My marriage is over, how do I extricate myself?

[MangoSalsa]

Been posting here a long time, but changed account as he might know old NN/password.

So it’s a familiar story of it’s not been working for a long time. No sex, lots of bitter arguments and recriminations. He has hurt me a lot, but for the first time in a long time I feel calm and clear about that rather than a cycle of angry/depressed/confused mixed in with a lot of self-doubt.

Been married 7 years, I’m mid 40s, no kids. He’s a high earner, I haven’t worked for a few years due to ill-health. Finally getting on the mend with that.

So other than phone Women’s Aid tomorrow, I have no idea about the best way to actually end the marriage.

I’m looking for some practical advice and probably a bit of a handhold. I’m pretty calm now but I’m sure there are rocks and storms ahead. I could do with some support, as I have virtually none IRL.

Find a good solicitor

Do you feel you need to leave ASAP as he will be unreasonable/nasty? With you mentioning WA it sounds as though the situation is far from good?

So, you haven't told him yet, you're at the "make a plan" stage? Just so I'm clear I've understood you.

If this is a Women's Aid situation, then I'd also recommend the Freedom Programme as part of your process of both extricating yourself and rebuilding a healthier life. Www.freedomprogramme.co.uk

Thanks for responding. I don’t think I need to leave ASAP.

It’s a situation that I’ve found very cold and unfeeling for a long time, but that’s down to difference in personality rather than abuse I think. We are on very different pages about what kind of priority emotional well-being and a a happy home life should be overall.

Honestly think we’re just incompatible. It has gotten nasty in terms of fights and name calling. Nothing physical. Generally because I think we are both hurting a lot rather than a need to control etc. It’s out of a general downward spiral of things not working and outside pressures (bereavements, illnesses, work stress etc).

Is Women’s Aid solely focussed on abuse? I see it mentioned on here so often in relation to marital break-ups I maybe misunderstand.

My mum and dad got divorced. They had a very long drawn out battle. Took them 9 years to get divorced and then various financial/custody disputes went on for another 7 or 8 years. So the only real insight I have into divorce is how not to do it if you can possibly avoid it.

I haven’t formally told him I’m going. He’s be pretty stupid if he couldn’t at least guess though. He very much wants to stay together, even though we are both desperately unhappy and have been for a long time. I think we’re just incapable of making one another happy anymore. For a while I thought he was doing that man thing of saying one thing but making your life intolerable so you leave, but I don’t think so anymore. I think he’s genuinely been trying in his own way for a long time, as have I, but both of us can’t do right for doing wrong. Emotional incompetence really.

Have either of you had decent therapy/counselling?

Could it be worth drawing up a truce and seeing a counsellor together for several sessions to agree grounds rules for living together in a kind and civil environment. It may even include drawing up household tasks and responsibilities to be carried out with effort for a month and review together with a counsellor.

It may mean writing complaints down in a notebook each rather than saying them to be discussed in front of the counsellor.

I say this not because you necessarily need to stay together but it sounds like you both need individual work and you could cohabit whilst that happens if you can agree to be kind and civil and considerate towards each other.

It will be hard to break entrenched patterns and impossible without 3rd party intervention.

It was just a thought. You clearly loved each other not so long ago and have been through a lot and perhaps there is a way of supporting one another with a new level of honesty?

I was in your position in July. This was what I did, which may or may not be right for you:

1. Confide in someone - I chose my Mum - for support. Friends I told later as and when I was ready.

1. Go and see a good family solicitor to obtain some initial advice about what are your rights and entitlements. It will help you make good decisions and to strategise about how best to separate, understanding the consequences of those decisions.

1. Make up a financial plan to understand how you might / can / cannot support yourself going forward.

1. In my case, I could leave the family home without impacting any future financial settlement and so I will soon be doing this, having made a plan to do this.

You are strong and I am proud of you for making a better choice for your future

Thanks RandomMess. I’ve had counselling a few times over the years, including earlier this year and I am also currently seeing a therapist. I know I have issues and I am prepared to work on them. One of the things the last/current session of therapy has done has really made me face how unhappy my marriage is making me, I’m been trying to muddle through/deny it on and off for a long time.

Have been suggesting counselling for us as a couple at various times for the last 4 years or so. He won’t countenance it. The background he comes from is very emotionally buttoned up and it’s just totally out of his frame of reference. The last time I asked him to seriously consider it, he said that he thinks I am more articulate about emotions than him, so I would be able to communicate with the therapist better so he/she would see my side of it, not his.

I’ve tried suggesting he see a counsellor/therapist on his own for other things (work stress, family illness, historic stuff with his family- nothing too bad, just generally emotional repression) viburnum here doesn’t want to.

He has a religious background/believes in God, so I also suggested seeing a minister/seeking church based marriage guidance about our problems (even though my spiritual beliefs are different, I thought it might be a framework he would be comfortable with), but he didn’t want that.

I suggested Relate or some secular marriage guidance, he said he’d be too embarrassed if someone he knew saw us coming out/going in. I suggested trying to find someone who might do telephone or Skype based counselling as that would be more private. Even contacted a couple of people, with his knowledge/consent, to find out how that works. One of them got back to me, another one didn’t and at that point he got cold feet.

We read a lot of articles together on a US-based Christian marriage guidance site, written by a minister/therapist with years of practice (who was not at all fundamentalist, very liberal, humane kind of approach). That helped a bit for a while, as the minister/therapist was very good at getting things across in terms that resonated with my husband. But as soon as he got busy at work, all that went out of the window and got forgotten about.

We’ve tried various self-help marriage guidance approaches (at his suggestion as well as mine), they always make a wee difference initially and I get a bit encouraged. He will sometimes suggest something as an alternative to counselling if I bring that up. Then a little while later he finds it too time-consuming and gives up and I get disappointed it hasn’t worked (again).

For this interim it was more about having ground rules so you can live as a house share without hurtful things being said. It would enable you to detach more too.

You know you have done everything you could, you can't make him engage.

Thank you Poolbridge.

That’s a really good plan. I can manage steps 2-4. I’ll struggle with the confiding- both my parents are gone and they were the only family I had. We relocated a couple of years ago and I’m not that close to anyone here yet.

There is maybe someone who I really click with, but we only met a few months ago, and I know she is very concerned about her DS, DIL and GD atm, they are in straightened financial circumstances and she is helping them out. Although, I suppose if she’s confided in me about that, it does kind of mean we’re on a footing where I could confide in her.

Thank you, it was really helpful to think that through.

It helps to hear someone else says that I can’t make him engage Random. I’ve really tried everything I could think off and I’ve been running on empty for a good while now. I think the ground rules thing is a good idea, but he just won’t talk to a third party.

He’s said before It, the only person he’s ever spoken to from an emotional level in whole life. I’ve nearly left a few times but didn’t’ want to break his heart. But mine has been smashed into pieces so many times, I just can’t take any more. I know it’s been a complicating factor in my health issues.

When my marriage was ending once I emotionally detached it was actually ok sharing a house (he didn't know I was planning to leave). I was able to get on making strategic decisions for myself.

I grieved, I researched, I found myself.

I grieved, I researched, I found myself

That really strikes a chord RandomMess. The tears I have cried in the last few weeks have felt really hot, the only other time I’ve felt tears like that is when I was grieving my mum.