I am being thrown out of my own home

[Tortured]

Ok so I have name changed but am a regular ish poster and I am desperate and feeling totally tortured about my situation.

My wife has announced she wants me to move out. Things have been wrong between us for many years and I accept totally that most of the blame for the issues lay at my door. I was prepared to move out when we separated for a short time at the start of the year. My wife agreed to make a go of things however and things improved for a while.

I know I could have tried harder with lots of things but I didn't, I cannot explain why not, I just didn't and I wish I had as now she wants me to move out stating that she has had enough of my promises of improvement which never materialise into anything. I wish I had more get up and go in me and I would give anything to feel more confident and assertive. I understand why she feels this way and I know there is no going back and the relationship is doomed as far as she can see.

She told me a couple of nights ago that she no longer loves me, fancies me and has lost all respect for me. I still think things can work out if only she will see that I will improve. I fear she will get a solicitor involved and want to know where I stand with the house, kids etc. House is rented through HA in her name only on the tenancy. We both work full time.

Do I have any claim on staying put in the house? She wants to end it so surely I could say SHE should move out? Can she make me move out legally? What can I do in terms of getting access to the kids? She said she wants joint access/custody. I cannot bear the thought of not living with my kids but know they could not live with me if I were living alone due to my job.

I just don't know what to do my head is spinning with it all and I have no family or friends who I can turn to.

[pickyvic]

and can i just explain that its a saying here in yorkshire, when someone "calls you FROM a pig to a dog" it means your being "dissed", im showing my ee by gum eckie thump roots, its a saying not that i meant literally someone called the OP a pig or a dog.

that said i think he was called much worse. he was called a lily livered sack of poo, which i think is just plain nasty. it amazes me. this is a person, who is in pain, who has actually posted further down the thread to say 'ive read the advice and i agree with you,' and he still gets flamed..his "crime" is to have allowed the dynamics of the relationship to alter, to have allowed himself to be mothered and then didnt step up when his wife told him he was on thin ice, to say he doesnt want the relationship to end or to face the upheaval. well how many people actually do want to face that? when it happens to them?

notice the OP hasnt been back, and he said he was a regular poster who had name changed.
i think that the majority of the advice was ok if unsympathetic but there was absolutely no call at all for the insults. (and there were many if you read through)

[violethill]

The abuse to the OP is wrong. That stands whether the OP is male, female, transgender, whatever.

It demonstrates the bigotry of other posters, nothing else.

My feeling on the basis of what the OP says, is that he does seem to be selfish, and has had opportunities to change things and hasn't taken them. He probably needs to accept it is over.

My point, was that if a woman had posted, she wouldn't have been subjected to that abuse. People would have been far more supportive, particularly about the prospect of not living with the children, and also would probably have pushed further to see whether the other partner was unreasonable, rather than just accepting it at face value. I've seen threads before where a female OP starts with 'I know I'm to blame, it's my fault etc' and usually there's a big response along the lines of 'You shouldn't be made to feel that way, you're being oppressed' etc.

And crock of shit, and lily livered ARE two of the insults which have been used on this thread, whether people choose to ignore it or not!

[womenfirst]

Pickyvic you are right and I said that at the beginning of my post. Calling someone names is never right and it does happen a lot on here, but to male and female posters.

IME it seems to come out most when people are frustrated by the poster for not acknowledging what has been said to them already and when they keep asking the same questions and making the same points etc.

When Tortured first posted he got lots of good advice and a fair bit of sympathy but I agree the support was more practical than emotional and thus came across as less sympathetic than a woman would probably have got.

[purpleduck]

pickyvic

Yes, I am totally venting as I am trying to fix my marriage whilst my dh hides his head in the sand., so yes, i admit to venting.

Although I don't think i was too mean.

[Anniegetyourgun]

Yeah, that. And what Dollius said.

[Anniegetyourgun]

Er - Dittany? Someone actually did say that, about a half dozen posts below yours. I'm not sure why; it's a bit out of the blue, as most of the postings started off quite sympathetically. Deliberate stirring perhaps?

And there has been a load of good advice, even if expressed in bracing terms with a very low count. Someone even DID ask what the wife's demands were, though didn't get an answer. It has also been suggested that the OP was depressed and should see his GP (it would explain a lot tbh, including his inability to step up to meet her ultimatum, which even the OP finds hard to understand). No, I think, except for the aforementioned "lilly livered sack of poo" (sic) comment, there's been more reason than stridency on this thread.

[dollius]

The point is that the whole thing is about him. He doesn't show concern for his children's welfare, he just says HE can't bear to live without THEM.
He talks about what he thinks ought to be due to HIM. Even the title of the thread says it all. Not, I am so sad my marriage is breaking up, or I am so sad my children will have to go through this trauma. No, it's "I am being thrown out of my own home." That's what it boils down to.

I really do think that most women posting on here about the end of their marriages tend to have their children's welfare at the top of the list of their priorities.

That is why OP has been flamed.

[catinthehat2]

ahem the lily livered comment was Madame Castafiore.

[pickyvic]

you know id be very interested in starting at thread with the very same title as a woman and seeing what the responses were

i am being thrown out of my own home....as a woman im betting the OP would have got some decent advice WITHOUT the name calling. who in gods name thinks its ok to call this OP a lily livered sack of shite? or odd? just because he thought his marriage would last? im bloody embarrassed actually as a woman, the militants are out in force on this thread. (or women with an axe to grind)
give the poor sod some decent advice and help instead of smugly sitting in judgment - people make mistakes and he is learning the very hardest way that he has made his last one with his wife.
he hasnt said he is a wife beater, or a serial philanderer, just that he has allowed his wife to take over. big deal, and he is paying the price for that now isnt he?

[pickyvic]

womenfirst i dont think anyone is saying that - im saying the abuse thrown at the OP is out of order. id say that if the OP was a woman. a man or a bloody alien from the planet imafuckingmansohumourme....the abuse is wrong. he has been called from a pig to a dog on this thread - who has the right to do that? without knowing the full circumstances? wrong wrong wrong.

[womenfirst]

And do you really think a woman would post on here

"My husband has been emotionally abusive, oppressive and has made unreasonable demands for change that I can't possibly make so he has told me the relationship is over. But I think marriage is for life and I think he should feel the same and give me another chance" ?

[womenfirst]

Violethill-

"if it were a woman saying 'It's all my fault, I should have tried harder/done better/behaved differently. I accept all the blame blah blah blah,' there would have been a deluge of replies saying 'The bastard! He's oppressing you and trying to turn you into what he wants you to be. You're being emotionally abused'"

What would we advise her to do? Leave.

What are we advising Tortured to do? Leave.

[womenfirst]

I'm interested in what people are saying about the response being different if the poster was a woman. I think you might be right about the insults to some extent. I don't agree with insulting anyone no matter how ridiculous they appear to be behaving, but that seems to happen on mn and most of the time the posters being insulted are women.

I think the reason Tortured has got some harsh replies is that from what he has said, his wife does actually sound very reasonable and doesn't seem to be messing him about.

For example, Tortured was prepared to move out but his wife agreed to make another go of things. This hasn't worked out and now she wants to end the relationship as anyone in a relationship is entitled to do at any time and for whatever reason.

She has been harsh but honest by saying she doesn't love, fancy or respect the OP. She is not giving him false hope.

She has obviously told him what he needed to do to make the relationship work in her eyes, he hasn't done this so she has presented the consequences. This is not manipulative (as we so often see demands made by men of their wives on here), she is perfectly entitled to want to end the relationship for whatever reason she wants.

The OP obviously doesn't think her demands were unreasonable, whether they were or not, and that is not what he is complaining about. He is complaining about her making the decision to end the relationship.

He wants another chance to make things work, a chance that a manipulative person would no doubt grant if there were abusive or controlling aspects to their motives in asking for change. She has not, as is her right, as it would be his.

She has agreed to joint custody and access, she is not trying to take the kids away from him.

Tortured says that marriage is for life and that his wife "should" realise this too. (He is not saying he wishes she felt the same, he is telling her what she should feel). He is trying to impose his beliefs on her and is is not respecting her decision.

Despite going to councelling, Tortured stated that what the councellor suggested seemed like "hard work" and he wanted "a quiet life" so did not make any effort to take the advice given by a professional as well as his wife.

Tortured also said the councellor said that his relationship with his wife was a typical mother/child one. This presents a picture of his wife doing everything and him not contributing as he should.

Tortured's wife asked him to go for councelling, in my mind this shows someone who is really encouraging her partner to get all the help he can to enable the relationship to work. Tortured's reason for not going- money- again suggests he is not interested in trying.

He says that he doesn't want to move out of the house and hopes in time things will work out with his wife. This kind of suggests that he doesn't want her to move out either, so when he asks if she can make him move out, it sounds like he wants to stay in the house with her despite her wanting the relationship to be over. Again he is not respecting her decision.

From everything Tortured has said, therefore, it doesn't quite stack up that his wife might be the oppressive one, as itsme suggested. I think, however, itsme might be right about the fact that people might ask what the changes were that the wife had asked for if the situation was reversed, but I think from what I have pulled out above, it is doubtful that they are likely to be unreasonable. Even if they were unreasonable, the person asking for change can ask for whatever they want so this is, in a way, irrelevant. It doesn't mean that the other has to comply, but they do have to accept that this might mean the end of the relationship. I also think that if a women was writing this, the whole tone would be quite different.

As far as I can see the only different advice that might have been given would be to ask if Tortured really wanted to stay with someone who didn't love, fancy and respect her.

[dollius]

I think that's a bit OTT violet. If a woman had come on here saying all that plus "poor me, poor me" (usually, I find, women on here are thinking foremost about their children, not their own personal comforts), I for one would have said the same.

The point is that he is thinking only about how this will affect him.

[violethill]

Also agree with itsme.

Every so often it's really quite fascinating on MN to see the sexism at work on threads started by a man. You know damn well that if the OP was a woman, there would be a totally different response.

In this case, if it were a woman saying 'It's all my fault, I should have tried harder/done better/behaved differently. I accept all the blame blah blah blah,' there would have been a deluge of replies saying 'The bastard! He's oppressing you and trying to turn you into what he wants you to be. You're being emotionally abused' etc But because it's a man, it's ok to call him pathetic, lily livered, spineless etc.

I don't know all the rights and wrongs of this situation - let's face it, none of us do, and maybe the marriage is better off ending. But god, the double standards and sexism at work are pretty damn unbelievable, Some people just don't want equality of the sexes.

[pickyvic]

agree with itsme i think having read all the replies,

why is it ok to completely trash the OP when he is obviously in pain and aware of his shortcomings? yes he needs to accept its over but bloody hell, i can guarantee this thread would have had different responses if the OP had been a woman. i really dont think talking about the oppression of womankind is even appropriate when someone is clearly in pain and asking for support on a parenting forum - he is after all a parent. i dont agree with him, im just saying i find the tone of some of the replies cruel. while most of the points posted are valid is there not a gentler way of saying it? or is everyone just venting misplaced anger at the OP while thinking this could be their ex talking?

[MadameCastafiore]

Fucking hell Tortured??

Tortured??

Come round here and I will torture you you lilly livered sack of poo!

Your relationship was crap but you couldn;t be arsed to make an effort now she wants a relationship that isn;t shit with someone who loves and respects her enough to make an effort.

You have been dumped - move out and try and woo her back or get over it.

[purpleduck]

itsme

"Marriage is for life" is a lovely sentiment, and I too would like my marriage to last forever.
HOWEVER, it should not absolve the parties involved from making an effort.
I think that is what put everyones back up - that the op seemed to feel that the "marriage is for life" would save him from having to put work in.

Also he talks alot about how all this will affect HIM - not so much about how this will affect his children.

[itsmeolord]

co parent

[itsmeolord]

Fucking hell you lot are nasty.

Saying you thought marriage is for life is not oppressive, how many of us get married thinking well 1 in three fail, heigh ho, lets just see how long we last then. I would like my marriage to last for life, i would be devestated if i did get married and it ended regardless of whether or not I had made enough effort.
You don't actually know what the op's wife asked for. If a woman had posted saying, it's all my fault, he says i haven't made enough effort, he doesn't love me or respect me etc you would all have asked what he wanted before judging the op. The op's wife could be the opressive one.

If this was a woman saying it would kill her to move out and leave the children but that her husband was the primary carer and she had no choice then there would be lots of faces on here no doubt.

The op has been called pathetic, told to grow up, called odd..... to name a few insults.
A relationship breaking down is shit, it hurts and both parties tend to do and say things they regret.
This is supposed to be a site for support for parents, this thread is so far from being supportive its untrue.

OP - yes you will have to move out because the tenancy is in your wife's name. You should be asking a solicitor to look at joint residency, joint residency doesn't necessarily mean 50% time with each parent but it will mean that both parents are seen as equal when it comes to decisions about schools, medical care etc etc.
Ask for as much access as you can manage with your job, you will have to negotiate but asking for the maximum gives you a better starting point.
Take some counselling if you can, you need to be able to learn to function as a cop parent now, so you need to be able to work with your ex amicably on any matters regarding the children.
There is no point in dwelling on who is in the wrong now, you need to start getting practical so that you have a place for the children to come and stay etc. TBH, doing the practical things will keep you busy and will probably help.
Have you any friends or family who can offer support? Don't be afraid to ask for help.
You could have a word with the HA and see if there is any chance of renting a property through them, it's a long shot but worth a try. If not then you will have to start looking at private rental.

Best of luck. Things will look very different in a year or so.