Told DH I want a divorce but now I'm not sure

[Trinpy]

I've been with DH 12 years and we have 2 primary school aged dcs. His job involves him working evenings and weekends, which wasn't a problem before we had kids because I worked shifts too so we would still have time together. Once our eldest got to preschool age I switched to an office job so I could be home evenings and weekends. My DH chose not to change jobs which meant the only quality time he spent with the dcs and I was 2 evenings a week. I became increasingly unhappy about this because I missed him horribly, I had no help with the dcs and I couldn't have much of a social life or hobbies because I always had to be a home with kids. I lost most of my friends and I felt increasingly isolated and depressed. We spoke multiple times about this and about how unhappy I was but nothing ever changed. I couldn't end our relationship for financial reasons and he and the kids seemed happy, so I made the choice to stay. About a year ago he managed to change his hours so he is at home for around 50% of the Saturdays in the year, which has been a huge improvement but, if I'm honest, still not what I want our relationship to be like.

Recently a few things have happened which have made me reassess things and I decided I didn't want to be with him anymore. The thought of this being my life for years to come fills me with absolute dread. I told him this week that I wanted a divorce for this and other reasons. He was initially accepting of it but he's now said he is desperate to try to make things work and has come up with a plan of how to sort the work situation. He has said he can change job roles at work to one where he works the early shifts instead, so he would be home in the evening. The downside is that this would come with a big pay drop. He also wants to do a 6 year part time degree to get a job with better hours. I feel like I should be meeting him halfway on this and seeing if things improve with the change in hours, but there are other issues in the relationship too and I'm worried I'll agree to giving it another shot only to still be miserable but now he'll have less money and a ton of student debt. I'm not sure what to do.

The other issues are: he criticises/nitpicks, he has horrible moods sometimes when the dcs wind him up and we all end up walking on eggshells around him, he can be too harsh on the dcs and I end up in the middle of it trying to calm everyone down, the sex isn't great - I've never felt any emotional connection with him during it and he doesn't bother with any foreplay unless I specifically ask for it and then it's half-hearted, he's a bad kisser and doesn't seem to want to improve, he's rubbish with talking about his feelings and if somethings bothering him he will stay in a horrible mood until I manage to persuade him to talk about it.

On the other hand, the dcs love having us all living together, he can be so sweet and thoughtful, when he's here he really is a great dad and devotes all his attention to them, he's my best friend and I love him.

But I'm also horribly depressed and I've been on antidepressants for 2 years just to help me maintain this relationship. I've no idea what to do.

Sorry it's so long

I'm no relationship expert but it sounds very much to me like you'd be happier separate and co-parenting.

Honestly if he's like that when he's at home, you're better off with him working the shifts he's currently doing.

You're lonely in your marriage, but I don't think you're lonely for him. Maybe once upon a time, but it's gone past that and frankly he sounds unpleasant to be around.

It's scary to make the jump, especially when they're making all the promises about changing, but the reality is bad-tempered bastard, crap sex and you doing all the household and emotional lifting for years and years. I'd recommend making the jump.

Thank you for your replies. I thought I was clear on what I wanted but now he's promising everything and being so lovely I'm remembering all the reasons I fell in love with him!

I says as well that he can't afford to rent on his own so I'm feeling guilty about that as well. He earns 26k and I earn 27k, cheap 2 beds where we live cost about £800-£900. I think I could just about manage, assuming I could get tax credits, but he has a car to run that he needs for work, which seems to be a constant drain on our money, so I'm not sure how he will cope.

Doesn't that just mean he could have been lovely all this time and has chosen not to be, because what, it's too much effort to be nice to you normally?

And it's only worth changing things that make you miserable at the point you're ready to end things, because you being miserable wasn't good enough reason?

What you have to remember is that you are not responsible for how he is going to manage if you get divorced.
Women tend to overthink everything including where their ex partners will live and how they will manage financially - this isn't your problem he is a grown man.
If he can't be bothered to treat you decently then by all means divorce him - concentrate on how you will manage.
Decide alone if you have enough to make the marriage work, if you don't its better to leave.

Yes, that's what really bothers me. The fact that he couldn't be bothered to do all this ages ago. I don't want to have to threaten him with divorce every time I want him to put in a bit of effort!

He does do loads of really nice things for me as well, so it's not all bad. But the bad bits are unbearable.

I feel like my view of everything is clouded too because I had a late miscarriage at 4 months pg just before xmas and I still feel a lot of resentment towards him for how he behaved during that.

It's hard not to feel responsible for his finances when he's our dcs dad and that will affect them too. But I get your point and I need to focus on myself and the children.

now he's promising everything and being so lovely I'm remembering all the reasons I fell in love with him!

Um, don't you mean 'Now he's on his best behaviour, just like he was at the beginning of our relationship so that I'd fall in love with him, before he relaxed and showed his real, nitpicking, aggressive, rigid, unaffectionate personality'?

It makes me laugh because everyone says this - not that it's a laughing matter I know!

But it's obvious.

You don't really get to know someone until you're a good couple of years in.

Real shitbags tend to be good at pretending - else they'd soon burn through friends. How many times do we hear someone say 'Oh he's sweetness and light to his mates/our family/outside the house, they'd never believe me if I said what he was like' - yep?

So the real shitbags... it tends to take even longer before you really get the dismal truth on what they are like, how their minds work. It's why so many women end up stuck.

You've seen the real him. You no like any more - unsurprisingly.

So he's backtracking like mad and back on bestie behaviour, showering you with reasons not to leave.

Yes it reminds you of the easrly days, as that's what he did then, I assume. Acted nice. Was complimentary. Didn't shit all over you. Talked politely to you. Was communicative and pleasant. Yes, of course he would be. Otherwise - no catchee girlfriend.

Seeing him 'revert' like this should be the opposite of reminding you 'why you fell in love with him'. What it shows you is 'how you were strung along'.

Leave him. Your children will grow up happier.

If you stick around, threat of divorce removed, the chances are he will quickly sink back into complacency where you are there to be the emotional punchbag and things will be back as they were.

Because his default pattern is to do what suits him, and ignore how you're feeling about things. It doesn't come easily to him to consider you or just be bloody nice to you, and that shouldn't be hard when it's someone you're supposed to love. I mean, that's a basic. The default should be being nice to your spouse, call me idealistic .

You say you've been on anti-ds for 2 years to cope in the relationship. That's not right, you shouldn't have to medicate yourself to stay married.

If he changes shifts and starts a 6 year part-time degree (6 years!) you're probably going to feel obliged to stick around for that elusive, far-away day where he finally gets a better job and everything is rosy, even if in the meantime he reverts to form. It seems a very much "jam tomorrow" plan, and I'm not sure if you will benefit much from it in the interim.

If you do decide to stay, you need to have the scope to rebuild a social life, hobbies and to take up opportunities in work and life. But I'd be very doubtful about his change in behaviour sticking.

Thank you. I think this is what I needed to hear to remind myself of why I wanted to leave him in the first place.

I don't talk about my relationship with anyone so my friends and family will all think I've lost my mind, throwing away a good marriage like this.

If it helps, OP, it doesn’t really sound like a good marriage.

That does help Dery. Although hard to hear!

If you take ANY advice from these Mumsnet Message Boards OP, then let it be this.

DO NOT take any advice from the largely Mumsnet man hating feminists on here.

Do what you think is right for you - only you know your relationship.

Would counselling be a good idea?

I'd be suspicious of him changing his work shifts... he's made it sound like he's changing for you. In reality it looks like he's changing his shifts to enable him to do a part-time degree. So actually nothing will change. He's swapping long work hours to long study hours.

I told my exH I was unhappy when married. It got ignored because he couldn't cope with it whilst I kept spiralling. When I finally brought it up again and it was clear that divorce was a possibility, only then sid he suddenly want to make changes. By then it was too little too late. I'd been unhappy for a long time. I'd said some things I hadn't liked and nothing changed because it didn't suit him to change them. Only when divorce was a possibility was the motivation there. I told him I didn't want to fix it. We limped along for another few months but I did finally end it. I just felt relieved.

I also worried before that how he would afford to live, where he would live etc but like others have said, they are adults and more than capable of being responsible for themselves.

@JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn

I'd be suspicious of him changing his work shifts... he's made it sound like he's changing for you. In reality it looks like he's changing his shifts to enable him to do a part-time degree. So actually nothing will change. He's swapping long work hours to long study hours.

That's how I read it too.

The anger and moods, what sets him off?
With his job, sounds like he kept in it as it was a steady income and he doesn’t like change, and wasn’t confident to change jobs Is that why he hasn’t previously bitten the bullet and enrolled in study to move into another career.

You say he's your best friend, but you don't have to walk on eggshells around a best friend. And do you want to be walking on eggshells through six years of studying?

@Trinpy thanks so much for starting this thread. I feel I resonate with a good 80%, probably main difference is I've stopped wanting to him to be home and the negativity, critique of anything I do, nitpicking just as ground me down.

Instead of AD I think I've drank to cope, not a lot, maybe 2 glasses of wine just to numb everything. But I'm doing dry January and I feel like I can't escape anymore and I don't want him here. Everyday I dread him coming in from work, the house is happier without him.

Even at our happiest I can honestly say I am only with him for the kids. It's the only thing we have in common.

Can I ask how you even started that conversation with him, I know my DH will start shouting, deflecting, saying that I'm a dreamer because we have everything (house, lovely kids, nice holidays etc)

No doubt come on the radio yesterday whilst driving and I just burst into tears...

Funny how I blind myself
I never knew

Oh, I'd tell myself
What good do you do?
Convince myself

Oh, It's my life
Don't you forget
Oh, It's my life

Oh it's just so easy to plod on, but I feel like I wasting away.

So how do you actually start this conversation in a relationship that has ceased to have any emotional connection

@midsummabreak the moods are set off by the kids usually. Our eldest in particular can be quite hard work sometimes and DH will just lose it. He's thrown/smashed their toys, hit them, etc. It's not every day, not even every week, but it's not something I agree with at all. When we spoke about this the other day he said that when he got angry like that it was usually because something else was bothering him at the time. I have told him before that I find him scary/intimidating when he's like this but he doesn't really understand why. He would never hit me, I believe that, so he can't understand why I would ever be scared of him. His parents were borderline abusive to him growing up and I know this is learned behaviour. I honestly think he would be ok if he got some therapy to address this but he won't.

He didn't look into retraining or changing jobs because he was scared. He has had a lot of problems with work before and been bullied horribly so I can understand why he felt apprehensive about trying something new, but it does also sting a bit that he wouldn't even try.

@spongebobscaredypants I'm sorry you're going through similar . My DH had picked up on something being different because I stopped having sex with him or kissing him a couple of months ago and I suppose my behaviour was just different around him. I had one conversation with him after the kids were in bed where I went through all the things in our relationship that were making him unhappy. Then a week later I sat down with him and said I was miserable, I'd thought a lot about it and decided it was best that we end our marriage. It was very difficult to say the words, but I felt much happier when I did. He wanted me to list, again, everything that was wrong. I thought he would get angry, as that is usually how he reacts when I try to talk to him about how I'm feeling but he just seemed sad.

Thank you for everyone's replies. I've read and reread each of them and I'm thinking them over carefully.

Do you think Hes let it get to the point of no return? Too little too late?
Its not like you didnt try and talk to him about it before.

I would consider relatiomship therapy before divorce though and once lockdown is over, maybe trying to get away together as a couple to have a last chance at reconnecting

Tbh, given his behaviour around the kids, you need to leave him. I'm quite shocked you're doubting leaving.

They're growing up with a scary, violent, unpredictable, abusive father, and while you stay you're telling them the way he behaves is OK. It's not OK. If he was smashing your things and hitting you, you'd know it was domestic violence. Why is it acceptable to happen to the children?