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👩‍👧‍👧Motherhood & Marriage 💍

Long Post

I’m really lost right now and could use some advice…

I met my now husband in 2014 when I was 20 and he was 27. We met online and started dating after we met in person and it went well. We got married in 2020 (he wouldn’t even propose to me, it was just like a mutual decision to get married). I picked out my own ring and did all of the wedding planning myself since he didn’t care. I married him thinking it would make our relationship better (stupid, I know). Well obviously nothing changed in our relationship just from getting married. The following summer we moved 2.5 hours away from where we grew up and where both of our family’s live. I kind of checked out that fall and started talking to someone else (completely wrong on my part, I know). It was emotionally cheating, I never met this person in real life and it was like 2 weeks of talking. My husband knew something was different and when I left my phone at home one time he went through it and saw a message from this other person. He confronted me and I told him I wasn’t happy and wanted to separate. He ended up calling his parents and his dad told him they would take me for everything I have. When he told me this, I folded and stayed with him. I was terrified as I don’t come from a family with money and his parents had some money on their name. I thought I wouldn’t be able to afford a divorce and a fight during a divorce.

In March of 2022 I got pregnant with our daughter. He was scared to have kids so I tried to support him the best I could. I provided books and apps and tried to involve him in my pregnancy journey. He was not interested in it at all. I told him how I was feeling alone during my pregnancy and like he didn’t care. Nothing changed. I was completely alone during my pregnancy. I built everything for our daughters nursery myself, I prepped our home by myself, and I planned my baby shower by myself. I had gestational diabetes and in my third trimester, I was hospitalized three different times for my gallbladder failing. During my health issues in the hospital, he made my life hell. He was constantly upset that he had to drive over an hour to the hospital I was in. He didn’t even believe me the first time I had a gallbladder attack at 7 months pregnant. I begged him to drive me to the hospital in the middle of the night when it happened because I knew something was wrong. He didn’t believe me and brushed it off. I stayed up all night, dry heaving and in excruciating pain by myself on the couch until he woke up in the morning and finally drove me. I would have drove myself had I not been bent over in pain and puking up stomach bile. I was yelled at for accidentally not connecting to the hospital Wi-Fi and going over my cell data. He was trying to fight with the head nurse about him being sent home at midnight since they didn’t allow visitors to stay overnight. He was constantly complaining about how much money it was going to cost and how much money we were losing from him having to drive to the hospital to see me. I was constantly crying from the stress he was adding to my already stressful health situation. Fast forward and my daughter is born. He was not the best during labor either, but I will not bore you with more of his shitty behavior there. He straight up acted like he didn’t want to be a dad. He wouldn’t say he loved her and he wouldn’t do the dad things. No changing diapers, no getting up with her, no holding her, no baths, nothing. So May of this year I handed him a letter I typed up saying I wanted a divorce. He broke down crying and saying he was just scared and depressed and he knows he wasn’t good to me but he will do better. And he did for a while. We are now back to me doing everything myself.

Now I am and always have been the main income in our household. I work from home full time as a supervisor at a mortgage company. I also am a full time stay at home mom for my 9 month old. And I am going to school online full time to try to get myself in a better position so I can make more money. He gets paid about half of what I make. I don’t have an issue making more money. But he refuses to even try to find something making more as we struggle paycheck to paycheck monthly. He does nothing around the house or on our property in general. I have to fix everything myself, I have to build everything myself, I have to do our outdoor maintenance myself.

This isn’t normal right?! I just can’t imagine other men acting like this. But I could be wrong. Is it normal for the wife and mom to do every single thing? I am back to the point of feeling checked out. He makes my life harder, not easier. And I don’t think that’s right… 😞