# Should I ask him to go?



## Confu5ed (3 mo ago)

I’ve been with my husband 18 years, married for 5. We had a 6 month break up about 7 or 8 years ago, because he had mental health issues from a rubbish childhood and that was his excuse.
So recently he has been working more and more. Very rarely home. He took on a manager position and he has to learn all sorts of new things and his work take advantage so I do think he is there a lot of the time. 
He smokes weed. I don’t have an issue with occasional use but he has started spending more time with others who smoke it and feels he deserves this time away from home to himself, to de-stress. I don’t ever get time away and so life with children and work is stressful. I have spoken with him several times recently about how I feel we spend no time together and that I always feel bottom of the pile. I’m not asking a lot, just that we actually spend some time together in the evenings but he always either has to work or some other excuse. At the moment he is away for a few days and I know drinking is involved, possibly drugs. He is terrible for keeping in contact when he is away from home and I asked him before he went to let me know how he was each day etc. and surely he would want to know how the children are doing. So I last heard from him 26 hours ago and he hasn’t bothered to contact me. The 2 previous messaging sessions were started by me so I decided I would wait and see. He hasn’t bothered.
We couldn’t go away for our anniversary as we couldn’t afford it and I had been pinning all my hopes on this weekend away as we really needed to reconnect. So I understood we couldn’t go but then he decides he would go away for this 5 days which are for some sort of memorial thing for a friend of his who passed away recently. He said he couldn’t let his friends parents down. He doesn’t understand why I am hurt about that. 
Anyway I feel like I have spoken to him several times and nothing has changed so far. I feel like it’s driving me crazy and then I begin to wonder what he’s doing, is he really at work etc etc.

I’m at a loss now at what else I can do. Surely if he wanted to be around me more he would? Is it time to just call it a day?


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## TexasMom1216 (Nov 3, 2021)

Confu5ed said:


> Surely if he wanted to be around me more he would?


Yes. If he wanted to spend time with you, he would. You've told him how you feel, he doesn't seem to care.


Confu5ed said:


> Is it time to just call it a day?


Nothing will change until something changes. So if you're unhappy and don't want to spend the rest of your life as an afterthought, then yeah, I would call it a day.


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## SadM83 (4 mo ago)

Yes. You should.


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## Cynthia (Jan 31, 2014)

Do you think your husband is cheating? From what you've written, that's a real possibility.


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## DownByTheRiver (Jul 2, 2020)

He's left the marriage for all practical purposes. Make it official and then give him joint custody of the children so he has to take some responsibility whether he wants to or not. And that will give you the time you need to work more and have leisure time while he has the kids. That is the norm these days, so it's not something he needs to agree to, necessarily.


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

Confu5ed said:


> I’ve been with my husband 18 years, married for 5. We had a 6 month break up about 7 or 8 years ago, because he had mental health issues.....
> 
> ,,,,,,He smokes weed. I don’t have an issue with occasional use but he has started spending more time with others who smoke it and feels he deserves this time away from home to himself, to de-stress.
> 
> ...


A few thoughts. First it is quite a red flag when you post, "......been with my husband 18 years, married for 5......" Either the mental health issues were huge, or someone had huge commitment issues. 

I would ask if he has always been somewhat distant to you and you married him anyway. But I would like to hear your thoughts on that.

You are not going to change your H. Only he can change himself and then only if he wants to change. You really need to understand that.

As to calling it a day? I assume you mean ending your marriage, You really need figure out what you want. You can ask him how committed he is to the marriage, but I think that the been together 18 years, but married for 5 years tells you a lot already.

Whether you just call it a day or not is totally your decision, but since there is at least one child, you should discuss the issue of divorce with your H. You should find out if he is willing to prioritize your marriage over his stress reduction time with his friends.

Good luck.


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## Jimi007 (6 mo ago)

I think you should work on your marriage. 

Have a sit down and tell him exactly how you feel. 

Tell him your ready to leave the marriage if real changes don't happen. 

You should be his number 1 .....Period !

Echoing a previous post. @TTBone , Some here on TAM will go to the extreme .

Your husband is cheating , he's rotten , divorce, don't stay in a bad marriage...ect.

There are man haters here.....

Everything you have posted is fixable 
But when you have that talk you have to mean it. 

You can't Pu$$y it. Lay it on the line. Then you will not only have your answers, but a clear path forward 

Best wishes , Jimi


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## Confu5ed (3 mo ago)

Young at Heart said:


> A few thoughts. First it is quite a red flag when you post, "......been with my husband 18 years, married for 5......" Either the mental health issues were huge, or someone had huge commitment issues.
> 
> I would ask if he has always been somewhat distant to you and you married him anyway. But I would like to hear your thoughts on that.
> 
> ...


In the past we were happy and it was never our intention to get married. After the 6 month separation he proposed because he said he wanted to show me he was committed to me.

No he hasn’t always been distant. He has had times where his mental health has been bad and that has caused a strain on us. First was his childhood, he held onto issues thathe didn’t even know about until he went to counselling. The most recent bout of bad mental health was around 2-3 years ago when he got letters asking him to attend court for a fatal accident enquiry regarding his close friend who died while at work with him. I think it’s a real possibility he has ptsd related to this. Due to covid the whole thing was dragged out and he just wanted to get it over and done with. I obviously supported him as best I could.

This recent distance between us has happened over the last few months and before that everything was fine. This is around the time his workload increased massively.


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## Confu5ed (3 mo ago)

Cynthia said:


> Do you think your husband is cheating? From what you've written, that's a real possibility.


I highly doubt it. It’s more likely to be drug related if anything. Any more than smoking the odd joint is a no no for me and he knows that so he wouldn’t admit it.

He is still interested in sex and we do have a good sex life. I guess that doesn’t rule out cheating but I don’t think he is.


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## Confu5ed (3 mo ago)

Jimi007 said:


> I think you should work on your marriage.
> 
> Have a sit down and tell him exactly how you feel.
> 
> ...


Thanks. Things can only be worked on if he is willing. I wonder if I should have a timeframe in my own mind, to see reasonable changes, before calling it a day.


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## Confu5ed (3 mo ago)

I still haven’t heard from him. Its 11pm now and I last heard from him at 2.30pm yesterday. I’m happy to give him space but expect him to check in with me once or twice to let me know he’s ok etc. I guess I’ll see what tomorrow brings.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

Some — for various reasons — don’t ever check in when they’re away from home. In this case, maybe he doesn’t want you to be able to tell if he’s drugged up or not.


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## TexasMom1216 (Nov 3, 2021)

Confu5ed said:


> Thanks. Things can only be worked on if he is willing. I wonder if I should have a timeframe in my own mind, to see reasonable changes, before calling it a day.


The pick me dance is perpetual. You’ll do it forever and it will never work. I’m all for trying but you’re correct, the entire responsibility for a happy marriage should not solely be on the shoulders of the woman all the time. He has to have some interest in making the marriage work.


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## She'sStillGotIt (Jul 30, 2016)

*


Confu5ed said:



I still haven’t heard from him. Its 11pm now and I last heard from him at 2.30pm yesterday. I’m happy to give him space but expect him to check in with me once or twice to let me know he’s ok etc. I guess I’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Click to expand...

*I think it's time to take off the rose-colored glasses, don't you?

You've continually made excuses for every single time this guy has **** all over you and you've accepted it willingly. If it wasn't "childhood issues" when he suddenly needed to leave you and live on his own, then it's "PTSD" or some other excuse you came up with. And now, your latest excuse for the UNACCEPTABLE is that he's got an 'increased workload' so that somehow justifies his taking off and disappearing for a couple of days and that you'd be OK with it if he'd occasionally check in with you.

Is this guy your husband or your errant teenage son?

Sure, that's a good reason for him to disappear on some drug bender and ignore your existence for 2 days - an 'increased workload.'

Stop making excuses for the inexcusable and take off the rose-colored glasses. It's amazing how much time 'away' from home this guy constantly gets, yet you say he's not cheating. Take off the glasses already, OP.


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## Cynthia (Jan 31, 2014)

Confu5ed said:


> I highly doubt it. It’s more likely to be drug related if anything. Any more than smoking the odd joint is a no no for me and he knows that so he wouldn’t admit it.
> 
> He is still interested in sex and we do have a good sex life. I guess that doesn’t rule out cheating but I don’t think he is.


After you gave more information, it seems that his issue is a combination of PTSD and being overwhelmed at work. I think you two need to have a serious conversation where you tell him that he needs to get help for the PTSD and to find a solution to deal with the excess workload, such as finding a new job or somehow working it out so he doesn't have to take on more work than he is able to complete. I would come at this from a perspective of you two solving this together and letting him know that it can't go on like this.


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