Divorcing DH as he doesn't respect me?

[Anonymous]

Infrequent sex married to a SAHM with teenagers (as in gone all day)?

He's having affairs, and I would not entirely blame him.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for writing this post. I am not married but dated a jerk similiar to your husband. I got out after a month and half. The signs are there early on with these guys. It is never too late to reclaim your self esteem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Infrequent sex married to a SAHM with teenagers (as in gone all day)?

He's having affairs, and I would not entirely blame him.

Not sure I get this?

[Anonymous]

He is having a midlife crisis & thinks he can deal with his aging body and relationship issues by finding a youthful woman who will think he is wonderful. And she will find him wonderful because he will treat her with respect, lavishing time, attention & money on her. She will be happy because she will not be dealing with his dirty underwear, kids and all the other domestic issues.
He will divorce you and marry one of these women, who will be the "I want my career" type of women. Then "OOPS" she will get pregnant or as his wife, she will constantly nag him about "just one child". And after she has a kid, she will be even more of a problem because as his career wanes & he has to pay for the first kids, she will be a lot less understanding. And God help him if he gets sick with a chronic disease like diabetes or high blood pressure, where he needs medicine which will make it difficult to keep up with her.
Maybe a counselor can help him think through the ramifications of his actions. But he seems he is almost pushing you to be the "bad guy" and to divorce him.
As others have said, step up your game. Get yourself together, get a job, get fit, get your self-esteem back. He needs to do many of the things he would be required to do if you split up- his laundry, driving the kids, etc.

Sometimes you can't stop the plane from crashing and burning, no matter how much you love him. He has to think this through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Maybe on the affair. I guess there are signs, but he was extremely broken up over the time he "almost" did (I have to trust him on this one). It would've been a for sex thing as it was a young woman (a nanny!) he met traveling in Europe. He was planning to meet her on one of his subsequent trips but she couldn't get away from her family and then I found out about it. I even called her. At the same time, I saw very flirty texts to another very young woman he met skiing who was coming to the DC area to live.

Needless to say I was very upset. I pretty much said I am not sure I can stay married to you. He was a wreck. We did counseling and for awhile things seemed better.

I will say that what I remember most about this time was that he was putting me down a lot, for things that seemed really ridiculous. Why is this such a sign of an affair? I accept that it is, but I honestly thought he was so "scared" last time and remorseful that he wouldn't do this again.

I guess I could hire a PI? What do people do? I once asked him about a year ago, and he sort of laughed at me and said I was being ridiculous. I do look at his phone but never have found anything in the last few years. Sex life is infrequent.

Why would you hire a PI? It is painfully obvious your DH is a serial cheater. Only person you need to hire is a doctor to give you a full panel for STDs.

For some reason, you are willfully putting your head in the sand. Your husband is literally in your face with his infidelity.

[Anonymous]

OP told us they have infrequent sex. Highly probable that he is having an affair. What else did you expect? Not saying that he's justified, but this is a 100% predictable outcome of a low sex marriage, so to the extent that you choose to remain married with infrequent sex, that's just like choosing a DADT marriage.

[Anonymous]

I find it problematic that your son has heard him say disrespectful things to you & is now emulating him.

Obviously your husband is a very bad influence on his son.
This will not bode well for your son when he becomes a full-fledged adult himself and thinks this is the manner in which a man should treat his wife.

But even if your son was not being affected, it is still very unacceptable how your husband treats you period.

You need to talk to him directly and let him know that you will not put up w/being disrespected by him ever again!

If he finds that he truly is just set in his ways + cannot find it in himself to value you as his loving wife, then in order to maintain your dignity you need to leave him alone.

Also it will show your son that men have no right to treat their women in the manner your husband treats you.
He will also see what a strong role model you are for standing up for yourself no matter how tough it may be!

Good luck OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Give it One Last Year. Do a Hail Mary. Make sex and date nights a priority. Focus on pleasing your husband. Get hot. Zip your lip. Pretend. Give it till 2019. And if it still sucks- at least you're hot and nice and ready to get out there again.

This is terrible advice.

I am not trying to "get" my husband back. Pretty hard to do those things when he treats me as he does. Not sure I am that good an actress.

So what are you trying to do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it problematic that your son has heard him say disrespectful things to you & is now emulating him.

Obviously your husband is a very bad influence on his son.
This will not bode well for your son when he becomes a full-fledged adult himself and thinks this is the manner in which a man should treat his wife.

But even if your son was not being affected, it is still very unacceptable how your husband treats you period.

You need to talk to him directly and let him know that you will not put up w/being disrespected by him ever again!

If he finds that he truly is just set in his ways + cannot find it in himself to value you as his loving wife, then in order to maintain your dignity you need to leave him alone.

Also it will show your son that men have no right to treat their women in the manner your husband treats you.
He will also see what a strong role model you are for standing up for yourself no matter how tough it may be!

Good luck OP.

More likely, OP will end up alone and depressed, because the children are almost grown and will leave the broken home.

Sorry, OP. There's no cure, I'm afraid. Good luck. Your children will judge you on your merits; hopefully, you've been kind to them.

[Anonymous]

NP. Your DH sounds a lot like mine, except w/o the affair. I'm very sorry that you are going through this. Noone deserves to be treated like this. I'm considering the same things you are, and starting counseling (for myself) this week. DH has agreed to get counseling himself but I'm doubtful it'll help since you have to have a certain amount of humility for that to work.

For those who have seen this play out, with the kids, how do girls respond? I have two girls (elem school) and TBH they call out their dad on any negative sh*t immediately and constantly defend me (even though I've asked them not to). They are at this point where they really just don't like their dad very much because they hear him constantly criticizing everything I do. Right now, they are really respectful of me.

I'm concerned about custody - pretty sure DH will want joint, and the kids are not very bonded to him. But w/o physical abuse/substance addiction/affair, its pretty much guaranteed we'll be 50-50 right? I'm concerned he'll start just belittling *them* when they are with him, without me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DH isn't as bad as yours, but he hasn't respected me for a long time (if ever, I remember he was pretty s****y to me early on). The only things that got him to respect me again were getting "hot" again and working again. When I was a SAHM, he just saw me as a moocher, no matter how much work I actually did. But once he saw I could take care of myself and replace him if needed, he got his act together.

Figure out if divorce is a good financial option for you. You may not get much alimony and may have to work again. Is that something you want to do?

Why would you want to be married to someone like this? Doormat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DH isn't as bad as yours, but he hasn't respected me for a long time (if ever, I remember he was pretty s****y to me early on). The only things that got him to respect me again were getting "hot" again and working again. When I was a SAHM, he just saw me as a moocher, no matter how much work I actually did. But once he saw I could take care of myself and replace him if needed, he got his act together.

Figure out if divorce is a good financial option for you. You may not get much alimony and may have to work again. Is that something you want to do?

Why would you want to be married to someone like this? Doormat.

because she doesn't work! she has no money of her own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DH isn't as bad as yours, but he hasn't respected me for a long time (if ever, I remember he was pretty s****y to me early on). The only things that got him to respect me again were getting "hot" again and working again. When I was a SAHM, he just saw me as a moocher, no matter how much work I actually did. But once he saw I could take care of myself and replace him if needed, he got his act together.

Figure out if divorce is a good financial option for you. You may not get much alimony and may have to work again. Is that something you want to do?

Why would you want to be married to someone like this? Doormat.

because she doesn't work! she has no money of her own.

You missed the point. Why would a person want to marry someone who's only going to be respectful toward you if you're 1) hot; and 2) making money? What happens if you get sick or have a kid and need to stay home for some reason like the kid is SN or god forbid, lost your attractiveness permanently under circumstances outside your control? Plus, apparently he was shitty to her early on. Door mat!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DH isn't as bad as yours, but he hasn't respected me for a long time (if ever, I remember he was pretty s****y to me early on). The only things that got him to respect me again were getting "hot" again and working again. When I was a SAHM, he just saw me as a moocher, no matter how much work I actually did. But once he saw I could take care of myself and replace him if needed, he got his act together.

Figure out if divorce is a good financial option for you. You may not get much alimony and may have to work again. Is that something you want to do?

Why would you want to be married to someone like this? Doormat.

because she doesn't work! she has no money of her own.

You missed the point. Why would a person want to marry someone who's only going to be respectful toward you if you're 1) hot; and 2) making money? What happens if you get sick or have a kid and need to stay home for some reason like the kid is SN or god forbid, lost your attractiveness permanently under circumstances outside your control? Plus, apparently he was shitty to her early on. Door mat!

DP. It's not like these points were advertised from the beginning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DH isn't as bad as yours, but he hasn't respected me for a long time (if ever, I remember he was pretty s****y to me early on). The only things that got him to respect me again were getting "hot" again and working again. When I was a SAHM, he just saw me as a moocher, no matter how much work I actually did. But once he saw I could take care of myself and replace him if needed, he got his act together.

Figure out if divorce is a good financial option for you. You may not get much alimony and may have to work again. Is that something you want to do?

Why would you want to be married to someone like this? Doormat.

because she doesn't work! she has no money of her own.

You missed the point. Why would a person want to marry someone who's only going to be respectful toward you if you're 1) hot; and 2) making money? What happens if you get sick or have a kid and need to stay home for some reason like the kid is SN or god forbid, lost your attractiveness permanently under circumstances outside your control? Plus, apparently he was shitty to her early on. Door mat!

DP. It's not like these points were advertised from the beginning.

So? Why continue to be married to him? It's like you all are determined to defend staying with an asshole who is only nice/respectful to you if you are 1)"hot; and 2) making money. WTF, ladies?