(no subject)

[becomingkate]

 I finally had a sort of meltdown the other day. A quiet one that mostly occurred in my head, lol. I got so fed up with everything here at home. I felt like I was just treading water at best, sinking at worst. And I felt like my husband knew all this was going on but didn't bother or know how to change it. Like every day I'd have the same complaints and he still thought everything was fine. Like I was supposed to bitch about things every day to get through to him. That's not my style. I tell you I'm unhappy, I expect you to realize I'm still unhappy the next day if nothing else has changed. And yes there is that whole "change your perspective" thing but I've tried doing that so many times I don't know which way is up anymore.

I used to be able to keep it together while my husband so visibly had an intolerance for children and animals (when we started the relationship, he appeared to have an affection for both, but those were my rose-colored glasses I guess). Loving children and animals is sort of my base standard for humans. If you don't, we won't get along. So that was just the beginning, when we had to not have cats anymore because my husband realized he's allergic, and refuses to take medication for it. Then we had a kid and he immediately had zero patience. That was a huge disappointment. But I was able to carry on. Now that our son is reaching puberty, he needs positive male role models. He has some teachers, but not really mentors or anything. And I don't want to take away from the resources for families who really need it--who don't have a father figure, or positive teachers, or anything.

I used to be able to at least fake it that I liked parenting. It wasn't so bad. But it's worn on me, to have a partner physically there (sometimes, at least) but emotionally not there. And I let down that facade that everything was fine. This evolved into anger and depression.

 

So anyway, after years of trying to keep up appearances I recently started talking to people on 7 cups (where I am also a listener) about my situation. I got some advice on both sides-how to try to improve things if I stayed, and how I would cope if I left. I found myself disagreeing with those who suggested staying. I've stayed for this long. What's to make me expect that anything will change this time?

So a couple years ago, I actually looked up apartments. More expensive than I expected. I started trying to figure out who would have our son and when, and I worried that my husband would turn against me at the news of my departure, and try to take our son full time, or deny me any compensation, etc.

We are not bad as friends. It's parenting and marriage we suck at. If all we had to do was watch TV, go out once in a while, and go on the computer, we'd be great room mates. We just can't seem to make it work with our different parenting styles.

Neither one of us was really adamant that we wanted kids, but we weren't adamant that we didn't, either. I assumed that if we did have one, we'd do the best parenting we could. Who really wants to be a bad parent? We didn't, so we thought it would come more naturally to be good ones.

 

On the day I was looking up apartments, I finally told my husband I'd been thinking about leaving. Once again I said why I was (still) unhappy. Once again he said he would try harder, but that he had been trying (which is funny, because I actually feel that things have gotten worse lately). I also said if I wasn't happy in about a month, I was considering leaving. I don't know if that's enough time, or at the same time too much time, after the years I've already been waiting for him to wake up.

 

I have a feeling if I do leave, I'm going to wish I did it years ago. If it gets better and I stay, I'm going to wonder why it took so long to get better.