An Anonymous Journal

I did it. I’ve finally done it.

After years of knowing I should, I’ve told husband I want a divorce. I’ve said that before but never followed through.

I’m following through this time.

I’ve discovered his love language, but it’s not one of the five I’ve read about in books. It’s one they don’t write about because most people don’t think this way. My soon-to-be ex-husband’s love language is control.

He will do anything to maintain control, and losing control sends him into a tailspin.

Now, this divorce will be the ultimate loss of control for him. And I’m not delusional enough to think he’ll just go along with losing this much control peacefully. But I am being careful and slowly pulling back my autonomy, my independence, my phone access, my email passwords, my shop keys, and control of my schedule and priorities. One tiny bit of control taken away at a time. I’m hoping this keeps him from losing his shit completely when he realises I’m actually leaving this time.

Is it terrible that I want him to find someone else? Maybe that would make it easier for me to escape, if his focus is elsewhere. Gosh, maybe he finds someone who is super excited about being a step mom and really sweet. He’s always dated nice girls so I suspect the next one will be just as kind. Fingers crossed

A few bits of control I’m consciously letting him keep:

• The Narrative – I’m saying very little to people I know he will need to lean on. He will need to character assassinate in the worst way when reality strikes, and I think he will actually need that. So if that means people think I’m the devil incarnate, no stresses. Anyone who knows me and believes the horrible stuff I couldn’t even guess he’ll say to get them on side, isn’t someone I’ll be sad to lose. So off they go.
• His Grandiosity – I won’t, apart from my close confidants, do anything to pierce the picture-perfect nice guy image he’s spent decades crafting for himself. Losing that would hurt him a lot more than losing the family structure.

Those two thinks are the most important to him. I’m hopeful if I can manage this separation and divorce in a way that allows him to keep those things in tact, we might be able to do this peacefully.

It’s been almost a month since I took my wedding ring off, and he’s been great and patient and lovely. I have 11 years of history that tells me each quiet and peaceful spell is followed by a tsunami of emotional and psychological abuse.

But maybe. Just maybe. I can play my cards right here and end this amicably. Xx

Gosh, last night was a doozy that seemingly came out of nowhere. If I peel back the layers, though, I suppose the real driver of his fury was the fact that he had to look after the kids for a few hours while I worked during the day. He could never bring himself to acknowledge such a pathetic reality, so instead he waited for an opportunity to launch into a massive character assault.

And he found the perfect chance.

Looking to grab a quick snack from the cupboard, I sighed when I saw the chocolate chip cookies in the cupboard were just another empty box (one of husbands favourite things to do) so I said the unforgivable:

“Can we please stop putting empty containers back in the cupboards?” – in a frustrated tone

That was it.

And the tirade that followed was pretty destructive. It shook me. It shook my faith in everything we’ve built.

————

A little background: When we met, I was extremely career driven. I built my career from the ground up and eventually launched my own consultancy practice, which was generating a considerable sum annually.

In spite of my earnings being well over double that of my husband’s, we put it on the back burner when having children.

All required career sacrifices were mine to make. The family focus is his career. So inevitably, my earnings are a pittance these days. And the respect or consideration for this work is non-existent.

Apart from the times he feels like appearing more supportive than he is by offering to look after the kids while I travel for work. As if three days is going to fix 5 years of annihilation.

He’s never allowed me to work from home. Just constant gaslighting if I ask him to help with both kids (god forbid).

So we have this arrangement where, when Simon is at work, another person can help fill the spot he leaves behind. There is no such coverage for my absence, of course, because that’s the world we’ve made.

———

NOW FOR THE TIRADE

I’ll just summarize with quotes. It’s easier that way.

“You have no fucking gratitude for what I do for you.”

“I spend every penny I have on YOU!”

“YOU need help with the kids. What do I do?! I pay eye watering sums of money to hire a nanny! Still not enough for you!”

“I’ve bought you this house! What thanks do I get?!”

“I pay for vacations. No fucking thank you in sight!”

“I buy you a car that you don’t need (the family car). Still no fucking gratitude. I’m fucking sick of it!”

——-

Rather than reply to each insulting comment, I’ll just say I really hate him right now.

What a horrible tirade.

This entire time. Our entire life.

It’s never been a partnership. It’s never been a life we’ve been building together.

It’s been nothing more than one massive fucking ego trip. One man who lives in the dark ages, robs me of everything I was good at and then uses the very thing he took from me as a weapon against me.

What have I done?

How have I ended up here?

How is this my life?

Gosh, we’ve been doing so well. Today we leave for our family vacation, which is super exciting. The one thing to consider, though, is that travelling with a 2 and 3 year old is not an easy task.

We had a bit of a nightmare journey once when we had both made the foolish decision to have a big night out the night before flying home. We promised ourselves this wouldn’t happen again. It’s not worth the pain we feel the next day, being half present with two overly stimulated and tired toddlers on planes, trains and automobiles.

So yesterday we were supposed to pack together for the afternoon. Instead of doing that, husband spent some time in town at the pub with his mates. Didn’t tell me about it, of course. This meant he barely did much at all at home because he didn’t have time.

To pick up the slack his pub adventure left behind, I stopped working early (leaving two big projects unfinished because there just wasn’t enough time). Then I worked feverishly to catch us up, on my own of course.

Eventually managed to get the basic packing done for the kids and we both settled the kids for sleep. Then I needed to pack my things. I was annoyed by husbands lack of contribution, but this is pretty ordinary so I wasn’t furious or anything.

Then I asked if he’d seen my laptop bag. His response INFURIATED me. He was shitfaced, his speech was slurred, and I could see he had finished his bottle of whiskey and most of a bottle of wine in the time I’d been running around the house.

Now, here I am, woefully underprepared for the trip and exhausted before it even begins.

I’m just so tired. He lives in this world where he knows he can take his foot off of the gas and it’s okay. Some other entity randomly pops down and fills in the gaps. It’s just exhausting being that person.

What I wouldn’t give to know I could leave one major project with him and it would be finished properly and in its entirety. But I know that’s just a dream. He’ll always cut corners and leave it unfinished – because why bother doing it properly when someone else is always picking up your slack?

So the husband and I have had the same exhausting arguments, which isn’t news. What is different, though, is there seems to be a tiny window of consideration peeking in through the fog.

A couple of days ago, he acknowledged that something he had done was uncalled for. I can’t recall exactly what it was, but whatever it was it wasn’t significant or a big deal in any way. What WAS a big deal was that he acknowledged some form of error on his side. Sounds silly, but it gives me some hope that maybe we might be able to communicate normally someday.

Then we had another disagreement and I said the same thing I always do, “Stop trying to dictate how I am and am not allowed to feel.” Instead of responding with his usual gaslighting or dismissive and/or patronising like, “why don’t you just work on controlling yourself and calming down” comments, he stopped talking for a second and actually expressed a genuine desire to understand.

This is significant because he’s always been allergic to any negative emotion existing at all. Notice I didn’t say he’s allergic to outbursts. Because that’s not it. To him, the existence of the unwanted emotion IS the outburst.

But these tiny little breadcrumbs of hope have been coming quite a lot over the last few days.

Probably too early to let my guard down too much, or get myself too hopeful about a normal relationship. But I’m feeling a dose of optimism!

This is too much. The constant ego-driven everything that is our world. The never-ending manipulation and emotional neglect. I just can’t stand it anymore.

There must be better out there.

There must be a world that exists where I am permitted to feel without retribution.

There must be a world where warm embraces and gentle touches from your husband are a regular occurrence and not something you get once a year at most.

There must be a world where sex isn’t something robotic and mechanical that happens twice a decade (literally. That’s real. Haven’t had sex since 2018).

There must be someone out there who will have my back and not use me for his own ego boost.

There must be a joke worth telling that doesn’t somehow knock me down or make me small to make someone else feel big.

There must be a person I can find who will see concerns and challenges as opportunities for strengthening our bond versus justification to punish me for my “tone”.

There must be a peaceful world I can live in where I don’t have this massive knot growing inside of my soul, made up of every word I’m not allowed to say, every feeling I’m not allowed to discuss, and every hurt expressed that gets thrown back at me.

There must be better out there.

It was a beautiful, sunny day. The kiddos are being their typically adorable selves, husband and I had gone out the night before, and I was excited to continue with the new visual daily plan for our boy. He did so well with it during the week and I can’t wait to show husband how son shines when he has the structure he craves.

I tried explaining how it works but husband was too impatient to listen, insisting he’s not stupid and he saw what I had done. I tried again to explain there’s a hyper-specific order and methodology to the process he’s come to expect and getting it wrong will render the entire thing a flop. He was defensive and annoyed, but he gave me another 3 seconds to tell him everything I thought he needed to know before he rushed off to take over.

Needless to say, the entire thing was a flop. But it wasn’t because he did it differently, failed to be structured and consistent and present, or because he moved the timeline around at will. It was because TV was on the plan. Because any suggestion that maybe my husband was arrogant and dismissive, which caused him to misunderstand how this thing works, couldn’t possibly be the case.

I knew better than to tell him how I actually felt about the plan. Rather, I elected to tell him I thought we needed a better plan. Because even that elicited an angry, childish temper tantrum as we were en route to meet our neighbours. I hate to imagine what would have happened if he knew what I actually thought.

Sometimes I sit and ask myself why I don’t just leave. He isn’t nice to me, he’s extremely childish at best when it comes to tackling problems or working through a challenge together, I feel totally overwhelmed because I hate the way his time with the kids is 80% how can i get them occupied and shut them up so I can escape to my phone/ipad and 20% actual presence.

Vent alert. I’ve just got to get this off of my chest.

He is always on edge and short fused, and the kids feel it. He thinks he hides it well but he doesn’t. He almost never explodes and properly blows his top, but holy hell it’s always tense because he looks like a pressure cooker that might burn the house down if it’s moved in the wrong direction. But if you say anything he’ll reply with, “you need to calm down. I was having a wonderful day until you had to say ____ (I.e. you seem upset)”. It’s insane.

Here’s a list of the reasons I don’t leave:

• I want the children to have stability
• We do have fun together when there are no major stresses going on.
• I wouldn’t want to hurt him by leaving because I know it would be devastating.
• Financially we’d both be screwed
• I really worry about his inattentiveness around the kids. At least if I’m there I can hopefully keep them safe as much as possible.

Okay I’m heading off now. Will be back to rant again soon I’m sure.

Another big blowup today. The morning started off chaotic, with DS being very unsettled from the start. DH tried to let me sleep in so I woke at 730 to a very unhappy little boy. It took a while to calm him down.

Just as he was calming, DD started kicking off. This tends to happen when I’m giving more attention to one than the other. It just turns a bit crazy because they both want mom, dad’s feeling unhappy because he gets overwhelmed when his logical attempts to solve their emotional problems are unsuccessful and he can’t seem to calm them (although he would say it’s my fault and presence making it difficult for him).

As all of this madness was going on, I tried to take DS to the potty after DD was calm and enjoying breakfast just in case maybe his tummy was hurting because he needed to poo. 5 seconds after I was gone, DD was screaming louder and louder and louder and continuously until I left DS to sit on the toilet for a minute while I checked to see why she was so upset. Dad was frustrated, having his typical standoff with her and she was positively melting down.

I then took over for her and asked DH to take over with DS. It took lots of cuddles and time to calm DD after she was in that state, but we got there eventually. As I was walking with her throughout the house to calm her down, I noticed the bathroom was left in a total state – and there was curdled milk and dirty dishes sitting on the floor in the TV room DH was last in last night while I was doing the night routine.

Very frustrated and trying to clean up after DH whilst holding the DD who is still trying to calm down, I muttered to myself out loud that it was exhausting being the only person in the house who ever picks anything up. I did mutter a few things in this regard if I’m honest, and there was a passive aggressive part of me that hoped DH would hear. I should have held it in until the kids were gone. But I didn’t.

DH heard my mumbling and was very unhappy to hear it, responding by directly confronting me in front of the kids and saying things like,”nothing is ever good enough for you.” “Every fucking day. Every day. You have to have a go at me. Every day.” And he was saying in a very aggressive way, “what is it now? What have I don’t that’s not good enough this time?!”

I responded with the line we’ve agreed countless times needs to be respected, no matter who says it. That line is “kids are in the room”. He, as usual, completely ignored me and got mad that I said it so started escalating each time I said it. Finally I shouted, “Kids.are.in.the.room. SAYING THIS HAS TO BE ENOUGH! IT HAS TO BE ENOUGH!!”

Then he responded by saying, “you need to control your temper. Take a break and learn how to control yourself.” I said, “please just leave” and he did.

It was incredible, really. The moment he walked out of the room, everything calmed right down. Both kids were calm and the temperature shot right down. He stayed away for 5 minutes or so before coming back in and saying nothing. Which was perfect. The peace continued and the kids were totally settled.

Then I asked him if he would like to talk in another room since the kids were occupied. He said okay. Then we had a big talk.

His message was that I’m too mean, I need to be nicer, and I responded by telling him I feel the same. The conversation ultimately became about whether he lies or not. He basically said he’s super honest and gave me an ultimatum: admit he doesn’t lie or he’s leaving the marriage.

I told him he lies all day, every day about little things – and I can only assume big things as well. He spins stories, makes things up, etc all of the time. And I won’t be bullied with threats to break up our family into pretending the opposite is true. He asked for examples, so I gave him a couple of recent ones:

• The mug: after a tense day of constant disagreements, my favourite mug was discovered broken. Not a big deal really. What was off about it was the fact that the mug had been in the sink, but it was broken and moved to the table on the other side of the kitchen with no explanation. And it had a little tiny piece of sushi on it (I.e. it had been broken in the sink after our sushi meal, which meant it could only have been him or me who broke it). Why move it? Why not tell me? And when I asked about it, he denied it and told me he can’t defend himself from my imagination. Wtf? So he definitely broke it. But he just lies. Denies, and attacks me back. It’s madness
• Nighttime Sabotage: There was one incident where, immediately after I asked if we could try keeping the kiddos’ night routines separate, he sent DS running into DD’s room which wreaked havoc and created a bunch of drama. And this was 30 minutes after we’d had the conversation. When I asked why he did that, he said he was trying to lock the upstairs gate and DS just snuck by him and ran in. When I explained that didn’t make sense because DS was naked, he said the new reason was because he’d made it to the bath and undressed him before he slipped away while he was working on filling the bath. Why two stories? Because you’re lying. But why?? Then he said DS was upset for not being able to be in DD’s room, but this was also not true. We could hear him. He was fine. Another pointless lie. Why?

These are just recent examples. But he lies all of the time. Is it sinister and intentional? Or is it simply because he’s emotionally immature and incapable of having difficult conversations in a mature way? At the moment I think it’s the latter, but it’s just not fair either way.

We did have a bit of a breakthrough though. I’ll put that in the next post.

We took our little boy on a tour of his new school today. It was really sweet to see him take everything in. The special needs coordinator for the school was amazing, and I am so optimistic about DS’s experience here. How have we already reached the age for Kindergarten? It feels like he was just born yesterday!

Husband and are okay. Our version of okay anyway. I heard a story today about someone’s horrific significant other and it helped to put things in perspective a bit. DH is a generally good guy. Definitely passive aggressive and not very kind to me or tolerant of emotions he doesn’t like. But by and large he’s a good guy.

I’m also trying to focus a bit more on improving me and caught myself just yesterday falling into a bad habit I’m trying to kick.

I have this tendency to take on too much when nobody even asked me to do it. Then I continue taking on too much without letting the other people know I’m overextending myself to make them happy. Then I start to grow frustrated and feel under appreciated when my voluntary sacrifices go unnoticed and I feel like I’m giving too much. But it’s my own fault. They never asked me to do that, usually wouldn’t want that sort of imbalance, and I’m just creating this all by myself.

When I was creating the nanny’s schedule, I initially drafted it solely with her preferences in mind. I was knowingly putting myself in a bind, scheduling her for times I didn’t need her, giving her days off where I definitely did need her, and I was actually getting anxious and upset before I was even finished. Normally I would have just sent it, grown frustrated with the stresses I had created, and found myself being overwhelmed because I was more interested in people pleasing than in considering my needs.

But I’m proud that I stopped, created an entirely new alternate schedule that met my needs whilst also considering her preferences. In some instances I could accommodate, but in others I couldn’t because the circumstances didn’t allow for it.

I took a huge leap and sent her the alternate schedule. I was really surprised at how good it felt. Especially when she was totally happy with the schedule. It sounds so silly, but this was big for me. A small taste of beginning to slow my people pleasing roll ever so slightly!

Came out of nowhere too.

In fact, I spent time yesterday thinking about how nice it will be to add a bit of balance to my little online journal project with a dose of, “this has been really lovely” for a couple of days.

It was genuinely pleasant over the weekend. There was no fighting or bickering to speak of. Disagreements over how to handle the kids as usual, but nothing that escalated into shouting or name calling.

Then it happened again. He snuck wine throughout the afternoon as soon as he was sure he wouldn’t be driving to do the daycare pickup. But he never appears drunk… only ever slightly questionable presentations of a less than sober husband are ever spotted.

If I’m totally honest, I did see an unusually childish response to our 2 year old saying she preferred mom do something vs dad (also probably another sign of drinking I should look out for). He just kind of responded with a slight look of having taken offence. It wasn’t an overt show of angst or anything. Just a tiny hint of an overreaction to a 2 year old’s very 2 year old comment about mom vs dad doing something for her. I can’t even remember what it was. I just remember his look.

The total giveaway is when he picks fights. He’ll find anything he can pick at to revive an old dispute or previously resolved disagreement.

Today was laundry. We have this never ending drama with laundry. The kids have nice clothes and he ruins them in the wash on the regular. And he never finishes a load – leaves it in the dryer or throws clean clothes on the floor in a pile of chaos so we repeatedly wash the same stuff over and over again. Growing ever so frustrated with this, I asked him if he would just let me do the kids’ laundry from now on.

I thought we’d agreed on that as the compromise, but we haven’t apparently. And tonight it was his launching pad for another fight. He started picking the fight in front of our son during his night routine. I saw it coming and said goodbye to my son and raced downstairs to avoid fighting in front of him.

Then it began. He raced directly into the laundry room, removed clean towels and threw them on the floor, started a random load of kids laundry because we were “so behind” (This weekend I finished every article of their clothing – bar one small load that didn’t get brought to the laundry room until later in the weekend) . Then he berated me nonstop for not doing enough laundry, leaving the kids clothes a mess, etc etc.

Nights like tonight make me wonder what the hell the point of all of this is. After spending the weekend working my tail off to accomplish so much, he just wipes it away because he’s had a bit to drink on his own on a Wednesday and didn’t know how to manage his real frustrations which i suspect has more to do with our 2 year old than me.

Awesome. Having the time of my life.

Let me take you back to moving day.

In the pack up and initial move days, I was totally in charge of all things relating to the logistics of moving because husband had to work. This was A LOT.

I was single handedly project managing and coordinating the comings and goings of:

• 2 Nannie’s
• 1 Plumber
• 6 Movers
• 3 Cleaners
• 4 separate deliveries
• … and doing my real job at the same time.

Although I was incredibly overwhelmed, it was awesome. I had everything under control, there hadn’t been any major issues, and things were going according to plan.

Then husband returned home from work.

I explained exactly what was happening, and stressed the importance of sticking to my plan – because each little action has an impact on the rest of the plan. So rather than ask him to get fully up to speed on what was happening, I asked him if he could work alongside the handyman for the day while I worked everything else.

First Project of the Day: PARKING

With the number of large vehicles coming and going throughout the day, I had created an extremely precise map of where each vehicle would park based on the size of vehicle, what they were doing, and how long they would be there.

First thing in the morning, I asked husband if he would move our vehicles to the spots way out of the way. He said okay.

Then the handyman arrived. I explained where that van should go. He said okay.

Then I look outside as the big truck is about to arrive, and all 3 vehicles were parked in the spots everyone would need. I asked husband what was going on and he shrugged off my concerns, gave the handyman the “sorry about her” look, shut the door between us and walked away whilst charmingly telling the handyman not to worry. He’s parked just fine.

I couldn’t believe it. The very first action of the day, and he’s completely blown the entire logistical plan for the day. As a result:

• There is nowhere for the curbside delivery only trucks to pull up, and we have no way of trucking pallets down the street. This includes our new fridge so our food will go bad.
• The movers have nowhere to park so they’ll be upset.

—— SIDEBAR: I struggle with routine changes in general, especially when my children are involved – but I would struggle even if they weren’t.

Moving house is very, very, very difficult for me to emotionally adjust to. I won’t feel adjusted and comfortable again for months, with each week of stability slightly less difficult than the last.

You may be noticing here that I’m obsessed with the details. This is true. My coping mechanism is neurotic planning. Maintaining some semblance of control over an uncontrollable event like moving makes me feel better. In the case of this move, that control involves planning the logistics to a T.

In the event of something other than moving, I would control my world in other ways – oftentimes it involves hiding away and creating a space away from other people where I can create an environment I can control. Even if it’s me, a bedroom, and a book. I can control that, and nobody can change it. That would help.—-

My concern with husband’s actions is that he knows I cope this way. He knows how important order and structure is to the smooth flowing of this move – especially considering I’ve been running it solo for the last 3 days. Yet he blows it up anyway at the very first opportunity.

I react to this unapologetically. He was mortified that I embarrassed him in front of everyone when I made everyone move their vehicles. Couldn’t quite get everyone where they were meant to be as there were too many there by the time I had a say.

But he apologizes to everyone for my terrible mood, ingratiates himself with everyone and he’s happy with that. I’m a crazy lady who’s in a bad mood and he’s the poor husband who has to deal with it.

Everything that can go wrong, is finding a way to go wrong from this point forward. Husband is barking at me constantly, demanding immediate answers and belittling me for not being able to answer him quick enough in spite of having so much help. He’s mean, I’m unsettled, and my nerves are positively shot.

At one stage, I was totally overwhelmed with everyone asking me for answers, husband barking, child melting down, clients sending emails asking why I’m so delayed in replying, employees asking for the fourth time for me to help them with XYZ, husband shouting again because he’s still waiting for me to respond to the question I don’t know the answer to that he asked 5 seconds ago, child still melting down, husband telling me to ignore child, and it was just too much.

I picked up my son, raced through the house and found the only quiet room I could. I locked everyone else out, sat behind the door in the quiet with my boy. He calmed down almost immediately. And I just cried quietly.

Husband came knocking at the door asking what was going on, saying he would take the child. I sent him away.

This was calm. For both of us. We stayed in there until we both were ready to face the madness again. It was a bonding experience for sure, and he was able to witness first hand that it’s okay to feel overwhelmed and cry. He also learned that quiet time, breathing and calm help to make it better. So I’m happy for that.

Okay I’ve typed too much. Back tomorrow!