DesperateForAnswers Posted August 30, 2011 Posted August 30, 2011 Just as my title says, I very much feel as though divorce is looming for my marriage. I am basically clueless as to what exactly it is that my husband has all of a sudden brought out that he's looking for, and what if anything I can do to help him be happy. We've been together for 10 years this past July, and married for 4 years this past July. We have a 3 1/2 year old daughter and are expecting our second child around mid-November. But here I sit wondering what my future holds for myself and my children. I suppose I've been naive to the extent of this fact, but he is not a very good communicator to me when it comes to our marriage. We have had our usual disagreements and arguments recently, and it hasn't been anything to throw a major red flag to me. He's been pretty adamant about wanting to go out with his new found single buddies from work but money hasn't allowed that. Apparently that is not something he has failed to consider and constantly lays blame on me for him not having "freedom". So we've recently moved into a new home from trying to get our finances in order in his moms house for the past month or so, and I figure we have a fresh start coming. Have I been dwelling on the fact that he wants to "go out with friends when he wants"? Well of course not. I'm taking classes online to get my Bachelors, preparing for a new baby, keeping up with a 3 year old, all while taking care of the normal routines of our daily lives and ensuring he has clean clothes, coffee each morning, lunch if he so chooses to take it, and is happy in all other aspects of his needs. However, it's apparent this has been important to him and a major factor in why he chose to stay with a buddy from work last night. But I suppose I was supposed to figure this out on my own all while taking care of my other life tasks. I can honestly say had he approached me telling me this needed to happen right now or our marriage was coming to an end, I would have stopped and further communicated what it was he needed to fix these existing issues. Living with his mom for the past month though left us VERY little time for communication regardless. He was commuting an hour back and forth to work, working 6 days a week 12 hours a day sometimes, and coming straight home to a few beers and computer games. Another reason I never initiate communication any more because I would say I gave that up last year some time. It was a revolving door of failure because the only opportunities I actually had to communicate with him he was under the influence of alcohol or completely sober and wouldn't open up. I don't know if I should say "gave up", rather maybe more of less so; I know he knows when I need something or want something changed so why nag him. I tell him what he needs to know from me and from there I cannot push any further. Been too afraid that would run our marriage into the ground faster than what I'm facing now. I have to say I once spent each day complaining to him that his daily drinking and gaming routines were starting to affect our marriage, but eventually just accepted it as part of my life and let him do what he so chose. I have put up with verbal abuse through all this because drinking can and will completely turn him in to a different person and he says things that he would never say in such extent while sober. I have continuously been reminded of how worthless I apparently am, but after letting it get to me was able to chalk it up to his immaturity and needs to make himself feel better by putting me down. It's okay, hopefully this too he will grow out of. Mind you we have been together since he was 14 years old and I was 15 and here he is 24, about to be 25 and I'm 26. So we have fought very much through the years of adjusting to each other's growth in maturity and changes that come along with it. Regardless, even though I know some of these past issues, such as drinking and gaming constantly, have been a factor on where we are today I am still willing to lay down, take the blame, and take every step necessary to try to make this marriage work; no matter what the situation I love him as my husband and children's father and never want to see us divorced. He is very much still a young and seemingly selfish male who has some ways to go and I will suffer through it until he hopefully enters the next stage of maturity. I have been willing to put the little things aside in hopes we can make it through. So Sunday he comes to me, rather out of the blue, and says when you get a chance we need to talk. My heart stopped. I started shaking. Something had been telling me something was up with him because he had hardly talked to me that day and just hadn't seemed himself. But all along I know he's having trouble with the work load he's dealing with, being a husband and father, providing for us, and facing the needs of continuing to prepare to welcome his son. I did everything possible to step away from him recently and not nag or give him grief, but that apparently wasn't enough and wasn't the problem. As he starts talking I watch the look on his face and he honestly looked as though he was going to cry, but he proceeded to tell me he wasn't happy, is miserable, doesn't know who he is or what he's supposed to be doing, and wants to make his own decisions. He also claims he doesn't like "routine" and wants something different. So I sit there, I'm in shock. He doesn't tell me these things, he never has come close to opening up to communicating to me to fix any problems he has had like this. I'm thinking just yesterday it was a normal day for us, or so I thought. He tells me he doesn't want to have to call a wife and tell her he's going to do such-and-such. He just wants to be able to do it. He also claims to this does not in any way involve females as that's one thing he doesn't want to have to deal with. I guess after 10 years with basically the same girl I can see how that can be deemed true. However, we were in this very same position a couple of years ago, he claimed it didn't involve wanting to "see what else was out there" and a year later I found out otherwise. So maybe this has been going through his mind for longer than I would have thought. I wouldn't know though, he keeps way too much to himself. So as of Sunday he's ready to end our marriage based on the conversation he had brought to me. I couldn't say anything to him. I didn't know what to say. All I could do was think. I eventually tried to open up to him a couple of hours after thinking, but I think to him it was too late. He continued to tell him he was tired of "trying" (which I had no idea there was any trying going on OR what for) and just didn't see any other option. He's ready to ship our daughter and I to GA this weekend and that be that. I'm appalled at such a response from him because after 10 years, 2 children, and a marriage that could have been much worse and we've already worked so hard at, he's ready to just walk away. However, my family is in Georgia and we're in Texas. I picked up my life in 2004 to come to Texas so he could be closer to his father, who was divorced from his mother when he and his brother were younger. So my entire support system is in Georgia. All I have here are his family members and the friends we've made as a couple. So obviously I'm going to go home if this is what he wants. I told him Sunday night that if that's what he wants he needed to consider that VERY seriously because once I walk out that door and uproot my daughter and I to GA I will not be coming back. And with a 2nd child on the way there is no way I can or will play any type of childish game dealing with "not knowing if I'm cut out to be the married type". He doesn't disagree with me moving home because he knows it wouldn't work for me here. 2 months out from having a baby, having been a stay at home mother and student for 3 1/2 years, and having basically nothing just wouldn't work, and he's been reassured on more than one occasion I would never keep his child/ren from him. BUT he needed to understand I'm not moving back and forth across the country, so it would be best for him to think about this situation further before just calling it quits. Apparently he agreed because the next morning when he woke up for work he said, "You stay, I'll go". He came home yesterday after work, packed some clothes and the rest of his beers from the fridge, and took off to his friend's apartment. I refused to contact him last night. I'm making EVERY effort possible to give him this space, if that's what it is he really wants which I still don't 100% know, in hopes that I'm not facing a new life without him. At the same time, I expect this to entirely be treated as a marriage as in he presents himself as a married man and I as a married woman, and I don't feel confident that is as important to him. When he came home from work yesterday, he'd already removed his wedding band. Just like that; within a 24 hour period. I commented on how quick that was and he claimed to me he just wanted to see what I said. Whatever. I'm not even going to try to analyze one way or the other there. But, when I woke up this morning I felt a little resentment. I feel as though I am pulling strings to make changes that 1) I didn't know needed to be made and 2) that I am fully responsible for knowing full well it's not the case. What about all of the times in the past few years I've tried to get him to understand my view on things that could better our marriage? All the times I've tried to tell him I'm not happy with something and attempted to get him to help me with it? I guess those weren't important. And all of a sudden I'm slapped in the face out of the blue with this. It seems as though he doesn't want to concentrate on any issue or problem I have had in the past, because he always claims they are stupid and not important, but when he feels pressure and overwhelmed it's the end. Am I missing something here? I have done everything in my power as our marriage has grown to make sure I mold to his needs and make sure he's got what he needs, and I am shot down every time. Yet I'm supposed to sit here and wait around for this from him? For all I know he's going to up and decide next week that he just doesn't see any more chance for our marriage and I'll be packing my bags. His mother, knowing her son very well and is very unbiased to our marriage, tried to reassure me this morning that it's a "phase" and he just needs to have some selfish time for his nonsense to get out of his system and he'll quickly realize the "single" life isn't what he thinks it is. I think I can believe that, but how do I know he won't like it? Gosh, all his friends at work seem to enjoy being single parents, or not parents but single, and I'm sure as far as he's concerned if we do divorce he won't have to worry about the responsibilities of children either but a few times a year, and as he stated to me Sunday the fact that they will only see him a few times a year (since that's how his custody agreement was worked with his parents, Christmas/summer/maybe one or two other times a year-they grew up a few states apart from both) they'll hate me and love him. Wow, thanks for that insight. Although we've had our marital problems and such in the past, he's never stepped forward to me and told me that he was ever unhappy or even heading down that road. So why now? I started this journey Sunday with the mindset that he just needs some time and a bit more freedom in the marriage. Fine. I can easily do that and hope that he can and will take that opportunity and, at the same time, work on our marriage and family. One of my biggest issues all this time is the lack of respect, care, love, and compassion I get from him and I've tried to express that to him. If you show me you love me and value our marriage and family, then it will mean even more and more for you. But he hasn't gotten that through his head. What I'm seeing now, that I didn't know before, is that he wants his end of the deal first. I guess I'm supposed to let him go do as he wishes with his friends, and just hope that means I will no longer be considered worthless to him and disrespected and that he will finally start taking some time out of his life to spend time with his family? I've tried to tell him, in a short yet to the point manner, that that will be easy, but apparently he needs or wants more. It's just that I don't have answers as to what exactly those wants or needs are. So am I supposed to just sit around and expect that whatever, if any, additional problems that he won't express to me could be the demise of our marriage without ever having a chance to put them in focus and fix them? It seems so hard to think of that but I just can't get anything else out of him but "I don't know". Then I can't help but wonder if it's not about other women, but I will fight that thought for the time being. I really need some direction on how I'm supposed to keep my "selfish" needs out of this picture to allow him to *hopefully* realize he does still want this family to work, even though it never seems my "selfish" needs are ever addressed when I bring them to his attention. I'm willing to accept that in hopes he will one day have respect for me and our marriage, but at the same time some of the things that have been said or mentioned since Sunday take me back to the fact that there is no hope. I never would have thought, if we were going to split up forever, that it would be while I was pregnant with our second child and so close to his arrival. So unexpectedly and fast I go from worrying about who will keep our 3 year old when the baby comes and which day to schedule the cesarean, to "Am I going to have this baby alone?" and there is nothing scarier to me in the world. He wanted this little boy, and now he has a life with a son, daughter, and wife who all care so much for him, and all of a sudden he wants to back down and turn away from us? People tell me not to worry with the "What ifs" but that is close to impossible when I face having my second child alone and raising them as the single mother I never thought I'd have to be. Yet all this time, while he's away from home, it seems nothing more than a game to him in my eyes. He wants me to pretend everything is okay. Really? So what about mine and our children's future? Is that not supposed to be important to me? In 3 weeks I could be packing up and starting my life over. Who would have thought after 10 years huh? I guess he doesn't realize that for this to be something he so "desperately" seems to want, the single life, it's such a devastating life change I am facing and ever so scared to embrace.
Sweetgold Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 I really think he is being immature, I will take into consideration his age but at this point in 10 years of marriage and the most important thing is his friends and a cold beer. Come on, if as a wife and mommy you have to put those things aside then why can't he. I'm not sure if moving back home will help your situation because now you have all the responsibility and he now has the freedom to do whatever he wants. Now he doesn't have to worry about you and your 3 year old or the new baby on a daily basis. He really needs to think this thru because it effects everyone of you. He should have thought about single life before he got married and had children. Sometimes men can be so selfish. I'm sorry you are going through this and have to deal with a baby on the way also. Hope it works out for you. You also need to know that all though it can be hard. If he wants you to leave, you can make it and take care of your kids. Women do it every day. You can't make decisions for him.
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