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Snoring? Moving to a different room or wearing earplugs provides a solution. Hardly this is an issue when one is talking divorce with two kids that are going to suffer from this. What about them? They are why the family unit is a Creator endowed institution.
It sounds like you got his attention. Maybe this is the change that was needed. I wouldn't be hasty with divorce proceedings.
Personally I think the issue ultimately is Spiritual. I could never marry a woman that did not share the same Faith in Jesus Christ abiding in Him and His commandments. Fleshly passions fade, but the Word of God abides forever. There would be a well-established family unit to raise kids in.
So maybe pick up a Bible, read what Christ says on the issue and see what He does with your family.
As I said, the snoring itself is the least of our issues and I don't actually mind the couch or the twin bed per se. I can't even remember why I brought that up...I think it was in the context of his feeling I was at fault for not being able to stand the snoring and therefore I should just get the hell out of the bed, basically...and in the context of his just not caring about us living and sleeping together as a married couple.
I am not Christian and not really spiritual but I will definitely think on what you've said here.
Ohio, I get what you're trying to get across here.
I'm not really standing up and saying "I deserve better!" though, I am actually feeling crushed and beaten down year on year until I hardly feel like a person any more. I don't remember who I am. I don't remember what I used to like. All I know is just getting through the day without another negative comment, another hostile look, another sense of how I'm doing everything wrong but the person who feels I'm doing everything wrong is taking great pleasure in not telling me what that everything is, and instead is standing back watching me spin my wheels in a panic just always trying to make everything...a little less bad. That's my hope for my marriage at this point each and every day, "Can I make today less bad?"
I just...oh I don't know. And this...whatever I'm becoming or disappearing into, is what I'm showing to my kids and what I'm giving to them. God I feel sorry for them sometimes. All the time, really. This is all I have to give them?
It's really not a case of just throwing everything away because I "think" I deserve better. I don't, I didn't even think of it in that context, actually. It's more a question of whether I really can go on living this way, it's more a feeling of trying to escape from prison. (Okay, that last bit *was* a little facetious, oh hell, you've gotta laugh or you're probably gonna cry, sometimes.)
It may sound like melodrama but this existence really does feel like it's crushing the life out of me and I'm just becoming...nothing. I'm just sort of slowly starting to die. It's not a case of me fist-pumping or something and saying "I can do better!" It's more like...just trying to save the rest of me, for me and my kids. Whatever's left, anyway.
I don't know how else to say it without sounding like I'm being overly dramatic. Oh, hell, I didn't sleep last night (haven't slept since Saturday into Sunday) so maybe I don't know what the hell I'm talking about at all at this point.
Oh my, this is even worse than I thought. I think I already know the answer to this but is the verbal abuse going on in front of the kids? If so you must get out.
I grew up in a household like that but it was much worse. I'm 58 I still think to this day that my life would have turned out better if I was raised by my mother only. I felt my childhood was taken away from me. The scars will never go away.
Not only do you deserve better but even more important it appears your children do as well. Growing up with hostility in the family is not fair to them. Do what you have to do to put an end to that ASAP.
Snoring? Moving to a different room or wearing earplugs provides a solution. Hardly this is an issue when one is talking divorce with two kids that are going to suffer from this. What about them? They are why the family unit is a Creator endowed institution.
It sounds like you got his attention. Maybe this is the change that was needed. I wouldn't be hasty with divorce proceedings.
Personally I think the issue ultimately is Spiritual. I could never marry a woman that did not share the same Faith in Jesus Christ abiding in Him and His commandments. Fleshly passions fade, but the Word of God abides forever. There would be a well-established family unit to raise kids in.
So maybe pick up a Bible, read what Christ says on the issue and see what He does with your family.
This is such rubbish.
I grew up in a religious family and it did nothing for me/us. I blame religion for my parents staying together when it would have been far better off if they got divorced. The more religious my father became the more controlling and abusive he was.
Adding - the prison system is full of people who believe so it does not make you a better person. Not only that but some of the worst people I have dealt with in life were overly religious.
OP - do not listen to this advice. Think on your own and do what is best to protect your children.
I grew up in a religious family and it did nothing for me/us. I blame religion for my parents staying together when it would have been far better off if they get divorced. The more religious my father became the more controlling and abusive he was.
Adding - the prison system is full of people who believe so it does not make you a better person. Not only that but some of the worst people I have dealt with in life were overly religious.
OP - do not listen to this advice. Think on your own and do what is best to protect your children.
John, I will but I am grateful for everyone's advice. I am really grateful that people care enough even to answer, nobody has to do that. Thank you all so much for your help and advice.
Think of the whole situation this way: What would you advise a daughter to do? I say this because your kids are going to look to you and your husband as role models. What you decide to do is where they'll pick up their cues as to how much they'll put up with when they are adults. Think about it.
Of course the OP deserves better. But it's not a question of what we deserve. It's a question of what's available to us, what is condign with our obligations and the capacities of our natures.
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There’s a ubiquitous bias on this forum, that splitting is better than staying, that staying only makes sense if the staying is good. Divorce wrecks lives, plain and simple. How awful would a life have to be, before wrecking it becomes a viable alternative?
I don't see anyone else saying this, so I will stick my neck out and say it, myself: After reading your posts on here about your own divorce, and then reading your posts on this thread, I think you are projecting your own experience onto JerZ. It's public knowledge in your posting history that you were not happy with your wife leaving you, and felt that she didn't do enough to stick it out with you, even though by your own admission, she told you herself that she felt stunted and like she was disappearing in your marriage.
JerZ is saying things similar to what your ex said, and it seems to me like you are trying to use JerZ as a surrogate for your wife in trying to convince her to stay in a marriage that she finds unfulfilling. In other words, it seems like nothing your own wife said to you sunk in, and because you didn't like or approve of your wife's reasons for leaving you, you're going to try to argue JerZ out of leaving her somewhat similar situation as a way of somehow evening the score.
I've said this to you before, and I'll say it again: You are not the arbiter of legitimacy when it comes to other people's reasons for divorce, and it is not your place to assume that you know best for everyone else. Divorce does not necessarily wreck lives. It improves quite a lot of them, as other members and I have said. Another unhappy wife does not have to stay in a bad marriage just because that's what you think your own ex-wife should have done.
I just want to give you a big hug JerZ. I hated living in a marriage where I felt I was unloved and disrespected so I left. My kids turned out fine and I found a man who adores me. It was hard at first but we have one life and it's way too short to live with such unhappiness. Thinking of you hon.
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JerZ is saying things similar to what your ex said, and it seems to me like you are trying to use JerZ as a surrogate for your wife in trying to convince her to stay in a marriage that she finds unfulfilling. In other words, it seems like nothing your own wife said to you sunk in, and because you didn't like or approve of your wife's reasons for leaving you, you're going to try to argue JerZ out of leaving her somewhat similar situation as a way of somehow evening the score.
I've said this to you before, and I'll say it again: You are not the arbiter of legitimacy when it comes to other people's reasons for divorce, and it is not your place to assume that you know best for everyone else. Divorce does not necessarily wreck lives. It improves quite a lot of them, as other members and I have said. Another unhappy wife does not have to stay in a bad marriage just because that's what you think your own ex-wife should have done.
The OP made open solicitation for advice. Hence, it's all posters' place to offer such advice, provided that it is sincere and honorable. Yet with all due respect, Lilac110, it is nobody's place to make assumptions about other people's lives... not mine, and not yours.
Divorce sucks. Divorce is a horror. Continuation of a marriage may not be pleasant either, but I am unapologetic about speaking from experience that terminating a marriage is a stunning setback in one's life.
We have an emerging culture that's treating marriages as if they were college-dorm hookups. They're not. Husbands or wives aren't commodities to be bought by the pound and discarded when no longer ripe. Yes, I deeply miss my ex-wife and am profoundly regretful that she left. There will never be another like her, whether fortune blesses or damns me, elevates or debases me. That is one relationship that could not endure. Do I believe that it is worthwhile to at least attempt to save other relationships? Yes, unabashedly I do. Do I believe that life partners belong together? Yes, I do - and I make no apologies for that. Are some marriages so noxious that terminating them is the only sensible step? Yes, there are. But wherein lies the greater risk: to disavow what one already has, or to keep salving a festering wound?
To all those people who have successfully rebuilt their lives after divorce, who have gone on to thrive and who have found their divorces to be a comparative success, I offer congratulations. I don't have a grudge, nor do I salivate with unsated envy. But you are the lucky ones. Not everyone shall be so lucky.
We have an emerging culture that's treating marriages as if they were college-dorm hookups. They're not. Husbands or wives aren't commodities to be bought by the pound and discarded when no longer ripe.
You still seem to be missing the part about the OP trying for years to save her marriage. She certainly hasn't treated her marriage like a hook-up. She's stayed and endured what sounds like daily verbal and psychological abuse (as have her kids, I gather from other posts) for years, hoping to somehow turn things around in spite of her husband's refusal to try to rescue the marriage. You make some good points, but they're not relevant to this situation in this thread. There's nothing left to save in this marriage, and yet, the OP has agreed to counseling, so as to leave no stone unturned. This is the exact opposite of someone who treats marriage casually.
IMO, the only thing that could save this marriage is a massive personality overhaul of the OP's husband. And even so, I think it's a bit late for that.
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(Okay, that last bit *was* a little facetious, oh hell, you've gotta laugh or you're probably gonna cry, sometimes.)