Please read the study on divorce here. It is not what you think. Moses allowed for divorce because of the hardness of men's hearts. Paul discussed it too. It isn't best on many levels. And it certainly isn't what you do first.
I agree that you should not revisit the same conversation with your husband. I don't think that any conversation should be had more than a couple of times unless something truly new arises. Perhaps reminding a person once in a while when they forget is okay.
And as far as him not helping - nagging diminishes you. I don't know if you nag. But that kind of unhappy disruption teaches bad things to the children about human relationships.
I had a baby of a husband. And we had a successful marriage for years because I was creative. Eventually he got mean and we were divorced. Mean - screaming constantly for weeks at a time. Blaming me for babies dying in war. How could I believe in a God who allowed babies to die in war? Anyway, he was very awful and his daughter was the one who campaigned to me to realize what he was doing to me and get help. And she is still my daughter even though not by birth. I am divorced twice and remarried. I had to figure out why I married the men I married.
Okay - the point is that this isn't an easy point. Is your husband a good daddy? You say he doesn't do anything but work and play - but does that include playing with the kids? Is he playing x-box with the children or only with other adults or by himself? Does he take them places? Does he listen to them?
Do you work outside the home? If you don't and you are considering divorce then you need to figure out a career. And that could fix part of the problem. If you are a stay at home mom then he may not feel like you do anything all day. Us women know that stay at home moms put in an 80 hour week when hubby doesn't help. Hubbies tend to think that having a stay at home mom gives them the right to do nothing around the house except fix things, take out the trash and mow the lawn.
Does he take out the trash and mow the lawn and fix things?
I recommend that next pay day, you thank him for being a good provider. Whether or not you truly think he is, you are presumably eating and being sheltered - so thank him. Tell him you really appreciate him working every day. Does he like his job? Does he do it because he feels the need to take care of his family? Or because he loves it? Or both?
And if he takes out the trash, then one day when he takes it out - thank him for always doing that. (Hopefully you don't have to ask him to do it.)
And if he fixes something - thank him. Genuinely and graciously.
Sex life is part of the whole situation. If a man doesn't get any - he often feels justified in porn. I'm not saying it is right. And a lot of time the sex life deteriorates because a woman won't tell him he is going too fast or she really won't express herself at all.
I am very direct and I know other people just cannot be. And men usually don't get it if you aren't direct. I recommend saying things like, "I'm willing to have sex if you are willing to listen to me talk about my day when you come home, and then help me get the kids to bed, and then go slow. If you will do those things, then I am willing."
Or whatever your things are. If you are tired, a man may think going faster is what he should do. When slower is probably what he should do.
And then there are the ways to get what you need. I recommend trying all the positive things first. But I have also had success with telling my husband to do his own laundry. Or with agreeing to do his laundry if he would do some dishes. Or in not doing the laundry if he left his dirty clothes in the living room. My second husband was a big baby. And this worked with him for years. We were married for 18 years and had quite the peaceful life for most of those. But I worked too. I could cook stuff I liked that he didn't. He would promise me things hoping I would cheer about what he was GOING to do. I would sit at the computer and tell him I would cheer when he HAD done it. And then he would do it. I wouldn't listen to his plans about what he was going to fix or make or do - because all that talk was just being a show off. (It really was - he sent me to his therapist and she agreed. If he could get praise for something he was going to do - he'd never do it.)
So, complicated, complicated. I do recommend that you don't fuss at him about anything you've already fussed at him about more than twice. And that you compliment him a bunch about what he does do right. And that you look into how you would support yourself and your kids if you were to get divorced.
And that you pray. That you find a place and you sit in that place quietly for ten or more minutes a day. Read a scripture, sing a song, and then just sit and think about God. And follow the peace.
I hope that you will find that he is a good man. And that things have just kinda done the drifting apart and the getting even thing that marriages so often do. And that if you treat him well, that he will treat you better and things can snowball in the right direction instead of in the wrong one.
Hugs and prayer.
Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 7:07 am