I have issues. Childhood trauma from a
set of emotionally negligent parents, an abusive husband and quite severe anxious attachment (god I’ve made myself sound like a catch). I’ve been to a LOT of therapy and I have tirelessly worked on myself for over a decade to make sure I’m not fucking my kids up as much as possible and to keep me sane. I met my DH in 2019 and things moved pretty quickly. Fast forward seven years and we have two kids (one from my previous marriage who he loves like his own) we bought a house in October, so holidays, days out, joint friends lots of family stuff. From the outside it looks pretty perfect.
But I now realise we’re in a cycle. My ex was an addict and so I am probably a bit sensitive to others drinking but my DH has a habit of going to the pub after work (he works in London we live in commuter town outside) and not getting home until 8/9pm. He doesn’t see the harm in it but I’ve explained that at no point could I do this as when I finish work at 6pm I have to pick the kids up, get them dinner, ready for bed etc. not that I want to, but even if I did it’s not an option as I’m putting the kids first. He says he understands we even have arguments about the amount of money this costs us, he’ll stop and then four or five weeks later he’ll start slowly doing it again and the cycle continues. Every six months he’ll get invited to a work thing (he works in the city) and if it’s a free bar he basically disappears and I won’t hear from him for hours and hours sometimes not until 3/4am. I’ve lost count of the amount of £200 Ubers home he’s had to get because he’s missed the last train. This Christmas he went on a river cruise with work, before he went we had a chat about trains etc as they’re always unreliable at that time, he promises he won’t be too late etc and then he gets home at 6.30am. It turns out he’s been stood blind drunk putting the world to rights with some stranger smoking weed by the Tower of London (or at least that’s what he told me he was doing). Am I being controlling by thinking this is not acceptable behaviour for a man in his mid 40’s?! He also lies about money, well maybe not lie but purposefully doesn’t tell me things. He’s a very high earner (I’m a teacher so I’m definitely not!) but our outgoings are high and so we very much live payday to payday. He took out a loan a few years ago which he kept from me until I found the paperwork when tidying, then last night I found out that he’s been using a credit card we had paid off and hidden it from me. Getting it back up to nearly £1k.
I just had enough with him last night when I found it. I think because the Christmas incident was never really dealt with (we were at a kids party and school fete the next day so just acted like it never happened) I’ve had this ball of white hot rage in my stomach ever since. I feel sick when I think about him, I feel used and I feel betrayed. After every incident in the past we have the sorry and he’s always on his best behaviour. It’s so sad though as he’s the best dad and when he’s not being a twat I love our life and our marriage so much.
But I think he’s broken me one last time. I just don’t know how I get over the lies and the selfish behaviour when even when he says he won’t do it again we know in six months he will.
I just don’t know if I’m done