Toughest battles can be interpreted in many ways, all qualify.
What are the toughest battles you have fought or are fighting?
Toughest battles can be interpreted in many ways, all qualify.
What are the toughest battles you have fought or are fighting?
So I am just some internet stranger without full context - but I gotta say… the way you describe it, it sounds like you should break it off. To review:
Again, I am an internet stranger working without full context. But I would say you should lawyer up, completely split up and move out, and move on with your life. Get the lawyer to figure out the best way to ensure custody of your kids beforehand, then give her an ultimatum - get help, or you are leaving and either taking the kids or going to court to take as much guardianship as possible.
I’m not saying she has no redeeming qualities or that the time the two of you shared wasn’t special. But it sounds like she can be mean, aggressive, and possibly violent, like she doesn’t consider herself to be in a relationship with you and doesn’t want to, and that she is unwilling to try to change and probably won’t. And this state of affairs is having a negative impact on both you and your kids.
Meanwhile, by sticking with her, you are giving up the opportunity to find someone else who does want to be in a relationship with you, who can model a healthy relationship, and who will make you happy.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Your argumentation is correct, no doubt about it.
If its about making kids she is all over sex. Avoiding sex is about avoiding emotionally bonding to be to avoid being hurt.
She is most of the time an exceptionally loving mother and the kids love her as much as I do. Our kids need both parents in their life and making that decision would hurt my kids and the woman I love. I have always said, that the day our kids lives are more impacted by my staying than leaving (because of ongoing conflict) I would leave.
Pressuring her won’t solve this conflict sadly. People only chance through their own volition which makes this tricky as she has no real incentive to change.
Im also the sole breadwinner and although I earn good money, the local cost of living is too high to keep my kids lives strable if I need to finance separate accommodations. They would need to move and change schools and friends and I’m not willing to go there just for my well being.
Trying to “take the kids” is also a gamble. Even a progressive country like Germany seldomly awards full custody to a man. And again I’m not willing to hurt her or the kids by separating them from their mother.
Its mostly a stable and safe life for my kids. Her refusal might change, or might not. But considering all the things as they are, separation would hurt all the people I love including myself.
I have recently tried looking for therapy for myself to help with coping with all this and I’m waiting for what life throws at me next.
My situation is similar.
My partner just treats me so poorly I’ve long since lost a romantic attachment to her.
However, we have 2 young children, and my partners employment prospects aren’t great. We can’t afford 2 houses. As in we would share custody and i would pay her whatever was required, but no matter how you slice it the same income has to pay for 2 houses instead of one.
For the time being i just have to carry on.
Yes, my kids dont see a “happy loving relationship” but they dont really see an abusive one, just a miserable one maybe.
IDK if we’re super “successful” co-parents but we are at least an effective team i think.
Thanks for sharing. It helps to hear I’m not the only one in a situation like this. Try living your life anyways. Take your kids on trips and spend as much time with them as you can. :)
Sending you much love.
I think your intentions are very noble. You clearly care a lot about both her and your kids.
But at the same time, I feel like you’ve fallen into the trap of “I must be miserable for them to be happy”. Which is a variation of “I must be miserable in order to succeed.”
If I have one regret in life, it is that I spent so much time being miserable because I thought “this is just how life is”, “I just have to wait it out”, “this is how I’ll be able to achieve my goal and then I’m allowed to be happy.” And after being miserable for a long time in a bunch of different ways, what I realized is that I’ve seen the people around me reach the same goals faster and easier because they didn’t embrace the grinding-and-suffering methodology. And really the only thing that was different was that they had different expectations - they expected to achieve their goal while being happy and having fun along the way. If a path to their goal required being miserable, they rejected that path and looked for another one, because they simply assumed that there is not just one, but many paths to achieving any goal while being happy at the same time. The problem is that if you assume the “be miserable” path is the only one that exists, then you stop looking for the other, better paths. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - you believe no better path exists, so you don’t look for other options. And since you never look for other options, you never see the other options, and since you never see other options, you assume they don’t exist.
You’ve listed a bunch of things, like how your kids would have to change schools, like they are reasons you can’t separate. And I think it is reasonable to say that you don’t want your kids to have to change schools. But I feel like what you have done here is listed all these reasons like they are insurmountable obstacles to your happiness, which then implies that your happiness is impossible. I think instead you should see them as metrics for success - your ex stays in your kids lives and they don’t have to change schools and you are happy and have a loving partner.
Like, imagine that you and your ex have another kid. And for whatever reason, because this happened, your oldest kid now feels as miserable as you do now. Would you accept that? Would you say “my eldest child’s misery is the price we must pay for everyone else to be happy”? Or would you say “this is unacceptable - I will to whatever it takes to make sure all my kids are happy.” Because if you can have that mindset to ensuring your kids’ happiness, you can adopt it for your own happiness. And once you have that mindset, it’s just a matter of looking for solutions until you find the one that works best for you.
Love your answer. Thanks!
My eyes are open, my statements are more about right now. You are correct, at the moment suffering is worth it because of a lack of alternatives. Life will offer opportunities that change the calculus and hopefully my kids will be a few years older and able to understand better. Right now its still more on the psychiatric problems stage and I feel I need to give her time. But that time will sooner or later run out.