Divorce. on Christmas. Wow. (long)

Well, that went well…

December 24th. I’m sitting and reading and minding my own business. Mr. singular cries out from the back room “You want to go out to breakfast?” I’m not especially hungry, but I don’t want to cook and we don’t go out for meals often, so I say sure. As usual, 30 minutes passes while he gets ready. When he announces he’s ready, I get up and get ready, since it takes two minutes to brush my hair, put on my coat and put my wallet in my pocket as he puts the dog away. We drive to Denny’s, about 2½ miles away. It’s 4 AM, and there’s 3 loud 20-somethings in a booth one booth away. Suddenly the air is filled with “Fuckin” and “fuckin’” that. Now, I’m far from a delicate flower, but this was ridiculous. I rolled my eyes and murmured “the asshole brigade is out in force.” and buried my head in my newspaper after making my order.

This is where I made the big mistake that could’ve saved this wretched sham of a marriage.

Mr. sing- aw, fuck, let’s call him Bob- Bob says “You want to move away?”

Here’s the ridiculous part. I didn’t want to make a scene. I would’ve been embarrassed, getting up and moving. Embarrassed in front of three obnoxious punks and the night waiter we’d never seen before. Embarrassed because I am a huge repulsive aging blob and I don’t want anyone looking at me.

So I said no, it’s alright, and buried my head in the newspaper.

I really didn’t hear what set Bob off. I was looking at the paper, barely letting the punks register. Bob’s back was to them. I figured he’d start talking to me soon, whereupon I’d put down the paper.

Then it all went to shit.

Bob whirled around in his seat and yelled “Hey, hey, fellas, c’mon!”

My head snapped up, and I thought “Oh, good”.

Oh no….

You see, that was a good start. A little brusque, perhaps, but a good start. But it went rapidly downhill.

“The language, the language!” At this point he has struggled to his feet and is now standing at their table. “Fuckin’ this, fuckin’ that, fuckin’ titties!(“Titties” is Bob’s Kryptonite. He hates that word.) You’re in a fucking public place! Can you just watch the fukin language?”

You can see how well this is going.

The boys try to calm him down, pointing out that he’s using the same language. He says he’s trying to get their attention because, pointing to me “there’s a fucking lady over there” He then tries to start a fight with them. (There are not enough roll-eye emoticons in the world.) They are, of course, bemused. They’re being challenged by a 53 year old man who can’t drive because his neck won’t turn, who can’t work because he can’t stand very long or know if he’ll be able to get out of bed on a regular schedule – and they can see this just by looking at him. “You’re going to take us three - young guys - on. In a fight.” “You don’t think I can do it? You’re about to be corrected.” They manage to calm him enough by apologizing to me and telling him to go sit with your wife. As he approaches our table, he keeps looking back at their table, where they’re laughing and cussing about the whole display. He pauses again, and I am forced to hiss “Sit DOWN! NOW!” as firmly and quietly as possible. I had to do the same thing to the dog the day before when a pizza was delivered. I hissed “You made a complete ass of yourself.” And went back to my paper. This was the most uncomfortable 7 minutes of my life. I wanted to sink through the floor.

The waiter came to our table and I asked if we could have our food to go. I told Bob I was going to wait at the counter by the register and left, just in case any further incident was brewing. When he joined me at the counter, I told him again he made a complete ass of himself. The kid was right – if he would’ve just asked him to tone it down, chances are that would’ve been the end of it. But he had to go all Buford Pusser on their asses and turn it into a circus. I went back to blindly looking at my newspaper. When the waiter came to give us the bill and the food, he said he was sorry and would we like to move to the back of the restaurant. Having no appetite, I said no, thanks, we’ll just leave. And then Bob apologized - TO THE WAITER!

Cut to a stony silence in the ride home, one that hasn’t been broken until just about an hour ago. It’s Christmas morning, and I’m on the computer, looking for houses. He pokes his head in and asked some question, I don’t even remember what. I answered tersely, and he says “Why are you talking to me like this?” And I say “I’m still waiting for my apology. You apologized to the waiter, what about me?” “I was doing it for you!” “Oh, yeah, acting like a drunken cowboy. I was humiliated! I was mortified!”

So here comes the big leap –

“Well then, I guess we’ll get divorced! That’s what you want! You stopped having sex the minute we got married!”

??? This, aside from being inaccurate, came outta nowhere.

“Fine. You want a divorce, you better call your brother and see if you can live with him, because I can’t afford to pay for two places.” “I can’t stay with my brother, I got nowhere to stay. So I guess you’re trapped.”

I couldn’t believe he put into words exactly what I felt, but he did. “You’re right. I’m trapped!”

Those were the last words spoken in this house, lo this Christmas morn. The clacking of the keys is the only noise, punctuated by the grunts coming from the Soloflex room. Bob’s gearing up for his next big slap-down, I guess. Gee, who’s going to protect my delicate honor now? Oh, I forgot. Bob, because I’m trapped. Paying for a pretend marriage. Paying, paying, paying. Living with my protector, who wants to divorce me but can’t support himself.

Well, Merry fucking Titsmas.

{{{Singular1}}}

I hope you find some way to get through this, and find some happiness. I used to be married to a man who was disabled and not working, and would threaten divorce all the time, and was verbally abusive. Like he had some place to go! I know how tough this must be. Vent to us any time. Also, my email is in my profile, if you want to talk.

If this is indicative of his normal behavior, you better off out. It isn’t your burden to support him for life – or if it is, then a judge will award him alimony.

Divorce the asshole. Let him fend for himself. Let him live on Social Security Disability. You don’t need crap like that in your life.

Was he like this before the advent of the disability?

I’m in a similar situation - a caregiver to a disabled spouse. My wife had some pretty severe problems with depression (at minimum) before she got sick, and coping with the disability hasn’t made it any easier. She feels worthless and useless, despite my efforts to let her know about her value to me, and she occasionally acts out pretty ridiculously to either stroke her self esteem or wallow in self pity.

You’re going to get a lot of people telling you to give the motherfucker what he “wants”, and divorce him already.

That may or may not be the answer for you. I’m still in the process of figuring it out myself.

At the very least, I’d try to get him in to counseling, if he’s not there already.

Ah, feeling trapped. I’m familiar with that feeling, enough so that I haven’t remarried after 10 years. It sucks to feel like that. Here’s hoping that you get resolution to this one way or the other very soon.

He is an adult. You aren’t responsible for him just because he has “no place to stay.” I had an uncle who coulnd’t work. My aunt separated from him and when he had to fend for himself, surprise, he could. She helped him get an appartment.

Although they were legally separated, they stayed legally mariied otherwise he’d have had to sue for alimony. (Not sure where they were living at the time, and it was a very long time ago, so I don’t kow if the laws have changed or what in that respect.)

So sorry Singular.

This is a bit of a different story but may make sense.

…<sniped>…Just mudding the waters with the crap I go through with my Dad.

I think getting up and contributing to a household is important for any ones mental health. It sounds that Bob can’t do that as well as he might wish. Perhaps that spawned the outburst at breakfast.

I’m not in any way suggesting his actions at breakfast where reasonable. But I think I see something similar in my father. The less that he seems to be able to take care of himself, the more outbursts we see.

Bob probably thought that he was defending you. Or that’s his excuse.

There is a common credo in search and rescue groups. Don’t become a victim while trying to help others. This is good advice for nearly all situations.

Good luck to you. And remember that the most selfless person can not help others unless they take care of them selves first.

I can kind of understand where your husband is coming from. He was (in his mind) trying to defend your honor and you sided with the assholes over him. That stings. You should have at least let him know you appecriated his intentions instead of (to use your own analogy) belittling him like a disobedient dog.

There are obviously other ongoing problems in your marriage and he may have feelings of inadequacy from his disabilities. Further emasculating him by ordering him to sit down (in front of the punks he was trying to assert himself to) and then demanding that he apologize to you for trying to stand up for you are not approaches which are going to make him feel anything but shitty and resentful. If there has been a pattern of this kind of call and response (hubby tries to man up, you smack him down) I can see why that would be pretty wearing on his ego.

I doubt this one incident, all by itself, is the reason he said he wanted a divorce. It’s probably the culmination of a lot of simmering stress and resentment (probably on both sides and no doubt with plenty of fault on his side too).

Do you WANT to save the marriage? If you do, I would suggest trying to rebuild his self-esteem a little bit.

I’m sorry to hear about your day. I hope things improve for you in 2008.

You are a great writer though.

If singular1’s experience has been anything like mine, that’s a recipe for codependency and further emasculation. Self-esteem comes from within.

It’s not okay for a 53 year old man to act like a hotheaded young punk, and singular has every right to be angry with Bob for incident, no matter what the root cause of his bad behavior is.

His behaviour was inappropriate and misguided but not maliciously motivated. I think the good intention should be acknowledged while letting him know that the behavior make the spouse feel uncomfortable. And no apology should ever be demanded. Let the other person know how their behavior makes you feel and allow them to feel like apologizing (or not) on their own. An extorted apology means nothing and satisfies neither party.

You both sound miserable. Go for the divorce. How on earth could the two of you be any unhappier? Bob’s behaviour wasn’t right, but he must feel terrible being married to someone who neither loves or respects him.

Maybe it was just the last straw for him. He attempts to re-connect with you by going out for a rare breakfast at a restaurant and you can’t be bothered to get your head out of the newspaper.
The only coversation you offer is “The asshole brigade is out today” and rebury your head in the paper.
Since it’s pretty obvious you’re not too intent on having breakfast conversation with your spouse on Christmas morning that he invited you to he figures the only way he can get your attention is to overrespond to the only comment you’ve sent his way.
It’s rather unpleasant to have a spouse ignore you (especially on Christmas), the only way you can get them to notice you is by making a scene, then they take everyone’s side but yours.

I was thinking something along those lines when she said she started hissing at him in the restaurant.

If you don’t love him, then you don’t love him. That’s fine. Publicly showing contempt? Eh, not so much.

Divorce him and let it go already. Sitting around seething with resentment at each other likely won’t be any more fun later than it is now.

Holy shit, I agree with you. How the hell did that happen?

I agree with him, too, but I do that sometimes.

Have you guys had or considered counseling? Is the marriage worth saving, to you? To him?

Woah, slow down! It was a fight. It was less than 24 hours ago. The Denny’s food has not even been fully digested yet.

singular1, you had a stressful moment on a stressful day (and pretty much in the middle of the night) in a stressful season. Your husband has been going through healthe issues, and it seems like you’ve been going through a few changes yourself.

Petty little resentments are going to happen. Talk it out. See a therapist if you need to.

Filing for divorce after one unpleasant breakfast? That’s WAY premature.

I’d guess there’s more than just one unpleasant breakfast or one fight involved here. The OP sounds weary.

The OP very much reads like two people taking out all of their stress and sadness about aging on each other, and refusing to acknowledge that. Sure, hubby was stupid to get all middle-aged kung-fu, but not talking to your dining companion (who is also your husband) because of some extraneous, easily altered, circumstances is pretty shitty, too.

And this seems to be part of it, too: you’re not upset with him because he did something stupid, you’re upset because of your own body issues. If you routinely hide behind newspapers so that no-one can see you, you desperately need counseling. I don’t care if you’re Quasimodo himself, you should be able to eat at a restaurant without feeling like your lack of good looks is somehow offending other people.

If you feel trapped, I’m pretty sure he knows it. And if he knows you feel trapped and that you’re only taking care of his disabled ass because you think he’s got no other options, that’s deeply humiliating. If you regularly think of him with the kind of contempt that you’ve shown here - bringing him to heel like a dog, not bothering to get ready until after he’s done, silent treatment when he doesn’t magically intuit what you want from him, telling him he’s an embarrassment in public, leaving him alone at the table - then it would be remarkable if he didn’t act out occasionally just to feel like a human being again.

I’m not trying to put this whole situation on you - clearly your husband has some growing up to do, too - but it really looks to me like you’re ignoring how much of the ugliness in this relationship is coming from your side. Ask yourself if it’s worth to you to try and rebuild a relationship with this man, or if you can only see him as a pathetic leech. If you can’t feel good about him, end this marriage for both of your sanities’ sakes.

Either way, I think you should get some counseling about your own confidence levels. It speaks volumes that you’re ashamed to be seen in public, and also that you’ve allowed your relationships to get this bad without acting to help yourself. You deserve better in all respects.

mischievous