Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP, the Ick associated with seeing the chat is understandable. I would feel that way if I saw my husband engaging in something like that, at least temporarily. Longer if it felt like he wasn't taking my revulsion seriously.
The larger issue here is that you keep asking him to lean in on the marriage with books and having babies and asking for counseling, and he does not seem to want that. His hobbies don't involve you. He is disengaged from the children. He doesn't seem to want to participate in family activities.
You can either accept that you are married to a provider who gives you the Ick with his little r*pey memes, or you can leave him. He probably won't change that much, and you just have to decide to what extent you can live with that.
And don't ever tell someone you are thinking of leaving them until you mean it. It's emotionally abusive to use that as a strategy, and it's strategically stupid to reveal your plan before you have one.
OP here.
I can agree with revealing a plan is dumb, but not that it's emotionally abusive, at least not in my case. This man has been physically, mentally, emotionally unavailable for me or his kids for years.
So I sound cold when I say I don't really care if he felt emotionally upset over it. And by the looks and reaction from him, it didn't seem to make much of an impact in the moment, nor in the time following.