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Hello there!
One never is sure quite where to start! Especially when something like this occurs! And it happens to women/men a lot more than is admitted to! My husband like yours, wanted a divorce and he chose to tell me 3 years ago! 3 days before our silver wedding anniversary! He claimed that we had a good marriage, but he still wanted to divorce me! How insane is that? I too was working in a very good job and we had just had our daughter of 22 years move out with her boyfriend, so he assumed the next thing in our lives would be that we divorce!
Your situation is the same my own! My husband has spent the past 30 years now working on vessels, spending a lot of time away similar to the forces tour schedules that your husband works, He'd go away on these tour of duties, leaving me with the house, the children, and freedom! Oh boy I had that! Freedom! Being a single parent while he was away, running my own business, cleaning the house, running the children to school sitting up with them through the nightmares, sicknesses, attending the many functions for school and the 'hatch match and dispatch' gatherings of family, oh yes! I had freedom - Not!
After making his revelation, about wanting a divorce, I sat him down and asked what had brought that on! He then explained that "according to what he had heard from his work mates, the next thing for me to do would be to wait until I got my degree and this is again to quote his exact words,"when you have your degree, you will not have to rely on my salary and you will be off with the new job, keeping the house, the children, and I will be paying for it all!
On reading what you have written i keep asking the question why?
You have stated that one of his issues is that you get up early in the morning and that you have the house and shower cleaned in next to no time at all! With a child with ADHD, and I know this for a fact, having a nephew with this condition, after the washroom has been used in the morning may be the only time that you have to clean it properly, only he is not looking at it like that!
He sees you coping very well without him, and it is scaring the heck out of him! He sees himself as being not needed by you! I'll bet he uses the phrase "I'm just the paycheck around here!"
That may not be the case in actual point of fact, yet that is what he is seeing! You are so efficient that he feels unwanted and worse, not even needed by you any longer!
This happens quite a lot when one moves off the base, a situation that is also very new to him! You have bought a house, together, and he is waiting for the next shoe to drop , possibly seeing himself being asked by you to leave the service next!
Fear is a very real thing particularly in his line of work, and it can make one itake a view from a very different set of circumstances than those outside the world of the military can comprehend! There is just not infidelity which is the cause of separation or 'feelings of being lost in a relationship!'
It is simply this, the mechanisms that you use to cope while he is away are giving him the impression that you do not need him in your life! You know how the guys talk amongst themselves, and he is feeling very intimidated by your self efficiency! He sees the children will do what you say, because the little rascals have not yet cottoned on to the fact that they could play you against him but it soimply has not occurred to them, simply because with only one parent, the children know there is no right of appeal! Simply because he is not there most of the time, they will be slower to do what he asks of them! He spoils them when he is home, you tell him off I'll bet! His way of spoiling them is his way of celebrating that he has come home and that he is there with you all!
Sit him down and gently ask whether what I have written here is true or not! Things can not be made any worse!
The resentment you talk of that he feels towards his own son could be the guilt he may feel because he is not there to help you, what you see as resentment may be impatience on his part because he too wishes to spend quality time with his wife! ADHD is not a life threatening illness! However, the knock on effects of the disorder has life changing consequences on all close family members! Divorce can often and does happen when a child has this disorder, and you also have the added strain of your hubby's work, both on their own breaks up relationships, and is devastating on marriage in themselves.
If he asks you who have you been talking to, tell him the truth! That you have made a freind through the Internet of a 53 year old English lady who has walked your path, , who knows and understands the military life very well, and whose husband has worked on oil survey vessels for most of their marriage!
I'm glad that I actually sat and listened when my hubby told me 'what was going on!' It certainly cleared the air for both of us! We are now enjoying our lives together. Shortly, after our setting the record straight, he decided to quit the vessels, and he has since taken a job ashore to manage them instead!
Great! I hear you say? That depends, my hubby's new job is in Bergen in Norway, and I am presently packing up our beautiful home in the UK to rent it out swapping it for service accommodation to spend the next 2,maybe 3, possibly 6 years with him on abroad postings!
At the age of 53!!! Why am I doing it! I love that man of mine and I doubt whether I could train another one given my age now to the way I like!<chuckle!>.
Our daughter, by the way is very happy having given birth to our wonderful granddaughter of 6 weeks, our son Edward married this summer!
You know that every word here about our lives and how we get through the lonely times with hubby away is the truth and it has been written from the heart! Therefore every word of it is true!
Keep smiling, my dear army wife 2009,
I wish you every joy and happiness that I now have, you certainly deserve it!
goldenpoear
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