Well, sadly, tomorrow I meet with the divorce attorney. There are many issues that are making my marriage and life insufferable. I cannot tolerate so much of my marriage anymore. But before I go jumping off a cliff, I really need some friendly ears to help me see some issues clearly and get some perspective.
Like I wrote in the title, my DH is a work-a-holic. I don't know if that's the right word, exactly. This is only one of the many issues we have, albeit a very big one. He travels for work every week. He is a very successful non-profit businessperson and it's turned out that he has to go out of town pretty much every week. When he is working in-town, he often doesn't come home until 10 at night (or later). Even when he is home, he is still working, i.e. returning emails and phone calls or preparing something. When he is not doing anything work-related, he is mushing out on the sofa watching sports in his own man-cave. He is always stressed-out and tired and complaining. He is emotionally and verbally abusive (I don't know if it's from work-related stress or if it's just the way he is--maybe a little of both?).
As far as parenting goes, I am for the most part alone. I eat breakfast with the kids alone. I am with them all day. I eat dinner with them alone. I put them to bed alone. I am the only one to take them to birthday parties, easter egg hunts, or most other activities. I am very tight with a group of parents and I am almost always the only "single" parent there at gatherings (by single, I'm not saying I'm like a single parent, you get what I'm saying).
It's really not practical for me to go on business trips with him as we would have to foot the bill for the plane tickets, plus, I don't fly well and, as many of you know, it is a major PITA to travel with two small kids. We had an idea last year to buy a cabin in the middle of nowhere that would serve as a retreat for him. The idea was that we would go there, periodically, maybe once a season for a couple weeks and just be together--cook, go fishing, build stuff, etc... But now, as it turns out, when we go there, I have to pack up the kids and drive 2.5 hours each way to drive him to the nearest airport so he can work (or go to Vegas to watch a fight because a friend hooked him up with ring-side tickets :eyeroll). So, now I'm in a cabin in the middle of nowhere alone.
He is very ambitious and has some very ambitious plans coming up that will take up even more of his time and energy. I do not complain to him about his being gone all the time, though I know he knows it's not exactly cool, so he projects and says that I don't "support" or "appreciate" the work he does for "us." Honestly, I don't think the work he does is for "us." If he were fighting in Iraq or working on the North Slope for weeks on end to put a roof over our heads, it would be different. No, he has his dreams. And, honestly, I feel like his dreams just simply do not include us. Unless it's me getting dolled up and trotted out to some event to make small-talk with strangers while he works the crowd.
It occurred to me that if he were to move out, my life would not change at all. I could live easily off CS. The only difference would be that I wouldn't have a grumpy, angry guy coming home late friday nights and sitting around farting on the couch all weekend checking his emails.
I do believe he loves me and the kids. I think he does miss us. He's been saying that he wanted to take DD3 on a business trip with him for a year. She's upset he's gone so much. Last week, as she was playing with her doll she said about her doll, "Her name is Pearlie, she has a mommy. She has no Daddy. He works."
. So, he took her with him this time. And he's planned a ton of fun things for them to do together. I think this is great, but it's the kind of thing he can do as a single dad, yk?
Am I really being ungrateful and lame? I'm just so lonely and unhappy.
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