I’ve name changed as I’ve shared a lot of specific health info on here under my old name and I don’t want anyone to recognise me in real life.
DH and I have been married 5 years, together 10. He had an emotional affair 3 years ago and we had counselling which he admittedly worked very hard at to try and change. 2 years ago I was diagnosed with cancer and I think we went into survival mode again. It’s been a brutal few years basically.
The last 6 months have been hard. He is 60 now (I’m 20 years younger) and he’s tired and grumpy. If I talk to him he just doesn’t respond. He didn’t talk to any of us on Xmas day as he said he was too overwhelmed. My birthday passed and he did literally nothing for it. It feels like death by a thousand cuts as nothing “bad” has happened, but I’m very much an annoyance or invisible to him.
We had marriage counselling last week and I explained this to him, and in return he said the house being a mess was really upsetting him. We have teenagers still at home, and we moved here during my Cancer treatment so our garage is full of packing boxes and our house is tidy, but the cupboards are disorganised.
i am currently signed off work due to post cancer extreme fatigue. I have had several transfusions and generally feel like I’ve been run over. After marriage counselling I ordered a load of storage furniture and systems because I was trying to show I took on board what he was saying and was trying. I spent all day yesterday building flatpack furniture, cleaning the oven, scrubbing the floors etc. I wasn’t strong enough to move some of the old furniture downstairs alone though and so it was left on the landing with a message on the family group chat that someone could please help me move it when they got home. I was genuinely pleased with my effort, but exhausted and starting to feel quite unwell by time I’d finished.
DH was first one home and basically lost his shit with me. He was completely silent, snappy and then started slamming things around. He said where id put a drying rack on the back of
a door was stupid, the oven needed cleaning again, that DS had too much crap in his room still etc. Something clicked in me, and I realised that I would spend my whole life trying to please DH and the goal posts would always be kept moving so it wasn’t enough. That I can’t try and hold us together by myself. That even if he makes an effort for a bit, it’s never sustained or real change.
im sorry this is long. I’ve told DH very calmly that im done, and we are now separating. He’s looking at flats in town but we are broke and I don’t know how we navigate this next stage. DS is doing some of his GCSE’s early and has an exam next week so I need to keep things normal until he’s finished those. DH has said he doesn’t want the dogs, but I can’t afford their dog care when I’m at work on just my salary. I need to get better so I can go back to work soon.
I am very calm but devastated. I don’t know what the next steps should be as I’m in uncharted territory here. Can someone tell me how you separate your lives off? He doesn’t even check his own emails or have the banking app on his phone at the moment.