Divorce - how did you decide?

[Fulbe]

It seems silly to be asking a group of strangers this but I have no friends who've been in this situation, they're they're all either single or reasonably happily married.

How did you make the final decision to divorce (or not)?

Husband has long-standing mental health problems, and I've been propping him up for years. When we had our DD 2 years ago I focused on looking after her instead, plus the stress of COVID he had a mental health breakdown and has been angry, hostile and unpleasant on and off since then. Everything's fine as long as I make the effort to keep things calm and happy but I don't care enough about him to do so anymore.

I have only been staying with him because of childcare and hoping things might get better. We have similar values and have been very happy in the past. I've been with him since I was 18, which is 19 years ago. I'm not sure how long to persist in case things improve and I wouldn't even know where to start being on my own.

Thank you for reading, and thanks in advance for your advice.

I haven't decided yet. This morning alone he has been such a pig, so full of self pity, so deeply annoying that I have resolved to myself to leave him after Christmas. And then an hour later he picked up our DS and gave him this huge cuddle and I saw DS face grinning saying "daddy daddy" (he is 2)...and all my resolve disappeared and now I'm back to "hoping things get better/can't bear to do it to the DC/he will horrible in divorce". Mine also has terrible MH. Anxious. Angry. Defensive. No ambition, no resilience. Depends on me for everything.

Anyway. I'm no hope to you. Just hear to say there are others out there who are equally conflicted

I decided too late, DC are teenagers. Its been a horrendous year since telling stbx. I wish I had done it when they were smaller.

However we (me and the kids) have now been living in our own peaceful home for a week and the tension is starting to lift from us all.

Good luck

Elbows and Fulbe

You do realise that the only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none. And Fulbe, you're carrying a manchild whom you no longer have to prop up or otherwise enable as you have done. Enabling has helped no-one here and has only given you a false sense of control.

Both of you should make plans to leave your respective husbands. They read as abusive and such men are angry because they are abusive, not because they are angry (and besides which MH issues are no excuse to treat either of you, and in turn your children who pick up on all the vibes here so very badly). I would also think both men behave quite differently to people in the outside world and come across as quite plausible.

Fear of him, fear of the unknown, money problems etc are three of many reasons why people stay in marriages that should have long since ended. Do not stay in such a marriage because of or for the children; they will not say thanks mum to you for doing that. MN itself has numerous threads from adults stating that they wished their parents had separated when they were far younger rather than stay together because of them. Feel your very real fears and do it anyway. Do not get roped in either by some short term apparant niceness to the children; these men are not good fathers to their kids because they treat you as these children's mothers so very badly.

Friends staged an intervention...after 13 years of subtle digs, he failed to be quite so subtle at a party which lead to them taking me aside and telling me how wrong it was.
I think the realisation that others could see it, and that I was being totally gaslighted into thinking he never really meant what he had said or I was overreacting was liberating and gave me the boost I needed.