sticking out a dead marriage for financial reasons

[yellowflora]

I have a reasonably comfortable life with dh (14 years married) but am very unhappy mainly due to him ignoring me most of the time and acting like I’m not there for example if I speak to him he’s always doing something else and most I’ll get is an unenthusiastic ‘huh’ showing he doesn’t listen and isn’t interested etc, he doesn’t celebrate my birthday/christmas etc which I would like and we don’t go out at all because he doesn’t like it. I have mentioned these things a few times but it’s clear nothing will change.

I am thinking to stick it out until dc leave because I won’t be able to afford to give them the life they are currently happy in if I leave (private school that caters to their sen especially) we also live abroad having moved from the uk and it would mean causing upheaval for dc.
has anyone else stuck it out. I don’t care what I get at the end I just care my dc are happy and sorted. My dh is a bitter man. If I leave I know he will cause as much trouble as possible. I don’t even feel I’m strong enough to deal with that rn.

I stuck it out for 20 years because I wanted to wait until my kids were grown up or semi grown up. Plus it took me years to train for a profession so that I could support myself and kids. It wasn't easy to wait and I was scared of him but I still did it. Have you a skill set you could bring to a job, OP?

What support do you have in the UK, can you stay with family if you left?

Life is too short to be so miserable imo. Yes if will be an upheaval but many people do it.

Why doesn't he celebrate birthdays and Christmas? Was he like this before you married?

Make plans and look at your options anyway, you may decide to stay in miserable marriage but your H could shock you by having an affair or deciding to leave.

if you left him and came back to England it could actually be easier financially while you have children. Are your children fond of their father or is he just a grumpy body in the house!

I would urge you to reconsider sticking it out with him because it is a decision that could come back to haunt you big time. Financial reasons are really no good reason nor any basis to remain with such a man. He will just continue to abuse you and otherwise ground you down into nothing while your DC observe. He will not make the process of you leaving him at all easy because he is abusive but you deserve a life free from abuse and your children certainly do. They need to learn the only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none as do you.

Whose sake are you really staying for because it can be argued it is not for them but for you because it is somehow "easier"/more familiar. Change is scary. Your abuser does not even celebrate your birthday and that also shows how little he thinks of you. And why did he decide not to celebrate Christmas?.

It may well be that their private school will not be able to cater to their additional needs going forward either. And when are they going to leave home?. They may not be able to live independently at 18 and leaving only at that time could make them feel guilty that their parents sacrificed their own happiness for them. We owe our children much more than the physicality of an intact family. We owe them our truth.

Do not be afraid to move on with your own life and take responsibility for your own happiness.

What do you want to teach them about relationships and what are they learning here?. Is this really the model of a relationship you want to be showing them and for them to potentially emulate in their own adult relationships. Divorce is not failure OP - living in unhappiness is.

Did you move to his home country OP?. What are women's rights like in this country?. Is this country a signatory to The Hague Convention?.

What ages are the DC? How long are we talking to 'stick it out'?

It sounds like an awful way to live to me but only you know the answer.

How old are your children? Would your husband allow you to take them back to the UK?

Go back as soon as you can. Before things turn nasty with him - as he could stop you from taking them with you out of sheer spite.

Also, if they stay abroad until they are adults, they may decide to stay there, because for them it'll likely be home. Which would mean a divided family and more heartbreak for you.

How old are your children? Would your husband allow you to take them back to the UK?

This. You need to see a lawyer in the country where you live, discreetly, to check whether you could go back to the UK at all.

I have no support at all in the U.K.. unfortunately that’s what makes me feel like I don’t have many options as well.
I lost friends over the years because I ran away from a domestic abusive family and they used my friends to find out where I am so I cut everyone off in the end as my parents were contacting friends so much to find out where I was and was just a bad time.

My dc are ok with their dad but he does ignore them too. I think he’s lazy most of the time,
it’s mainly the school I can’t see being better as they’re in a British school in year 7&8 now and I feel like it’s going to ruin their education moving them now.

as for finances I don’t know if it will be easier as they’re both older than 12. Me going into a minimum wage job isn’t really going to change from now until whenever I leave and I’m 40 next year.

I do have qualifications but I haven’t worked a ‘proper’ job for over a decade I doubt I could hold down a better job now and I hated what I did.

it’s extremely unlikely he’d try and take the dc. he’s pretty lazy and disorganised. We go back to the U.K. periodically so I would just sort things while I’m there tbh to ensure I’m under U.K. rules. He can easily move back as well so I can see that happening as he hates me doing anything alone so I know full well he’ll be following me back.

It sounds like a miserable existence. Do you have friends there or are you isolated? I'd pick kids up from school at the end of the year and fly them back. If I thought he'd try to stop me I'd not tell him until I was safely out of his country with kids. You are not modelling a good way to live to your kids.

Well before contemplating divorce, I’d go agd see a lawyer.

If you’re abroad, there isn’t such a thing as ‘we get divorced and I move back to the U.K. with the dcs’ Then it will also tell you much you might entitled to from the separation - incl which laws you’d have to follow and an idea of tye split of finances.

So before anything else, I’d think careful around what you can actually do or not.

Then think about what would be best for you.
You wouldn’t be the first to stay because of financial hardship. Whether it’s worth or not depends a lot of how ‘bad’ things are and how unhappy you are.

You’re not the first and definitely won’t be the last to stay in a dead marriage for the kids. With kids your ages, I’d stay and suck it up to till they go to uni. You’ve only got 6 more years.

This may not be a popular opinion but my parents split when I was 16 and my DB was 12. It was awful as it was an incredibly acrimonious split and we definitely had a worse quality of life post split compared to pre split despite my parents clearly being in an unhappy marriage. I’d never put my kids through what I went through.

Yes, when you've got kids ,you have to plan carefully. Ensure you have a plan to ensure you can financially support yourself after split. That you have a lump sum to pay for expenses in Legal Fees. A plan for HOUSING yourself . Acquire new skills which are necessary for a single life. Plan as much as possible behind the scenes. Don t tell anyone you're preparing to leave. Keep a journal and write down all the troublesome things which happens day to day then in a few years time read it back to reassure yourself you did the right thing. Go seek others in same boat fororal support.

Op, I think you’re very selfless and a really good mum.

People who say leave usually have their own money to fall back on. If yours is tangled up in the marriage I would secretly get a relationship counsellor to see alone who you can chat things through with.

legal advice too if you can afford it.

If you’re not in danger I’d keep things as they are while slowly getting in a better position even if that’s just reading up on how to come out of it well.

Whether you externalise it through a divorce or not, you’ve already grieved and your marriage is already over so you’ve already been through the hard part.

Now it’s time to be slow and accurate and make the whole dire situation work for you.

This is why we don't have actual feminism.

Most women 'downgrade' for an easier financial life, and instagram is full of high whoops and trophies, generally by the rich and famous who don't need to worry about a mortgage.

Under https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/full-text/?cid=24 you might not be able to move to the UK with the kids without your husband's consent. The UK is a Hague signatory.

Life is too short to be miserable. You are literally showing your kids that it is ok to be treated like this. They are seeing that your relationship is normal.

Life will be a whole lot more miserable if op leaves. For the kids too.!

get good legal and financial advice. I don’t know the exact situation obv but this is what concerns me: if you leave now, in theory he would still have to support the kids (keep them at school) and you are losing no time in getting your own career up and running. If you wait, you could be trapped earning little or nothing until the kids are older, by which time he has no responsibility to support you and the later you leave it, the harder it is to get well placed to support yourself.
I might be wrong but do think this through. Staying in a miserable marriage is horrible and might leave you very vulnerable.

Not so. We were poorer after mum's divorce but it was like being crushed to death under lead copes before that because of the resentment she had for dad.

I agree with this. There's never a good time to lose the financial benefits of marriage. But at least while the kids are under 18 he'll have an obligation to support them. In six years time, he won't, and you'll be six years older, hampered in the job market by (sadly) both age and lack of skills, trying to set up house for yourself, unable to help your kids with anything (university, driving lessons, clothes for work) and miserable because you've wasted six years of the only life you have being miserable.

Could you look into getting some new qualifications so that you can restart your career? Perhaps look at areas that are short staffed in the UK if you’re considering moving back.

Your reasons for leaving sound a bit off.

He doesn't celebrate Xmas? Has he ever celebrated Xmas? Is he Muslim or Jewish? Why is Xmas suddenly a deal breaker?

He doesn't make a fuss for your birthdays? Well yeah, are you 12? Wouldn't be an issue for me. It's one day.

He's grumpy? Well that's most of the men on MN!

You don't say what happens when you sit down with the man and say look our marriage is a bit shit at the moment and it's clear that neither of us are happy, what can we do to sort it?

Have you made NI contributions? You can back pay those up until April. I would definitely look to get additional training or qualifications and go back to work ASAP.

@THisbackwithavengeance maybe that’s why I also feel like it’s not worth leaving too. I don’t like not celebrating my birthday or Christmas and I do think that’s fair I understand it’s not for everyone but he was fine to celebrate it until we had dc then he changed. For me it was always I didn’t get to celebrate any of it growing up with abusive parents but I have tried to ignore it all so maybe I’m just weak there! But the hardest bit for me now is living with a dh that ignores you a lot. As in very rarely will have a conversation at all.

Even on important points like our marriage. I have literally sat him down and said I’m deeply unhappy continuing like this and he looks like he listens then gets up and walks off in silence. He knows I don’t really have anywhere to go I think so he just ignores me.

Both of us are British and only have British passports etc so I can return and would return with him then split there. The biggest issue I have is where to live because I don’t have anywhere to go. I do have some money but not enough to rent for a year and I don’t know about getting a rental place without a job so I’d have to find somewhere until I get a job, assuming I’d have to sort the dd schooling first too.