Tonight myself and my husband had an argument and we both said very hurtful things. Some of the things he said really took me aback and just knocked the wind out of me. I’m very hurt and don’t know how or why we get here (to this dark place) during almost every argument. When he wasn’t “yelling” anymore I asked him if he had meant what he said, and he said that yes, he did. I just cried and came into the bedroom with our son. When we argue, he comes unhinged, very verbally “abusive” and having kids and being married, I’m really struggling with the part of me that says " I don’t have to be treated like this anymore!" Please, advice…
Would you consider going to counseling? If you like, you could ask your husband if he would like to go with you. If he says “yes”, then you could opt to do marriage counseling, try it and see if that will help.
If he says, “no”, you could consider going to individual counseling. Either way, if it’s like this, you could probably benefit from having a neutral person to talk to, to bounce ideas off of who has had experience in these matters. Some prefer to have a Catholic counselor, say, through Catholic Social Services.
I think you might want to try marriage counseling before throwing in the towel. Otherwise, you will always wonder if you did everything you could.
With marriage counseling, I think a counselor will meet somewhat separately, to get the issues, then put a couple together, anyway.
Marriage is not easy. However, neither is divorce. Often, people lose everything in a divorce. There would need to be a decision as to who would get custody. Would it go to him, you, joint custody? So, due to the children, you will have him in your life in one capacity or another ongoing.
Even if you did decide to separate, or divorce, I think due to the fact you have children together, counseling would be probably worth trying. If you divorce, he would still be in your life in the sense of paying child support and such, if that’s applicable. If you share custody, there’d be that.
He might also have more difficulty paying expenses as before, since one of you will have to move and uproot, the lawyer fees, and court fees.
There is the question of where everybody would live. If you are living separately, it would be harder for you both to pay for things as when you live together in the same house, of course. So, if finances are tight now, they would only get tighter in a divorce.
Some divorces get quite ugly. Sometimes, people steal each other’s stuff, and things can get heated even more than they already are.
Your friends would start to take sides. You might lose some of your friends.
If you can’t stay where you are, you would need to uproot yourself and your children. So, there would be moving expenses, start up expenses.
That’s only the financial aspect. If you are Catholic and have a valid marriage, remarriage would not be an option for either of you.
If you both would really try counseling, the first things a good counselor will do is work on getting abusive language out of the relationship. Sometimes, once that happens, if it does, progress can finally be made.
If you both try counseling and it works, great. If it doesn’t work, you will at least known you did your best.
