Hello,
I’m 31 and been married 3 years, 2 DC 5 and 2. Mortgaged home with DH, all joint. He works FT as do I, flexitime and option to work from home a few times a week. I started a new job at the start of the year which is my dream job and, although I’m so hard on myself and hate anything positive towards myself (!) have been told I’m doing incredibly. I had to take a pay cut to start but next year, once qualified as I’m doing lots of qualifications, I’ll jump massively.
Onto the actual point, just wanted to give you some background!
I feel like my marriage is all but gone - it doesn’t serve me anything positive and I feel DH makes my life much harder, now starting to think he does it purposely. The only sticking problem is, which sounds absolutely ridiculous in the grand scheme of things, I would worry about losing the standard of living for the children and I, our home and the feeling of being a failure. DH is the same age and works for the same wider department as me but not the same team.
He’s slowly becoming unbearable in my eyes and I don’t know what to do. If I started looking at divorce, I’d have no idea what to do or where to start. I’ll try and list why I think I’m feeling this way (please feel free to skim)
- He's very much like a teenage slob. He moans that he’s putting on weight or we’re short of money towards the end of the month but loves sitting and eating junk food. He also constantly lets rip and thinks it’s funny
- He has no motivation - he rarely ever comes into the office and any qualifications he’s doing, leaves to the last minute and then constantly moans about needing help. One piece of work he did, was practically mine. I’ve also had to sit and go through all of his assigned work, making him write a to do list and seeing what stage every bit was up to (yes I shouldn’t have helped, haven’t done it again!)
- Similarly, he’ll moan he’s tired and instead of pushing through like most parents have to, to get things done, he’d rather just sit on the sofa and nothing gets done if I don’t do it (think huge pile of washing up left all night). If we get any time to sit and watch something on the TV, within 5 minutes he’s asleep so I’m sat by myself
- He can’t (or doesn’t want to) see or do any housework / cleaning. I’ve mentioned things many times like giving the doors a quick wipe down or cleaning the downstairs toilet where the children make marks or mess and he just won’t. A few weeks in a row, when asked to at least change our bedding, he gets as far as changing the pillowcases, then leaves the rest of the clean bedding in a pile on the floor
- He leaves things lying around everywhere for days on end, including his work things, then ask me where they’ve gone. He will also complain that I don’t put his clothes away. His wardrobe looks like someone’s just got every item and thrown it in
- He’ll put his name to lots of jobs that then don’t get done. When the children go up new sizes of shoes or clothes, I’d rather just charity shop or throw out, but he’ll say, he’ll put it on Vinted, then never does (cue a huge shoe haul left on my utility work top for days)
- He doesn’t do anything with the children aside from school/nursery drop offs. He doesn’t plan their new clothes when they need new sizes or new school year / hobbies (finding out which ones are where, arranging them to start / booking / buying equipment etc) / appointments / planning Xmas etc for what presents they might like / getting their clothes out for the day / getting them ready on a morning / buying new books or practicing new skills / planning family outings / when they might need a new toothbrush or a sponge or new toiletries
- On that, he can’t stick to a routine or do anything like take them out for a walk before/after tea, get DS out on his bike or help stick to taking DS swimming (DS refuses lessons so needs the extra ‘effort’ of taking him to a session). I will be the one suggesting it but if I don’t do it myself, it won’t happen
- Also on the children, his dad is our only childcare (DD isn’t full time nursery yet). If there’s a time we need him, he can’t organise it and will often be messaging him on a morning to say, come round now or he’ll not get round to telling him of an ad hoc time or when he’s needed until the last minute. FIL only lives around the corner, but still
- He moans that his household job is cooking, despite me doing the meal plan and shopping list for it all. He then gets annoyed about cooking v ironing - he won’t do any and I refuse to iron my clothes plus both of the children’s. So much so, he puts all his tops back in his wardrobe unironed and wears them awfully creased, saying how unfair it is that I won’t iron his
- He can go days without having a shower or taking care of himself
- He will lie in bed until the very last minute on a morning, when I’ve been up for hours already to make sure I had time to get myself ready, plus the children. He will still then moan he’s too tired. He refuses to walk the dogs as he says he’d have to get up too early. A while back he then started going to the gym with his friend, needing to get up at 5am and couldn’t see my issue with him doing this, yet said he couldn’t get up to walk the dogs. On a usual morning, I’ll have got both ready, he’ll come downstairs and prioritise setting up his work laptop, rather than helping feed the dogs or get the children breakfast
- We have no relationship. I’ve told him so many times I’d love to go out on a ‘date’ day or night but it’s just like he can’t be bothered or doesn't care. He’s the master of saying we need to do something like go on a city break but never sorts it out. If I ask, he’ll say, oh well I looked the other day, but says nothing more. He doesn’t compliment me and we don’t have sex very much.
- He’s started speaking to me very rudely in front of the children, knowing we’re having a lot of difficulties with DS’ behaviour at the moment. He’ll tell me to shut up, to bore off or make very odd gaslighting comments but will erupt if I highlight them. E.g. tonight, I suggested DS to stay up an extra half an hour to do his writing workbooks (he struggled in Reception with writing). It’s usually me who does them. I told DH he could do it tonight and told DS he knew which one he needed, meaning he knows where it’s kept and what it looks like. DH then started saying that comment meant I’d been planning this all along with DS, yet when I called it out as an odd thing to say, started saying he wasn’t doing anything and I am getting paranoid. He’ll also mimic me but if he perceives I’ve done that, again he’ll get cross
- The last and best (!) he kissed a random girl on a stag do earlier in the year. He lied about it at first and got very nasty to me when I first confronted him, calling me a manipulative little c word amongst other things and insinuating he’d end the relationship as his life was so awful with me. He didn’t admit it until the following day and even then, still had to be forced to fly home early, rather than offer to come himself. He couldn’t see why I wouldn’t feel the best about him staying there another night, especially since the next day they carried on messaging, insinuating they might meet up again as a group. His excuse for doing it was because we had been arguing before he went as he’d told me he wasn’t going to go on the stag do, left it until the last minute and booked the tickets without even having a conversation with me. He was all full of I want to change, I want to resolve this at the start, but that’s quickly gone. Yes, I’m a doormat but I suppose I didn’t know what I wanted to do and was scared of blowing up my whole life.
Sorry for waffling at you all, I’m just really drained and fed up and don’t have many people to talk to.