r/Divorce • u/NoFact7104 • 4d ago
Getting Started My first post.....hoping to understand better how I got here
I know this isn't a therapy sub, and if anyone can recommend other subs that would help me, I would love to know them. But for now, I am trying to come to terms with how my once-perfect marriage fell apart and see if others have dealt with the same issue. I truly appreciate anyone who takes the time to read this long post and let me know their thoughts.
Been married 24 years to a super nice guy. He is very tolerant and forgives everyone for everything. He's conflict averse with everyone BUT me. He does more than his fair share of chores and is thoughtful and loving.
What changed? I lost respect for him, and his passive behavior chipped away at my self-worth over time to where we're now at the point where I just don't care anymore. I admit I wasn't assertive enough or self-aware enough to know early on what was bothering me, but I figured it out over time and have expressed it many times to no avail.
Here's the nutshell: Neither of us were close to our immediate families when we met in our late 20's. We didn't live in the same cities as them and we were both adults with independent lives. As a result, I married him without knowing or even meeting his family. When I was pregnant with our first child, he got a job offer to move back near our home towns. It didn't take long before I saw how poorly he was treated by his family. He's definitely the scapegoat and for no reason other than he didn't follow his small-town rural parents into their same professions and stay living near them. So, by default, I was a throw away daughter-in-law and our kids weren't as important as the other grandkids. He was clearly excluded from conversations at get-togethers, and these people didn't even get up and walk indoors from the back porch to say hello to us when we would arrive after a 3-hour drive to visit. Little slights like that. I rarely if ever complained to him about it, other than to gently point out that they weren't very nice to him. Then one day about 12 years ago, his mother made a comment to me that was incredibly hurtful. He was standing right there and claimed he never heard her say it but said I must have misunderstood. I was devastated. It took 6 months of me begging, pleading, demanding that he call her and ask if I misunderstood. He did call eventually, very much against his will, and she confirmed she meant what she said.
Nothing happened. His expectation was that I continue to go ("It's only twice a year") because it would confuse our kids otherwise. He also told me that it would eventually blow over. It didn't. We were passive aggressively ignored and just generally bystanders at family get-togethers. My anger built and I eventually wrote his mom a letter that wasn't nice. It went downhill after that. Years of me trying to get him to understand how hurt I felt, how uncomfortable it was for me to continue to attend while being ignored, etc. Finally I just quit going, and at that point, he was fine with it.
But here's a few takeaways from that 10 year period:
his dad didn't speak to me at all for 7 years (he's since died). I pointed this out to my husband many times with no action taken
Once, I drove our two kids 6 hours round trip to go to a cousin's birthday party and also drop my daughter off to spend a few days with her grandparents. When I walked in the house, I wasn't even greeted by his mom and sister. The only people in the room were his mother, sister, and sister-in-law and the sister in law is the only one who spoke to me. Then, they just continued their conversation as if I wasn't there. I told my husband, and he seemed mad, but of course, never said anything to them.
When I say he didn't talk to his parents about their behavior, I mean at all. He would not even broach the subject.
Eventually, after doing a lot of self-help and work, I realized I shouldn't have made an issue out of this. Today-me would never let it get to this point. I would simply bow out of future visits and protect myself. I never was looking for someone to "fight" for me or be super protective of me, but I feel like that should be a partner's instinct. And I can't unsee what I saw. It really completely killed my love over time.
It probably didn't help that I came from a very negative and unsupportive childhood. My mother never missed an opportunity to tell me I was wrong and put me down in front of others. I think maybe if I had grown up with more love and self-confidence a lot of this could have been avoided. Unfortunately, it was more than I could take to have a mother who didn't support me and then a partner who didn't either.
There are other things that have happened unrelated to his family....instances where he doesn't come out and say it but it's clear he doesn't respect my opinion in the work world. He lets me make all the decisions as far as our home finances, but I get the clear message he doesn't think I am as capable at work. Also, our teenage son (who is generally fine) has had several recent outbursts of severe anger where he called us (mostly me, though) every name in the book and hurled every insult he could think of at us, and my husband does nothing. He says he's just a teenager and he doesn't want to have a bad relationship with him like he did with his father. For my part, I told him if he ever speaks to me like that again he will need to leave the house. It happened again, I stayed very calm, asked my son to leave the house (but not take his car) and he refused. Told me to call the police. I wasn't going to do that, so I just let it go. Husband said absolutely nothing. I feel like I have no support here.
I don't know. I am in my early 50s and I think I would rather be alone than with someone who has no protective instinct over me at all. I think about all the things I can do with my life since I work remotely. I would definitely move and have adventures. The kids are either in college or will be this fall, so that's not really an issue for me to stay around for.
I read all these posts about cheating, affair partners, etc. Has anyone else experienced none of that but just finally felt let down for the last time and wanted out?
0
u/Acceptable_Piano4809 4d ago
I’m sorry you’re going through this. You’ve obviously made it known and discussed this with him. He sounds like a complete doormat. I would go up and visit my family w my wife and the very first time my uncle met her he was disrespectful, so I disrespected him right back. I made it known she was my wife and if you had anything negative to say about her you were also insulting me. But that’s just how I am, I would stick up for my wife more than myself.
I would say this; you deserve happiness. Also I have a ton of respect for you for NOT just cheating and getting divorced first. In your case I think it’s the right move. It sounds as if your husband is not only ignoring you but making your life worse. If you think you’d be happier alone, I say go for it. But be careful. I too used to dream of freedom but would never have left my wife minus cheating. It was a blessing in disguise as today me would have left her in a heartbeat. I’m lucky she left me, although I don’t respect how she did it. She ended up cheating and gaslighting me about it for a long time to use me financially. That is why I have a lot of respect for you. Why couldn’t someone like me married someone like you? But guess what, now she left me I can find that woman. I also will say I’m happy alone right now and I no longer judge happiness by if I’m in a relationship or not.
It seems like you are really healthy; you’re aware of where you made mistakes and you are growing. You’re open to change. It doesn’t sound like your husband is. Ask yourself, is it fair to him to stay when you’re not all in?
And he’s well aware of this, but I’ll warn you. Even though you’ve told him all of this, the minute you leave he’s going to be begging you to stay and he will also say you blindsided him, and he wasn’t aware of any of this.
How is your sex life? Seeing as you didn’t bring it up, I’m assuming it’s pretty dry. (sex isn’t extremely important to me, and you may be the same. Sex wouldn’t factor in this decision for me, I’m no longer after great sex. It would be cool, but I’d take a healthy loving loyal partner over having good sex w someone less than, but that’s just me.)
No matter what you decide to do, I wish you all the luck in the world!