I was here and very active about 5-7 years ago, when my first marriage ended with my husband's infidelity. Although it took awhile, I really got my life back on track, went to law school, and was doing great when I decided I was ready to involve a relationship in my life (this was about 2.5 years after my husband left, I really wanted time to work on myself). I dated for about six months (through online dating mostly) until I met DH. He fit my "top ten wishes" list that I had posted on here to a tee, and everything seemed blissful. Things moved a lot faster than they probably should have because I got unexpectedly pregnant with DS, so we ended up moving in together and getting married fairly quickly. There were some early strains that I didn't recognize/acknowledge, though, and those have widened to the point of a chasm.
My husband is just not very mature. He doesn't clean up after himself at all, doesn't manage his own affairs at all (making appointments for himself, etc.) He won't help with the finances. He was a stay at home/homeschooling dad for a couple of years and it got pretty bad for the kids because he didn't work hard on any "teaching" and making it fun, he just bugged and yelled at them about doing workbooks. Even after we decided to enroll my older kids in school (which was a good decision and everyone was happy about it, we live in an area with excellent schools), he still didn't manage to work with then 3yo ds on anything unless I really pushed him too, and then it was the bare minimum. For instance, I'd worry that DS didn't know his colors or how to count and DH would reluctantly start working on that, but that was it. I tried to point him to online resources, get books for him with ideas on what to do, print out the library story time schedule, etc., and most days I think DH spent online and he barely even read books to DS, let alone anything enriching.
Meanwhile, my life was pretty stressful. I was working full time as an attorney, with a really horrible supervisor, and in a very stressful field. Luckily it was a state job so I had an 8-5 schedule, good benefits, and decent vacation time. But the stress was still adding up. I had an opportunity to get another job, with a big pay cut (50,000 down to 41,000), which meant DH would have to contribute to our income (he had gotton a year of unemployment so that had helped while it lasted but finances were a stressor too). We both agreed that it was a good choice, even though I expressed fear about the decrease in money. Turns out there was a big decrease in benefits and vacation time, as well. Then DH's job hunt never really materialized, I kept nagging him more and more, getting more stressful, it got to the point I was practically applying for jobs on his behalf because he just wasn't doing it. He kept saying having DS home with him made a job search impossible, so we found a drop in/part time sitter and he didn't take advantage of it (besides most jobs are online applications these days, so he'd go to the place and they'd tell him to apply online, but he didn't bother too). To top it all off we bought a house during this stressful crazy time, of course I'm the only one on the mortgage because I was the only one with income, and the house was more something he would like than meeting my own criteria, but it offered some potential rental income and seemed like a good investment, so we went ahead with it.
Finally I enrolled DS in preschool fulltime, at pretty significant expense, and DH reluctantly found a job after a few weeks. He sort of sabotaged it and lost it, then spent a few weeks at home by himself, not doing renovations to the fixer upper house or much of anything, and finally I found a job for him to apply to, did most of the application for him, reminded him to follow up, made sure he got to his job interview (he ended up being late by his own choices) and he miraculously got the job. He's been enjoying it but things were starting to not look too good there, his boss was having some complaints, DH was working really slow, etc. (DH is a trained boatbuilder/finish carpenter, who has previously worked in boatyards, cabinet shops, and been self employed. This job is in a high end European style cabinet shop, where he had to learn new things).
DH has had almost no support or nurturing towards me through all these stresses, and in fact, started to get really mean towards me. He even told me that it was selfish of me to have taken a pay cut and he'd been against it but afraid to say anything becuase I was a tyrant and never listened to him. We actually de-facto had a bit of separation as our family was living in the back guesthouse while the front house is all torn up, and I started sleeping in the front house by myself because I couldn't stand to be around him. Then I caught him chatting with an old mutual friend on facebook, what had obviously been a long ongoing conversation that he'd been deleting as he went along. Though I didn't see anything specifically inappropriate (other than lies about me being unwilling to go to counseling), it crossed all the boundaries I had been clear about and I confronted him about it. He said he hadn't done anything wrong and it was just a friendship and I was emotionally abusive.
The last thing really hurt, being accused of being emotionally abusive. I felt I'd really bent over backwards for so many things, but I also knew that I had lost so much respect for him and gotton more condescending to him as well (he refuses to pick up after himself, leaves his clothes and shoes all over the house, and I'd had enough of it...I'd tried being nice for years and it got to the point that it was interfering with our children cleaning up after themselves, so I'd definitely started to belittle him about it). DH also said he'd been depressed for a while (yes, I'd seen that, and I was as well). In some peripheral conversations around that time about his difficulties at work and extreme absentmindedness, he acknowledged his childhood ADD appeared to be back and said he wanted help and perhaps medication for it. It's been three months and he hasn't made it happen yet, though, he sets appointments and then lets them fall through, now he supposedly has another appointment set up but it isn't on the calendar and I don't know if I even believe it's real.
I've been going to counseling myself as well as Co-dependents anonymous meetings and workign on my co-dependency, because I know that is a trait I have that I struggle with. I've been making some good progress with myself and my issues. But he's not really making any progress on his own, and I'm to the point where I have to admit I'm not willing to let things go on this way. Our financial strain is finally down a bit, but I keep worrying he'll lose his job. We're finally making some progress on renovating the house, which is good, and is to DH's credit as he's the one with the skills. But I can't get past my frustrations with DH about not working on issues he's identified as being a problem, and I'm unwilling to continue living in a pigstye because he refuses to clean up after himself (the guesthouse we're in is a mini 2 bedroom, about 600 square feet, and it's not asking too much to me to keep it clean). We haven't tried couples counseling yet, and maybe it will help, but I think his unwillingness to make any changes will make it fruitless, and I refuse to have baseless allegations sent my way. And he's done absolutely nothing about the breach of trust from me finding him chatting with some woman online when he was pretty much refusing to talk to me. So, I feel in some ways we're at a standstill.
I'm going to try couples counseling, I'll have to set the appointments and make it happen, but I don't know if it will help. My guess is he'll just be silent in there, or whiney, or refuse to follow through. But I'm at least going to try. I've also thought maybe having two houses on one lot would be perfect for divorcing amicably. I could have my own space and keep it nice, he can have his, our kids can go between the too, we could be here for one another in ways that feel comfortable. I don't know how willing he will be to agree to anything like that, because right now he's very territorial. He's also sensitive about our son preferring me, and would probably not agree to move into his own space, because the kids would stay with me (not only do I meet 90% of their needs, but I am also the one who gets them up in the morning and drops them off at their respective schools).
The reason I'm posting here is...I miss my life as a single mom. I miss being self-reliant, having my own little orderly household, making positive steps in my life. I haven't been able to do much of that with DH, and part of it is him, but part of it is me, too. I'm co-dependent. I don't know if I'm capable of having a relationship that is healthy, because I don't know how to be healthy in a relationship. Maybe I'm just better off being by myself.
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