Struggling in marriage, parenting and PTSD

[Ivory89]

Hi, please bear with me as its a very long story, i have no one else to turn to and i can't afford a therapist at the moment.

Im a 35 year old married for 9 years to my husband whom I met when we were 17. We have three young children. After I gave birth to our last child, I had slowly started to change, I began to see life differently and no longer wanted to be in the country that i was born in as we lived in a small, overcrowded, fast paced city. Prior to that I was a SAHM. 

I had a terrible upbringing and am not close to my siblings, i didn't realise the impact it left on me until we had kids and we fought often, we had explosive fights which left me wondering why I was attracted to my husband when we had nothing in common to each other. Growing up, I was always alone and ostracized by my family, there was physical abuse too, I feel like I didn't get the nurturing that I felt I needed, and when i met my then boyfriend, i fell in love with him straightaway and the feeling was mutual. Sometime during our marriage it dawned on me that i clinged on to him because i felt safe, he felt like home, he didn't judge me for the childhood I had. Sometime during our marriage too, we both had a lot of differences that we never really discussed about cos we were both young when we started dating, started full time jobs and saved up to get married. 

 

I had a difficult birth for all three kids which drained alot from me. It was all emergency Caesarean and nothing went as planned. After giving birth to our last child, i felt suffocated being at home and went back to work. Im easily emotionally drained after work, my kids are my biggest triggers, i don't crave emotional affection neither do i give it to my husband, i don't sit on the couch with them when they're watching tv, i'd rather be in the room by myself as i need to decompress everyday after work. Since a year ago, I have been telling my husband that i wanted to migrate as being in the healthcare sector i can pretty much get jobs anywhere, im also working towards my Bachelor. He is adamant about not moving, as he loves his country and will not compromise, we've been to the country that I want to move to and I fell in love with it but my husband did not. He knows why i'm set on moving, i told him that I am sick living in the city where we work long hours and education is tough on the kids. The country that i've been eyeing on has a better work life balance and schooling is less stressful, i don't want our kids to have the same rigid education that we did. To add to the list of things that affects me mentally, I feel drained leaving my workplace and seeing buildings everywhere, i've come to realise i just want a quiet, simple life near to nature, lots of space for the kids to run around but he doesn't feel the same. At the same time, my family stills haunts me and i want to be far away from them as possible, i hated them and hated the fact that we live close to each other. We fought about this so many times and i came to the conclusion that I will bring the kids with me and he can visit often, which is 5 hours away by flight. I also said to him that we can go back often, hopefully. Before you jump to conclusions, please know that I have done my research and there are parents who took their children along with them when they migrated without their spouse, so this isn't a new thing, at the same time, my ex colleague is a single mum to four kids who migrated so I don't see why she could do it and I can't, solo parenting in a foreign country, as crazy as it sounds. Im prepared for my kids to hate me for separating them from their father, but if moving makes me a better person, a better mum, i'd take that chance. He is sad that we've come to this decision but mentions that he will not stop me if that makes me happy. I feel that I owe it to myself after everything, its not fair for my husband but like I always told him, its not fair on me that he refuse to come with me as we have been living in the same country for 35 years. He doesn't see it that way. Resentment has slowly started to build up between us as I compare our marriage to other couples who migrated together and if i have to choose between a divorce and migrating, i'd choose the latter. I don't know why Im sharing my story here as I already know what it is that I want to do with my life, however, I'm still unravelling my childhood, and why I hate emotional affection, why I prefer to be alone, also please don't get me wrong, i do spend time with the kids and bring them out often by myself as my husband works long hours 7 days a week so you can pretty much summed it up that Im used to parenting alone. Sometimes i just don't understand myself, i struggle to be there for my kids too, nobody was there for me when i struggled as a child myself. Some nights i find myself crying because the emotional baggage is too much for me.

 

Thank you for reading this far and im so sorry that my story was super long.

Edited January 9 by Ivory89
Missed out key info