surprised?? me neither... (very long)

caligirl0715

Well I think I'm heading back to join you all again. My backstory since it's been a while: I have been with my H for 10 years. We were each others first and only loves. Because we were so young  when we got together as we grew we continued to grow apart. The problem for me was that while I came from a very "leave it to Beaver" as he calls it household filled with love and care while he grew up with basically no supervision and was made aware from a young age that he wasn't wanted.

All this made for a very unhappy and angry man. He has lots of great qualitites that got me hooked so by the time he started showing his other side I was already in love with him and lost the strength to walk away. My self esteem got slowly beaten down to where I think I didn't beleive anyone else would ever want me. (sounds so sick now looking back)

Well as so many of these stories go I ignored the signs and got married anyway. Things continued to go down hill, he had serious anger issues and would become abusive on rare occations. (As abuse goes it was on the very mild end, but I understand abuse is abuse). Things got better for a while and when we found out we were having our first baby I was over the moon.

Having R was the most amazing experiance of my life and I thank God everyday that I have him and now my 2nd as well. While my H loves him too and wants to be a good dad he really just doens't know how to be and doesn't prioritize. After having our second miriacle, L, he seemed to completely shut down. His anger came raging back and I was starting to see it boiling when he delt with R as well. One night in a heated argument between him and I the physical abuse reserfaced, the only thing I am grateful for is that my kids were asleep and didn't see it. The next day after he left I packed the kids and I up and told him to find a new place to stay.

For the next few months he went through a lot of counceling and showed many signs of growth; including being a great Dad all of a sudden when he was there to see the boys. ;So thinking it was the best thing for the kids because he had "changed" I agreed to reconsile on the contingency that he continue anger management, counceling and we go to marriage counceling.

Well sure enough here we are again. He is completely lazy when he's at home. Despite making the same promises every time we go to counceling he doesn't get up with the kids, he doesn't help take care of them, he doens't do anything except go to work, come home and sleep. And on top of that he is antagonistic about everything, it's like he's looking for a fight. I try to stay calm and neutral as is my nature but it doesn't diffuse him, he keeps making constant jabs at me for no aparent reason.

The plain and simple is he just isn't cut out for this right now. I need peace and harmony for the kids. I am in  a couple different forms of counceling myself individually as well and I am learning that I deserve better and my kids certianly do too. I asked him at a bare minimum to just keep the energy positive and try to wake up with us at least once a week but he can't even do that. My two and a half year old is getting so stressed out, I can't bere to see him hurting like this. I see now it's better in the long run for them to be with just me and get thier "fun time" with their Dad when he's in the right frame of mind.

So looooooong story short my councelor and I (who is also his individual councelor and our marriage councelor) is helping me to start an exist plan so we can make it as smooth as possible for the kids. I'm sad, I'm hurt but at least I know what to expect this time. It's a long hard road but I am confident this is what is right.

Thanks for anyone who took the time to read this.