thinking of divorce and terrified...

sstaylor14

I am the mother of a beautiful and happy 7 month old.  Since her birth, and maybe even starting before it, my relationship with her father has deteriorated dramatically (we'd been married a few years before having her).  I honestly believe that neither one of us is wholly happy, and if she were not a factor, or if we weren't married, we'd no longer be together, or at least that the topic of ending things would have come up. 

 

I feel pretty strongly that "staying together for the sake of the kids" doesn't work out, and as long as a child has two parents and, in our case, extended family that loves her and supports her, she might be much better off than staying in a situation that could turn very toxic.  However, I am scared that if I ever initiated divorce, my husband would make it as nasty as possible.  He has more money to work with than I do, and he's just antagonistic like that.  I think he'd try to make the experience as miserable as possible.  Me?  I feel like any damage between us is only further damage to our daughter, and for that reason, I would want to be as amicable as possible, as long as he extended as least SOME of that back toward me.  But I don't expect much, and am terrified of what an ugly divorce would do to my personal emotional well-being, and the related impact it would have on my job and my daughter. 

 

I know something is very wrong between us, in that way you can't exactly quantify.  But speaking of trying to quantify, I sat down and tried to spell out issues I consider to be major ones between us, just to get my head straight.  I came up with a list of fourteen, and could barely come up with anything positive right now.  Some of the major concerns, IMO, could fall under the category of emotional abuse in terms of how he speaks to me and some of his controlling tendencies.  I'm not so sure about counseling, because my gut tells me if divorce were ever brought up, he'd basically check out at that point because of bruised ego and anger that he would likely not get to see our daughter as much as I would (long hours, etc) and be done before we even got started.

 

I guess I'm just looking to talk to anyone who had anything similar, and to hear from those of you with children.  Was it worth it?  Was the battle to get out worth it in the long run for their sake?  Honestly, I don't even care so much about myself right now or what my future looks like.  I just want to focus on my daughter and give her the best life and most stable home possible, in whatever form.  Did anyone on here stick around?  Did things get better or do you wish you just cut ties before your child was old enough to realize what was going on?  Thank you for listening.