Marriage advice

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am in need of a neutral third party perspective on my marriage. We have been together 3 years, married 3 months, and have a one year old. We’ve had a pretty rocky relationship but things got better around the wedding. Since then, its gone downhill fast. This past week we got into a huge fight. Im still not sure what set it off but when I woke up Monday morning he was walking out the front door with packed bags. He came back a few hrs later and confessed to searching thru my phone and finding me looking up marriage advice. He blew up, became irrational and started threating to take the money, get a vasectomy, etc. All crazy things. U left with my daughter to get her out of that environment and went to my parents house so we could both cool down. He kept the irrational behavior up all week so I stayed until Friday. By Thursday he had been to a lawyer twice to file for separation bc he claimed I was keeping him from our daughter. He told me was going for full custody and was telling me he would use anything he could to get her. He then took out half our money and sent me a pic of the lawyer filling out the papers ( weird). I came back Friday night so he could see her and now he wants to forget the separation and move on.

Here’s some more background. He said me and my sister (we are grown adults) are sluts, is the breadwinner but hasn’t brought home a paycheck in months, plays games instead of playing with his daughter, won’t pick up after himself (not household chores), hasn’t helped with raising our daughter since she was a newborn (I also worked full time for 5 months). I do all financial and household chores, raise the kid alone, and he isn’t even responsible enough to take care if his failing health. We have a platonic relationship, rarely are intimate(he says its miserable), and he won’t do anything together as a couple or family.

I’m at my wits end. I’m not happy and after this week, I don’t look at him the same. I don’t know if I can forgive him for trying to take my daughter away from me. My family doesn’t trust him and doesn’t really like him anymore either. I feel bad breaking up a family since we have a child but I’m not happy at all. Any advice would be appreciated. If you need any more info let me know!! Thanks

2

And the reason you haven’t left yet is…?
You may be married, but doesn’t sound like a relationship. Also sounds like it could get physically abusive (already emotionally abusive, huh.)
Sounds like you’ve got a family who would be supportive. I know it’s easy for me to say, but I think I’d cut my losses & go. (Did this just start after the wedding?) Anyway, if what you say is true I don’t see it changing for the better. And you don’t want your child to grow up in that.
It might be hard for you to go, but you might be surprised how quickly you’ll feel better—like you’ve stopped hitting yourself in the head with a hammer.
Best of luck & continue to post, 'k?

3
  1. Marital counseling…a true third party. See if it can be salvaged for the child’s sake.
  2. If he refuses…lawyer up.
4

Yup. Sounds like you got married to see if it would save the relationship. That never works. Try one more time, with outside help, and if that doesn’t work, move on.

5

Where and how did you meet this guy…what kind of guy was he when you first met…what are the things you liked about him when you decided to marry him?

The way you describe him, he really sounds like a savage and you should probably get yourself and the kids far away from him.

But, at one time, he was probably all you could ever think about. There used to be something. What was it?

In other words: how have you both changed over the course of the relationship?

6

When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

Any relationship you had is over, your marriage is over. Those are the facts. You’re not doing anyone any favours trying to keep this ship afloat. Not him, not you, not the child. Come to a reasonable custody and child care agreement, and move on with your life. You’ll have to get a job and a place to stay. It’s not going to be easy. But it will be way, way easier than trying to put your relationship back together. Get on with it, that’s my advice. Adults move forward from tragedy all the time.

There is magic in all beginnings and you are about to begin a new and better life, try and be excited, something better will come, you’re still very young. Get out there and jump back into life with both feet and life just might serve you up something wonderful.

Good luck!

7

Sometimes you need a third party to read a description and to tell you what you can’t see.

I see nothing to salvage here.

Get out of this relationship now. Obviously, do your best to maintain and support the father/child relationship, to the extent it is healthy.

Otherwise, lose this guy. You weren’t happy before this began. There is no reason to believe that you will be happy after he has behaved this way.

Good luck and I’m sorry.

8

You all are amazing, thank you!!! It help so much to hear from people who aren’t biased to one side or another. Here’s some updates/more info.

He has done nothing but apologize and say he will change since I’ve been back. I want to believe him but we’ve had fights about the same issues in the past and nothing changes long term. Nothing will erase what happened this week, yes we can forgive and move on, but I can’t get over the fact he went to a lawyer twice and filled out the separation paperwork and tried to take my daughter. I feel crazy for not wanting to forgive him. I love him but he’s obviously not rational as of lately, and I fear it will only get worse.

He’s willng to do whatever it takes, yes we will try counseling, but he went absolutely crazy this week. Would you forgive and forget this?

When we met, at work, he was fun, easy going, spontaneous, very rational.

We’ve only been married 3 months, I feel like a failure if I leave him.

9

I agree with the move on advice. However, I have a question (that I feel isn’t going to to get an answer). How are you two supporting yourselves? From the OP, it sounds like you don’t work and he’s unemployed? That’s a really big issue in a relationship. Not to mention you have a child to support. If you’re not working, he might end up will full custody.

10

Great question! He works full time as an insurance agent and has been commission only for 4 months. He will be salaried as of next week so financially we will be okay to pay the bills now. The problem was, he didn’t mind not getting paid bc he said we had some in savings so we could just keep pulling from there or he just tells his parents to give us money. Both of those i am not okay with. I quit my job after we moved for him to take this current job and he agreed it would make more sense for me to stay at home than work and pay for child care.

11

My marriage just ended in May, so I am definitely not the best person to give marital advice. The only thing I can contribute is if you do stay together, you have to forgive, forget, and move on. Don’t use it against him in future arguments. You’ve seen him at his best, now you’ve seen him at his worst. Hopefully the person you married is still in there somewhere, but don’t trick yourself into making excuses for his abusive/unacceptable actions if he’s not. Don’t hold back at marriage counseling, use the time wisely and try to get the problems worked out. Good luck with whatever you do.

12

You are going to get divorced at some point based on what you posted. Neither of you is going to change substantially and you aren’t suddenly going to fall in love with him again. Marriage counseling is overrated in most cases. It is there so that people can say they tried it but most marriage counselors are about as useful as the tree in your yard to talk about problems in front of but the tree is free.

That doesn’t mean you have to end things this weekend. Give yourself some time while you have this window, come up with some options, and then use them the next time things go south quickly. That is the practical advise that most people won’t tell you. Divorce itself is a horrible thing to go through. Being divorced and a single parent can be wonderful depending on what you make of it. I am a divorced single parent (male) of two daughters and wouldn’t have it any other way now. I take them as the greatest gift that relationship could have given me but I am thrilled that relationship is gone for good. I put off getting out for too long just because of practical matters but it was worth it after dust settled.

13

Well it doesn’t make sense, to be perfectly honest. And I know this from experience, as my SO and I agreed on the same thing six and a half years ago when my daughter was born. Then she was diagnosed with autism so that was my out for another few years.
Unfortunately NOW he’s in jail and about to be deported and I’ve been out of work for over eight years, let my skills lapse, and haven’t been able to find a job. I have no savings, no income, and a cut-off notice on my lights. I am in so deep I don’t know how I’ll ever dig my way out.
I encourage you STRONGLY to find work, or at the very least use your time off to develop marketable skills so that *if *you do decide you’ve had enough, or he decides he doesn’t want to live with you anymore that you will be able to support yourself and your child. Whatever you do, please, PLEASE don’t have any more children.

14

From what you’ve described, you need to get out of this relationship CAREFULLY, because frankly, your husband scares me - he sounds very irrational and unpredictable. If you don’t love him any more, that isn’t surprising because he behaved so badly. If things are okay now (with him apologizing and stuff), that’s what’s known in abusive relationships as “the honeymoon period.” I wouldn’t consider ending your relationship with him at this point a failure - seeing clearly that you have no future with someone who treats you this way is a success, not a failure.

15

I wish you all the best and hope you are able to make a decision that benefits everyone involved in this situation, but please don’t think that what you’re getting here is unbiased advice. We’re only hearing your version of the story.

16

Get into counseling, pronto.

I believe what you’ve told us … but I don’t for one second believe that this is the whole story or that you are a perfect wife married to a monster. That probably does happen once in a blue moon but most of the time it’s found in Lifetime movies. Usually when there’s trouble in a marriage, both parties are to blame. It’d be interesting to see what he’d tell us if he started his own thread.

He sounds depressed,* maybe* with some kind of personality disorder. Depression will turn people into complete assholes sometimes. The personality flaws aren’t going to go away but depression can be fixed. That doesn’t excuse his actions at all – but all married couples are going to say things to each other they shouldn’t, and do things to hurt the other person (emotionally, I mean).

In good marriages, it happens very rarely. In bad marriages, it’s a way of life.

You sound very, very young. And I am SO not hating on you for that - I married at 21 and had a baby at 22 and a pretty rocky marriage for a few years - why? Because we both needed to grow up. And we did, and things are pretty cool now. We would have given up a pretty good life if we’d thrown in the towel after things got rough - and we definitely considered it.

I wasn’t there, so I can’t say if your decision to take the baby and go to your parents’ house was smart or an overreaction. That said - and this DOES NOT excuse his behavior because he sounds incredibly immature - I can kinda see why he flipped the fuck out. You two get in a fight and you run to mom and dad and take the baby with you for nearly a week? Are you gonna do that every time you have a fight?

Most people on here are gonna tell you to get out - we have a lot of the DTMFA camp 'round these parts. If I knew that everything you’ve told us is 100% accurate, I’d tell you to at least separate, and I’d also go ahead and predict that the marriage is probably doomed.

That said, I suspect there’s more to the story, and I suspect that what we have here are two imperfect, young newlyweds who are stumbling in the dark because that’s whatcha do for the first coupla years.

Don’t throw in the towel without a fight.

17

This is how abusive people are, they act out and then fall back and apologize and manipulate you into feeling guilty for wanting to give up on them.

I’m really side-eyeing the people in this post who are implying that you are responsible for his behavior. Whether or not you are a perfect person is not the point, the point is, what kind of environment do you want for yourself and your kid?

18

I cannot speak from personal experience, but as a teacher I can say that in most cases where parents are unhappy together, children are much happier when they have two calm, safe homes rather than one tense and unpredictable one.

Don’t feel you have to stay in this situation because of the baby.

19

HAs he used your fear of abandonment as a weapon against you before? The photo of the lawyer would seem to indicate that he wants to scare you into submission.

Not healthy; save your child. Document every interaction with him. You’ll need an excellent history of his negativity and volatility if you want to keep him from having visitations alone with your child.

20

Why do you want to live like this?