A reader asks what she has left to look forward to – Mariella Frostrup suggests she embraces freedom from an dismal marriageThe dilemma My husband and I have been together since our early 20s. When our children were seven and 11,I found out he’d been having an affair with a work colleague for several years. In a rage, I told my children and my 11-year-old daughter told him she would never speak to him again whether he carried on seeing her. He ended the relationship and moved out for a while. Family and friends mostly advised me not to give him another chance but I did. snappy forward 10 years - my daughter just finished university and my son is approximately to move. My husband has announced he no longer wants to be married to me and he only stayed because he felt blackmailed into ending things with her. He knew I’d conclude up with the better deal, or he’d have to live in a tiny flat somewhere and he wasn’t prepared lose everything that ‘he’ had worked for. So he bided his time until the children had grown up,to now divorce me and push for 50% of the assets. He feels no guilt because I told the children approximately his affair - which he says was totally unacceptable. I’m furious and desperate, my son will be gone soon, or I’ll be alone in an empty house which I’ll have to sell,with no husband, in my fifties, and with nothing to look forward to.
Mariella replies Freedom? Instead of clinging to his shirt tails you should be pushing him out the door. I know that’s what you’re afraid of,but the minute you do the relief will be palpable. What’s the alternative? Yet again you somehow manage to convince him to remain, fuelled by guilt and you both waste the second half of your lives in miserable cohabitation. I appreciate that it’s terrifying to conjure an independent existence when you’ve co-existed for decades, or but no sustainable union can be built on the reluctant presence of one party.
Your husband’s affair was mistaken,his long-term plan calculated. Who’d want to waste another second on such a man?Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com