# Recently separated, seeking advice and tips to get through



## Gowithgrace (May 16, 2020)

Hi everyone, I’m a 34 year old woman recently separated after three years of marriage and a total of six years together. My husband and I are still living under the roof. I am unable to move out as worried I will not be able to cover my mortgsge, rent and legal fees. My husband wanted to separated, however refuses to move even though all his family is here, earns so much more money and is able to afford rent. I work from home, have a dog and all my family is overseas with a very small friendship circle here. I need my home and stability. Since being separated my husband is very rude and mean to me in the house even accusing me recently of trying to steal his house. We are beginning to talk about our assets with legal help each although I feel he will low ball me the whole way and be nasty too. Anyone have any support or tips for me in thus situation. I utterly feel stuck and we are in covid too!

I wanted to work on our marriage and my husband said absolutely not as he is desperate for a child and I was not willingly to start a family together until we got our act together. I have been saying this for a couple years now and my husband response was simply “I’ve been trying this whole time, I’m done.” Our relationship has not improved since getting married so possibly we were doomed from the start. I feel very sad and jaded that someone had given up on me and our marriage as I really thought we could get through anything even if things were so messed. Any advice you can share I greatly appreciate as this is very isolating experience.


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## hubbyintrubby (Jul 5, 2019)

Gowithgrace said:


> Hi everyone, I’m a 34 year old woman recently separated after three years of marriage and a total of six years together. My husband and I are still living under the roof. I am unable to move out as worried I will not be able to cover my mortgsge, rent and legal fees. My husband wanted to separated, however refuses to move even though all his family is here, earns so much more money and is able to afford rent. I work from home, have a dog and all my family is overseas with a very small friendship circle here. I need my home and stability. Since being separated my husband is very rude and mean to me in the house even accusing me recently of trying to steal his house. We are beginning to talk about our assets with legal help each although I feel he will low ball me the whole way and be nasty too. Anyone have any support or tips for me in thus situation. I utterly feel stuck and we are in covid too!
> 
> I wanted to work on our marriage and my husband said absolutely not as he is desperate for a child and I was not willingly to start a family together until we got our act together. I have been saying this for a couple years now and my husband response was simply “I’ve been trying this whole time, I’m done.” *Our relationship has not improved since getting married so possibly we were doomed from the start.* I feel very sad and jaded that someone had given up on me and our marriage as I really thought we could get through anything even if things were so messed. Any advice you can share I greatly appreciate as this is very isolating experience.


What made you think that things would get better once married, if they were not so great to start with?


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## Gowithgrace (May 16, 2020)

I guess I assumed, (big learnings there to never assume) that we would be able to get through things once passed the wedding and all the stress that occurred in that time of planning a wedding. In hindsight I was more focused on the wedding than the marriage and thought once married we would both be able to roll our sleeves up like mature adults and try to talk about things. My husband is but able to talk to me about anything without a temper and losing his cool. We also have terrible communication and more importantly we can never reconcile after an argument which I hate to shame and blame but my husband led a lot of this behaviour, Stone walling, refusing to apologise, poorly recognises my feelings etc


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## hubbyintrubby (Jul 5, 2019)

Is he open to attending any kind of marital counseling with you? Good communication skills can be learned through seeing a counselor together, if he's open to that. The stonewalling that he does is very damaging to a relationship. He may think he's trying to cool of the times of conflict by doing so, but he probably doesn't realize the damage he's doing by shutting down on you. I consider myself a "reformed stonewaller" of sorts and that used to be my line of thinking when I'd shut down in times of conflict...that I was doing something good and stopping things before they could get worse.


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## Gowithgrace (May 16, 2020)

Whilst we were together he had zero interest of want to attend counselling together and after much prodding he finally agreed to attend and left after six sessions saying that I ( the wife) need to fix myself and I am the problem and one to blame why our marriage is so terrible. We were both very unhappy however I was/am still willing to work on things and it’s now like my husband has checked out completely and wants to quickly get our divorce finalised. He has no interest to reconcile or attend counselling. Our attitudes towards relationships and marriage our totally different. He said he will have better chances going to meet someone else and try for a family with them then stay in this relationship with the unknown which he can no longer handle.


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## hubbyintrubby (Jul 5, 2019)

I know this is the cliche thing to ask here, but are you sure he's not involved with anybody else romantically?


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## Gowithgrace (May 16, 2020)

We are still living together and all the signs look like there is no one else. Basically what put the end to our marriage, my husband wanted to try for children and I said we need to work in our marriage still, I am not ready to do that. I have said this for sometime and the unknown of possibly not starting a family because we are unable to sort our issues out was too much for him and he said he wanted out of the marriage. I don’t think there is anyone else as up until that point we spent most of our time together, my husband was always home and never out. He prioritised a child over our relationship and couldn’t understand at all my hesitations to this.


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## hubbyintrubby (Jul 5, 2019)

Not wanting children until the relationship was better.....is this something that was talked about before the marriage, or after it?


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## Gowithgrace (May 16, 2020)

This was talked about after we go married as a lot of the problems really started to show once married.
1) I never felt my husband had my back emotionally. Whenever I spoke about problems in our marriage I was met with defensiveness, criticism and/or stonewalling.
2) our conflict resolution was terrible, arguments would drag on for days and even weeks with his silent treatment and never apologising or being able to acknowledged his active part
3) I was never included in any big financial decisions together. Just told about them. When I questioned them, I was met with a response of I don’t trust him. None of these financial decisions included my name. We shared no bank accounts together and it would always create an argument.
4) I believe my husband has a very unhealthy enmeshed relationship with his parents where boundaries have not been set and the apron strings not cut. Whenever we tried to discuss this again, met with criticism and anger.
5) whenever we argued he would always threaten finances and how my life could change instantly and I’m not worth the trouble etc. through our whole relationship I have worked full time, contributed most of my share to our expenses and relationship. I have always felt the need to ensure I have my own financial safety net with my husband threatening me with money.

These points above have caused me huge anxiety about having a child together as not feeling emotionally supported, anxious about over bearing in-laws, my husband unable to stand up for himself, money anxiety and his unbearable temper and emotional maturity. I wanted to go to counselling together to try and tackle these problems before thinking about children to avoid a really challenging environment with a newborn which is already testing. This would compound that. My husband as mentioned before, no interest in counselling,
Always said I need to fix myself and when I said to him earlier in the year I’m not ready to start planning for a family until we really smooth things out, he walked out of the marriage.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

You were wise not to not have children with him. That can complicate an already difficult situation like nothing else. Too many people have children thinking they will “fix” things. Wrong.

I know all of this can feel overwhelming but you’ll get through it.


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