resentment over ultimatum

[whiningshinji]

Many years ago my wife gave me an ultimatum around having a third child. I adamantly didn't want a third, but to spare my other two children a broken home I acquiesced.

All the things I knew would happen happened. I got locked into a high pressure,high paying job I hated to cover heightened costs, free time totally evaporated and the friends I did have soon drifted due to me going from work to home and back again and never seeing anyone! My hobbies, modest though they were all withered due to lack of time/funds. My wife maintained some of her social contact and hobbies once all children were into school(less full on job with better annual leave - mine unsurprisingly was stingy and was absorbed by school holiday coverage)

The resentment I felt towards my wife over this never went away. Our third child is now approaching adulthood and all I can think about is leaving.

I got dragged to yet another (tiresome) couples thing by my wife. I normally don't drink, but I had a couple this time. We were talking to some people who were talking about how hard the baby and toddler years were and how they stopped at one, saying to us and another couple how did we manage three. I said it was a very hard slog - my wife chipped in by saying that we wouldn't change a thing.

Apparently at this point I scowled and muttered that I would. I wasn't even aware of doing this! Either way my wife is now getting an inkling that my mindset hasn't been changed by the years. He attitude has wrongly always been she was right and that I fell into line in the end and was content.

Now suddenly she is encouraging me to meet up with friends (who I haven't spoken to in 15 years) and mentioning finding a club for one of my old hobbies.
Bit late!

I am 80% sure I will leave, but this has thrown things because I was hoping to quietly arrange things and then cut the cord. I certainly wouldn't fight on the house or forking over half savings, the house is paid off and she can have it! Well worth it to break free of her.

I don't know what to do, I just feel the resentment has totally eaten away any affection I had over the years.

OP, having read your updates it does sound like your wife was/is very controlling so not disputing that at all. However, it’s 18 years later and you are still playing the martyr. Surely you have had time to do some hobbies and activities of your choice before now - your children are adults?

If your wife behaved in the way you describe then I’m not surprised that you are wanting to walk away from the marriage. You should have stood your ground all those years ago and refused to try for a third and got the snip or refused to work more once third child came along. I understand you not wanting to break up your family but you can’t control other peoples actions - that would have been her doing, not yours.

You have allowed this to happen so I imagine you feel quite upset with yourself for being so passive all of these years.

I still stand by my previous post though that if you want a divorce then get a divorce. It sounds like there is possibly more to it than just the third child issue. Is your wife controlling in other ways?

If you love your wife and you think you can work through it then you could try couples therapy.

But he also clarified that she started to make plans to leave him because she wanted the third child, so he decided to have the third child. She didnt force him. She told him what she wanted and if he didnt they could divorce. Then she made moves to divorce when it looked like that is what he wanted.

Op, what were your hobbies pre-third child that you couldnt possibly continue post 3rd child? Or even get new less time consuming ones?

tell your wife asap you are leaving her because of the third child.

Holding the marriage to ransom and threatening to break up her family because she wanted one more child when she already had two is incredibly selfish, I can see why you’ve felt resentment since. If I was blackmailed into having a third child that I didn’t want with the threat of divorce I wouldn’t be able to look at my partner the same way again. I think your best option is to separate as the damage has been done.

It’s wrong to ultimatum no one should pressure another person to have a child. But after the initial toddler years I find it hard to believe you couldn’t maintain friendships and hobbies. I think you martyred yourself to justify your resentment. Obviously up to you if you choose to leave, it’s understandable you haven’t forgotten what your wife did and can’t forgive her but how your life has turned out is on you as is the fact that you never once in nearly 18 years communicated your feelings and tried t work through it. It suggests you didn’t/don’t care enough to try to save your marriage

I agree.

It sounds like OP is not being heard here either.

He has explained why he stayed, that he loves all his children, and how he lost trust in his wife as she was prepared to go through with divorce.

It's pretty plain if you read his updates why he feels like he does yet loads of posters have spin their own interpretation about it.

If you work 60 hours a week and take full part in spending time with family, it's hard to find time for hobbies and friends. OP explained if he tried to do something outside the family, his wife said she wanted him to spend time with family.

As another poster said this is a good thread as to why you shouldn't make ultimatums, it's also a good thread why posters should RTFT or at least all OP updates We all put a bit of a spin on posts we read but the amount of gap filling some posters are making it quite a feat.

Also harping back on what he should or shouldn't have done is a waste of breath, he is here now at this stage he can't go back in time none of us can. No one is perfect

@RawBloomers I don’t disagree- but bringing up about the 3rd child is pretty pointless and if the 3rd child gets it fed back that this is the reason ( and we can all say stupid things when relationships end) I think that’s not nice to lay at their feet. The fact is he doesn’t feel the same about her and that’s enough to end it

I can't help wondering if OP has his sights set on pastures new and has come onto to MN to check the feasibility of his narrative for when he drops the bombshell on his wife and makes it all her fault.

The fact the wife was wanting 'family time' indicates to me that having a DH working 60 hours per week was not the choice she would have made.

Totally disingenuous to suggest a 60 hr week is the only option with 3 DC. The bigger house and bigger car also a total red herring, we bought a decent £6K people carrier when the 3rd DC came along and moved to a 4 bed at a time when mortgage rates were low, it was a negligible increase on the monthly outgoings. OP's DC are reaching adulthood, so this is in the same era.

That his reasons for resentment isn't his 3rd child but the loss of trust in his wife's actions doesn't for one minute mean he is going to say something idiotic like that to the child.

If his wife does that's on her and a full and frank discussion can be had about that. However that hasn't and may never happen

This is what I meant about gap filling and posters putting their own spin on things.

That he worked 60 hours a week is not unusual at all. Lots of people work much longer hours than advertised on jobs an expanding family has it's associated costs

Yes I appreciate that, but there are many gaps to fill.

I think OP needs to take a lot more responsibility for his own career choices. Of course a 60hr week is not that unusual, although he would have to have opted of the 48 hr working time objective, but there are other choices available.

Of course there is a lot to be challenged regarding the societal pressures that men still feel to provide for their families, but I'm not sure it is fair for OP to lay this all at his wife's door.

There is also the same pattern time and again of previously 'family' orientated men, leaving their families in middle age and rewriting the history of the relationship. The OP has some elements of 'the script' for me. Why come to MN?

OP should leave if he wants to but I just cannot understand the position of "I've been unhappy for 18 years and its all your fault".

Staying together because of the kids is complex and not always the selfless option.

Do kids benefit from living with a reluctant resentful parent? Some parents don't have the courage to leave and its too convenient to claim they are putting the kids first or keeping the family together when what they are doing is creating a miserable home and demonstrating a terrible model of what marriage should be.

It sounds like having child number 3 might have been all well and good if they had been really wealthy but it meant him getting stuck working 60 hours a week for a long time. I'd really hate to have to do that and wouldn't expect my OH to want to do it either. We aren't all workaholics who enjoy it. I'm guessing kids sharing a room and doing with less wouldn't have been good enough for his OH either.

It does sound like your OH had their head in the sand about your unhappiness and is only starting to face up to it. I don't know if it's too little too late for you and if you can't get past the resentment it's better to separate. What's done is done and you need to find a way to create some happiness in your life now.

I think you are right to leave.

Be free.

Get excellent legal advice and divorce.

Have the life you want. You have done enough and it's time to separate and be able to see the edges of your own world instead of having the worry of what is over the horizon.

You never have to tell your third child why, just that you were done.

It certainly sounds as though you are, and have been, harbouring a significant amount of resentment. That's not a healthy place to be.

Ultimately you need to decide whether you can overcome your resentment and move on to a happy fulfilled life or not.

Frankly it doesn't sound as though you have a happy marriage and need to seriously look into yourself as to what you want going forward.

I'm not a fan of ultimatums as they normally backfire, as is the case here ultimately.

The Op is unhappy

Life is too short to be unhappy

Seperate

Start the divorce, split the assets, start planning for your new, happy life !

There is no requirement for you to be together any longer

For those who claim I was an active participant - fuck off. I was an active participant in the same way (to a much less serious extent) a hostage is an active participant "do what I want or I will wreak terrible consequences".

I wish it was possible to persuade parents of young children that separating is not such a terrible consequence - at least compared to staying in a toxic, loveless, resentful marriage. We see this every day from the other side - a woman with a litany of complaints about her awful husband but refuses to leave him "because of the kids", consigning herself to another decade of misery. Then as soon as they go to university she gets her ducks in a row and leaves - and THEN the kids' world falls apart because that familial upheaval is actually much, much harder on a young adult than on a toddler.

The toddler might cry a bit and not understand, but with amicable coparenting they will probably grow into a healthy, well-adjusted adult. The uni student - who's already been modelled an awful relationship growing up - will understand all too well, blame themselves, go off the rails in more damaging ways.

All that aside I understand the OP's resentment completely. I think his wife behaved abominably. He shouldn't have passively let himself be railroaded into something he didn't want, but she shouldn't have done the railroading. I don't consider her urge for another child to be any more important than my urge for another million quid. We don't always get what we want in life.

So if the best time to separate was back when she delivered her absurd ultimatum, the next best time is now. Good luck OP. Also, like many posters have suggested I'd strongly urge you to get into therapy to work through your bitterness and resentment. You owe it to yourself not to let it define the rest of your life.

OP was clear from the start that she gave him an ultimatum. I don’t know what you thought that meant, but I read it as her saying if he wasn’t prepared to have a 3rd child, she’d leave. Him having to explicitly state that she forced his hand by making moves to leave and break up his children’s family so she could have a third child was not a “but” just because some posters on here seemed to refuse to accept his wife really put him in a terrible position. OP wasn’t prepared to break up his children’s family so he stuck around for all three of them. His feelings for his wife changed though, because of what he learned about her when she made that ultimatum.

Exactly. If he didnt want that he could leave. She wasnt forcing him to stay, she gave him the choice to join her in having a third or leave. We tell women all the time on here if their goals dont match their husband to leave. If they cannot imagine and do not want a life without children, a second, a third… to leave. Not to stay and be resentful. Op chose to stay and is now still blaming his ex 18 years later for the choice she gave him.

I often read on here that the person who doesn't want the child is the person whose wishes trump...

Women here stay for all kinds of reasons, so I think you staying for your (at the time) existing children was a valid choice. I'd be resentful too, if put into such an impossible situation. After all, it would be you that had to leave and see your children less.

Now you're at the point of leaving everything behind, I doubt counselling would be useful at this stage. She won then, but that shouldn't mean you don't go after a fair settlement now.
You still have a life to live, and have earned the right to do so as comfortably as possible.

@MarkingBad I totally get his reasons- I just think if he wants to split then that’s fine but I can’t see what help it is doing the ‘I’m leaving because 17 years ago you forced me into a 3rd child’ situation- that isn’t something that you can ‘turn around and change’ - surely it’s enough to say ‘I’m not happy and no longer feel the same about things’ - I don’t see the point dredging up something from many years ago as ‘a reason’ - and I don’t think it is purely the reason either - I think it’s more the fact he’s unhappy generally and ‘finding’ a reason to hang it on - he’s had many years to find his voice and change things- I suspect his wife’s a dominant character whose word goes , and he’s gone along with it for an easier life- I know how he feels as I’m like that too and yes I’m resentful of certain things too with an H like this -but I know myself part of the problem was an unwillingness to rock the boat and cause friction

If you don't love her any more for whatever reason then leave. You sound extremely bitter so I really think it would be best for everyone. She wanted another child and if you didn't want that then it wasn't unreasonable for her to want to leave and try and find someone who did.

It doesn't make sense to me that you loved your first two children so much you were prepared to stay with their mother no matter what to avoid a broken home - but that the 3rd child suddenly made you so terribly unhappy, resentful and bitter. Not only when they were little and time consuming either, but throughout their entire childhood.

To me it smacks of a man who was cornered to make a decision he didn't want to and because he was too cowardly and passive to end things he punished his wife by becoming a miserable, bitter martyr instead. The only person he was really punishing though was himself.

Do not walk away from this marriage without taking half of everything, you are entitled to it and you’ve worked dammed hard for it….
Go and find your life, go and live in the sun if you can, I know I would.
Take up your hobbies again and most importantly live your life.
Good luck Op!

He hasn’t NOW blamed his wife, he blamed his wife when she made the ultimatum and that hasn’t changed. The ultimatum is the catalyst that destroyed the marriage, it’s just taken a long time to work its way through because OP decided he would rather be unhappy for 18 years and his kids not have a split family. A sacrifice he found his wife too selfish to make.

While a lot of posters would recommend leaving a marriage if a female poster was adamant she wanted a 3rd child and the father was dead set against it, a lot of other posters (I would be amoung them) would counsel caution and suggest that another child was not a good reason for breaking up an otherwise happy marriage, and would point out that, absent conflict, kids growing up in the same home as both their parents have better childhoods than those who don’t.

It may be that the wife would have been resentful without the 3rd child and, had she not had it in order to preserve the family, would have ended up leaving now just as OP is expecting to. The difference between may have been irreconcilable. But for OP it is the ultimatum his wife gave him that makes her unsuitable for him as a life partner.

She wanted another child and if you didn't want that then it wasn't unreasonable for her to want to leave and try and find someone who did.

I disagree with this. Because once you have two children and a partner it's not just about you any more. She was ready to break up the family over it, but engineered the situation so that it was OP who had the "choice" to break up the family, and whose own valid desires about not having more children were overridden.

Was he too passive? Yes. I think he should have seen her for what she was and split at that point. But she created the situation.

I struggle to see wanting a third child as an important enough reason to break up a family with existing children. Don't give a shit about biological urges; if a man said he needed to cheat on his wife because of biological urges I'd be unimpressed too. As adults who have made commitments to other people we make decisions with things other than biological urges.

Even though the thread has probably reached the end, I do think it’s worth mentioning how all consuming the need to have another child can be. I say this as someone who suffered secondary infertility. I spoke to the fertility specialist about how I didn’t understand why my urge to have an another child was so unbearable considering I had a kid already. He said that every woman has their number.
At that point I would have done anything to have another kid, so I can relate to your wife when she made a move to divorce, please consider that at the time her biology had her backed into a corner and it wasn’t open to be reasoned with or shown spreadsheets. Maybe other women could have gone to a few counseling sessions and moved on but for other women it can be a heartbreaking situation.