Can you remain married to a man who doesn’t have a vision?

[Anonymous]

He doesn’t really have a plan for his or our life. I’ve been with him for 10 years and I guess I kept waiting for him to find direction for himself and us as a family and it hasn’t exactly come to fruition. I feel feel more lost and directionless as ever as since I’m married to him, our goals should be congruent and I’m moving in the same direction.

I’m also 36 so it’s not like it’s easy for me to start over.

I’m feeling very depressed and aimless.

[Anonymous]

Are you offering a vision and he is shooting it down?

[Anonymous]

My husband has ADHD. He's always had a vision for his work and his money, and a firm idea when he met me that he wanted to marry me and have kids. But implementing family life has been entirely driven by me. Work and finances are already more than he can handle. If I hadn't set a date for the wedding and trying to conceive, we might still be be engaged and childless, 20 years later

[Anonymous]

What do you mean by direction as a family? Most of us are just living our lives, working, caring for kids and parents, etc. So scar so you mean by vision?

[Anonymous]

^*what do you mean by vision?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He doesn’t really have a plan for his or our life. I’ve been with him for 10 years and I guess I kept waiting for him to find direction for himself and us as a family and it hasn’t exactly come to fruition. I feel feel more lost and directionless as ever as since I’m married to him, our goals should be congruent and I’m moving in the same direction.

I’m also 36 so it’s not like it’s easy for me to start over.

I’m feeling very depressed and aimless.

I was 50 when I started over. I know it doesen't seem like it, but you still have a lot of prime years left. I do wonder how my life would have been different if I hadn't wasted all those years staying in a marriage that i knew I could never really be happy in. But we didn't fight or argue, I didn't hate him and he was a great father. At the time it just felt easier to stay and coast along and stay content. I really regret that. Now he's remarried and I'm single. I'm OK with being single but I also wonder if I'll ever find love again, this late in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^*what do you mean by vision?

He has no professional ambition, doesn't makes as much money as OP would want, doesn't particularly want kids, and she wants to settle down somewhere and have kids in a nice house.

This thread comes up several times a year, couched in various terms, written by different mid-30s to 40s women.

[Anonymous]

Huh? It sounds like you want to avoid having responsibility for making choices for your own life.

Is this like a patriarchy thing where you're hoping he'll step up and be the "head of the home" or whatever your church calls it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband has ADHD. He's always had a vision for his work and his money, and a firm idea when he met me that he wanted to marry me and have kids. But implementing family life has been entirely driven by me. Work and finances are already more than he can handle. If I hadn't set a date for the wedding and trying to conceive, we might still be be engaged and childless, 20 years later

+1

People with ADHD lack planning skills yes, but also vision. They can't set a goal, plan and execute without a lot of support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you mean by direction as a family? Most of us are just living our lives, working, caring for kids and parents, etc. So scar so you mean by vision?

OP wants someone to take care of her.

[Anonymous]

OP, I was in your shoes. Married a man without a goal or plan. Stupid me. I harbored some crazy idea that he would stop being Peter Pan.
I thought I could handle it, but the aimlessness was hard to take when we had kids. And I had to handle EVERYTHING. It eroded the marriage. There were a lot of other things wrong with the marriage like violence, hoarding, financial abuse but all part of the same package. Change was hard for him so he retreated to these ways of lashing out at life responsibilities.

At 43 I began the divorce process, stopped being SAHM. 10 years later the kids and I are doing great, they are really accomplished and my career trajectory has moved upwards beyond my expectations.
If I had stayed married I'd still be living the same life I was living while married - me trying to keep his sh!it together the kids but still exactly the same aimless, goalless, directionless life. Dear OP, I was an enabler.

We've remained amicable since the split and I see the atrophy, the same crippling dependence he has on his parents. The kids see it too.
I am grateful everyday that I got out.

[Anonymous]

Hah! In my household, the one “without a vision” is the one who is getting 90% of the necessary daily weekly monthly things done. You know, the one doing the dishes and the laundry and the cooking and the kids birthdays and everything else. The one “with a vision” is always thinking about the distant future — and can’t be bothered to do any of that, and instead — when confronted with the need to do the necessary mundane tasks — just complains that they’re depressed because we don’t have a clear plan for our retirement 30 years from now…

[Anonymous]

You want something from him… you have an agenda, a covert contract - but you’re not going to tell him what it is, he just has to make a completely wild guess. 🙄

And then you’ll be mad when he “fails” without ever knowing what the test was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I was in your shoes. Married a man without a goal or plan. Stupid me. I harbored some crazy idea that he would stop being Peter Pan.
I thought I could handle it, but the aimlessness was hard to take when we had kids. And I had to handle EVERYTHING. It eroded the marriage. There were a lot of other things wrong with the marriage like violence, hoarding, financial abuse but all part of the same package. Change was hard for him so he retreated to these ways of lashing out at life responsibilities.

At 43 I began the divorce process, stopped being SAHM. 10 years later the kids and I are doing great, they are really accomplished and my career trajectory has moved upwards beyond my expectations.
If I had stayed married I'd still be living the same life I was living while married - me trying to keep his sh!it together the kids but still exactly the same aimless, goalless, directionless life. Dear OP, I was an enabler.

We've remained amicable since the split and I see the atrophy, the same crippling dependence he has on his parents. The kids see it too.
I am grateful everyday that I got out.

Your “other stuff” is what made your marriage fail. It’s really not the same as OP at all

[Anonymous]

There are two big flaws with your original post.

1. Many men don’t have a vision and just get along so this is not a unique situation.

2. You’re only 36. It actually is very easy for you to start over right now. If you want out don’t wait. I am a decade older than you, and it is really too late for me but it’s certainly not too late for you. You’re not even 40.