Any advice on this please

[Ohmyhead]

After 10 years together I’ve had a difficult couple of years with my husband (he had a breakdown, we’ve had financial problems, emotional affair, he hasn’t treated me right) however I have stuck it out because I love him, want my family to stay together, the relationship we used to have before all problems was good and I realise I pushed him away as a result of his behaviour with the ongoing problems at that time. I also don’t believe life and relationships are a fairytale and need worked on. Coming out of the other end of all of these problems I can see things have stabilised but we haven’t reconnected and got to a better place. I’ve tried to suggest new activities to do over the past couple of years, things which don’t cost as well such as a walks together but it doesn’t happen. Our last date or time alone together away from home was June 2019. He invests no time in me but has fixed the damaged relationship with the children and will do family days together. I’m unhappy here and can’t live the rest of my life in this way, he has changed, I wouldn’t have stayed if I knew this was what it would be like. I’m so emotional (teary) and do get frustrated and angry at his responses (shouty) - these are my shortcomings and I have to work on myself with this. I wasn’t this way before all of the troubles. That’s the background information and now I don’t know what to make of this...

So because of the lack of improvements I’ve been asking him questions and have had lots of conversations with him to try to get to the bottom of things. He isn’t the best at communicating his feelings and doesn’t answer any question in a straightforward way. Basically he said we don’t have a spark, have no fun together, are boring together ( he speaks of himself being boring) no shared interests (he doesn’t have any hobbies) and our relationship is okay/we get on so he is prepared to stay because the positives of staying together outweigh the negatives in his head. Positives being living with the kids and seeing them everyday, keeping the house and apparently all females are the same and he’d have all the same problems with another woman after about 6 months. He then listed positive qualities he thought about me (best mum he’d seen, loving, caring, fun with friends, good cook, etc) also said he does love me and wants to be together the rest of our days. My response to this was it’s not good enough, why would you accept such a mediocre relationship for the rest of your days? He said it’s his opinion, things might get better and if not he is okay with that. He also said he’d said in the past things would change and then it hasn’t so now he is saying he won’t change and this is how it is and will be but he won’t leave me. So if we split up it’ll be because I break up with him. I just don’t understand.

There is definitely no affair or other woman and he doesn’t really go out other than to work.

Anyone got any advise or experience with this?

Your husband is all kind of things as you describe. But he is happy with the marriage. You have told him everything that is wrong and he is still ok with it.

You are the one who doesn’t like him or the marriage. If you want it to end, you can make that happen. Why do you want him to take responsibility for this. He doesn’t need to and he doesn’t want to and you can’t make him.

There is no need to stay in an unhappy marriage. The housing issues can be resolved. The children will be fine. The decision is yours. Stay unhappy or make plans to leave.

He sounds like a selfish drain - as long as he is content then things are ok....

you’ve been supporting him through his mental health crisis and he blames you for his life not being exciting or having common hobbies. He doesn’t want to put any work into bringing the spark back. Are you just there to provide childcare, food, clean house & sex?

His comments about all women being the same are troubling...he is content with what he perceives to be good enough/average, without taking onboard any responsibility that he is the reason things are only average.

Who had the emotional affair?

@LemonTT most of what I have written are his words. And he speaks of himself to be selfish and not knowing how to have a relationship. What do you make of that? I did end the relationship last night over what he said but just wanted an outside perspective incase I am missing something or making a mistake. The confusion in my head is perhaps being caused because he didn’t used to be like this. I feel the split will be dragged out for a long time by him and we’ll be living together in this for months. It’s not what I want but don’t feel I haven’t much choice because I can’t accept this.

@vikingwife he did but was it was naive and one sided. The other person was oblivious.

Does it matter the other person didn’t realise? He still did whatever he did. You don’t usually hear people describe emotional affairs as just their partner “being naive” !

I think the important thing here is you said if you knew it would be like this, you would not have wanted to stay together.

How do you feel when you have alone time away from him? Do you feel better when he is say, asleep & you have the house to yourself? Do you generally enjoy his company?

He sounds really selfish & I have a mental health disorder, but am loathe to use it as an excuse & dislike when other people default back to their mental health problems as excuses for bad behaviour or being selfish, shitty people.

Also it sounds like he sees you as a mother figure type role possibly?

You’re helping him through his issues, finance problems, taking care of the kids & it sounds like he wants to just play with the kids & label you as boring, that’s not fun if you’ve been holding the relationship up on your own & trying to make it work.

Can I ask do you work? Does he stay at home? What would single life looks for you financially?

Anyone who says the children will be fine has not read papers saying the opposite. Children will not be ‘fine’. What they may seem like is often not how they are in their heads. Professional counciling I do proves this. Your marriage is failing, that’s down to the pair of you. It’s also ultimately your choice to quit or stay. If you stay, it’s not guaranteed you will remain unhappy, despite comments on here. You will know what the right thing to do is. You are a grown up, take charge.

@vikingwife very true, it still happened, it was devastating for me. I can’t say too much on it without being outing but it happened during the stressful dark time which seen him have a mental breakdown. She was telling him what he wanted to hear and I was saying reality which was harder/impossible to deal with. He this week has started to deny this predicament he got himself in. I see his mental health is good now.

The time we rarely spend together is nice but it happens when he literally has nothing else to do and won’t commit or arrange to do something in advance. He’s not prepared to put in time to us because he is fine with how it is. Generally I think he is a good man but Is unkind and disrespectful to me which I’ve put up with for a long time now due to his mental health struggles and our financial situation/childcare situation at this time in our lives.

I have felt like I’ve been put as the role of mum over the years. I have stopped picking his clothes up off of the floor, tidying away his mess etc because I’ve found it to become disrespectful and out of laziness rather than being unintentionally done. He whistled at me the other day and pointed at his plate for me to pick up but couldn’t understand why I was offended.

Since we had our children I’ve been at home with the kids. I will go back to work after this summer once school starts. Not the best time to be job hunting after a break in employment but will go with whatever I can find and hopefully get the job. I have an income from elsewhere (prior to our relationship) but the funds aren’t readily available so it would take time to get them. Also it’s not a good time to sell and I’d lose the income which would be beneficial if I’m a single parent. He pushed me to be a stay at home parent as he was willing to do none of the childcare. I’m happy to have had the time with the kids though so don’t have ill feeling towards him with this. I guess just feel silly for putting myself in a vulnerable situation financially when my marriage is now falling apart now.

@Squeakyjoint I do have concerns this decision will impact on my children. And saddened my marriage appears to be over.

He is now continuing on as if I haven’t said we are over.