End of a long marriage, but no clue how to tackle the practicalities

[lonelynfrustrated]

I’ve name changed for what will quickly become obvious reasons, but have been here for many years.

Been married for coming up 20 years, two teens, one of whom will hopefully be off to uni next year, the other one coming up to GCSE year. It’s been a very tough 20 years – maybe the first 4 were truly happy but then he left the armed forces and everything just slowly fell apart. I couldn’t do anything about it for several years as we lived in his home country and not only was I there on a spouse visa sponsored by him, but if I had left then I would not have been allowed to take the kids with me. We finally moved to my home country (as I was breadwinner and got a job here) a few years ago.

DH is massively depressed (though won’t seek help), has piled on several stone in weight and now suffers from what the GP reckons is GERD, adult-onset asthma, and sleep apnoea. The sleep apnoea is currently under investigation but is bad enough that I often sleep on the sofa at the other end of the house and he still keeps me awake with the racket.

He also has developed total ED over the last 5 years (and frequent ED for the 4 years before that) though refuses to seek any help over this; on one occasion I convinced him to try OTC Viagra but it had zero effect and he was mortified so it was never mentioned again.

He is loud and shouty and has no patience, frequently gets in our child’s face to scream. There are frequent complaints at work about him being ‘intimidating’ and I live in perpetual fear of him being fired for it.

When he has time off work he sits and plays on the PS4, or sleeps. Over the years I’ve tried asking if he wants to do stuff together, go out, find a shared interest, and he simply says ‘my plan is just to get through tomorrow’. He’s financially irresponsible and a liability, I am forever finding bills he hasn’t paid (I pay all household bills for this reason but he opens store cards without me knowing and doesn’t pay them, or doesn’t pass along the mobile phone bill to be paid etc).

We now live as affable housemates and co-parent as well as we can. There is precisely zero intimacy or physical affection (there might be a kiss on top of the head as he goes to bed but that’s it) and I haven’t had sex for at least 7 years (possibly longer but that’s when I started ‘counting’). I have a decent sex drive and this is driving me to distraction. I feel unloved, unattractive, lonely, and increasingly desperate. I see sex scenes on the telly and get tearful! I’m in the middle of the menopause and always hoped this would kill my libido so I could ‘match’ his, but my drive is increasing, not decreasing!

We have no spare room for me to move into, otherwise I would have been there years ago. I am the main breadwinner and always have been, he is on a zero hours contract and not interested in trying to get onto a more stable footing at work (which concerns me as his health is taking a massive nosedive and I can foresee a time when he will be out of work with no sick leave etc and totally dependent on me). There is no way he could take on the house mortgage on his income; I could, and could buy him out (just!), but he’ll never agree to leave.

I just want him to be gone. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him, not least as it would devastate the kids, but I want to be able to rebuild a life for myself without living under the huge black cloud he drags around with him. I could take on the house and all costs at a stretch, I don’t even want maintenance etc from him. But I also want the kids to have some security and not have to move home during exam years, and in any case couldn’t afford to move me and the kids somewhere else yet still pay towards the house mortgage so he can stay here. I certainly don’t want to leave him and the kids in the house and go myself as a) he is way too aggressive and shouty towards them and b) I couldn’t afford to rent a home that could accommodate visits from the kids AND pay my share of the mortgage AND pay him maintenance, I don’t earn anywhere near enough.

I’m so stuck, and so miserable. I just turned 50 and it feels as though my life should just be beginning. Instead, I just see years of drudge and misery until one of us gives up and dies! For years I promised myself I’d sort this out when both kids were in school and didn’t need childcare / when I got us out of his home country / when both kids were at secondary school / when eldest had done their GCSE’s…… and here we are. The big milestone for me was ‘when he has a decent job of his own so he can support himself’ and that has never happened, and is highly unlike to now. If he does end up living on his own, he will end up living in squalor and povery, I'm sure of it. There’s simply never been a ‘good’ time.

Two years ago we paid for marriage counselling, went every 2 weeks for 6 months and he would not only not do the exercises we were set, but would lie about it and say he’d done them. I would be sat next to him whilst he 'looked' at a blank page in an empty notebook and ‘read out’ his responses to the questionnaire or whatever we had been set. I eventually said to him, that to show me he was committed he could arrange the next appointment. That was 18 months ago and I’m still waiting.

Day to day we struggle on, are friendly to one another and do things for one another (he mows the lawn, I do his laundry, etc). We’ll even have ‘good’ days where we get along just fine as ‘friends’, kids are happy, there are no arguments, and then I’ll think I’m exaggerating to myself how bad things are. But I want a ‘partner’ in life, someone to go out and go places, shared interests, and I most definitely want a love life.

What do I do? Where do I start?

You've already had lots of great advice OP.

My twopenceworth is that all of us who are now out of 20+yr marriages with teens understand. It's hard to separate something which has existed so long.

But you can, and you will. 1 step at a time dear girl. Take each day as it comes and be resolute in moving forward.

All the best.

@whereiwanttobe

Exactly this. ALL my friends have cheered and gone 'AT LAST!!' and are cheering me on!

I am scared for my future and there is so much to sort out (we are still in the same house) but fuck me I am overwhelmed with relief and feelings of freedom.

Op - come and join us on the freedom side!

Oh @lonelynfrustrated I could cry for you. How bloody unbelievably awful :( My position is very similar to yours, very very similar, and I don't want to be stuck here forever either. But every time I feel like I'm going to make the announcement, something happens and the momentum is lost. I would say to you, build your momentum, remember everything that makes you feel so unhappy, and let it out. I often find I forget things he's done and then just let it go as if it's too late to say anything. I bet you always feel as if you're being unreasonable / overreacting / unfair / seeing his side of things and not yours. I do all of this.
I too want to stay in the house and minimise disruption to my kids (14 and 10) and have sorted my mortgage application with my building society. The form is literally there in my inbox to be signed, unfortunately he will obviously have to sign it too, but it's there. And the solicitor I spoke to for my half hour advice session says if I want to stay in the family home, that's exactly what will happen. DH may refuse to go, but in the end, meaning if it goes to court, it would come out in my favour, not his. If this is what you want, please find a solicitor and tell them. They will make it happen, even if it's just a letter strongly advising him to leave and avoid unnecessary court costs.
It will never ever be a good time to do this. Never. Like today for example - having walked out of the house on Thursday night for an unannounced weekend away at his friend's house, he breezed back in yesterday as if he'd just popped to the shops, and having been out two nights earlier in the week, one of those night being our wedding anniversary, he's emailed me (that's our only communication channel) to say we're invited to his sister's 60th birthday party in July, and shall we book our hotel for the journey down. As if everything is perfectly fine. It's knocked the wind out of my sails again, and I feel like I have to just go along with it...... Both me and you have to say no. No. It stops now. We've got the rest of our lives to live. And like you, I want some love in that life. Build your momentum, take a deep breath, and do it xx

This is so depressing, you can’t live like this. Get a solicitor and get everything in place before you tell him.
if he’s cross he shouldn’t be cross at himself for letting this happen.
it won’t get better OP - stay strong and get divorced. You deserve better

Ladies, the lesson is obvious: don't marry a loser that can't hold down a proper job. Love never lasts, wealth does.

And agree with PP who said you don’t need to take the first solicitor you see. Interview a few! You may pick up different aspects too. There are some poor solicitors out there. Mine could never even say or spell my name correctly in correspondence. Left me also to be interviewed by a junior legal exec. I got shot of her pronto.

And agree with PP who said you don’t need to take the first solicitor you see. Interview a few! You may pick up different aspects too. There are some poor solicitors out there. Mine could never even say or spell my name correctly in correspondence. Left me also to be interviewed by a junior legal exec. I got shot of her pronto.

Dear OP, I separated from my ex over a year ago after being together for more then 25 years. I started going to counseling, I started meditating, I did everything I could to support myself emotionally and mentally as this is really hard thing to do. I also met with a solicitor, and she helped with separation agreement. These days we will be applying for a divorce (surprisingly enough, he suggested we do the “joint” one, not sure why because up to this point, I was doing all the heavy lifting).

That period before I came out and said it, those months while we still lived together in the same house and a few weeks after he left, were hell. This is an honest truth. I was riddled with anxiety, pain, guilt, hurt, I had physical aches and pains. I though I was going to get sick and die, that is how much in pain I was. But once I admitted to myself that my marriage was over I never looked back, never once questioned my decision, doubted it. I loved my ex so much for so long, but he destroyed that love with his selfish, controlling, abusive behavior. That was that.

@whereiwanttobe Your story is so similar to mine. I also “gifted” my self a divorce for my 50th bday. Well, not really but it literally came to me when I was turning 50 that I did not want to put up with his BS any more, or anyone else’s for that matter. I, however, started therapy and these sessions helped clear my head, confirm what is happening to me is a form of abuse that was damaging for me and my kids, and realize I did not want to “work it out”. Like you I just came and said it and he was shocked. I hear this a lot here on MN, men being surprised when their wives tell them they want divorce. You know, I do not think that these men are blind, stupid or delusional. I do not think that they do not see that their spouses are not happy, it is that they never think it possible for a woman to actually do something about it, to stand up for herself, to end the marriage. They think that they can do whatever and get away with it.

You're absolutely right, I do feel responsible for him and I'm realising I shouldn't. I've long felt as though I have 3 children not 2, and who wants to be a mother to their spouse? That's what it feels like, though...

Our situations do sound quite similar. How are so many of us in this situation?!

Yes, I do absolutely have days where I think "I cannot do this for one more day" but then the next day will be 'OK' and so I find myself thinking I must be overreacting and I'm being silly. But then when I write it all down here in one place and read it back, I see how absolutely insane it is.

It's the boiing frog analogy, I think - one small thing and then another and another, and then suddenly you're here and wondering how the heck someone reasonably intelligent who can certainly support herself and kids and has a responsible job, has turned into an exhausted, resentful drudge. Well, that's speaking for myself, of course....but, my team at work absolutely would never guess that this is my life and that this is 'me' outside of work.

I absolutely agree! However people change over the span of 20+ years together....when we met, my H had a responsible and reasonably paid role in the armed forces. I always out-earned him but that in itself didn't bother me as he contributed very fairly to the household. He was highly respected and good at his job (mostly, I see now, beause it involved shouting at people and making them do what he wanted). I could never have imagined things would turn out this way.

I also left a long marriage at your age. FWIW both XDH and I are now happily remarried to much more suitable partners and I am loving life.

My "process" was

• do my homework and have a rough plan - how much £ did we have, what was the settlement likely to be, could I live on that, what about the kids.


• have some solo counselling to help think it through and gather my strength and have an unbiased outlet


• tell him it was over, and stand firm. Be prepared for all the stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, sadness) and not fall for any of them


• focus on separation/living separately, not divorce. If at all humanely possible try to live separately asap - find a flat so you can 'nest', be realistic about selling the house, whatever (I didn't and it was a big mistake, but the housing market was crap at the time)


• settle down to separate lives, weather the short term storms


• do the divorce paperwork (we didn't divorce until 6 years after splitting up)


• live happily ever after

Deep breath, you can do this, look forward to seeing you on the other side.