Feeling Helpless & Alone in Struggles

[jillhydra]

Hello - I apologize in advance that this is lengthy and I am spilling my thoughts out. I am a wife that has chosen to stay in a marriage after five years of marital hardship. I really didn't want to build a family to go through a divorce and see my kids only certain days of the week (we have a 3 and 4 year old). I do care for my husband but I feel like he is a secretive stranger in our lives. We seem to greatly differ in the area of values. For example, I found out after we were committed to marriage and raising a small family that my husband was on court probation for an identity theft felony. I forgave him for not being upfront about it and helped him to pay the restitution in full. I worked a lot of hours in the early part of our marriage and was considered the breadwinner. I was pregnant with our oldest at the time and he had an affair during the pregnancy. He blamed me for the affair with an old girlfriend because I was moody throughout the pregnancy and not attending to his needs. Fast forward several years later and we are still dealing with different crisis situations in our marriage with the same theme around lack of trust, intimacy and communication (and we did seek marriage counseling for several months before the two times a week counseling bills hit us pretty hard). He now works as a plumber (only decent job he could get with benefits with his felony record) and makes a little over $700 every two weeks and I had to make the hard decision of becoming a work at home mother bringing in about $360 every two weeks. My husband used to stay at home during the day (worked a night job) and watch the kids while I made decent money so we could avoid daycare but he would drink while watching the kids, take painkillers, look at porn, hide money he earned from a start up side business (catering food) to pay for his personal needs. I left my career to attend to my children (one has a cluster of special education needs). I tried to teach at a learning center where my two kids attended for a few months to be in the same building as them but my oldest was injured by another child and had to have reconstructive elbow surgery. Since quitting that job, I work at home offering services to watch other children in my home so that I can keep my kids out of daycare. I feel like I have lost my working purpose or identity as well as my self-esteem in the aftermath of my son's daycare injury. I spend my time working from home babysitting (trying to do a start up business adding more clients), being a home maker, advocating/assisting with my oldest's special needs and trying to keep everything running as best as I know how. I know I don't have all the know-how's to be the best homemaker, wife, mother, babysitter, financial keeper, cook, etc. but I'm doing what feels to be the best decision for this season in my life. I struggle because I graduated from college with honors, am trustworthy, have good credit, a caring mother, organized, was a successful career woman and this is a very different place for me to be in and I feel at a loss for what to do. My husband is attractive, charismatic, fun, adventurous, friendly but is currently attending AA meetings off and on, hiding taking vicodine for fibromyalgia pain, hides money he makes doing side jobs at a bar/restaurant, lies chronically, is bull-headed/stubborn and deflects/blames me for his on-going issues. He has bad credit (two car repos, outstanding payday loans, overdrawn personal bank accounts to name a few) and does not know how to manage finances. He gets angry with me for establishing a budget and wanting to talk about incorporating a "spouse allowance" because he wants his own money to buy pain medicine without telling me, junk food/drinks to have at work and be able to eat out a few times a month. Since I run a tight household budget, sometimes we don't have the extra money in the budget to provide for these non-necessities (in my opinion) especially when he does not get overtime or they send him home from work early. Nevertheless, he says he doesn't need us to budget for his discretionary spending, feels he can't talk to me about his spending needs and blames me when I find out he's been hiding money to buy pain pills, junk food and or drinks. There's this whole cycle of how I try to get him to be transparent, open and honest with me about what he needs but at the same time be realistic with our family budget so I don't have to work outside the home and put the children in daycare. He tells me he thinks "we're over with our marriage anyway" so why should he have to communicate honestly with me - That I would just get angry anyway. I keep explaining that I have a hard time being intimate and meeting his sexual needs because he lies to me over and over again no matter how I try to help overcome his continual lies to work toward transparency/honesty. He wants the life of a single, independent man who wants to blow money however he wants to choose but yet he says he doesn't want to separate. I cannot change him and I pray all the time for God to help me work on myself as I cannot stop (control) his choices no matter what I do. Please offer any advice you may have as I feel Satan is overwhelming me.

 

[DZoolander]

Line breaks are your friend.

 

[DZoolander]

That being said, Satan has nothing to do with how you're feeling...unless you consider your douchebag husband Satan.

Banging around with other women while you were pregnant? Wow.

 

[Hetta]

Separation and counseling. I don't think he's going to take anything seriously while you remain in the house despite adultery, despite financial mismanagement, despite dishonesty, drug addiction and indifference. If he's saying that the marriage is over but he doesn't want to separate he's obviously hoping that you fall for that, and he gets to act like a single man while having a wife at home to take care of him. Don't fall for that.

 

[Autumnleaf]

Go to Alanon meetings. It will teach you how to deal with liar addicts, and give you a support system of people who have been there.

 

[Annessa3]

I've been through parts of this. For me, it came down to why would I want to stay married to someone I didn't trust or respect.

Nobody walks all over you unless you lay down.

 

[Inkachu]

This man is going to ruin you and your childrens' lives. We're not allowed to use the "D" word around here, but that's where I'd be headed.

 

[RedPonyDriver]

It's not Satan...I think you know what you need to do. You and your kids will be better off.

 

[sdmsanjose]

Why are you allowing this loser to treat you like a door mat?




My advice? Make a plan to get emotionally and financially in a position that you do not need him.