I'm coming to the end of my counselling sessions in which my counsellor is trying to help me find a way to tell DH we need to separate. She has given me great advice, to focus on starting with small steps to speak up when something upsets me rather than just walk away, which will give me confidence to say more, rather than going from saying nothing all the way up to saying I want a divorce. This totally makes sense, but I still can't do it, and even feel like I'm going backwards.
He does know how unhappy I am, I told him almost two years ago that we just don't have a normal marriage, I feel like a single mother, and that I never want a physical relationship with him again but that I do want that in my life. It's been ten years of nothing more than house mates. I feel totally invisible as a woman. But he has said I am selfish for putting this above keeping the family together, and we have rumbled on ever since. We pretty much lead separate lives. I cook for me and the kids, he prefers to live on pot noodles and microwave meals. When I get in from work I play with the kids, do whatever they need me to do, do house jobs, make time to take them out for a run or bike ride, whereas he will lie on the sofa for the evening when he is finished his work. Or he'll go off to see a band or to the cinema like last night. We sleep in the same bed because we have to, but I am right on the edge and lay awake all night with his snoring. I know I should tell him / ask him to go and sleep on the sofa, or I should just go on the sofa, but I am trying to avoid conflict and just get through it. This is something I should be able to speak up about, and I just don't. I gave the counsellor a recent example of his behaviour that I should pull him up on, and ended up in tears of frustration that I just let it go. Me and the kids had got home from a few days away with my mum, and we got back to an empty fridge, full washing basket, and even the toilet roll holder which had fallen on the floor just as we were packing the car to go away, that was still lying on the floor. He had four days on his own and did nothing. Why did I just say nothing and go over and over it in my mind getting more and more annoyed? In silence.
If I can't speak my mind over these things, how will I ever get to suggesting we separate??? He is really difficult to talk to, and I get myself so overwhelmed anticipating his reaction, I just drop it and try to get to the next day. And the next day. I think I'm waiting for the snapping point, but it never comes. He knows I despise Nigel bloody Farage, but he will watch his videos on the telly....he will bore the pants off the kids all day with LBC or Talk Sport when he's working and they're at home....he thinks brushing his teeth once a week is ok.... the list goes on. But he never does something big, or significant, enough to justify it in my mind.
At this point I have to confess that I have done something big, and I feel like I have lost my right to make any complaint to him, and maybe this is why I can't do it. Someone came into my life, showed my what it feels like to be a woman, and I went with it. I know it was the wrong thing to do, and I'm not trying to justify it, but even my counsellor, my doctor, have told me not to beat myself up about it as I have been pushed so far in an unhappy marriage. I would love for DH to find someone and be happy. For both our sanity we would be better off going our separate ways and starting again, but he just doesn't want to, and I'm stuck.
How do I just do it? Write it down in a letter? Take him out somewhere to talk? Plan a time for this or just do it when the moment arises? Any advice please if you've been through the same? x