should I stay or should I go

[Shouldistayorgo]

First time poster. I have been married for 10 years and have two kids under 7. My husband and I should have the perfect life as we both have stable, high income jobs (combined we make 1/2 million a year) and both sets of grandparents are supportive of our family and won't support a divorce. We are so lucky and yet we are both very unhappy about our marriage. My marriage has been dead for about two years. My husband is a good person overall but just not to me. Our personalities are very different- he is a homebody, introverted and I am social and chatty and like to have a companion for most activities.

 

Initially I thought our differences would complement each other. I am unable to communicate with him because he always gives me the silent treatment when he's mad; and when he's not mad, he is mostly quiet anyway. Early in the relationship, he might be mad/ quiet/ignore me for a few days at a time although sometimes it would happen at very inconvenient times like during a thanksgiving holiday when family visiting. In recent years, he is often mad for months where we hardly talk at all; and in a blink, we’ve hardly talked for over a year other than talk for coordinating the kids’ activities and I feel very lonely in this marriage.

 

Some examples: he was mad about me for buying a new car (although it was using my own money), mad that I bought more furniture which he thought was unnecessary (again using my money), mad that I took my daughter on camping trip with friends because he refused to go and so he stayed with our toddler son at home during the trip. When I'm mad, I want to talk about it. When he's mad, he shuts down and refuses to talk and if I requests to talk to him in private, he just says talk in front of kids then because he basically thinks I’m wasting his time anyway and says why do I need to talk when the kids are asleep, as that is taking up his free time.

 

So the few times that I ended up just talking in front kids about our marital issues ended up degenerated into shouting matches with him stomping out and slamming the door and saying “ see, this is why I don’t want to talk to you,” and our unfortunately our kids had to witness it. I have suggested couples counseling in earlier years and he's always refused to go. Now we have zero connection 90% of the time. We just co- parent and ignore each other and sleep in separate bedrooms. We each sleep with one child; and for me, I actually like sleeping with my daughter as she is old enough to at least gives me some companionship and fills part of the void.

 

Since we have no emotional connection, I really don't even miss physical part with him. We only have sex like 4 times a year and although it's great when it happens, neither of us care to initiate it much although I don’t reject him when he initiates it.

 

I'm not depressed in other aspects of my life. I have a great stable job and although I can’t say work is my passion in life but it is fulfilling in certain aspects. He makes more than twice my salary and he seems to be happy enough about his job. For a long time, I was compartmentalizing my sadness within the marriage and not letting it affect the rest of life. Now the sadness is more pervasive and I find myself crying when I have time to reflect like when I’m working out at the gym. I'm living for the last few years with 1 foot in the marriage and the other foot out. I feel the need to make a decision, put the other foot in or take both feet out.

 

Part of the reason I’ve delayed this for so long is that I don’t want to deal with the emotional stress of going through a divorce, and not that I have any psychiatric problems before but I’m prone to anxiety and I’ve seen people have mental breakdowns from divorce. I have doubts about whether I really find my soulmate or lead a more fulfilled life after divorce if I’m single for a long time. I would only want to be with someone that has a similar amount of education, income, attractiveness, personality and I guess that might be hard to find. I made a mistake in choosing my husband as I thought the more important thing was that we were well matched on paper and thought that our personalities and differences would meld together eventually.

 

Changing my philosophy from love the one you marry to marry the one you love. My husband pursued me and he was infatuated with me when we met. Although I did not initially intend to go out on a second date because the first date was not that great, he was persistent in calling several times for the second date and it turned out better. I had initial doubts about our personality differences, but I liked the feeling of being pursued and once things got physical, we did have a very strong physical connection which eventually could sustain the marriage. When we were dating, he was willing to compromise back then, willing to eat out more, hang out with my friends most of the time.

 

Since we got married, he never really bonded with any of my friends, never wants to hang out with them, and when he does come to a party or friends house with me, he is mad at least half the time, and maybe another quarter of the time he is just too apathetic or tired to make conversation. I’ve pointed this out to him at least once every 6 months but it’s never changed much and he just denies it or said it’s my fault that why did I make him mad at the party. It’s so embarrassing that I often just prefer to take kids to social events without him. He is same way with my family with the exception one family member that he actually like but I feel like he is generally cold towards my family and friends as he is with me.

 

We don’t speak the same love languages and I have told him many times earlier on in the marriage that I would like to have some romance. He always wants to bring the kids although most of time I could have easily arranged a nanny for date nights. He has never been romantic in the way that I could appreciate because he is so cheap and frugal. We never had a honey moon initially, then I arranged a trip 6 months later at an all inclusive but he was so cheap that he refused to go any excursions or eat anywhere else besides the free buffet even though I offered to pay for it and I paid for that trip anyway since I was working and making more money at the time. I didn’t end up going on any excursions since what is point of going by myself.

 

He never feels like we need to have a date night or romantic trip, so his idea of a date night is basically a work sponsored dinner, and besides family reunion vacations with his family, our vacations are generally going on one of his work/ conference trip with the kids- basically I watch the kids while he’s at conference during the day and then we all hang out as a family.

 

Once when my mother offered to travel to our city to babysit because he wanted me and our 1 baby at the time to go to Hawaii for his work conference and I didn’t want to bring our baby since it was only going to be a 4 day trip of which 2 days will spent flying and what’s the point of being all tired with our baby; so, I refused to go as he insisted that our baby come and he refused to extend the trip to a 7 day trip, and then in the end he just went by himself. Since then, he’s always just invited his parents to come on all of our family vacations and his work trips which I actually don’t mind since his parents are nice and they help out with the kids. Actually, I have more conversations with his family than I do with him on these trips.

 

He is resentful of me for not being a more supportive wife. I am wilful and I never considered my career to be any less important although he makes more than twice as much money. I work 4 days a week and my extra day off is mostly spent running errand, grocery shopping, cooking anyway. We live closer to my work- I commute for 30 min each way, he commutes for 1 hour each way. We had this house before he got his job. He pursued me when I was graduating from training while he was still in the early part of his training. I felt like I made sacrifices to be with him in the beginning because I did love him then.

 

I felt like my support was in being with him when he made less money as I paid for more of the mortgage and expenses then, and staying with him when he was crazy busy with training for 80 hours a week and working most weekends. He doesn’t see that way but complains that I never supported him to a having research career, never supported him moving away to do a fellowship after training, never supported him to join the Army reserves when he was about the finish training because heck I needed him to be around since we had a baby. Shortly after he got his job, I suggested that we buy a bigger house in the city that he was working at even though it would be a longer commute for me, but he didn’t want to and said we will live in our small town house for another 10 years. Fast forward 10 years, we are still living in our small town house.

 

He wanted to buy another house 3 years ago in the city that he works, but I didn’t think it was a good time to buy since we had just missed the housing recession 3 years before when I had wanted to buy, and I was pregnant at the time again and didn’t want to deal with moving and didn’t know if I really want to eventually switch jobs to his company since he was not a partner there yet and I was happy and more established in my group by then. I tried to recruit him to my work since he doesn’t like his commute, but he wasn’t interested in coming. After that our relationship has degenerated so much that I don’t even want to move 30 miles for him.

 

He flat out said we are going to move when I decide so because I make more money and I flat out said no- if you move, I won’t come with you and we can fight over the kids. Since then I don’t think he is thinking of moving since he realizes I’m the one who is mostly picking up the kids/dropping them off to school and my dad ( the only local grandparent) has been coming over to help out more with the kids. Every time, the kids get sick and can’t go to school, I’m always the one to call in sick from work to take care of the kids.

 

I’ve asked him if he can call in to sick to work next time and he always says no. He even went to work the day after I delivered our baby so it’s no surprise there although my mother was with me so it wasn’t like I needed him. It’s not like I don’t feel bad about inconveniencing my colleagues about taking sick days at work and the fact that he thinks his work is more important bothers me. It doesn’t help that part of the reason I don't appreciate his hard work or his high income more is that he doesn’t want to have a large joint bank account, and he doesn’t take our family out to nice restaurants, we don’t live in big house, he won’t buy a nice car or do anything besides mainly just hoard his money.

 

So, we basically have a small joint bank account that we each contribute to for kids expenses. He is paying for more joint expenses after we had a battle about that a few years ago since he was making a lot more money by that point. I did suggest a system where we could each contribute like 70% of our net incomes into the joint account and each have a small private account but now it’s more like 10% of our incomes go into a small joint account for the kids. I never wanted to have completely joint accounts either since he’s so cheap that I don’t want to have to justify to him every time I want to buy a dress.

 

I’m actually frugal too but he just takes it to the extreme. The next stressor is I want to buy a big house in a good school district close to our current house but since we don’t have joint accounts and we never agree on anything, it’s stressful to even think about it.

 

It is worth it having a dead marriage for the kids? He is a good father and the kids adore him and he probably does more childcare than most dads. There no issue with any affair or abuse besides emotional neglect. Maybe if I put my other foot back in the marriage that things could improve but I honestly don’t feel like our marriage was ever that great at it’s best and unfortunately all the life’s ups and downs in the past 10 years have ripped it up even more. I also don't know how to warm up to him or be affectionate with him anymore because all we have is coldness. The hard times have never bonded us and it never felt like we were on the same team in the face adversity because we can’t even communicate.

 

Thanks for reading if you made it this far. Would love hear any advice especially if any you have had a similar experience.

Edited March 19, 2016 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[bathtub-row]

First of all, I think this is a terrible example to be setting for your kids. Each of you sleeping with one of the kids?

 

This guy makes zero effort in this relationship, acts childish, and abuses you through silence...for months. Sorry, I'm trying to figure out why this is a complicated decision.

 

Not wanting to bother with a divorce most likely means that you're not in enough pain yet. Once it becomes too much, nothing will be more important than extracting yourself from him. But you're right to not leave thinking you'll meet some great guy. I'm not saying that won't happen, but you need to walk away certain that you're ready to be on your own, a single mom, and that you can and will be happy like that. And when your kids are grown and the child support runs out, ask yourself where you'll be. It sounds like you do well for yourself so that may not be a big concern.

 

To me, there are fewer things that can make us feel really lonely like a bad marriage. I left someone who made me feel that way. I never regretted it.

 

And if your family won't approve of you divorcing, too bad. They'll get over it and if they don't, it's their problem. You cannot live your life worrying what others think when they have no clue what your life is like.

 

Btw, I have one concern that I feel the need to bring up. Your husband's personality is odd and he's anti-social. That fits a lot of people who are sexually deviant, pedofiles, etc. It concerns me that he's sleeping with your son. If you're certain things are ok, fine. But I have to say this instantly caught my attention.

Edited March 16, 2016 by bathtub-row

[kztar]

Im sorry you're going through this. Im pretty sure im not as old as you are but this marriage doesn't sound healthy. You're basically doing all the work by yourself. This is not fair to you.

 

I honestly think that if my EX didn't dump me, and I would of married him, this would be me in ten years.

 

He seems to have a dismissive avoidant personality. Seems like your husband loves to dismiss the problems and never talk about it. Meaning they never really get resolved at all, as where you like to talk about the problem, solve it and move on. When dealing with someone like this is hard to continue growing because you're not solving anything.

 

Also, I have learned that while opposites attract, it can create further problems down the line. At the beginning both parties compromise, while after time fades, the introverts go into their OWN little world so we the extrovert end up doing everything alone and compromising much more. NO GOOD.

 

Your beginning also sounds identical to mine. The pursuing and whatnot.

I suggest seeing a marriage counselor and if that doesn't work, sadly you're going to have to walk away for your own good.

 

I hope it all gets better.

[Shouldistayorgo]

Bathtubrow- so happy for you that you have no regrets about leaving your marriage. My husband is definitely not a pedophile. It's just that in our culture it is more acceptable to co-sleep or sleep in same room with kids. We never bothered to sleep train the kids to sleep on their own since when they were babies we had hired live in nannies to sleep in their room since we had demanding work schedules and we let go of the last nanny when my son turned two recently and I started him in preschool/ daycare. I wouldn't call him totally antisocial as he has a few friends that he still keeps in touch with from college and he is actually happy around them and his family so I guess it's more that he sees no need to be the same way with my friends or family.

 

He also doesn't feel any need to make new or more friends, unlike me. I appreciate your concerns though and I agree that if I leave I need to be prepared to be happy alone and the problem is how do I know if I'm ready to be alone? I seriously have self doubt about my ability to be alone or be strong enough to deal with a stressful divorce and I think the situation would be bad for the kids since they are very attached to both of us and it's hard one parent to devote enough attention to both kids at the same time given their age difference.

 

Kztar- you are actually much younger than me based on what o can tell from your prior posts. I'm in my late 30's. So enjoy your youth and the possibilities that it brings! Best wishes to you finding your soulmate.

 

Certainly my possibilities would be more limited if I were to divorce as most single men of my age, education, and income would probably date younger women and not single moms.

Edited March 19, 2016 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[Babs22]

Souldistayorgo,

Wow, your story sounds so similar to my own. The difference is that I am 50 and been married for 21 years. My kids are now grown, but so much of what you described sounds like my life. I'm more of an extrovert, he's more of an introvert. He can laugh and have fun with his friends and his family, but not with mine. I took care of the kids, I stayed home when they were sick, I took them to doctors, I arranged child care, I was in charge of their education, etc.

 

Our marriage wasn't always cold, but he did do the shut down, get quiet, never resolve anything approach. Our sex life sounds like it was a little better than yours. In the beginning he would initiate, then it got to the point, I would initiate, because when my H got cold and grumpy, I kind of knew he needed that. So if he didn't initiate, I knew I needed to.

 

Another difference, is I did, after 18 years of M, start an A, and its going on 3 years now. I just think the resentments were there and when someone else showed me they cared about me, it was not hard at all to fall for that person. Now, my marriage sounds like yours, no talking unless about kids, separate bedrooms, cold as ice. I think someone said it, when you are tired of that, when it gets bad enough, you will go for divorce. I am there. By the way, my H does not know about my A, but he grew very cold when I withdrew from him. I tried to keep acting normal with him, but he was so cold, I am now done. I probably should have ended it before the A, but I just thought I could keep dealing. I was wrong. BTW, my A is with a MM and he won't be leaving his wife, so I am not running off to be with someone else, I will be on my own.

 

When you are tired of living the way you are, you too will decide its time to D.

[Kayil]

Thanks for sharing your experience on this forum. It must be difficult for you living with your husband under those circumstances. I understand your pain as I experienced some of the issues you mentioned with my husband. We were married for 10yrs with 2kids under age 10. We seperated almost 2yrs ago and are going through the divorce process yet.

 

Have you talked to your husband about what could potentially happen to your marriage if you continued living this way?

[elaine567]

Certainly my possibilities would be more limited if I were to divorce as most single men of my age, education, and income would probably date younger women and not single moms.

 

That is no reason to stay in an sad, lonely and abusive marriage, surely?

Kids witnessing silent, angry, upset, warring, shouting, yelling parents who hardly ever communicate in a normal manner and sleep in separate rooms, is frankly appalling and it will damage them for life.

Kids learn by example what example are you showing them here?

[Calmandfocused]

I've been out with 3 friends this evening. One who is heavily pregnant, the other two are in long term relationships. I know them all pretty well and asked each of them to honestly tell me how they "get on" with their husband/ partner. Each one said "we get on really well" or something to that degree. I'm in an unhappy marriage and could never say that in a million years. Could you?

 

I'm pursuing divorce.