If I could run away right now I would.

[Puzzlepart]

I just give up.
I am so fucking miserable.
So many things that have now chipped away until I can’t stand even being in the same room. I have absolutely nothing positive to say or think about him.

The house is a shit hole that I cannot keep up with.
I’m sure he is a hoarder. I clear a spot and within a day it’s got some of his crap in it.
I’ve bagged up a tonne of his shit this morning to go in the garage which he has filled to the fucking rafters with his crap.
I’ve just put the washing out and seen that he has piled a load of shit up at the side of the house that presumably needs to go to the tip, just dumped everywhere. That now will sit there for months and months and months until I take it or nag him to take it.
He doesn’t give a shit about the house or the environment that we are living in.

The last straw was an empty box dumped in the kitchen that he took the last can out of and just left it there.

Everywhere I look his shit is piled up, everywhere.
it’s like trying to shovel snow in a blizzard every fucking day.

The dishwasher will be open ready to receive dirty dishes… OPEN.. but no, he still throws his dishes into the sink above the dishwasher.

I have had enough of this life. Despair and trapped is how I feel all the time.
We are no longer compatible.

The house is something that I look at every minute of the day so it’s what gets me down the most, but it’s that he doesn’t see it and just adds to it constantly.
I need out, but can’t for another 8 years. (Youngest is 10).
Just needed to tell that to someone. I have no one in life to talk to about it.

Some people will leap on to tell you to LtB but I think you are right to assess how life would really be if you had so little money with CoL on the rise, and the DC traumatised by the split. You'd swap one source of stress for another. if he is a loving dad with this one bug issue, it's perfectly reasonable to choose to handle his hoarding as your major life stress, rather than financial worries and divorce as your major life stress!

You could try asking him to get some help for the issue. or you could tell him it bothers you and teach him some tidying techniques for the chornically disorganised and untidy. Flylady and The Organised Mum Method have some good ideas. I still use 5 minute room rescues, and 15 minutes to company ready techniques to make the house look presentable when I am tired.

It's not about the hoard.

Op can't stand being in the same room as him, nothing positive to say about him.

The hoard is the focus of her resentment, but it's about so much more than that.

Therapy to tell him that his refusal to act like an adult clearing up after himself is unacceptable and you are at the end of the road? Have you sent him the article about a man being divorced because he never put his stuff in the dishwasher?

There is also an issue around the hobby taking them all out the house.

Does anyone want their DC to copy the pattern of their childhood when they are that miserable?

Honestly OP, he will be a teenager soon, do you think it will be in his best interests and it will be his preference to stay 50/50 with a dad that doesn’t do much in an environment that will be filthy? Having small weekly doses of their dad may be better for the kids anyway.

I understand you are afraid to leave, everybody is but this is not something you need to do now or decide today, just start by allowing yourself to work out possible solutions to make your life and that of your children easier and eventually you will find the answers.

I think that divorcing is like getting married, you need to plan ahead, work out what you want and save until you are ready to take the jump. In my case it was 3 years, but my life started changing from the moment I started thinking about how I could make it possible to survive on my own while providing for DS emotional and financial needs. This immediately made me feel I was more in control of the situation, carving my way out, which was quite refreshing after feeling for years that I was trapped in a not-to-bad relationship that made me miserable but that I couldn’t escape.

It may be that while thinking of your way out, you find the solution to help you both deal with issue and save your relationship.

Your children would rather have a calmer mother in an ordered home than a constantly preoccupied mother who is not fully available to them.

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?. I would also think your 10 year old does not invite friends around because of the hoard. This hoard is the focus of her resentment but it is indeed about a lot more besides.

ForTheSakeOfThePenguin
Thank you for your kind, measured and understanding words.
What you said in buckets will work for me.
And just to add, sharing your experience as an alternative route to a solution demonstrates to me that it can be done. With such Grace too by the sounds of it. 💐

I am saving. Saving as much as I can and think that in the next 2 years I will have enough to be able to begin looking to go.

I can hang on.

As I said previously, I work hard to keep the house nice and clean, it is but it’s a monumental regular effort. If I stopped, it would be awful.

quite refreshing after feeling for years that I was trapped in a not-to-bad relationship that made me miserable but that I couldn’t escape.

This resonates completely.

There are no arguments, no DV, no disrespect, nothing like that. I’ve got to the end of a 30 year road. Up until the last 3 years or so, we have been really really happy together.
Which made me think that it’s me, possibly a peri and menopausal switch in my tolerance and mood.
But no, he just cannot be arsed with our environment anymore and I can’t be arsed with that attitude.

Good dads don't let their kids live in squalor and stress

I wish you the best of luck, you are not trapped unless you convince yourself that you are.

Start imagining what a better life would look like and eventually you will get there 🙂💐

He's still their dad if you split up you know.

And you're sending a clear message to your kids that this shit is not to be tolerated.

I don't understand why you need to wait 8 years in all honesty. Your children will grow up in a hostile environment. I was bloody pleased when my parents finally split age 12. It was a miserable house hold.

I think you should have a good convo about the house chores and if they doesn't work write a list of jobs you do around the house and then what the OH does. To make it clear that hey need to step up.

Ask him to move out. Tell him you want a divorce.

It’s not healthy for the children. Waiting until they are 18 is not a good idea. I would investigate your options. They’ll pickup on the atmosphere in the household.

Does he know quite how bad it's making you feel?