I Want Out of My Marriage, but I Know Better.

I'm happily married for almost 20 years.I can only say what I would tolarate or not.Man who play video games til the morning and than sleep long etc, sound to me like teenagers.I wouldn't want to be married to a teenager.
Marriage is work, but if it's more work and frustration than the opposite, I would either get help or out.

He's addicted to his game playing and that's why he treats you this way.

If I were you, I'd go talk to a lawyer about a separation. It sounds like he won't go to counseling with you, but if you came home and told him you want a separation, he might start to miss what he has and realize the price he will pay for this in child support and alimony.

Meanwhile, get all your ducks in a row. Open a new bank account somewhere where you both don't bank, and move money into as soon as you are ready to tell him. Have the lawyer prevent him from taking you and the kids off of the insurance. If he really wants to stay married to you, he will get a real wake-up call out of this, and you might be able to eventually save your marriage.

I'm sorry he is such a poor father-figure and husband. A father who does nothing but play on the computer and pays no attention to the children is not better than no father at all.

Dawn

I'm so so sorry for your marriage troubles. I admire you for wanting to make this work. Its hard to be a mom to your actual kids...its even harder to mother your husband.

Can you tell on your husband to his mother? lol jk

It might be good for him to be around some other family men. He may not be aware at all of what it means to take care of your wife and your kids. He may not have ever been taught how to be a responsible grown up. Being around other family men may open his eyes even a little bit.

Start inviting couples/other families over for dinner or for game night. Find a festival or even to go to and ask another family to join you guys...maybe the family of one of your kids' best friends? It may be awkward at first but if you try to enjoy your time w/them in the name of saving your family/marriage, then it might be worth it.

Hang in there.

I think it's about unmet, unexpressed expectations.
Have him pick 5 things that he will be "in charge" of.
Have an adult-to-adult discussion. No fighting!
He is free to play video games whenever he wants BUT he also needs to be responsible for HIS agreed upon items.
You're not his mother, you're his wife.
Lots of times, people will do what they are allowed to do--know what I mean? You need to set the bar MUCH higher.

First, it sounds like he's addicted to video games. Yes, this is a real addiction. I actually have a friend who divorced her husband over it (he met another woman in his online video game. Never any physical hanky-panky, but emotionally, he cheated. He, too, would stay up to all hours of the night playing, wouldn't help with housework or childraising.). Your husband needs help in learning how to turn off the games. He might find that he has to give gaming up altogether.

Second, it sounds like your husband is depressed. Try having him take some vit D3 (you can buy caplets that have 2,000 mg) now that it is winter time and see if that helps his mood. Tell him the Vit D will help keep him from getting sick/will strengthen his immune system (because it does). I know you live down South, where there's more sun, but if it's cloudier in the winter time, or if he's inside all the time and never in the sun, it is likely he is Vit D deprived.

Third, helping with the kids--did he want kids? Marriage is about two people working together to make it work; being parents is about two people working together to raise the children. My husband works full time out of the house; I'm a stay at home mother WHO ALSO works at home as an editor (I used to work full time out of the house until our daughter entered school). My husband knows that I am not at home doing housework and/or childcare duties all day while he's at work; I am ALSO working. Therefore, he has to help raise the child and do some housework as well. We don't have a superclean house, but it's picked up and liveable. I refuse to put all of my time and attention into the house when he lives here too; it's up to both of us to do the daily household grind/chores. Just like it's up to both of us to parent our child.

Perhaps your doing everything while you worked full time outside the house set your husband up with the expectation that you're Super Woman and, now that you stay at home and don't bring in any money, your husband still expects you to be Super Woman. Especially since you're not bringing in any money.

Your husband sounds like he needs a mommy. My husband thought he'd pull that one on me when we were first married. I told him if he wanted a mommy to take care of him, there was the door. He was welcome to go back home and live with his mommy. I wasn't his mommy. We had our daughter two years after we were married. He tried pulling the "you're my mommy, take care of me" routine again. I told him there's the door; you can go home and have your own mommy take care of you. He's never tried it again. He knows I'm serious. I would boot his a$$ out so fast, his head would spin. He loves me, loves our daughter, and would seriously never do anything to lose us.

If your husband has the expectation that you will take care of him, the house, and the children--and you've been doing everything since you were married--he sees no reason to change anything. Why should he? He's got it made--he's got you to do everything for him.

You will have to decide if he can be changed, if he wants to change, and how much you want to remain/keep taking care of him. I have known a lot of women who have divorced their men simply because the men took advantage of them/treated them like they were their mommy.

I want a partner in my marriage; I don't want to play mommy. It took a while before I got my husband to understand the fact that I wasn't going to be his mommy. If he needed his mommy that badly, then he could leave and go live with her. Every once in a while, I still have to remind him that I'm not his mommy. BUT, I nipped that issue/problem in the bud right when it first started. I'm afraid I don't have any answers for something that's been going on/perpetuating for a while. Counseling is the best option, I think, for you, even if you're the only one going. It will help you see things in a clearer light and decide what it is you want to do. The counselor might even have some ideas as to what/how you can phrase things you say to your husband and how you can go about getting him to help/cooperate.

Just remember: he's been counting on you to do everything so he can remain a little boy/doesn't have to grow up. It's not going to be easy to get him to change; he might completely refuse. Then you'll have a choice to make. Do you stay with him, knowing you'll have to do everything, or do you leave him. Since you already do/take care of everything, living on your own with your children shouldn't be that hard. It will/might be an economic struggle, depending on what your degrees/work experience is.

You have to decide what you want, how happy you want to be. Don't let him drag you down, just because he hasn't decided to grow up and do his part in the marriage/household/childraising arena.

And for those who say working full time and bringing home the paycheck is stressful--so is taking care of the house and the children full time. That is also a job, a job that is far, far more stressful than working in an office. I've done both; I much rather prefer working at home, but the chores still need to get done. And it's not fair that I am the only one who is expected to clean house when another adult lives here as well. A marriage is a joint adventure; that means, two people have equal responsibility. For everything.

And a little tip: as a mother, you need to take care of yourself/pamper yourself, too. If you aren't able to sleep in, try taking a short nap in the afternoons. I say this as a caution to all mothers out there, whether working full time out of the home or working as a stay at home mother: you need to take care of yourself. Especially making sure you get enough sleep. It is SO EASY to deplete your adrenals and then end up with lots and lots and lots of health problems. I know; I'm one of those whose adrenals are depleted (I have moderate adrenal fatigue). I've been working for 4 YEARS now to get my adrenals back to full function. If you're tired; rest. If your husband says something about it, tell him a little nap now vs total collapse/chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia later, take your pick. If you end up with one of those chronic illnesses, you WILL NOT be taking care of the children, the household, or him. Trust me; you don't want to wait until your reserves are depleted. Take care of yourself now, in any way you need to. And that includes good-quality supplements to help make sure your body has what it needs to function optimally. First and foremost, as a mom, you want your body to be strong so that you're healthy and can be there for them.

i agree with giving him some duties, like putting the kids to bed, or reading stories, go about it niecely and say they would like time to bond with him. On the weekend scehdule outside activities for the family...there are a lot of people that cant interact with kids in a playing kind of way, so try outings and nature walks, maybe he'll be more involved than in the home.

If it were my house the game might just "break" or disappear!

Haven't read other responses yet but I know Exactly what your going through. If my Hubby could play video games all day everyday, he would. I kinda think he's a loser, I mean seriously it time to grow up! He just finally got a full time job back so things are getting better but before I was ready to choke him. They only way he would ever get anything accomplished was if I left him a list and told him he had to do these things. Maybe you could try to compromise with him to start. Make a list of things he needs to get done while your gone, what I would do and did was tell him that when I got home I'd let him play games for a couple hrs without complaining if he got everything done. And it was no small list! You have to start somewhere, and it's hard to expect him to just give it up all together right now, as nice as that would be it's not realistic.

Good Luck, I really hope things get better for you!

The one thing I love most about the circle of women sister/friends I have is the valuable advice they have given to me over the years. I will share a few pieces of their wisdom with you because reading your post made me want to slap him some sense into him.

As I see it you need to narrow down what you actually need and determine how you are going to get it since it is NOT going to come from him. If you need to get the house cleaned, check into getting a cleaning service to come in your home at least twice a month. You may be surprised how affordable that can be.

I used to drop the laundry off at the laundry mat for them to wash it all. They charge by the pound so I would let them wash things like my clothes and hubby's clothes or just the towels, pillows, sheets, and curtains. I would do the kids clothes myself and only wash their things once every other week in the summer and every week in the winter. It frees up my energy and time. Now the boys do all the household laundry at the laundrymat (because they have the huge machines) once every other week.

You don't mention how old your children are but as the parent it is our job to teach them how to be independent. At 3-4 years old, I would set up cold cereal the night before for them to eat or set out fresh fruit like apples, oranges or bananas. I could keep them in the fridge in their special bowls covered with seran wrap. With the cereal I would use a sippy cup with milk in a certain color so they would know that was their milk. and keep the dry cereal on the table covered with seran wrap for them to add the milk too. This would give me at least an hour more or better to sleep in.

I was a single parent to 6 and the older kids helped the little ones. If you take husband out of the equation, how would you get these things done?

I hope this helps with your frustration some even though I believe the root of your frustration with your husband my lie deeper than chores and video game obsession.

Your husband is an addict! Face it. He's addicted to video games, and only God knows what else. Find a counselor. Your marriage is heading toward divorce as fast as it can, so if you feel there's still something to salvage, get counseling. If not, get counseling anyway. You aren't supposed to cope with HIS addiction. I am sure there are some counseling orgs that charge on a sliding scale. Do some research. It's the same as drug addiction, so don't think it's merely about playing games. Good luck.

The only mention of your counselor or counseling sessions in the entire post is one small mention that you can't afford it. You don't say anything about how long you've been in counseling; whether you asked him to come with you for couples counseling and he refused and why; whether you feel the counselor is the right one for you or is a dud; etc.

Is there a Women's Center in your town? They often can guide women to low- or slidiing-scale cost services like counseling. Your local government's health department may be able to do the same. Or your own counselor may be fine -- the problem may be that you feel so defeated and beaten down by his addiction (yes, he's addicted) and your own resentment that you aren't able to absorb the help the counselor's trying to give you. That's a natural reaction on your part but please fight it! Please, please, call the counselor today and say you won't wait until your next scheduled session; you are in crisis and need to see him or her tomorrow. Lay it all out and be assertive. And tell the counselor and your husband, both, that your husband must commit to counseling with you or you will call the divorce attorney whose number you ALREADY have -- and do have one on hand. You and your husband may be able to get back to who you were when you married, but he must wake up to his gaming addiction and take responsibility for that and his family; while you must give up being defeated and get active in your own best interests and for your own health and your children's sakes.

If you on any level want to preserve this marriage and get it back on an equal footing, get professional help that will be aggressive, and make sure he knows he is about to end up with an empty house if he does not get up, dress and get his backside into the counselor's chair.

You can't make someone change.

I suggest the 40 day love dare (or something similar if you're not a person of faith). It focusses on you and what you can do to improve your relationship.

Good luck and God bless!

I realized a short time ago that whatever I decide to put up with I am teaching my daughters to put up with and that just was not okay for me. My husband works full time and has a demanding career and he also is taking on line classes. We discussed that he would need my help in order to go to complete this classes and I agreed but half way through I realized that I was the only adult in the home doing all the shopping, cleaning, cooking, laundry, errands, etc. One day my daughter said " Mommy it's not fair that you always have to do all the chores, I feel sorry for you" that was all I had to hear. I always felt it a little unfair but thought this was for the greater good however not until she said that did I really understand that I was modeling for her that it was okay that I was doing everything and in my mind that was sooo far from okay. I also work and have a very demanding position in healthcare. I put my food down and agreed to keep the kids occupied and do everything on homework and study nights but everyday was not going to be study nights. I told him what my daughter said and told him how it made me feel then I asked him if he would be okay if his daughter was doing the lionshare without any help and that I believe put it in perspective. It shiffed it away from me into something he could understand. Write a chore list and go over it with him sometimes they really need to put eyes on it to understand how much there is to be done. Ask him to choose which chore he can help with, if that doesn't work randomly assign him task. Honey can you fold these clothes, babe can you clean out the tub. See how that works. Good luck to you