To divorce when older - Slow boil divorce

[Sciencebabe]

I seem to be on a slow boil to divorce.

Slight background: My husband is military. We have just bought our dream home. I am due to give birth this week to our third child. We have been together 9yrs, married 6 1/2yrs.

I just constantly feel disconnected from him. I am a very educated and competent woman. I know how to do a lot of things and if I don't know then I love to research and learn. Living alone majority of the time, I raise our children alone, handle the house and bills alone, work full time and build my career alone.

My husband is very selfish, mysoginistic, internal. Never asks for or takes my advice, in fact whenever he gives home he runs my advice down as 'what do you know' unimportance, to the point where we can't have a conversation about anything, even about raising the children.

The biggest thing at the moment is the issue of renovating the house. My husband is neither skilled, not smart in any area of life and work outside of the army and it's really getting to me that he can't seem to do anything right, yet will belittle me when I try to do it myself or give him advice. Now, I don't mean 'Can't do anything the way I want it done'. No. I mean, 'Causes more damage, more cost to us, upsets the children, makes the house look awful and constantly looks to me to fix his mistakes'. He thinks he can do all things because he is male. I feel like I am married to a stranger. To an idiot. I make every effort to have a nice house, improve our lives, build our social status, and I feel like he makes every effort to pull it all down.

Recently I can't help but think I've married the wrong man. I'm tired of this attitude. I'm tired of constantly defending my intelligence. 'Why don't you earn as much as me if you're so smart' is what I get from him. Not even taking in to account that I've given up my career and followed him with the army for six years, or am about to have our third child. In 6 yrs or parenting, I have had about 6 months of not bringing in an income. I have grown and birthed children whilst at uni and full time work, I have given up motherhood bonding to go back to work so I feel validated in my existence as he pulled me down for not working as much as he did straight after birth. I feel that he had no idea about our girls emotional or mental needs for parents to be there for them at home.

He says his needs are simple. He wants me to be sexy and slim. If I put weight on in pregnancy he accuses me of turning in to my mum as she is obese due to medical reasons and he hates fat people. Wants me to raise our children to be perfect physically and mentally. Wants me to bring in £30+k a year. Wants me to keep a perfect house. Wants me to want sex with him every day. Wants me to make our savings pot huge whilst not compromising on quality of life at home (food/clothing brands). But what is he bringing to the plate? Bad sex. Bad attitude. Unwillingness to learn how to improve himself with education or personality. And he blows up at me and talks to me like shit from time to time. I'm not sexually attracted to him anymore. There's no mental connection. No friendship.

Why haven't I left yet? We are married and I'm TRYING to make it work. We have three children and they would never have this quality of life if I was a single parent. I love my home, I love my children, but sometimes I wish he would have an accident at work and die. That feels so bad to think that. I just feel sometimes that I want an easy release from him that doesn't involve me having to leave. I can't leave whilst the children are young.

I just want to know, from older women. Is it ok to stay and bide your time until you don't have to be a parent anymore? Is it ok to just hold out for the good of the children and separate when they leave home and have established lives themselves? I see a of couples separate once their children are old enough. Is this the reason why? A slow boil out of parenthood? I don't want another relationship. I don't want to leave and get a council house. I don't want to take young children away from their father. I just want to feel respected, valued and treated with kindness and intelligence that is completely lacking in my marriage. Is it worth holding out for the next 10yrs?

I've done exactly what you propose, and am left wondering what is left for me in life now. The sacrifices weren't easy, but nothing is. If I had divorced him earlier, then I would still be regretting things. What I am saying I guess, is that you should choose which regret you are able to live with. And whilst I am unhappy with much in my life, I still think it was the correct thing to do.

Quorafun Can I ask, were there dc involved in this decision and if so, did they realise what was happening?

All I can see in your posts is "I will do this, I will do that, I I I I" - and no mention of how your future plans are going to long-term affect your children - and believe me, as someone who lived through what your planning, thanks to my awful parents, it WILL affect them for the rest of their lives.

My mother stayed with my father during lots of moves around the world - not military, diplomatic service - and even stayed with him for another decade after he tried to dump her, myself and my two brothers on the other side of the world to get away from family life. His plan was foiled at the very last minute - to this day, 41 years later, I still wish it wasn't.

I think even less of my mother than I do of my father. She could of stood up for all of us and ended the charade at least 10 years before she did, but she wanted to keep the lifestyle, the husband. Her marriage meant more to her than her 3 children. It wasn't even her that finally ended it, he left for another woman when I was 21.

Why have you had 2 more children with a man you so obviously hate?

I stayed OP , I was married for 23 years . We married when I was 22 and I was so in love but it was never an equal love , he slowly over the years destroyed what I felt for him by his controlling ways , I used to dream of running away or him finding someone else .
To the outside we had the perfect marriage and I masked it for the children's sake until the last year when the kids were about 18-19 and he was ill . He was taken to hospital on Christmas Day and didn't come out again until the may after . I'd been on my own all those months and loved it .
I realised I could be on my own that I didn't need him and my kids could make their own choices about where to live .
When he came out of hospital he told me to leave because I didn't want to have sex with him so I ran ,I got my own house (rental) with the help of family and my best friend and never looked back.
Everyone was so shocked as I'd hidden it so well and it took a while for my daughter to understand why I'd left but now 10 years later I have a fantastic relationship with my children and I've never seen him again. I am in a relationship with a wonderful man who absolutely loves me and I don't regret staying instead of going .
Your life must be on your terms if you want to stay then do so but make sure you plan and save for the day you leave . Good luck with what ever you decide xxxx

He's a narcissist.

You survive long periods along as a single mum whilst he's working away and have a full time income.Without his income you'll receive child benefit and tax credits for your children.You'll also receive child maintenance from him;he can't give CMS the runaround as he has a secure public sector job so can't hide his earnings.You'll be okay financially.

It honestly sounds as though your happier when he isn't around.He has easy access to alternative accommodation if you kick him out;he can move to barracks.

You and your children can lay down roots and you can stop trailing after him.It doesn't sound like he'll be overly interested when it comes to custody of the kids anyway.

As for "if your so smart why don't you earn as much as me";your full time job doesn't involve working away for months at a time/putting your life in danger and is a job not a way of life unlike his so yes you earn less than him.

There are better men out there,nicer men and yes men who'll be interested in a single mum of 3.

Get yourself through maternity leave and the pandemic then fuck him off.

but sometimes I wish he would have an accident at work and die

Lovely, your experience day to day, week to week, year to year is very bad if you get to this point.

When I realised, chillingly, that I would be relieved not sorry if the police came to the door and told me there'd been an accident, I realised that the marriage was never going to work, for different reasons than yours though.

we were together 12 years in all, ive been out 18 months and im only now beginning to regain some green shoots of my initiative and ability to enjoy anything. I have still to regain any faith at all in my own judgement or the feeling that I might be valuable in myself.

What made it absolutely 100% clear that it was the right decision to separate was that my ex-MIL said that we are better parents apart than together. The relationship with my kids has improved too; apart from anything else, it's easier to laugh without him here.

That's me but I suspect you are in the same position. Getting to the point where you find yourself almost hoping for an accident is a strong warning sign that you need out, lovely.

Christ Op. I could have written this, accept I have fewer kids. Why do arseholes of men think they deserve it all. Sexy slim woman, does all the housework, does all the childcare, rushes around after them, earns good money, bends over backwards for their family etc.
My partner is exactly the same, it made me shiver to read this. No advice but a hand hold from me