This is my first time to post to a forum here and it’s pretty much because I am desperate to find some relief. I have been with my husband for 20 years and 2 years ago he told me that he may want a divorce. I was completely blindsided by this. I always thought we could work through anything. We have 2 children, one of our daughters is severely disabled and it never occurred to me that there was anything we couldn’t handle. He said he wanted to go to therapy so we did. The first therapist didn’t work out too well so we found another one and have been with her for a year. That year has been pure hell for me. My husband has a lot of anger and it all was directed at me. I worked the therapy process with him even though every session was pretty much him trashing me – going as far back as 10 or 15 years of things that made him angry. He admitted that he was never honest with me about the things he didn’t like and that he even pretended to be enthusiastic in order to avoid any conflict. But now he is raging at me about those things when all I did was believe him when he said he was happy. I worked with the therapist to discover what things I needed to face and take responsibility for and which things were not mine to carry. Not easy and certainly not pleasant. I learned to hear him and to stop being so defended – I took responsibility, acknowledged my mistakes, listened to his pain, and made amends as best I could. I have also made drastic changes in the way I behave and in recognizing the fear that was driving those behaviors. He would never accept my apologies, has been verbally and emotionally abusive, and in fact has stated that he doesn’t believe me when I say that I am sorry. I have had no apologies from him. In May, our couples therapist told us that as long as he was holding on to his anger and resentment, there was no point to further therapy as a couple. She could do no more for him if he was not willing to turn towards me and begin trying to heal. He said he could not do that so she recommended he see a therapist on his own. He has been doing that for 3 months. To further complicate things, there is some question about his mental health. Our family doctor and couples therapist have suggested that he seek an evaluation from a psychiatrist or neuropsych because of the odd emotional reactions he has and some cognitive ‘hitches’ they’ve noticed. Other people have commented on how different he is. He disagrees and refuses to even entertain the idea that he has any kind of physical/mental issue that might need treatment. He also abuses alcohol – drinking every night but still functional for work during the day.
Currently we are stuck in this terrible place where he will not make a decision about whether he wants to stay in the marriage or not. He has never moved out of our home so we have been living together all this time. And there is a lot of collateral damage to our children and larger circle of family. Reading this post I see how awful it sounds and how it might seem ridiculous for me to even be trying to salvage the marriage. But I do truly love him and there is a lot to lose for all of us if we can’t work this out. This is my second marriage. I have 2 grown children from my first marriage and I swore that if I married again it would be for the rest of my life. I do not want to put my kids through a divorce. Even worse, I have been the primary caretaker for our daughter for 13 years so I have been out of the workforce all that time. If the marriage ends, I lose my house, my kids lose their stability, I lose my health insurance, I lose everything really. I am 48 years old with a child who will depend on me for the rest of my life. I am terrified.
What I want to happen is for my husband to deal with his demons and for us to build a new relationship. I don’t know if that’s possible. I want to do what’s best for everyone but can’t figure out what that means. I am physically drained and heartbroken. He will not say what he wants. The therapists are pushing us to hold off on decisions because he may not be truly able to make such a life altering choice right now. But this is killing me. Either way, hold off or move on with divorce seems terrible to me. I don’t know what to do.
Thanks for ‘listening’ – any advice is appreciated.