I’ve been with my partner for more than 20 years, have one pre-teen daughter, and our relationship is a mess.
Things have come to a head after I found my partner had been messaging a woman (there on laptop when I was using it for something else). He said it was a friendship, nothing more, they have a lot in common, felt like it was the first person he could talk to. He doesn’t have any close friends. They haven’t met. The messages I saw were mostly nothing, but there were comments about splitting up and impact on kids (she seems to be separated and in a new relationship), and how it’s sparking some thoughts for him. A few hurtful/one sided comments/‘othering’ of me (referring to me as ‘madam’ rather than my name or calling me my partner). And a bit of intimate “I’ve never told anyone this” type messages
Things haven’t been good for some time: I’m the main breadwinner and, quite frankly, exhausted, dealing with work stress, money stress, my mum’s health, my health etc. I’ve been feeling unappreciated/taken for a bit of a mug for some time paying all the bills etc (though finally he’s been transferring some money when he has it/organised a family car). He hasn’t been withholding money, he’s not been earning enough (own business that fluctuates)
He is saying that I’m intolerable before my period (I’m in perimenopause, and the resentment bubbles up and the filters come off, I can’t pretend to find some of this acceptable).
I have asked him to leave in the past, and for a while he ‘disappeared’ for a few days with his work (not a standard 9-5, travels with it, sleeping in his van). I was worried about his mental health and afterwards he was talking about how he wanted to end his life. So it’s felt like we can’t have a straightforward conversation without the huge pressure of worrying my daughter won’t have a dad.
I asked him what was going on after I saw the messages and he said nothing. Things blew up when I said I’d seen the messages. He thinks that there’s nothing wrong but he didn’t want me to see the rest of them. It’s got to the stage where we can’t discuss things constructively and he’s saying he’s going to move out in the next couple of months when he can afford it, not because he wants to but because he feels he has no choice. He’s saying he can only afford a shitty room in a shared house, is worried about the future, that life’s not worth anything without his daughter.
i feel like I can hardly breathe. I’m not sleeping, my body is all over the place. How on earth do we move forward constructively without it wrecking our daughter and ourselves?