I don't know quite how to put all of this, but I do need advice. I've reached a place in my life where I think I've made the choice to be a mother for all the wrong reasons. These feelings have been going on for over a year now, so it's not just a sudden occurance. I'm in a dead-end marriage, and it's been that way since before my children were born 11 years ago. I was one of those stupid ones who thought that having a family would someone fill that missing void in my life and make everything better somehow. Now, I am so sad about things that I'm falling into really bad depression. Here's the list of issues going on:
1- I can't stand my husband and I don't love him anymore. I haven't loved him for many years now, but I am so financially strapped to him that I have no clue as how to support myself and 4 other children. I have to get drunk in order to stomach sex with him. I have become great at faking being happy around him. Almost to the point where I have blurred the lines between fantasy and reality on this issue. We fight about everything, and he has a horrible temper. He fights with our 11 year old twins constantly. He once pushed our daughter across the carport because she wasn't moving fast enough after he thought a fight started between her and her brother. I told him if he ever did it again, I would leave for sure. I was recently sick with a migraine, sinus infection, and painful ear infection a couple of weeks ago. He told the kids it was all their fault I was sick because they fight so much and won't listen to me. He said that I don't really mean it I say thank you for the things they make me; i.e., mother's day cards, etc. They swore me to secrecy because if I tell my husband what they say, he goes back to them and yell's even worse. My son is starting to have panic attacks. We won't even get into the fact that he is extremely neurotic over everything the children eat. He is an acupuncturist and he is constantly yelling at the kids about what they are and are not suppose to eat. Now my 11 year dd was caught stealing candy at school on Monday and lying about it.
2. I don't have any financial means of than taking care of my family if I leave him. After my husband finished his masters degree, I was suppose to finish my bachelor's in multimedia. That never happened because I had to stay at home with my children while he opened his clinic in another town one hour away. I tried going back to school, but it was so far away that it was hard on the children at that age going back and forth to the day care center. Then I had my third child and it all but went out the window. We sold our house and moved a couple of times. I finally started taking classes online, but I took a break so that I could concentrate on our move to Florida over the summer. My husband decided he hated it here and thus, we focused (very stressfully) on moving somewhere else. I changed my FAFSA so many times that I can't remember what college I last put on the thing! We/he decided to stay here, but I can't start back until summer, but I have to schedule my classes around the new clinic he is opening here because he wants me to work in that full-time. He has wanted me to focus my energies toward a career in the clinic (massage, acupuncture, etc.), and do web-design on the side.
3- I have no friends. I haven't had a friend in 17 years since I met my husband. He's the type that puts down pretty much anyone I try to make a contact with. My parents live 2 hours away, but yet he pitches a fit if I want to go see them with the kids. He always wants to wait until we can all go as a family. See, my parents think we should divorce and he knows this. He also thinks they are fundamentalist Taliban Christians too. This is a constant issue with him. I had a friend of mine from high school finally track me down and she called me last night. When I told him, his comment was "oh the lesbian - that's a great friend to have around the kids". I talk every week to my mother, but that's it; no one else to talk to. But there is only so much dumping on my 76 year old mother I can do without sending her over the edge. There's not much she can do here.
4- Our credit is shot all to hell. He likes having the credit cards, but when times got tough a few years back, he decided that it was a corporate scam and refused to make any more payments on either of our credit cards. He had 5, I had 2. His balances were maxed in the thousands, mine had a few hundred dollars on them. He doesn't mind taking the money, he just doesn't think he owes anybody anything since the system is rigged anyway. (?????) He forced us to move out of our home in Georgia when we only had 2 months left on the lease in order to be closer to one of his clinics in Alabama. Now I'm being sued for over 5 grand because the lease was in my name. He won't leave if it's in his name - we already been down that route before. You ask why I didn't say no? My husband started studying psychology when he was 12 years old. When I say he is a master at manipulation, that's not even scratching the surface of what he can do. After being with him for 17 years, I just learned a couple of months ago (after getting him drunk in order to fish for info), that he has spent a total of one week in elementary school, 3 days in middle school, and none in high school. Now will you tell me how he managed to get a masters degree? It's in the art of manipulating and conning to get what you want and need out of life. He found a perfect sucker in me!!!! Now he's working the kids and they don't know if they are coming or going.
5- Can't afford a therapist. Can't get one through our insurance either. NEED to discuss my private hell and pain with someone, but have no one. Was on Lexapro for 9 months but I had to quit cold turkey when I was pregnant with my fourth child. Oh, that was not pretty. Why 4 kids you say with all this going on? Let's see, I can't take the pill, or it's related sisters because of severe side effects I've had in the past. I used the spermacide and I broke out in a bad rash (thought I had herpes, LOL), twice. Tried a few other things, but my body just does not like birth control so it was left to my husband. Bad idea. The twins were planned, the other two came around the time I was thinking about leaving my husband. I was depressed all through the 4th pregnancy, because it came as such a shock and I honestly felt I couldn't handle 4 kids. I was literally parked at the abortion clinic, but couldn't go through with it.
6- My inner rage is out of control. I cannot contain feelings of rage about all this anymore. I constantly yell and constantly apologize to the kids for yelling. I have absolutely no patience for anything the kids do anymore. At this point in time, I don't even want to be around them anymore. I actually questioned whether or not I loved them anymore. I couldn't feel anything for them. It's all making me so crazy and so sad that I almost drove my van off a bridge the other day. Not because I wanted to kill myself, but just so I could do something so extreme to get away from all this! I am just so angry all the time about how my life has progressed to this point.
I buy the kids things, they tear them up almost as soon as they get them. I purchased $200 curtains for my daughters room; they used them as swinging vines and ripped them from the wall leaving gapping holes. The twins have a constantly chore of doing the dishes after dinner each night. Since they were 8, they fight and scream every single night about doing them and who is doing what. Are they getting some of their actions from their mom and dad? Sure they are, but my husband says I'm wrong that they are just spoiled and determined to bring the whole house down. We are officially broke since my husband has sat around for almost 7 months trying to determine if he wants to stay here or move. We've gone through over half our savings, but not all that was spent on living expenses. I just found out that he spent hundreds on wood working tools (he said it was to possible fix up the clinic in Alabama), antique furniture for the clinic that he bought at an estate sale (he says he only $100 on 2 complete living room sets - BS!), and over $3000 on herbs for the clinic. I told him we couldn't afford that right now. Oh, BTW, I have NO CLUE where the savings is! He has that hidden and I have no clue where it is or how much is left.
Could I go on - OOOOHHH YESSSSS! I haven't even scratched the surface of this miserable soap opera called my life. All I know is that I am angry, sad, depressed, have no friends, no money, no life, no career, ungrateful kids (that's only gonna get worse), and a manipulating, con-artist of a husband. I have NO CLUE what to do. If I leave, I have 4 kids to support and no income (unless I go to Wal-Mart's for $5 a hour).
You have an advice on this one???????
1- I can't stand my husband and I don't love him anymore. I haven't loved him for many years now, but I am so financially strapped to him that I have no clue as how to support myself and 4 other children. I have to get drunk in order to stomach sex with him. I have become great at faking being happy around him. Almost to the point where I have blurred the lines between fantasy and reality on this issue. We fight about everything, and he has a horrible temper. He fights with our 11 year old twins constantly. He once pushed our daughter across the carport because she wasn't moving fast enough after he thought a fight started between her and her brother. I told him if he ever did it again, I would leave for sure. I was recently sick with a migraine, sinus infection, and painful ear infection a couple of weeks ago. He told the kids it was all their fault I was sick because they fight so much and won't listen to me. He said that I don't really mean it I say thank you for the things they make me; i.e., mother's day cards, etc. They swore me to secrecy because if I tell my husband what they say, he goes back to them and yell's even worse. My son is starting to have panic attacks. We won't even get into the fact that he is extremely neurotic over everything the children eat. He is an acupuncturist and he is constantly yelling at the kids about what they are and are not suppose to eat. Now my 11 year dd was caught stealing candy at school on Monday and lying about it.
2. I don't have any financial means of than taking care of my family if I leave him. After my husband finished his masters degree, I was suppose to finish my bachelor's in multimedia. That never happened because I had to stay at home with my children while he opened his clinic in another town one hour away. I tried going back to school, but it was so far away that it was hard on the children at that age going back and forth to the day care center. Then I had my third child and it all but went out the window. We sold our house and moved a couple of times. I finally started taking classes online, but I took a break so that I could concentrate on our move to Florida over the summer. My husband decided he hated it here and thus, we focused (very stressfully) on moving somewhere else. I changed my FAFSA so many times that I can't remember what college I last put on the thing! We/he decided to stay here, but I can't start back until summer, but I have to schedule my classes around the new clinic he is opening here because he wants me to work in that full-time. He has wanted me to focus my energies toward a career in the clinic (massage, acupuncture, etc.), and do web-design on the side.
3- I have no friends. I haven't had a friend in 17 years since I met my husband. He's the type that puts down pretty much anyone I try to make a contact with. My parents live 2 hours away, but yet he pitches a fit if I want to go see them with the kids. He always wants to wait until we can all go as a family. See, my parents think we should divorce and he knows this. He also thinks they are fundamentalist Taliban Christians too. This is a constant issue with him. I had a friend of mine from high school finally track me down and she called me last night. When I told him, his comment was "oh the lesbian - that's a great friend to have around the kids". I talk every week to my mother, but that's it; no one else to talk to. But there is only so much dumping on my 76 year old mother I can do without sending her over the edge. There's not much she can do here.
4- Our credit is shot all to hell. He likes having the credit cards, but when times got tough a few years back, he decided that it was a corporate scam and refused to make any more payments on either of our credit cards. He had 5, I had 2. His balances were maxed in the thousands, mine had a few hundred dollars on them. He doesn't mind taking the money, he just doesn't think he owes anybody anything since the system is rigged anyway. (?????) He forced us to move out of our home in Georgia when we only had 2 months left on the lease in order to be closer to one of his clinics in Alabama. Now I'm being sued for over 5 grand because the lease was in my name. He won't leave if it's in his name - we already been down that route before. You ask why I didn't say no? My husband started studying psychology when he was 12 years old. When I say he is a master at manipulation, that's not even scratching the surface of what he can do. After being with him for 17 years, I just learned a couple of months ago (after getting him drunk in order to fish for info), that he has spent a total of one week in elementary school, 3 days in middle school, and none in high school. Now will you tell me how he managed to get a masters degree? It's in the art of manipulating and conning to get what you want and need out of life. He found a perfect sucker in me!!!! Now he's working the kids and they don't know if they are coming or going.
5- Can't afford a therapist. Can't get one through our insurance either. NEED to discuss my private hell and pain with someone, but have no one. Was on Lexapro for 9 months but I had to quit cold turkey when I was pregnant with my fourth child. Oh, that was not pretty. Why 4 kids you say with all this going on? Let's see, I can't take the pill, or it's related sisters because of severe side effects I've had in the past. I used the spermacide and I broke out in a bad rash (thought I had herpes, LOL), twice. Tried a few other things, but my body just does not like birth control so it was left to my husband. Bad idea. The twins were planned, the other two came around the time I was thinking about leaving my husband. I was depressed all through the 4th pregnancy, because it came as such a shock and I honestly felt I couldn't handle 4 kids. I was literally parked at the abortion clinic, but couldn't go through with it.
6- My inner rage is out of control. I cannot contain feelings of rage about all this anymore. I constantly yell and constantly apologize to the kids for yelling. I have absolutely no patience for anything the kids do anymore. At this point in time, I don't even want to be around them anymore. I actually questioned whether or not I loved them anymore. I couldn't feel anything for them. It's all making me so crazy and so sad that I almost drove my van off a bridge the other day. Not because I wanted to kill myself, but just so I could do something so extreme to get away from all this! I am just so angry all the time about how my life has progressed to this point.
I buy the kids things, they tear them up almost as soon as they get them. I purchased $200 curtains for my daughters room; they used them as swinging vines and ripped them from the wall leaving gapping holes. The twins have a constantly chore of doing the dishes after dinner each night. Since they were 8, they fight and scream every single night about doing them and who is doing what. Are they getting some of their actions from their mom and dad? Sure they are, but my husband says I'm wrong that they are just spoiled and determined to bring the whole house down. We are officially broke since my husband has sat around for almost 7 months trying to determine if he wants to stay here or move. We've gone through over half our savings, but not all that was spent on living expenses. I just found out that he spent hundreds on wood working tools (he said it was to possible fix up the clinic in Alabama), antique furniture for the clinic that he bought at an estate sale (he says he only $100 on 2 complete living room sets - BS!), and over $3000 on herbs for the clinic. I told him we couldn't afford that right now. Oh, BTW, I have NO CLUE where the savings is! He has that hidden and I have no clue where it is or how much is left.
Could I go on - OOOOHHH YESSSSS! I haven't even scratched the surface of this miserable soap opera called my life. All I know is that I am angry, sad, depressed, have no friends, no money, no life, no career, ungrateful kids (that's only gonna get worse), and a manipulating, con-artist of a husband. I have NO CLUE what to do. If I leave, I have 4 kids to support and no income (unless I go to Wal-Mart's for $5 a hour).
You have an advice on this one???????
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