At the time H initially approached me with the idea, I said no.
No way.
It took several months for him to convince me that this was more about enabling our four children to qualify for financial aide. Which was true enough.
I definitely felt EXTREMELY obligated...and I was in a way. Obligated to do the most I can for our children.
At that time we had one son entering college (attending a community college WAY beneath the level of education he needed! due to lack of OUR ability to pay)...and with a second child due to start that year and then another one for each following year.
All in all we would have had four in at one time...and we were looking at least eight years of this condition!
Colleges do not consider how many children you have in college, they simply look at your income and what they consider your ability to pay.
Now my husband's income was about $120,000. a year, but having to pay approx. $20,000 for each student per year meant that at least $80,000 a year would go to tuition.
Leaving us after taxes with little or no income to support ourselves and other expenses.(If you've ever had kids in college you know it doesn't end with tution, there's books and fees, transportation, clothing, medical expenses, just fun money and lots of other incidental expenses. $80,00 was just tuition!)
So it DID make sense from a financial stand point.
But most definitely not from an emotional one.
It felt to me(the tape in my insecure head) like a reason to keep our seperation going, but I had to admit he seemed genuinely concerned about how to get them all through college.
They all have very high IQ's and were extremely good students.
My H stated that nothing would change, we would continue as always, he would still pay the bills and stay at the house on weekends, I would come down to condo during the week. We never told any of our neighbors or co-workers. Family vacations were the same and it was only "on paper". we even enjoyed the fact that we had a place to go to get away from the "kids" for a while, to be by oursleves!! Our own little "Love Nest"( the condo)
He even said based on how well "we" had been doing the last few years he didn't want to continue the separation, he just couldn't see any other way without enslaving the kids to work study, high interest loans or a lower quality of education that what they deserved.
So that was the rationale. And he was good as his word, Nothing did change for MANY years. Everything did go on as planned.
Now the flip side was, it seemed too convenient, for him.
It enabled him to keep his distance. It made me overly responsible for everday functioning and left him out of the loop on the everyday sort of involvment you get when you are living together.
Yes, it solved alot of problems because whenever one or the other of us was mad or upset we could withdraw to our respective corners, but it also made it easy to build up a coping mechanism of not dealing with problems, except to withdraw. Not really a solution more of an avoidance.
I once had a therapist say to me "You may have hit on the ideal Marriage!! A way to stay married and avoid all kinds of problems!Not have to put up with each other, keep the romance alive."
She was soooooooo wrong. It created a hugh gulf! Of resentment, mistrust, loneliness, false sense of security, being left out, being over burdened, feeling taken for granted and lack of chance for developing communication skills.ON BOTH OUR PARTS.
Yes, I had the freedom to run the kids and the house the way I wanted on a day to day basis, but I learned to avoid including my husband and it left him VERY vulnerable to feelings of resentment and exclusion.
He hid that well with all his business and workaholic habits, but in the end, he was angry/miserable and had no other way to fill the voids except to look outside our relationship.....( NOT making excuses for him) but after 8 years of this sort of existance being in the habit of doing what you want, without having to consider the other, gets comfortable and you can easily come to resent not being able to get your way in things, what you do where you go, who you associate with...what your priorities are....especially if you are harboring resentments that you are being excluded from your famiies life...why wouldn't you go looking for some activities and friendships apart from your spouse?
Thanks for asking! It helped me look at it with a different perspective. Trish
