My husband is going through a really bad time at work. Again. He has a load of things that I think he has but he’s never got diagnosed so only has the coping strategies that he has worked out in his time on the planet and then me trying to piece him together. He blew up in 2021 or at least he did so in the worst way since we had been together. At this point we hadn’t moved house and I still had money from my mom’s death that I could sink into him taking time to recover. All because I’d encouraged him to look at another job thinking it would be really positive thing for him (spoilers: it wasn’t).
He had a reliable job but again had got sick of it and got sick of the shitty pay and the fact he knew he could do more. So I helped him apply for a job in management job. Now he has more money and is blowing gaskets even more. The money that I’d used to support him during his bad time (that we never told anyone about) he was convinced he would pay me back from an inheritance. I would never do something with money if I knew I wouldn’t be okay with never seeing it again but he was sure he would pay it me back. Only we’ve moved house, things have gone wrong with the house and he hasn’t seen this inheritance and I don’t think he ever will. I went through a big phase of wondering whether it had ever been an actual offer at all or if he had just been sure of something that was never there.
So now the wheels are weebling and wobbling and may fall off again only now I am down a significant amount of money and we are up a significant debt (yay mortgage) and I am 6m into a possible 18m contract. I’m hoping it will get extended but I genuinely have no idea.
So much of the bad feelings that I have are tied up with my fucking parents and their awful relationship and awful money management. I can remember growing up my dad consistently losing his job (usually towards xmas, great timing) and my mom just having to suck it up. Later she told me that she’d tell my dad he had to find another one or he wouldn’t be eating. All of this going on makes that my immediate go to with my own current husband but as I go to reach for it I get the macro vision of my parents’ marriage and realise that I can’t use any of the fucking thing for any kind of template to work on.
So I feel all this pressure on top of me because if he just breaks again and loses his job he’s back to square one and I’m back to being the provider again. So then my brain just goes ‘get rid of him, what are you doing? Protect yourself. Just ditch him’ and it’s taken me a while to unpack why this is happening. Why do I just immediately shut down and wall him off in my heart when this comes up. Suddenly the other day I was walking the dog and it came to me. Daddy issues. My entire teenage years all I saw was my dad draining money, my dad creating yet more problems. I remember asking my mom why did she pay for his gym membership at a stupidly expensive gym when he hardly ever went and did anything, why didn’t he pay for it himself? The only method I had to deal with my dad was to freeze him off, wall him off out of my being. The problem is I don’t know how to fix this. I’m just fucking tired.
I am so tired of being responsible, I’m tired of carrying on and being the one who doesn’t break. I’m sick of myself and all of my shit. I’m sick of not having anyone to speak to and all these so called friends that I don’t matter to. I’m like a z list friend but one that will cut her own limb off to help you. Nothing I say matters to anyone. Nothing I do actually has any impact on anyone around me.
What am I doing?
One of my friends said there’s a job opportunity at his company that pays a lot more than I’m currently on and would be permanent and all the fuckery with my husband is making me feel like I need to take it. The faster I can pay down the mortgage the better we will be. At least then if he spiralled right off the deep end then I’ve got some cushion to pay both of our parts of the bills. But I like where I am even if it is only 18m. So do I risk jumping to place he’s only just gone in the hopes it will just be better for me financially?
God forbid I should break. We would be royally fucked if that happened because no one is coming to save me this time. Who do I even have? Just half a family that have no idea of what I’ve actually been through. That were utterly shocked and saddened that I don’t speak to my narcissistic abusive father.
I genuinely think I have CPTSD. I mean we already know about the undiagnosed depression and anxiety. Why did my mom never take me to the doctor? It’s not like it would have cost her any money. I tried killing myself when I was nine or so. I hade massive depression and mental health issues in year six that she kept me off school for but she just got a book out of the library that told me to ‘write down things I was good at’. I wish she’d bought a book that had said ‘how to divorce your abusive pos husband’ instead. It might have saved me some years.
If I even got diagnosed with CPTSD would it even help me? I’m pushing 40, what good is it to me now except something to hang my hat on?
What I actually need and what I know my body needs is to just take off for like 2-3 weeks if not a month and go live on a Greek island somewhere. Not an option though is it. Not when that’s a nice old chunk of money and I might end up being the sole breadwinner again.
Dear me of the past, what happened to wanting a normal boring stable guy? Ah yes, the soul crushing loneliness where I’d lie on my floor in the hall. Excellent.
Grinning @ the darkness 