QuestionQUESTION: I had a relative pass away recently and I felt my life pass before my eyes. Like up until that moment, I had been focusing on surviving, not living or thinking for myself. I feel like I want to be separated from my husband of 11 years. We have 3 children ages 11, 6 and 3. I do not think we should have gotten married. I had agreed to marriage, then got pregnant and felt pressured into marriage. I did not realize these things because I was too far into the pregnancy and then switched into survival mode. I also had just lost my grandmother and uncle (my grandmother was raising me and was truly my mother and my best friend). Looking back, I do not think I was emotionally stable to make a life choice. I am miserable. I used to be happy, optimistic and goal oriented. This man is negative, gets very angry and thought I would have denied it before I think I am afraid of him. Afraid to talk to him because he does not want to hear what I have to say. I was raised catholic and my parents divorced when I was 5, and I thought I would never do that to my kids, but I do not think this relationship is healthy and I worry that staying could do more harm than good. He is hardly around. He works two jobs to make up for the job he lost last year. Our finances have been bad, and ironically the more it gets better, the more I feel I cant pretend that everything is ok. Whenever we fight, there is a period of a few weeks when he's nice, but I don't think I can't stand this cycle anymore. He acts like all of our problems are in my imagination and when I try to talk to him he says I am just trying to pick a fight. Even when I go out of my way to bring up an issue in the nicest way, he doesn't see it that way. It hurts me to be around him and I feel I have lost my sense of self, my self respect. I agree to things just to avoid the fights. I know he is going to think I am being selfish, but I am really not. I just do not understand how I can be a good mother or have a good outlook if I am in a relationship that leaves me feeling depressed, upset and so far removed from who I am that I cannot recognize myself. I really do not like who I am when I am with him. I also think I have been using my children to hide from him. We haven't slept in the same bed for years, he sleeps wherever. We never combined finances and I feel separate already. Please help.
ANSWER: Hi Diane~
You have to make that decision and finally decide that you're going to go through with it and just do it. You haven't been happy in this relationship, it seems, in quite some time. You just haven't left him yet. The hardest part is taking the very first step in deciding to leave him and actually going through with it. It's tough, I'm not going to lie to you. You know that you've not been happy for quite some time. It's never a good thing to be in an unhappy, unhealthy and unfulfilling marriage. Children can sense when something's not right between their parents. And it's not fair to them nor yourself to remain in this marriage.
See, a person can only take so much of something before they finally break. The question here is when is your breaking point? How much longer are you willing to put up with this before you finally say NO MORE? It's a tough decision to make all the way around. But you need to make that decision, as to exactly what you want to do with this marriage. And if he can't give you what you want and need out of a marriage. Then you can't continue to remain with him. Whatever decision you make isn't going to be an easy one. But the point is something has to give and a decision needs to be made and soon. Otherwise, it's only going to get that much worse over time.
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QUESTION: Thank you for your answer. This is so hard for me. He seems to think if he pretends everything is ok then it will be. I am not comfortable pretending anymore, but I feel such fear at ending it. One day, he is angry and says "if its over just tell me" and the next he is trying to walk on eggshells and pretend everything is perfect. I am not afraid to raise these children myself and know I can. I am afraid of telling him and that he will be bitter and fight me every step of the way. I worry about selling the house. If I just left, he could not afford the mortgage payments on his own. We are barely making them as it is. I also would want to go back where my family is. I miss that area and need the comfort of my family. My cousin has a daughter who is almost 16 and would love to babysit for me. She is taking CPR and red cross classes at school. I do not know how to let go of this fear and also how long the process takes to leave someone. Does it get planned months at atime or just done immediately. I have been thinking of seeing a counselor to get things straight in my head.
Diane
AnswerHi Diane~
I've found, in my experience, that it's better to do it immediately and to get the separation part over and done with. B/c the longer you take, the more hesitant one can become and to just decide to either put it off indefinitely or just prolong it that much longer. And when you do the latter it's harder to leave your spouse. Then it'll be harder for you to leave him and harder on the children as well. If you want to do it, you need to make that decision and go through with it. It's kind of like jumping blinding into something, unless you can actually sit down and plan to do something like this in a certain amount of time. Which I didn't plan, I was kinda flying by the seat of my pants. I didn't know what I was going to do, I just did it. And I have no regrets of making that decision still to this day more than 9 yrs later after my separation and divorce. You have to decide what it is you want out of life and just do it. Besides at this point all you can do is take life one day at a time and see where it leads you.
