So lost!

[Lexx2371]

I’ve been married for 15 years (together for 18 years), and for the last 5 of those years I have been so desperately unhappy in my marriage.

My husband will be the most caring and helpful person to a complete stranger but when it comes to me he couldn’t care less.

My husband is a recovering alcoholic. We spent the first 4 years of our relationship (1 year of marriage), dealing with his excessive drinking which resulted in two stints at rehab. At the time I was 19yo to 22yo (my husband is 13 years my senior). We got through this and he gave up drinking. He suffers from depression and his family believe he has undiagnosed ADHD. On a typical day he won’t get out of bed until 10am (he works for himself). I feel this is mainly because he doesn’t go to bed until the early hours of the morning. He will then go out and do some gardening and then he may decide to go play golf. At weekends he tends to go fishing. I don’t begrudge him having hobbies, but whilst he is living this life I am up at 6am everyday, sorting out our 7yo daughter, taking her to school, working full time, taking our daughter to clubs and doing the cooking and cleaning. By Friday I’m dead on my feet. I ask for help but get told I work behind a desk so I can’t be that tired. He contributes very little money towards bills so I’m left juggling debt most months. We never go out and socialise because he doesn’t like to. The amount of times we have been intimate in the last 5 years I could count on one hand.

I’ve tried to talk to him about how I feel but I get the same response every time ‘you should be grateful for what I give you as no one else could give you this life’ (he is referring to the fact we have a mortgage free house because he inherited it when his father passed away).

I don’t care about material things all I want is equality in the relationship and love! Neither of which is there.

I have asked him to see a doctor to get help for depression and to check he has nothing undiagnosed but he refuses and tells me I’m mental.

I know deep down I should leave him but I just feel so guilty for our daughter. She loves us both so much and I think she would be devastated if we separated.

So what do I do?

Should I just keep going on the way I am until our daughter is grown?

What is the best thing to do in this situation? I just feel trapped and like a lose a piece of myself everyday.

If anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it!

Sorry for the long post!

Thanks
L

I would plan your exit from this relationship and ASAP. I would also urge you to contact Al-anon as well as a Solicitor.

This is no role model of a relationship to be showing your daughter. Why do you think she would be devastated if you were to leave her dad?. You think this, it’s not necessarily the case for her. Staying with him will just cause you and in turn she more misery, have you not suffered enough already?. Reading all this made me wonder what you yourself learnt about relationships when you were growing up, did you see similar in your childhood?.

She is also not the arbiter of your relationship and you should not stay with him just because of your daughter. She cannot afford to grow up thinking that a loveless relationship is her norm too. She also will not say “thanks mum” to you for staying with him. You’re as caught up in his alcoholism as he is and you’ve been playing the roles associated with such spouses I.e codependent partner, enabler and provoker (because you never forget).

I think you need to be honest with yourself: you are utterly miserable and he will not change.

You say you think your daughter would be devastated if you split, but I'm sure she has picked up on the toxic atmosphere. Ask yourself if you want her to accept so little from a partner in the future, because she is learning about relationships from her parents.

Would you consider some counselling for yourself? 10 years is a long time to stay in an unhappy and unhealthy relationship. I think you need to think of your own happiness because right now you are sacrificing that on the thought your daughter would not cope.

It is difficult to exit any relationship that is unhealthy, don’t waste your life!

You and your daughter can be happy if you divorce. It’s no way to live.

Please do not use your daughter as an excuse not to leave.

She deserves a better relationship model than this.

You leave the lazy, abusive , paedophilic wanker and live your own life

You can go out and socialise without him you know.

Fuck this shit - i left a situation exactly like this when my health started to suffer due to exhaustion. Life is much better now, i have an equal relationship with a genuinely supportive partner. Yes it was hard and things were dreadful for a long time while i dug myself out of the hole, but NO regrets! You are not on this earth to facilitate this man's lazy lifestyle!

I didn't prepare very well and made things harder for myself, i just jumped - if you plan, you could have a smoother ride?

My God! The thing that strikes me when I read a lot of these posts on Mumsnet is have men lost their way? Why are so many men incapable of behaving like decent, kind, caring, responsible human beings? What makes some of them entitled, arrogant, immature twats? Some of this must come down to upbringing. I have two grown sons and they would never behave this way! And if it's down to upbringing, is the responsibility for this down to inadequate parenting, inadequate mothers? I don't know the answer, but I think it's time the decent men made a stand against this. Too much misogyny, too much violence against women, not enough equality. What the hell is happening to society??!