Welcome to our series, The Divorce Diaries. Today we hear from a guest writer at 9Honey who shares her conundrum: should she stay with her husband, or divorce him?
In our past instalments over the last year we’ve covered everything from when you’re most likely to divorce to whether they’re contagious to whether being on the contraceptive pill can effect your chances! and have now spoken to dozens of women – including one whose husband announced he was leaving her to have an open relationship with a 19-year-old, another who was quite literally ghosted by her own husband and one who had been trying for a baby for a year when he finally admitted he’d had a vasectomy years earlier.
If you have a topic you’d like to discuss, share your thoughts, experience or advice about, drop a line to [email protected].
When my husband Dylan refused to have dinner with me for my birthday, I knew my marriage was over.
I don’t know whether he’s having an affair or whether he just can’t stand me, but whatever it is, I feel the same way about him. I don’t want to be married to him anymore, but I feel so trapped.
We married six years ago and have two children. He treats me like I’m the paid help and has no respect for me.
He dotes on our kids – that’s the only thing that’s great about Dylan, but it wasn’t always this way, he used to be a kind, loving man.
As he’s gotten older he’s developed some anger issues, mostly around his childhood, which he said was dreadful. I’ve tried and failed to get him to have counselling many times, he says he doesn’t believe in psychiatry and won’t see anybody.
Instead, I’m constantly left having to pick up the pieces after the dreadful arguments that he starts with me. Sometimes, I think he picks fights just so he can yell at me.
I want to divorce him, but I am too scared of his reaction. He’s never hit me but I am definitely a victim of emotional abuse.
He can go for days without talking to me. He loves using the “silent treatment” and it’s an awful thing because I’m left wondering what is wrong, or whether I’ve done something to get in trouble with him.
I don’t even see him as a partner anymore; he’s just the father of my kids who I’m forced to live with.
But when I tell people about my problems with Dylan, they don’t believe me. He is very nice and charming in front of other people, but it is so fake.
A couple of years ago I suggested we separate, but he went crazy, yelling at me, throwing a chair in my direction and telling me there is no way he would give me a divorce.
So, what am I supposed to do? I can’t afford to leave just yet as I only have a casual job. I just wish it wasn’t like this.
A divorce will be awful as we’ll have to sell the house and share custody of the kids and the dogs. I know it will be a dreadful situation and I worry about how tough it will be to be a single mum.
I have several friends who are single mums and I know by seeing what they go through how difficult it is. But surely, anything is better than staying in a dreadful marriage?
I feel sick every time I hear Dylan’s car pull up in the driveway, wondering what he is going to yell at me about. He complains about the house being untidy and goes on a huge rant about how lazy I am.
I know how hard it will be to leave, but I need my freedom. I wish I was brave enough to tell him I am leaving him. I can’t spend the rest of my life with a man who treats me badly.
This article was reproduced with permission from 9Honey. To read the original article, click here.
