My husband and I have been married for 3 years and we have 2 children. We are not your typical couple, as he is 56 and I am 30. So, I tend to say we were “destined to fail.”
We are extremely different people, who happened to have the “important things” (as we call them) in common. We are Christians and our relationships with God are #1. We also tend to parent pretty well together and generally see eye to eye in that part of our life.
However, my husband is very controlling. He is a Physicians Assistant while I am a stay at home mom. Therefore, money is always the main argument. He makes it while I tend to spend it, (whether that be doing the grocery shopping, things for the kids, or personal). He has always referred to the money as “his.” In his own words, this is because he works for it. Yet, when we are not fighting, he will apologize for this and talk up all the “work” that I do at home for him and for our children.
A couple months ago, our marriage went to a place that I never expected. He put his hands on me for the first time. We are currently building a home and tend to get in some heated discussions over different aspects of the process. During one of our arguments, I threatened divorce and reached to get our son out of his arms. His reaction to that was to put both of his hands around my neck in an attempt to choke me. We were both shocked, and he let go pretty quickly, as if he suddenly came back to reality and realized what he was doing. I was at a loss, and before clearing my head of the situation, I called the cops. He was arrested. Mind you, neither of us have any criminal history whatsoever. I regretted my call immediately. I was sure he would lose his job, as well as his 30 year military career. Though, thank God, neither happened.
Tonight we fought because he came home to see I had taken a piece of accent furniture out of the house to put towards our yard sale pile. This was an unused piece of furniture that I purchased and decorated with. I decided I didn’t want it in the space anymore, nor did I want it going to our new construction once we move in, so I took it out of the house. He was angry. Over a table. That was never used. I stayed quiet until the kids went to bed, but the more
I thought about the situation, the more I feel that he is only mad because he didn’t have control over it. Once the kids were asleep, I asked why he was so upset by what seemed to me like such an insignificant thing, he said it was because I didn’t ask him if I could take the table out.
These fights happen constantly and I’m so ready to just give up on our marriage. Literally, the only reason I have stayed this long, is for the kids. I truly don’t know what to do, or how to fix such a broken relationship.
