had to give up teaching when she had her children to take care of them and her home, she had five, yes five children.

Upon divorce her husband waxed lyrical about how she had not contributed anything to the household and how dare she expect to get something for doing nothing all these years. Her youngest at this point had started school and she had gone back to teaching as TA as she'd been out of work for so long and also needed to work around the children's school hours.
Oh and she also supplemented her child benefit by doing child minding. And to be clear her husband did nothing in the house. But we must worship him as he went out to work.

A lot of men have that attitude. I do think it's because the home is run so smoothly and everything is so easy that they enjoy pretending they are oh so important, when in reality without the mother (usually), taking a massive unrecoverable hit to her career and taking care of the home and children both would take the financial hit for outsourcing everything the mother does to several different agencies.

Friend got divorced and is happy, her ex is bitter and lonely.

@frazzledasarock

Friend got divorced and is happy, her ex is bitter and lonely.
I hope she also got what she was legally (and morally) due on divorcing that twerp?!

Oh yes she did, which makes up part of his bitterness . Friend is a really awesome woman, she even went and helped her ex out when he caught covid earlier this year. You can bet he would not have.

Living well is the best revenge!

What I can’t fathom though, is my husband knows fine well that the law is on my side in all things financial. Yet he’s behaved so badly that I feel I’m left with little other choice but to call time.

It’s like sticking a hand in the fire and complaining when it gets burnt.

They never ever think you will leave. Because they're quite frankly such amazing specimens of glorious manhood, you will never ever find another like him.

Or so ex informed me. To which I turned around and replied I bloody hope not, I'm joining a fucking convent after this.

So pleased you're making progress, OP. I don't think I could have been so restrained listening to his mansplaining.

Arrange to go away for two weeks, somewhere out of touch with no easy cell service, leaving him in charge.
Don't leave any instructions/tips etc.
He will maybe get an inkling of where your value lies...

He would 100% use that against me. And twist the kids into thinking I’d left them. And get my mum to pick up the slack.

Frazzled maybe that’s it - he knows I’d seen solicitors before and then not gone through with it, mainly because I was focused on the kids’ needs.

Thankyou Lannieduck. I had PMT too so he was really on very thin ice indeed!

OP, well done.
What an absolute horror of a man he is.

Please call 101 and let them mark the house in case he causes a scene and you need assistance.
Don't hesitate to call them.

He is a sorry excuse of a man.

You're doing so well!
We can only act on the things we know, try not to blame yourself for not noticing/acting sooner, give yourself credit for acting now you finally see the truth :)