Worse and worse. Me doing the food shop is being patronising and controlling. I said I thought I needed to do more around the house, and was trying to pull my weight as I am not at work today. He said 'how nice for you,' and is back to doing what he normally does when we're in the house together, which is playing computer games or watching YouTube videos with his headphones on.
What do I want?
Right now, he is not a person I want to be with. I want validation, a partner, someone who is interested in my thoughts and feelings. I want him to initiate conversations with me about the things that are important to him - whatever they are - and participate in plans for our future, if we have one. He's not doing any of those things and he isn't interested in talking about changes that I or he needs to make.
He seems happier when I pretend that I am happy with the situation. When I am bright and breezy, don't initiate any conversation, don't ask him for time, conversation, attention or sex and don't show that I am upset or angry. Doing that has made our daily interactions fairly peaceful, but it has also made me feel like a doormat and like I am selling myself out.
There's no real way for me to sit him down and do a BD. He won't believe me anyway, and at the moment there's no chance for a conversation. I can't force him to listen to me, and I certainly can't force him to talk to me. He seems to experience even me asking open questions like, 'how are you doing?' and 'what would you like to do today? as intrusive and controlling. If I want to listen to him, I also need to put up with sarcasm, nastiness, abuse and gas-lighting. That is a boundary for me - I can't let myself be in conversations where I'm being verbally abused. So I leave, and there's no more communication. I don't know why he can't or won't speak to me like an adult about what is going on in his mind and what he wants, but that is his choice and I can't control it.
I think in my case it is going to be actions speak louder than words. I don't plan on leaving the home, and we already sleep apart. He is legally entitled to live here and he has no financial resources of his own, so there's no way he's going to go anywhere either. We are planning to sell the house. I can call the estate agent in the morning and get the ball rolling on that. I can also visit a solicitor and work out what a financial settlement would be. I think we'd just split the equity and go our separate ways. Spousal support is very rare in this country and would only apply if he was unable to work or we'd been together decades. He's a young man.
My main feeling is that I've been collaborating with him on pretending this is a real marriage and I am content with it. I am not. I feel like this is a breaking point for me and I need to take some kind of action to make a change.
