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Single Parents
thinking of divorce and terrified...
I am the mother of a beautiful and happy 7 month old. Since her birth, and maybe even starting before it, my relationship with her father has deteriorated dramatically (we'd been married a few years before having her). I honestly believe that neither one of us is wholly happy, and if she were not a factor, or if we weren't married, we'd no longer be together, or at least that the topic of ending things would have come up.
I feel pretty strongly that "staying together for the sake of the kids" doesn't work out, and as long as a child has two parents and, in our case, extended family that loves her and supports her, she might be much better off than staying in a situation that could turn very toxic. However, I am scared that if I ever initiated divorce, my husband would make it as nasty as possible. He has more money to work with than I do, and he's just antagonistic like that. I think he'd try to make the experience as miserable as possible. Me? I feel like any damage between us is only further damage to our daughter, and for that reason, I would want to be as amicable as possible, as long as he extended as least SOME of that back toward me. But I don't expect much, and am terrified of what an ugly divorce would do to my personal emotional well-being, and the related impact it would have on my job and my daughter.
I know something is very wrong between us, in that way you can't exactly quantify. But speaking of trying to quantify, I sat down and tried to spell out issues I consider to be major ones between us, just to get my head straight. I came up with a list of fourteen, and could barely come up with anything positive right now. Some of the major concerns, IMO, could fall under the category of emotional abuse in terms of how he speaks to me and some of his controlling tendencies. I'm not so sure about counseling, because my gut tells me if divorce were ever brought up, he'd basically check out at that point because of bruised ego and anger that he would likely not get to see our daughter as much as I would (long hours, etc) and be done before we even got started.
I guess I'm just looking to talk to anyone who had anything similar, and to hear from those of you with children. Was it worth it? Was the battle to get out worth it in the long run for their sake? Honestly, I don't even care so much about myself right now or what my future looks like. I just want to focus on my daughter and give her the best life and most stable home possible, in whatever form. Did anyone on here stick around? Did things get better or do you wish you just cut ties before your child was old enough to realize what was going on? Thank you for listening.
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Re: thinking of divorce and terrified...
You might consider individual counseling. We tried marital counseling but he refused to go back after one session since the problems were all mine anyways ::snorts::
I also would recommend "The Manipulative Man" and "Too Good to Leave: Too Bad to Stay" (even though I haven't read the second one, I have heard good things.
Sounds to me like he's an emotional abuser and has succeeded in getting you to stay through veiled, or not so veiled threats. you need to do what is right for you and your child. You shouldn't stay in an unhappy or unhealthy marriage. I would say that you need to take some time to decide what you want out of life.
To answer your questions: it was definitely worth it to leave my emotionally abusive/cheating/addict husband. I have never been happier since we split.
There was no "battle to get out". I told him to get out of the house and I was filing for divorce.
I don't think many of the women on this board are still together with their children's fathers, because it's the Single Parent board.
I recommend counseling too. I am 6 months pregnant and seeing an individual counselor as well as a couples counselor. I don't think this is going to work out (which is devastating to me as I am the only child of parents who divorced when I was a yr old) and I share all your fears about how nasty he will be.
The good things about the counseling are 1. I know I am doing EVERYTHING I can on my side. I won't ever have to look at my daughter and say I didn't try my hardest to work things out. And 2. No matter what happens this is going to be hard for me, and I am happy to have the extra support.
BTW I agree with you about not staying together for the child. That being said, my parents divorced sucked all around - for my Mom, my Dad and me and it still sucks even now. I hate choosing between them at the holidays and celebrating every holiday twice and they each hate when I'm not with them. ... and then there's an ongoing contest (at least on my Mom's side of who I love more and spend more time with). So when you have a child, I don't think you stay together for the child BUT you do stay together if there is any hope because of how having that child together affects all 3 of you. (I could write essays on how bitter each of my parents were and how much it affected their lives.)
My heart goes out to you. I spent all morning crying and now I am locked in my bedroom because my husband is in the living room. I know how awful it is to not get along with the father of your child.
I'm a lurker on this board and never post, but I'm in a similar situation to you, in that I'm in a rocky marriage and divorce is a real possibility. We have one child together, a beautiful almost 1 year old boy. The thought of him having to grow up without both parents there day-to-day horrifies me. But, I also know that it's important for him to have parents that are happy with their own lives, and who set positive examples for him; these are probably more important than the former. I'm not sure yet if my husband and I are able to do those things.
I strongly recommended marital counseling. You don't need to bring up the "D" word, but you should let your husband know that you are unhappy and would like to work on the marriage. If he won't do that for you, I would suggest it's not a marriage worth saving. If he will, maybe you have a shot. For all my husband's faults, he very much wants our marriage to work and has been very willing to do therapy. if he wasn't, I'd be loooong gone.
I'm sorry you're going through this, I know how terrible it feels. Feel free to PM me.
I agree with this... in my situation there was no abuse or drug use (XH did become emotionally abusive/gaslighting only after he started an affair). I gave him every chance he could to work on the relationship, and I have no regrets now about divorcing him.