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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Thought on this please - I am so tired

22 replies

HelpWendy · 28/12/2023 19:18

Thoughts on leaving a good man who you have no emotional connection with but a duty of care....

OP posts:
stayathomer · 28/12/2023 19:20

How a duty of care op? Nobody deserves to have someone with them because they have to be and in the same way you shouldn’t be with someone who doesn’t make you happy x

uhOhOP · 28/12/2023 19:20

Are you his carer?

HelpWendy · 28/12/2023 19:27

No I'm not but he is an emotionally dependent person. We are breaking up, the horse has bolted, it's out in the open, but why can't I let go even though I want to.

Everyone around us is trying to keep us together which makes me feel like a crazy person.

OP posts:
Riverlee · 28/12/2023 19:29

Why a duty of care?

Is a partner emotionally manipulating you? Ie. Saying he will go back to drugs/gambling/not take tablets if you leave? If so, you are not responsible for their decesions. They’re grown ups and are responsible for themselves.

i guess the only exception is maybe a relative, but again, they are still adults.

Riverlee · 28/12/2023 19:37

Just read your update. Don’t feel guilt. Do what’s right for you. It may not be right for other people, but you have to live your life.

i’m guessing you’ve been together a while. Maybe that’s which it’s difficult, he’s a habit you’ve got use to.

Maybe other people don’t want you to break up because then he becomes their problem.

Also, he may seem lovely on the outside, but that doesn’t mean he is. Privately, he could be controlling and manipulative, but he puts on a lovely persona when around other people.

Any change is difficult, and especially break-ups.

Look to 2024 as being a new start in life.

HelpWendy · 28/12/2023 20:09

A duty of care as in marriage. No he doesn't make me happy, but he tries in his own stoic way and no matter how hard I try I cannot see the positives. It's like I'm just all out, but feel like such a bad person and a fool and naive.

Be happy with what you have etc. life is hard, be an adult.

OP posts:
ValerieDoonican · 28/12/2023 20:19

Are some of the people who want you to stay, likely to feel more responsibility towards him when you split? That might explain why they don't want you to go - that exposes both the reality of how badly he is doing, and also, how much they might need to 'take on'.

You say he tries (unsuccessfully) to make you happy, but is he trying to make himself more independent and self-reliant? He is an adult, and if he is depending on you emotionally, you will never be happy (well I know I wouldn't). and why should you be happy like this? Being a wife is not being a crutch . He needs to sort out his own crutches.

uhOhOP · 28/12/2023 20:23

HelpWendy · 28/12/2023 19:27

No I'm not but he is an emotionally dependent person. We are breaking up, the horse has bolted, it's out in the open, but why can't I let go even though I want to.

Everyone around us is trying to keep us together which makes me feel like a crazy person.

Edited

So you're like his "emotional support human", as might be said? Like an unwilling carer, in some ways, perhaps. If you are referring to "duty of care" because you're married and you feel you have an obligation to honour your vows, so does he. He might be trying, but obviously it's not enough, and if a person isn't trying hard enough, that's a fine reason to leave, especially if you have tried to make the relationship work and you've supported them through any problems they've had without any real success.

Notsuchaniceguy · 29/12/2023 17:07

A tough situation and one that resonated with me. I have posted before about the problems in my marriage and the awful behaviours of both of us (began as a sleazy affair, moved straight to cohabitation, blended families - utter shit show of toxicity and jealousy (her) and assholery (me))

Many years later we are still together in a sexless marriage. For a period I wanted sex, my wife did not - well not with me. Now I don't with her either as there is no love left.

I tried to leave but my wife pointed out that I'd ruin her standard of living. I'd ruin mine as well but I'd pay that price. Then she was seriously ill. Mostly recovered now, working full-time but hates her job and wants to retire early.

I am her support person- she even said to me that she needs a person to offload to about work, her family and so on and that this could be someone else but as she wouldn't meet anyone I am it.

In essence I feel like the choice is to increase my happiness (live alone, do hobbies I like, be single, provide more care and time for my kids) at the expense of hers or do my best to be noble in some fucked up way.

It isn't always easy to put your needs first.

Aquamarine1029 · 29/12/2023 17:09

Stop living your life only to please other people. Just stop.

category12 · 29/12/2023 17:15

Everyone around us is trying to keep us together which makes me feel like a crazy person.

In whose interests are they trying to keep you together?
In his?
In theirs (so they don't have to step in to support him or deal with change)?

Doesn't sound like it's in yours.

HelpWendy · 31/12/2023 09:28

Thank you everyone for your replies. I think I seem to have lost my self trust and maybe self belief along the way. And the thoughts of inflicting this change on the kids when I have such self doubt feels so wreckless.

He is not a bad man at all. But a man that makes my world so small and monotone. But along the way I have obviously started to believe along the way that my unhappiness is within and not my environment. But when I am away from him I am a different person, happier, more animated etc.

I have had a lot of therapy to help me sort this out and the resounding view of therapists has been to leave. But it's like I don't believe myself anymore and I am going to just replace one rubbish scenario with another.

Sorry it sounds so negative.

OP posts:
HelpWendy · 31/12/2023 09:49

Regarding people knowing they will have to support him, I think that is true, esp his family. But I think he has such a good, he's harmless reputation that I am just look like I am abandoning him.

OP posts:
HelpWendy · 31/12/2023 09:50

The amount of times I have heard, well at least he doesn't drink or isn't violent.

He is just someone who lacks any identity and is happy to just exist.

OP posts:
ValerieDoonican · 31/12/2023 09:51

I guess you feel negative because you inevitably feel guilt that what's right for you may involve some difficulties for others - at least in the short term. Not easy to forge ahead through that, even if the net effect longer term is better for you and no worse (and possibly better) for everyone else.

Its a kind of squeamishness. Understandable, but its keeping you stuck in a shit place, isn't it?

FatFilledTrottyPuss · 31/12/2023 09:55

Op you also have a duty of care to yourself. Why does this man’s happiness take priority over yours? Set yourself free.

muchalover · 31/12/2023 09:56

You don't need a reason to end a relationship. If its not making your brief time on the planet worthy of your time and energy then change things.

You don't have to lock your life to someone because they don't abuse you. Thinking this way is kind of self flagellation and you are abusing yourself with guilt and it is paralysing you.

HelpWendy · 31/12/2023 09:58

Yes @ValerieDoonican - it is guilt, guilt I have felt now for so long, and I guess it has eroded me. our expectations of marriage of marriage are so wildly different that it's even hard to make sense of. I know guilt is a useless emotion but it so hard to shift.

OP posts:
HelpWendy · 31/12/2023 09:59

Yes @muchalover totally paralysing

OP posts:
Fraaahnces · 31/12/2023 10:01

Sounds like you have been snared by an emotional vampire. Run until you find joy again.

category12 · 31/12/2023 10:44

I have had a lot of therapy to help me sort this out and the resounding view of therapists has been to leave. But it's like I don't believe myself anymore and I am going to just replace one rubbish scenario with another.

Well, if you stay, you know exactly what you're getting. More of the same. Forever.

If you split up, it won't be easy, but you will have the opportunity for something else. And you'll be out from under the weight of being responsible for a full-grown adult man.

He might even benefit and grow from not having someone to enable him (more likely he'll find another woman to take on your role).

ValerieDoonican · 02/01/2024 09:28

Hoping the new year brings you a bit of clarity @HelpWendy

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