Would you feel insulted if your spouse decided to tell you in a text message that they’re done and would like to get a divorce?
This 39-year-old woman has spent the last decade married to her husband, and they have two children under the age of eight. She used to have a full-time job in a career that paid her a lot of money, but at the beginning of the year, she was traumatically laid off.
She’s spent the last four months diligently looking for another job, but the market is vicious, and it hasn’t been easy for her to find something else.
In the meantime, she says her marriage has been on the rocks for quite a long time, and her husband routinely has angry outbursts aimed at her and their kids.
Eventually, she’s grown resentful and cold towards him, because she just can’t deal anymore. She admits that is where she’s gone wrong.
“For most of our marriage, I was the main driver at home, the planner and the organizer. Ironically, when I was working full-time, I begged him to step up, and he did some, but only after I broke and had to bring it [up in] therapy multiple times, which only built more resentment,” she explained.
“Now that I am out of work, he is participating more. I think he competed with me. I had a high-status job, and more demanding. When I asked for accommodations, he sometimes asked me, ‘Is this meeting really important?’ Last year, when I worked late, he said to the children, ‘Mom loved her job more than she loves you.'”
“When the kids were little, we fought constantly because he wouldn’t spend quality time with them; he didn’t like to play with them. He used to have a hard time joining us for family dinners because the kids’ mess irritates him, and he often ends up screaming at them.”
Her husband only started participating in dinner with the kids recently. He loves being around their children when their friends and family are present, but if they’re not, he doesn’t really bother with them.
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She and her husband have lost the bond they once had, and that’s also been fueled by her husband no longer planning date nights. So, she used to do it all, and when she stopped, they quit spending time together outside of being at home at the same time.
A couple of weeks ago, not long after she was laid off, she celebrated her birthday. Her husband suggested they go to a hotel, but she turned him down, since she was worried about money.
He could have come up with an alternative celebration, but he didn’t. He did not bother to buy her a present; he just got a cake.
They have been going to couples therapy lately, and she did address how her husband never says sorry or shows remorse following his outbursts.
The therapist tried to get to the bottom of the roles they have both been playing in that, but she didn’t want to hear it. She knows her husband has a pile of problems that have been the reason his relationships have failed in the past, and she thinks he needs individual therapy, which he won’t do.
“During a recent session, he said he wanted to break things up. When I inquired about our family, he accidentally blurted out that he ‘wants a family,’ doesn’t like being single, so he would just start a new family after we end things,” she continued.
“Therapy has been hard on him, and he had brought up divorce before. But shortly after that session, he officially laid [out] a plan for a divorce process in a text message. No conversation so far (we live in the same house). He acts like he never sent the message.”
“I am currently in freeze mode. I can’t believe he is willing to break up our family and do this to such young children just because he says ‘it’s too tough on him.’ I don’t even know what to do or how to process this. That’s it, I had to spill it.”
It’s pretty funny to me that her husband, who is not a catch by any means, thinks it’s going to be easy for him to find a new woman to start another family with.
She should give her husband exactly what he’s asking for, because he’s not a good partner to her or a good parent to their kids. Why keep him around?
If I were her, I would happily agree to the divorce.
What advice do you have for her?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
