I need advice. I’m feeling very low about the prospect of never being free of my exH.
I really don’t think there’s anything I can do but I need a vent and an outside opinion.
It’s quite a long and complicated tale. Together since 2013. I suffer from very low self esteem and social anxiety. He is very confident and chatty, gets on with anyone, charming. He essentially love bombed me into a relationship. We had a baby (unplanned) 5 years in. He is in a band and when I had the baby band commitments didn’t change, he didn’t step up, I was very lonely.
We move out of London and 6 months later I’m pregnant again and Covid hits. He loses his job and starts his own business. He can’t hack it and the following year goes through a series of breakdowns. His way of coping is to drink too much and disappear for a night or two. Also starts shoplifting regularly.
winter 2022 I decide I can’t do it any more and tell him I want to separate. He has another breakdown and I recall saying only something extreme is going to get him out of this cycle of self abuse. A month later he has an accident leaving him in Critical Care for 6 weeks. This feels terrible to say but I am relieved to not have him in the house. He eventually comes home to recover and 6 months later is diagnosed with epilepsy (a result of a brain injury sustained in hospital). I stick with him and help him through this period. It’s very very tough but I keep it together.
early 2024 I reintroduce the idea of separating. He agrees but doesn’t engage with the process. I start dating in the summer. Probably not the best idea but I was so so sick of putting myself to one side for years. He is upset about it but I carry on. Eventually he starts dating too and moves out september 2024.
since then he is incredibly difficult and cruel to me. He insists on having the children 50/50, despite his health issues, but he has seizures and I end up having to have them on his days all the time. I understand I have no choice when he is unwell, but he isn’t ever grateful for my help. He makes horrible comments about me dating and has called me a prostitute and other horrible things, insinuating that I am sleeping with every man I come across (not true).
he totally refuses to engage with the process of planning when we are having the kids. Makes me feel like a nag. I just want to have a life. I have to find out from his bands instagram page that he has a gig in Europe when it’s his weekend with the kids and I already have plans to be at a wedding. He just doesn’t consider me at all. I don’t matter.
today he drops the kids off and they’ve made me lovely Mother’s Day cards, and he gives me half a box of chocolates and a Diet Coke. I don’t expect presents off him, the cards were enough, and the ‘presents’ just feel so passive aggressive and I think send a horrible message to the children.
I really don’t feel like I deserve to feel the way I feel. He doesn’t seem to grasp that the way he goes about his life has an impact on how I can live my life.
ugh that was too long and im sure that I haven’t put across the extent of his behaviour.
I just feel so stuck. He has a very serious illness but he’s just so horrible to me. And I’m stuck with him because of the kids. What can I do.