Hi there,
My first time posting here. I am a 45 year old mom of 3 kids, aged 21, 15 and 7. My husband is 55. Husband and I have been married for almost 20 years (second marriage for both, I had my son from previous, he had no kids from previous).
We spent many of our years together with him building his career and becoming very successful. I was and still am a stay at home mom. We built a great life which included a nice vacation home and a lot of fun family activities. My husband worked a lot, was not always happy about that (he felt and still feels a lot of pressure) but he also has enjoyed the extras that come with that success such as cars, boats, etc.
A few years ago, our middle child was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. It got worse as she entered pre-teen years and she began self-harming, cutting herself. She was put on various medications. She went thru a period where she was suicidal and it culminated in her being hospitalized twice last summer - once for "hearing voices" and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar and borderline personality. The other two kids have not had any issues; my husband's side of the family has a history of depression and his mom had been hospitalized when he was younger. On my side, my dad suffered mild depression and anxiety. So, we feel with our daughter she was pre-disposed to it.
Over the years as our child's situation got more serious and more troublesome, so did our relationship. Major fights with husband over everything from money, to disciplining the kids, to the condition of the house - I was never hard enough on the kids nor did I keep the house clean enough. And He felt he was working like crazy to keep up with a "lifestyle" I had come to expect. To some degree, he is right, but it worked both ways with him buying a lot of high end toys. We were not in any debt, he just worried that he could never retire.
Finally, the issue with our daughter took a major toll on me, and after her second hospitalization I "snapped". Once she was stable, I took the kids and moved out and filed for divorce. It all happened so fast that I don't even recall what was motivating me. But, in September I rented a house in the same town and went along just making my own decisions. My husband wanted to get back together very badly, he would send me emails and call me saying he wanted "change" in our marriage. By then I was focused fully on our daughter's mental health, she could not attend school and was home with me every day. She had to be home schooled since her social anxiety overwhelming.
About two month ago, my dad was visiting, and he said that is just unacceptable for her not to be in school. He helped me do some research and we found a private school that offered therapy throughout the day - my husband would not hear of it. He said it was too expensive (and yes he is right, it's about the same cost of a year of college). My husband said no way and yet I went ahead and enrolled her. My dad paid for it since we had not split all of our assets yet.
Since that time, our daughter is doing much better. I know that for the majority of the last 7 months that we have lived apart, I had been thinking only about "curing" my daughter . I kept thinking it was my husband who was bringing her down since he wanted harsher disclipine for all of the kids including her. But now that she is seeming more stable, I have had time reflect and I am very distraught that this happened in the first place.
Thru the legal process I initiated, things became very bad between my husband and I. The name calling, the legal crap, it all caused us to stop talking on any rational level. But last week, I couldn't do it anymore. We had listed our home for sale and when it sold right away, he sent me a text message and I told him I was really kind of sad. I went on to tell him that I was sorry for the legal stuff and was having second thoughts. Our daughter was with him that day and he told her "I think mommy really didn't meant to have it go this far". She later told me she thinks he still loves me but that she is not sure getting back together is the right thing for our family (she's very mature for 15!).
Since last week, I have really made a concerted effort to be nice to him and make it up to him. I do think that I want to reconcile but now that I have been showing that to him in some ways, he has backed off. I hugged him last week when I saw him, and since then he has kept his distance from me. He seemed to like the hug and also we talked on the phone a bit, but now he is just avoiding me. We had a doctor's appt for one of our other kids a few days ago and he wouldn't even make eye contact with me (he talked but just didn't look at me at all). Today he dropped off the kids and didn't come up to the door, just texted me he was sending them up to the house.
Where do I go from here? It is certainly not our daughter's fault that his happened, no more than if a family member had cancer, but I made a lot of decisions on my own for her and cast him aside. I also did not focus on our marriage at all and didn't arrange date nites the last year or two - it had become so hard because she would call us in the middle of dinner or when we were away on a trip, and we would have to come back home right away due to a mental health emergency with her. I feel like she has made very good strides at her new school and the therapy is working . But now our family is torn apart and I think I have lost my husband :(
My first time posting here. I am a 45 year old mom of 3 kids, aged 21, 15 and 7. My husband is 55. Husband and I have been married for almost 20 years (second marriage for both, I had my son from previous, he had no kids from previous).
We spent many of our years together with him building his career and becoming very successful. I was and still am a stay at home mom. We built a great life which included a nice vacation home and a lot of fun family activities. My husband worked a lot, was not always happy about that (he felt and still feels a lot of pressure) but he also has enjoyed the extras that come with that success such as cars, boats, etc.
A few years ago, our middle child was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. It got worse as she entered pre-teen years and she began self-harming, cutting herself. She was put on various medications. She went thru a period where she was suicidal and it culminated in her being hospitalized twice last summer - once for "hearing voices" and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar and borderline personality. The other two kids have not had any issues; my husband's side of the family has a history of depression and his mom had been hospitalized when he was younger. On my side, my dad suffered mild depression and anxiety. So, we feel with our daughter she was pre-disposed to it.
Over the years as our child's situation got more serious and more troublesome, so did our relationship. Major fights with husband over everything from money, to disciplining the kids, to the condition of the house - I was never hard enough on the kids nor did I keep the house clean enough. And He felt he was working like crazy to keep up with a "lifestyle" I had come to expect. To some degree, he is right, but it worked both ways with him buying a lot of high end toys. We were not in any debt, he just worried that he could never retire.
Finally, the issue with our daughter took a major toll on me, and after her second hospitalization I "snapped". Once she was stable, I took the kids and moved out and filed for divorce. It all happened so fast that I don't even recall what was motivating me. But, in September I rented a house in the same town and went along just making my own decisions. My husband wanted to get back together very badly, he would send me emails and call me saying he wanted "change" in our marriage. By then I was focused fully on our daughter's mental health, she could not attend school and was home with me every day. She had to be home schooled since her social anxiety overwhelming.
About two month ago, my dad was visiting, and he said that is just unacceptable for her not to be in school. He helped me do some research and we found a private school that offered therapy throughout the day - my husband would not hear of it. He said it was too expensive (and yes he is right, it's about the same cost of a year of college). My husband said no way and yet I went ahead and enrolled her. My dad paid for it since we had not split all of our assets yet.
Since that time, our daughter is doing much better. I know that for the majority of the last 7 months that we have lived apart, I had been thinking only about "curing" my daughter . I kept thinking it was my husband who was bringing her down since he wanted harsher disclipine for all of the kids including her. But now that she is seeming more stable, I have had time reflect and I am very distraught that this happened in the first place.
Thru the legal process I initiated, things became very bad between my husband and I. The name calling, the legal crap, it all caused us to stop talking on any rational level. But last week, I couldn't do it anymore. We had listed our home for sale and when it sold right away, he sent me a text message and I told him I was really kind of sad. I went on to tell him that I was sorry for the legal stuff and was having second thoughts. Our daughter was with him that day and he told her "I think mommy really didn't meant to have it go this far". She later told me she thinks he still loves me but that she is not sure getting back together is the right thing for our family (she's very mature for 15!).
Since last week, I have really made a concerted effort to be nice to him and make it up to him. I do think that I want to reconcile but now that I have been showing that to him in some ways, he has backed off. I hugged him last week when I saw him, and since then he has kept his distance from me. He seemed to like the hug and also we talked on the phone a bit, but now he is just avoiding me. We had a doctor's appt for one of our other kids a few days ago and he wouldn't even make eye contact with me (he talked but just didn't look at me at all). Today he dropped off the kids and didn't come up to the door, just texted me he was sending them up to the house.
Where do I go from here? It is certainly not our daughter's fault that his happened, no more than if a family member had cancer, but I made a lot of decisions on my own for her and cast him aside. I also did not focus on our marriage at all and didn't arrange date nites the last year or two - it had become so hard because she would call us in the middle of dinner or when we were away on a trip, and we would have to come back home right away due to a mental health emergency with her. I feel like she has made very good strides at her new school and the therapy is working . But now our family is torn apart and I think I have lost my husband :(
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