# Debt, illness, silence.. please help



## pacificgirl (Sep 17, 2013)

I've been lurking and reading threads here, but this is my first post.

I'm 28, my husband is 31. We've been married for 5 years, no children.
I have been considering separation and possibly ultimately divorce after my husband gave me the silent treatment for 6 days last week. He has done this before, but never for such a long period of time because I always apologize, even if I was not completely at fault, and try to get him to talk. I feel like lately I am always trying to persuade him to talk to me and not act like I'm just a piece of furniture. I ask him what's wrong or if I've made him angry, and he always says no, and that he has nothing to say. 

We both have mountains of debt in the form of student loans and medical bills. We both have Bachelor's degrees, and I have a Master's. I drew part-time pay during grad school and was accepted to a PhD program but was diagnosed with a chronic, fairly serious illness my last semester. I had planned to go on in academia and become a professor, but I was not able to do so because of health reasons. I am now working part-time from home as a freelancer, and I am making only slightly less than him. Since college, he has held nothing but low-paying jobs--he went from college to restaurant work and stuck with that for over a year, making minimum wage. Next, he did call center work, which was slightly more, and then he was fired (for taking time off for our wedding; the time off request was originally approved and then revoked for no reason and he of course wasn't going to move the wedding and work then). Then he took a terrible less-than-min-wage job doing inventory, and finally he is working an office job. He is not making anywhere near enough for us to even keep afloat financially. We have two car payments because we live in a rural area and it is extremely difficult to have only one car. We rent a tiny house and our rent is not much, but I have already defaulted on student loans and we are living paycheck to paycheck. I still have to see specialists so the medical bills never seem to get smaller. We have no savings. The major issue is that he is not looking for a new job. He did not look for a new job while he held the other terrible jobs, either. I have tried to talk to him time and again about it, and he is finally looking for something else, but he is not spending enough time doing so and he is only looking at two job-search sites that post listings. He said he feels it is a waste of time and instead spends all his time at home playing video games, which makes me angry and resentful. He has only sent about 8 resumes/applications in the past 6 months.

He would be able to get a job through his dad, but that would require moving several states away. I suggested he pursue that since nothing is changing where we live now, but he said he didn't want to. Lately, he gets angry and yells anytime I bring up the subject of finances or his job, and I can hardly stand it any more. I tried to have a discussion about it and told him I couldn't continue to live like this for much longer, but he again got angry and refused to speak. I also tried later to ask him about his goals, a 5-year plan, etc., and he got extremely angry that I would ask about something so stupid and of course he didn't have a plan or goals.

I am feeling more and more unhappy and resentful. I am tired of nagging him about this stuff and wanting him to want better. He seems to have lost all ambition and it's making me apathetic. I know neither of us could support ourselves independently, but I would be able to move in with my parents or with a friend as her roommate. 

He is basically not a bad guy, but there are so many things right now making me unhappy and the situation does not seem to have the potential for improvement. I do not know what to do and I could really, really use some advice and outside perspective. Please help.


----------



## 3Xnocharm (Jun 22, 2012)

He does not seem interested in improving your situation financially. The behavior pattern of the silent treatment will not change, I know first hand as I was married to someone like this. Him getting upset when you try to discuss these things shows that he has no respect for you. You are so young, you have no children with this man, and are making enough money to support yourself. My advice would be to leave him.


----------



## Overwhelmed in NE (Sep 20, 2013)

I am now many more years into my marriage than you are, with 2 children, and I wish I had done something about all those same issues I saw earlier in our relationship that I chose to just sweep under the rug and hope they would go away. I hate to tell you they get worse and now continuing to deal with them and two young children is even worse. From my experience, he will not change, he will even use the excuse that you married him knowing all these faults and are now asking him to change. These men never fully grown up, and it comes down to you having to decide if you can live with it or if it is time for you to move on. I am doing mc to give it one last try because we have children together...but am not expecting a healthy marriage to be our end result.


----------

