Should I leave or stay?

Should I leave or stay?

Today comes to a point that I asked myself again--should I leave or continue to stay living with my husband like this under the same roof just for raising the kids. I’ve been struggled so many times and feel lost. I would love to hear different voices if you were in my situation. It is a bit long, I appreciate whoever read this and leave your comments.

So the relationship with my husband I would say is broken, the 7 years marriage is failed. We have 2 kids, older one just turn 6 and the other is 13months. I personally feel myself checked out emotionally and I believe my husband has the same feeling.

The reasons I stay are: my kids are still very young, I am living in a country where no close friends or relatives around, this family is the only thing we have in Australia. My husband is not a villain, he loves his children. (I would say for my first child, he does love him very much. But not my second one, just paid the bill nothing else, I am more like a single mom for him.) He does a lot of things for the family like organise trips, track everything at home that needs to buy, does most of the shopping, taking care of the 2 cats and do cleaning the house, although I don’t like the way he clean, he has mild OCD, our floor is always sparkly clean, no one drop of water or a piece of hair is accepted, house need to be very tidy, but I appreciate it, tried very hard to mantain his standard. He is the breadwinner, he earns more than double as I do. I don’t think I can give my children a better life financially. I am not young anymore, this year just turned 40, I have no interests to have another relationship or have another family anymore. My husband is close to 50, as i know him, he is not going to have another relationship anymore as well.

But there are a lot of other issues that really make me struggle a lot:

1. He always have a say on everything I do! For example, Friday morning, I was making my older boy’s lunch box for school, I haven’t finished it yet and he woke up and came down, I didn’t give him breakfast immediately because I want to finish what I was doing first, it won’t take long. My husband just came: ‘Why he still doesn’t have breakfast, it is almost 7:30am?’ So what? I am not blind I know the time!!! My boy wanted to eat raisin bread for breakfast, I got it and put in the toast, my husband: ‘it just bought yesterday, you can just give him to eat, no need to put in the toast.’ then he pressed cancel of my toast. It really made me so frustrated. It feels like everything I do is wrong. Why can you just shut up and leave me as what I am doing! This is just an example. There are many things like this. I did ignore and tolerate this kind of things for years. But honestly since the relationship is broken, I don’t want to hear his question voice towards me anymore.

2. I accumulated a lot of resentments since I got pregnancy with my second boy.

When I was about 32weeks pregnancy we had an argument about something, I don’t remember exactly what was that, I only remember that I didn’t want to compromise again this time. So he put himself in his room for a month,(I mean just go to work in the morning, come back home after work , wash himself ,eat dinner and then back in his room, not doing the things that he usual does) Until his dad passed away oversea, so I went to him and compromised again.

Before the baby was born, we had his mom came from oversea for 3 months, but after she came, we found out actually she can’t help much, instead we need take care of her. So I suggested to pay someone to help for the first month, such as to cook and take care of the new born baby, he got furious because he thought this insult his dear mother, so I shut up but I was very upset.

(I thought about hiring someone because I didn’t take care of myself when my first child was born, we don’t have anybody around, I did everything looking after the baby. So my body got a lot of problems since then, like C-section cut pain, breast pain because of breastfeeding , back pain, tenosynovitis, arm&leg fatigue, that time I felt there were no piece of my body part were good, everywhere were painful. My arms developed RSI, it got worse after my second child was born.)

The night before my boy was born, I felt the baby perhaps coming soon, I was scared I asked him to stay with me that night not going to the other room, he said no to me and said ‘if there is anything just come to wake me up.’ I was so heart broken, I cried the whole night with the discomfort of the contraction, the resentment completely filled into my heart. (He sleep in another room because he said the mattress is too soft for his back , he had back pain that time. I don't like soft mattress at all, he knows that, but he still bought the very soft mattress.)

After the baby was born, I was the only one who taking care of the baby, breastfeeding so nobody can help, 2 weeks later after C-Section I also need to go to kitchen cut and prepare all the food ready for his mom to cook. About 2 months old, his mother said I don’t allow her to hold the baby, which shocked me so much. I never said she can’t take the baby, I never refused any help, there was no help offered anyway, although my arms’ problem were so bad those months. The most funny thing is, my baby is 13months now, my husband never change his nappy, never feed him, never wash him, never stay up at night for him, only washed one bottle once, stayed with him in the playmat less than 5 times, yet when the baby was about 7 months old he claimed that I cling to the baby, sounds like I took his opportunity to stay with the baby. So it is more like the baby with me 24/7, I don’t even have any break, yet I was blamed, so my resentment got more.

3. I don’t feel being respected. He once said he live with me under this roof only because of my older boy. If the bond with my older boy breaks, he will destroy everything. This happened during we were in the fight period, that day I was exhausted, when I brushed my older boy’s teeth before getting ready to bed, I complained to him (which I shouldn’t, he was only 5) about what I did a day, my arms problem, how tired I am and his daddy came home, did little vaccum, took 1 hour in the bathroom, then dinner while on his laptop. My boy was so angry at him and shouted at him that he needs to help me, which I didn’t expect it. Because of this my husband got very angry at me, he even called my name and said angrily if I need help just ask him. I was angry as well, I said, I won’t ask him to do things that he doesn’t want to do. if somebody willing to help, they don’t need to be asked every time. If you need me to ask every time, or when I ask there are always reasons that I can’t get immediate help, I prefer to do it by myself, if I can’t I will just leave it until the time I can.’ My husband got furious because he believes what I said wasn't true.

4. Some other things that contribute to my struggle as well, like my oppinions weigh very less in the family; different way of parenting child, different way of spending money (he spent a lot money on somehing that I dont think it is neccesary, such as some gym machines which i never seen him using it even once; big TV screen on upstair wall we watch very rare)

Thank you for reading. Your comment will be highly appriciated.