Managing in unhappy marriage while children are in exam years

[NCtowhatend]

I've been unhappily married for years. My dh is abrasive in his interactions to the point where we don't have any friends at all. I have my own lovely friends who i see when time allows.
We have two dcs, teenagers. Y13 and Y10.
Dc1 can't stand dh, he is intolerant of her.
Dc2 gets on with him now after years of him not tolersting her.
He scores points and keeps score.
He is never in the wrong or responsible for his behaviour.
I try not to react to keep the peace but when i do he is always the wronged party and i am accused of misremembering/being dispraxic/just wrong.
There are hundreds of things that have led me to check out...death by a thousand cuts.
I don't want to disrupt dcs important educational years so haven't done anything about it and am treading water really.
I am planning to leave when dc2 goes to university but still think that will impact horribly on her, despite feeling like another four years of wasted time is too long.
Any words of wisdom/experience welcome.

You should’ve left years ago and it also sounds like your children would prefer it if you left their dad. There won’t be exams for months so I’d initiate the split now.

I would also suggest you start planning the separation now. Your household is akin to a warzone where your h has decided to embark on his own private based war against you. It’s certainly not conducive to study for exams in and these can anyway be retaken; they are not the be all and end all. It’s certainly no reason nor basis to stay with your (and in turn their) abuser for the next few years. Doing that is stupid and will only benefit him along with giving him more opportunities to abuse you all. There is never a good time to leave and he will be just as abusive post separation and divorce.

What do you want to teach your kids about relationships and what are they learning here?.
Teach your children properly and now that the only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none.

You need the support too from women’s Aid. Enrol
yourself onto the freedom programme too.

I would start by getting specialist legal advice on how things would work with your facts on a split. In particular would you be able to stay where you are with the kids until they are through education.

Thanks. It just seems impossible. Many of my friends have been braver than me and their kids are riddled with issues as a result. Our house is unsellable due to builder issues that dh is suposed to be working on but hasn't for months and it will be ten years of living in an unplastered house soon.
I think making solicitor enquiries to prepare would be a good first step.
I guess I'm asking for help to make the first one.

Are the kids riddled with issues because of how the parents managed their split? Parents who put the children first despite the break up can still produce well grounded children.
Have either of your DD given An indication that they would be prefer to live alone with you?

I would have said wait - my experience of this was a divorce being announced at Easter before my yr13 exams after months of my mum having an affair which I’d found out about. It was the worst possible time. However your DC’s exams are a way off and it sounds like a split for you would result in peace for all of you so I wouldn’t wait. My only advice would be to make it as smooth as possible, have you relatives your DC get on well with for support? Can you make the housing situation/moving house as smooth as possible? Also consider informing your DC form tutors, as an older child of divorce I was much more aware of issues relating to finances etc but felt I had no one to confide in.

This.

I too stayed in an awful marriage because of exams, but the truth is that there is never really a good time to leave... I ended up staying until my youngest dc finished university...

Start seriously thinking about what you can do to end this awful, toxic situation

Gently... There is no way your kids can be in this situation and not be riddled with issues..they are just different issues. Living with a dad who is intolerant of you and where there is this kind of atmosphere will give your kids issues.

My mother stayed, with the intention of waiting until I finished school. In the end she didnt last that long because she had an affair and ended the marriage when I was 17. Yes, it did interrupt my education briefly, but TBH living in that environment had left me in such a mess that I wasn't coping with 6th form anyway.

Just a couple of things I think you should consider: first of all, please don't make your children responsible for the fact that you are choosing not to leave at the moment. Don't fix responsibility for that in their life stage. They've got no choice here. You have.

Second is that living in that environment really ruined my health. I've been chronically ill since my early teens, as has my sibling. The stress of it has just ruined me. I've also got issues with anxiety and really have struggled to be a fully functioning adult. Every day you stay with him extracts a cost, for both of your daughters - the one who he openly hates and the one who has figured out a way to deal with him that helps her avoid the hate.

Finally you need to ask yourself what your daughter's will do once they are old enough to make their own choices. Do you think they will have contact with him, or cut him off? And what do you think their relationship with you will look like? At some point they will have to deal with the fact that you knowingly kept them in a home with a man who openly hated at least one of them. It's a really difficult thing to come to terms with. My mother has some relationship with my younger siblings, but with me, as the eldest who saw the most and the worst of it, the relationship is very difficult. I know what she did, and she knows what she did, and it's hard for us to have a relationship as a result.

Don't make them the reason you're staying. It isn't fair.

Do they want you to split up? Do you know how they feel about it?

@winklepickle very sorry to hear about your experience.
I have of course been concerned about the impact on the DCs but have tried to maintain as constant an atmosphere as possible by not reacting and supporting Dcs when ire has been directed at them.
Older one has had ocd related anxiety issues. I've not made the connection to her relationship with h before. She is receoving therapy so maybe that will be addressed. She always counter attacks which I support between me and her but try to divert so as not to escalate. My approach has always been peace keeping but i understand that probably isn't the best messaging for dcs. H has a way of twisting meaning or memory so he isn't the party in the wrong.
The dcs being the reason I've stayed is very much about not disrupting them as i know a break would be catastrophic with his anger issues. I would never rest any resentment on their shoulders for my delaying.
Even in the shorter term things feel very difficult: we have holidays booked in october and february which would be ruined if i made any move now....how do people navigate these things? We masquerade as a functioning family and I would be drawn as the person to explode everything.

Thanks all for advice, very helpful.

Why don't you plan to leave after the october holiday and get your ducks in a row now?

This is how you are living your one precious life. Just leave and be happy, your girls will be ok

Older dd has talked about me and her living with grandparents, their house is near her school.
But i can't imagine leaving younger dd, even though she gets on with H.
As an aside, the younger suffered terribly for a while with what i thought was some level of autism. She would be overwhelmed with huge emotions and have meltdowns involving pulling her hair out and banging her head. Thankfully this has abated now but H was completely intolerant of her at the time and openly stated his dislike of her, saying the meltdowns were for effect/performance. I may have misconflated but his better treatment of her correlates with the meltdowns ending.

Would you plan to leave when your DD1 finishes year 13? Is she planning on going to University? She may be out of it after that but you still want her to want to come home and feel she has somewhere to decompress and relax when she can. Then DD2 would have a year until she has to sit GCSE's. It sounds from your last post that she was very distressed and is now changing her behaviour so she doesn't get the same treatment as her sister. That is a lot of pressure to put on a child that will have to eventually come out. It sounds like an awful situation your girls have had to live with. Your husband needs to leave if he cant cope with his own children. Have you asked him to find somewhere else to live if he cant stand his children?

I really don't understand why you have stayed in thus atmosphere so long
Your older DD is actively campaigning for you to leave the marital home, while the younger girl had been trying to show you the effect it has had on her for years.
You need to stop prevaricating and pretending to yourself that the delay is for the girls' benefit. You let the cat out of the bag upthread - it's hard.
Take the first step, see a solicitor and ask their advice. Someone will buy the house, even if it has to go to auction and be completed by a developer.

Deciding to divorce is the most difficult thing. And staying for the children is such received wisdom that it’s easy to drift into this situation.
But initiating a split now gives you a chance to build a relationship with your children outside of the unhappy marriage.
Let them see you be brave.

Complex PTSD can damage the developing brain and caused behaviours like neurodiversity also causes. (For me it's things like stims, sensory issues, noise intolerance etc etc)
Both kids have mental illnesses as a result of their abusive home environment, no ones peace has been kept.

Get them into trauma therapy (counselling is useless for trauma, I found.) Waiting till they leave home to rid yourself of their abuser would seem like a real kick in the teeth to them.
I sadly speak from experience, like a previous poster, my parents choices have left me with lifelong trauma and multiple issues, I am furious. I had no choice, they woke up every day and chose more misery.

P.s. your daughter does not get along with the abusive man, she will be performing fawning and appeasement.

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?!. A shed load of damaging lessons from both of you from his abuse of you and in turn them to your various attempts at both appeasing and ignoring him. It has not worked. Trying to shield your kids from
this abuse whilst you are all under the same roof is impossible. And he’s quite happy to live in a house that is in dire need to repair: he does not care about that, you ir his kids. All he cares about is
punishing you and being right all the time.

If this man works outside the home he does not test his work colleagues like he does you.

This ongoing private war of his against you is going to affect how they view their own relationships as adults. One day they will both leave home and not wanting to return very often if at all particularly if you are still with him then (which would be very stupid in your part)

Listen properly to what your dc are saying to you. They will call you daft for staying so your relationship with them is at risk of being harmed beyond repair. They could well see you as putting him before them.

You have a choice re this man, they do not and you need to make choices that put them first.

This is it in a nutshell. I am stupid for not seeing it like this.
House scenario is v complicated.
I have some money from a property sale in a bond that is accessible in november so i have options. I just need to find the grit.

Neither do I. Cowardice probably.
Illness a deaths of both our mothers.
My work being insecure.
Worrying about retribution.
Mainly cowardice.
My life hasn't panned out in the way I'd hoped - except for the dds- so it's all framed within that I suspect.
I will take your advice, thanks for the shove.

Indeed find the grit. Your kids need you now to step up more than ever. He’s quite happy living in a house that’s in need of repair. I feel for your kids in all this because they have had no choice. The two primary adults in their lives ie you two as mum and dad have let them down. Now it’s time to stop the rot and teach your kids properly that the only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none. Someone has to be the responsible non abusive parent and it’s never going to be him.

If you do wait till after exams, please don't put it off any longer. My dad was always planning on leaving my abusive mum and always putting it off for various reasons, even when she started sleeping at another man's house for a while.

They are now in their 80s and I came back from the loo while visiting my dad in hospital with her yesterday to find her with her face in my dad's face bullying him in a nasty voice. On a previous hospital stay, the nurses refused to put her calls through due to her bullying him. They don't mellow in old age.

OP, it will be much better to have him out of house. You will be shocked at how much more harmonious the home is. Don't be distracted by short term plans like holidays. Just get him out!! Do you really want all of your kids childhood to be under such a dark cloud? Going thru divorce is tough but you need to act in your daughhters best interests and that is to remove the abuse.

Both of your daughters are or have exhibited signs of severe mental distress.

And you're flapping around making excuses about exams. I know this sounds harsh @NCtowhatend and I'm sorry for that, but all the problems you say you are staying to avoid are happening right in front of you anyway. Living with him is making your daughters ill and you're persuading yourself it's not what it looks like, but it is.

They are suffering and they are telling and showing you they are suffering.

Living with him is causing them severe emotional damage because they are living with an abuser. They are abused children. This is what it looks like. The emotional problems. The anxiety. Talking about wanting to live differently, somewhere else, without him.

How is their physical health? Rashes and skin problems? Digestives issues? Problems with food? Skin picking? Period problems? Any of this sound familiar?