needing some help

[autumn_twilight]

I feel odd asking this, but here goes. I need to talk to a counselor, specifically one experienced with the emotional/psychological abuse aspect of domestic violence in the st. louis/st. charles area. I've been in a marriage for four years that has drained my soul to the point where I don't recognize the person I've become, and I never wanted to be who I am now, and I'm still trying to figure out how I let myself get here. I've tried talking to my husband about ways to improve our marriage, but nothing is ever resolved. I started looking at countless websites on divorce advice, and many bring up the topic of domestic violence, and I read and read and it sounds like what I'm dealing with, but I want to talk to a professional (since they should be more non-biased than the few friends/family I have left.) I'm not sure exactly what it'd do for me other than justify (even moreso) the reasons for me leaving, but I kind of need to know for myself. I just can't believe that this is a normal relationship (I would rather die single and alone if that's the case.) I know every relationship has it's issues, nothing is perfect, but this just CANNOT be the norm. I don't have a lot of money to spend on it (or any really, he doesn't work and I can't even afford to pay the bills we do have) and I can't predict ahead of time when I'll have the ability to do something without him knowing to set up an appointment.

So basically, does anyone know anyplace where I could talk to a counselor on a walk in basis? I know that we can't use this site for legal/medical advice, so I'm just looking for a direction to go in.

Thank you in advance.

[sivad05]

Does your employer have an EAP? If you are not sure, contact Human Resources. EAP will be able to help.

[WDWpixieRN, RN]

If you're a student anywhere, most college campuses have counselors (not just "advisors") on staff. Also, if you're away from the house, there are hotlines that you should be able to call that can lead you in the right direction.

Here's one to start with:

National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)

They have a website also, but the first thing it says is that all internet use is trackable and if there's ANY fear that someone will attempt to track your internet use to go somewhere SAFE to utilize their site. I hope you know how to clear cookies and your browser's history? Not just after going to this site, but if you're surfing for divorce info as well...

http://www.ndvh.org/

I beg you not to put this off if there's even a seed of doubt that you're in an abusive relationship -- mental or physical in nature.

Please let us know how you're doing...

[autumn_twilight]

Thank you for the information. I didn't even think about the EAP, and I'm not sure why I didn't think about the counselors at school. I was able to get off work early yesterday, unfortunately I had to replace my tires and take care of a few other things and didn't have enough time to call the hotline or visit a counselor before I had to go to class. I've been struggling with my unhappy marriage basically since my daughter was born (she's four), and lately i've just been seeing everything as a giant red flag and I'm not sure how much of it is me looking for red flags and "finding" them or me refusing to give my husband the benefit of the doubt like I have for years.

The real kicker came the other day when I explained to him, for at least the fourth time, that I wanted to go to nursing school. That I would be applying for the class beginning fall of 2010, and that I would not be able to work at my current job when I start that (so it gives him over a years worth of notice.) After two years, I can make at least double what I'm making now. We just have to hang on through those two years, like we've been hanging on for the past four. I'm looking for hospital jobs so I can still work full time nights or something. And he is all for me being a nurse, the paycheck sounds awesome, the flexibility of hours are great...until I tell him I have to quit my current job (which I can't stand and he knows) because SCCC only does a fulltime day program for nursing(and I can pretty much go for free with grants and stuff). And he says, "I don't think we can do it if you're not working full time, or if you take a paycut." I even came back later and (half)jokingly said "You could always work full time for a couple years so I could go to school" (He no longer has a major, it was going to be education, but "teaching requires so much work") and he still tells me "I don't think it's possible." Not that he'd look, not that he'd try, but basically no.:stone

That was pretty much when I decided that I was tired of giving up my friends, family, and happiness for a guy that just wants to play video games, disrespect my feelings and opinions, and have a woman take care of his physical needs without considering my emotional needs. There is way, way, WAY more than just this incident, although this really stood out as the latest self-centered, unsupportive moment of the relationship for me. Not sure if i still need/want to talk to a counselor about possible abuse, but I'm in the process of getting everything set up so I can put myself and my daughter in a healthier environment. Now I just need to figure out how to tell him....

[saymo82]

Wow, good luck. I hope you can do what's best for you and your daughter.

[solneeshka, BSN, RN]

[i am sure this will be too long for one post so i'm breaking it up into two...]

okay, as one who's been there, i'm just going to be straight up with you: what the hell are you married to? i mean that. answer that question. you do not need a counselor, and you probably don't even need a lawyer. (in the county where i live, as long as both people agree to terms you don't need attorneys, even if there's a child, and they provided fill-in-the-blank template court documents on their web site.) yes, every relationship has its problems but just ask yourself what you are married to. is it a man? is it a husband? is it a father? (you didn't address that but you don't have to say the words...)

my point is, you are not married to a man who is a husband, so why are you worrying about how to handle staying married to him? you probably knew this when you married him so stop trying to get blood from a rock, own up to your mistake, and get on with your life! yes, it will be hard on your child; staying will be harder on her. you have to deal with that because you're the one who got her into this family. it's not the end of the world that you have made a mistake but for crying out loud, fix it.

this guy is happy to stay in school with no plan, it doesn't sound like he's working but you are supposed to work full time while you go to nursing school?! i have news for you: you don't have one kid, you have two. another question for you: is this the kind of man you hope your daughter marries? if she came home one day with someone just like him would you say, "that's awesome! she did great, and i know she's going to be okay with him by her side!" or would you go to bed and cry because you know what she's in for? you have value. this clown doesn't recognize that. you are 100% correct about being better off single for the rest of your life than married to him, but let me point out that "single" and "alone" are two different things.

i have so been where you are, wondering "does this constitute abuse? i have a roof over my head, i have food to eat, is there something wrong with me for wanting more?" i can say that only with the distance of time, and the distance away from him, do i see how heartbreaking that marriage was. it's shocking that i even questioned that at the time. if i had been honest with anyone else about how things were, my friends and family would never have allowed me to stay. it was only when i finally began to drops hints and pieces here and there that a couple of friends pointed out that things were *not* okay, that it wasn't normal or acceptable for me to be living like that. it didn't happen overnight but that was the start of the slippery slope that finally gave me the courage to leave. you feel like such an idiot for getting into that position, and then you feel like a mouse for being afraid to leave, but let me tell you every time something happens to remind me that i'm divorced, i practically cheer! being rid of him fills my heart with hope.

[continued below...]

[solneeshka, BSN, RN]

[continued from above...]

i can't tell you how many friends in nursing school i hear things like this from: "i'm busting my ass in school that will lead to a job, but my husband is in school finding himself, or starting a mystery company that prevents him from getting a job that actually pays something." most often, this is from women who work in addition to school, and who do almost all (if not all) of the childcare.

you deserve a man who will support you. you deserve a man who wants to see you move up in this world. you deserve a man who wants you to be all you can be. you can disagree with your husband about cleaning, about childrearing, about grocery shopping, about lawn care, about where to go on vacation, about picking up his socks, but you cannot compromise on the things that really count. it's one thing to have to plan out your lives, one works while the other pursues dreams, then change spots, maybe you can't go to school exactly when you'd like to because the time isn't right with the kids or something. but there is no excuse, none, ever, for your husband to tell you that you can only go to school if you also work full time while he is going to purposeless school and musing that teaching is just too darn hard. (what does he plan on doing that's not hard?) i don't care if he's also working part-time. he is not being a leader of your family. he is not participating in mapping out your future as a family and guiding how you get there from where you are now. he is getting to the next level of wizards and warcraft and (i guarantee you) trolling the internet for Media after you've gone to been. i've got this guy's number, and autumn you do too. you know that.

i finally couldn't keep it together anymore just before nursing school started. baaaaad timing. we got divorced a couple of months later, and somehow i made it through two years of school and will graduate next month. my son and i have a future ahead of us that i couldn't have dreamed about two years ago. i cannot imagine still being trapped in that cave of a marriage right now, with that future ahead of me, instead of the one we really have. it took a ton of work, and tons of help from friends (childcare). we are getting ready to move so that we can live with family for a bit while i get started as a nurse and get up and running. somewhere, you have family you can stay with. there is a way that you can do this. if you can pay for school with grants, that's awesome!!! if you can work part-time and go to school, do it. working full-time and going to nursing school would be just about impossible. but if you can find a living arrangement that will cut your expenses, you can make it work. even if you pay for school with grants, you can still take out student loans to help with living expenses. everyone wants to avoid that but student loans beat soul-draining-life-sucking-lazy-infantile-emotionally-abusive husbands any day of the week!

i don't know if this message will sound harsh; like i said, i'm just talking at the mirror because i have been exactly where you are. go to counseling if you want, but you don't need a counselor to tell you to get out. whether or not he meets some objective criteria of "abusive" is irrelevant; he's a crappy excuse for a man and you need to not be married to him anymore.

[autumn_twilight]

No, not harsh: some of it I have heard before, some of it I've thought myself, some of it I didn't/don't want to admit. I've talked with my husband a few times since I originally posted, and I've walked away from it with the sense that he doesn't think anything is worth working on since I can't guarantee that it'll fix our marriage issues if he basically "becomes a man/father/husband." He's straightening up his act now, but in a few weeks I know/expect him to be the same as before, as he's never been able to keep his "promises" for more than a few weeks at a time. Mostly, I just didn't want to give up, but looking inside, I know this isn't the way I want to live my life, that I'm not happy, and relationships aren't perfect but there's got to be something better than this. I keep second-guessing myself, but I've made the decisions to leave after finals (i can't pack, do school full-time and work full-time) even though it's going to destroy my credit by breaking my lease, which is already pretty bad since I've focused more on paying his bills than my own. So much has happened in the past week or two alone that's made me really open my eyes to the whole situation. I've given my all to this relationship and he "doesn't want to waste the time and energy" on doing the same because I can't guarantee "results".(I've literally said "X and Y is a problem for me in the marriage. If you can do A and B, I think that'll help, but X and Y are the most prominent issues I can think of." And he says "Well, if you can't guarantee that me doing A and B will fix the marriage, why should I bother?") So thanks for listening and re-affirming that I'm not crazy and I do deserve better, and that it's okay to be a little bit selfish in wanting happiness for myself and my daughter.