Terrified to face up to marriage problems

[Seaside1234]

Paralysed with fear to finally put my foot down about my husband's behaviour. I'm so conflict-averse it's ridiculous, but I don't want to go on like this.

Married 17 years, children 15 and 11. He's always kind of done what he wants and I've always avoided conflict - I earn more in a more stable job, but have always done more housework and childcare too. Long history of crippling depression on his part which eventually got treated. He had an affair about 6 years ago, I found out, we decided to stay together and went through marriage counselling where we addressed some of our issues. We didn't keep that level of communication up (he's as conflict averse as I am), he stopped being willing to have harder conversations and I was too scared to push that.

His work disappeared overnight in Covid and hasn't come back to the same extent. I have been supporting us almost entirely now for about 4 years, I guess. He hasn't contributed to mortgage or main bills for at least 2 years. He's always liked a drink, but that has spiralled to a significant problem over the last 18 months or so. He's now drinking, including going out drinking, most nights in the week. So spending significant amounts of money on booze while not supporting his family. He gets up late every day, and while he seems to be working a bit, it doesn't seem like much to me.

In all of this, I have completely gone off him and fallen out of love with him. We haven't had sex in well over a year (my choice, but he hasn't addressed it at all). We're essentially separated but sleeping in the same bed and I'm paying for everything. I think I want to separate, and I've reached the point where I think it might be best for our kids too.

I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism a few years ago and find it very difficult to start a conversation which will be very hard. We are both hugely averse to any conflict - we never argue, and the thought of getting angry with him makes me feel physically sick, probably as a hangover from how I was parented. I plan to ask if he'll consider going back to counselling as a way to have difficult conversations in a managed environment. But what do I do if he says no? I'm completely stuck and would appreciate any thoughts from people who might know where I'm coming from.

Do the healthy thing. You're right, whatever you do will affect the kids. So that removes 'affecting the kids' from the deciding factors. All parents mess their kids up in some way or other, simply because you can't 'be the right person' for anybody, day in, day out, for 18 years, as they go through a million unpredictable and sometimes difficult changes. You are not meant to demonstrate to your kids that life is perfect, and that you are perfect, and that nothing ever hurts. So stop paralysing yourself with that ridiculous ideal.

Show them that sometimes things hurt, but if you make good decisions, and choose what feels right for you, you gain self respect, if nothing else. What they have is a life, not a fairytale. This is your opportunity to teach them how to be strong when life's hard, rather than to sit and silently suffer, painfully hiding your feelings. They will learn from you. Which of those two alternatives do you want to teach them?

People pleasing and issues with confrontation never ends well. You can’t control absolutely everything, it’s impossible. Shit happens I’m afraid it’s a fact of life. Get out, build yourself up and be the strong resilient mum your kids need. They learn by example. What are you going to teach them about future relationships. Stay and suffer or leave and work hard to re-build. Be a role model. Yes you feel guilt. I divorced my daughter’s father because of abuse. There are days I feel awful for the life I helped create for my daughter. We can’t escape feeling. But it was absolutely the right thing to do. If my daughter came to
me in the future and told me she was experiencing similar, I can stand in front of her and say look at your mum, she did it and she is standing here and all is fine so can you.

@Seaside1234 I feel so sad for you. You think the children matter more than you . I'm no psychologist but I imagine that's because you're so beaten by your situation that you've lost all sense of self, you're depressed.
The children matter as much as you do, not less or more.
But you can't parent them while all your energy is drained away by your husband.
They need a mother who is living an honest life .
@glowfrog gives such good advice.

@Thisoldheartofmine no, it's because they do matter more than me. That's the definition of being a parent. They didn't choose to be in this situation, and have no real control over how it pans out.

If your children matter more then you then you know you must leave. How can you leave them in this situation. You are the parent with the ability to see things for what they are. You need to be the one to do the doing. It’s a huge scary responsibility but I think you can do it and so do most people I would think. We are mums and we can do anything if we believe it. It’s a sad decision because the other parent is suffering but we must do our best to serve our children. He will have to do something about himself as he’s an adult and responsible for himself. He can do work on himself and better himself if he wants to but that must be independent of you and the children.

I really feel for you @Seaside1234 because it seems that we had similar upbringings. However, and I speak from experience, you will know no peace until you end this marriage. There's been a lot of good advice on here. I wish you strength.

Once we deprogram all the rubbish we are taught and find our strength we can do anything. Let go of the fear. The fear of judgement, of repercussion, the fear of change. Your kids have you and that is always going to be enough. Fear is such a bugger!

Exactly, they didn't choose it. So it's unfair to continue to inflict it upon them.

I blame my DM for not doing the right thing by protecting us from a similar situation. It's negligence in all brutal honesty. I'm 46 now but our relationship isn't close, because as a parent I cannot understand why she failed to protect us and/or want better for us. She stayed because she didn't have the guts to leave for our sake. She has to live with that forever, as do I and DB.

You seem committed to staying in this marriage because divorce damages children. Of course it does. That's your prerogative to stay, but one day in the future I hope you read back on all our advice and see that we were correct. Your kids are suffering and learning horrible relationship dynamics that will impact their own. I realise you're between a rock and a hard place but it saddens me to think that people won't choose the better of the two bad options.

So now you can fight back? Take some of that snd fight your wsy out of this trap. Haven’t you heard the expression “put your own oxygen mask on first” its not a question of “who matters mire” its a question of protecting yourself in order to save them.

But I agree with the poster you disagree with, actually, you can not give the children a healthy core self if you lack it yourself. They don’t learn that they are lived and treasured from your actions. They learn they and you are subservient to your dh.

OP as a lone parent my main priority when I left all those years ago was my DD

I wanted to model good relationships so that when the time comes for her to have a relationship she knows what a healthy partnership looks like.

Right now, in the current situation, your DC are being taught unhealthy relationship dynamics so they are impacted either way, if you stay married or divorce him.

It's an unreasonable risk to stay in this marriage, it's a reasonable risk to end it.

Have you got a close friend or family member you can talk to about all this ? You sound really unhappy and sure that you don't want this situation to continue I hope your ok 🫶🏻

Why do you want to separate and why would that be better for your children?

Hoppity have you read the OPs first post?
Apologies if your question is aimed at getting the OP to refocus.

OP you seem like such an absolute sweetheart. The way you keep looking to yourself, checking your own assumptions, checking you aren’t being unfair.

Its a shame he doesn’t do any of that for you, isn’t it?

You are struggling to assert your boundaries, and that is why you feel such doubt, guilt and anxiety about standing up for yourself. Healthy boundaries create healthy relationships though, and you must learn to tolerate the uncertainty of the other person making their own choices based on the terms you set.

Perhaps you could read some literature about healthy boundaries, or have some therapy, so that you feel more supported and clear about what you need to do to have a happier life.

Good luck.

But you have no control over how it pans out, either way. You keep throwing obstacles in your own path which aren't relevant, because they'll stand regardless of which decision you make. The only certainty is that you are unhappy and you want to leave. You can't be sure of anything. Maybe your house will burn down, so you should leave anyway, regardless of your relationship. Maybe your new house is going to burn down, so you should definitely stay where you are.

'Control' is nonsense. We have very little. We can only do what seems right at the time, and gives us the best odds of happiness. It's not black and white.

@Seaside1234 I just want to give you a big hug. I've replied further up the thread, but I can just see again and again how similar we are. I am petrified of making the wrong decision, but feel like the longer I leave it, the more messed up we are all becoming. I've just spent the morning taking DS16 to his sixth form college so we could find the way and work out timings etc, and he was so sad the whole time. He even asked me to guess his level of happiness, and I said 5 out of 10, and he said 2 or even 1. I don't know if it's because he feels the tension at home and wants it to stop, or if he's worried the tension is going to lead to a break up that he doesn't want. So I utterly understand the turmoil you are going through. I have no ideas how to stop it. Well, I do. The answer is to take the leap and end the marriage. But it feels so insurmountable.

Sorry to add more woe to your thread @Seaside1234 but I saw this and thought of you. And me! We are very much not alone in this.