Learning to let myself be angry

 I am angry. 

I feel cheated. 

I did all the things I was told were the “right things” in my life. I went to church. I did my best in school. I was careful with modesty & my physical affection with boys & men. I went to college. I helped my mom when I lived at home. I lived with my grandma for a while so she didn’t feel so lonely. I met someone.  I got married in the temple. I tried so hard to be supportive, not demanding of my husband. 

According to the template I’d been given by my parents and my church, he should have been a right choice. He went to church. He appeared to be spiritual & respectful & hardworking. His bishop and friends spoke highly of him. He was a little melancholy they said, but they excused it by saying it was because he was lonely & I was going to be “so good for him”.  He was older than me, and I was naive enough to think that it meant that he had emotional maturity,  We talked about what we wanted our life together to look like: he would work, I would work for a little while, but once we got pregnant I’d stay home and be the mom & housewife, like my mom had been. We would move closer to my family because he didn’t have a close relationship with his.

But he was more than melancholy. He was bitter. He was envious. He saw friends his age who had been more responsible in their younger years & continued to work hard & sacrifice have things he wanted but hadn’t saved for & was unwilling to work extra hard for. His refrain was always “must be nice” rather than seeing that it was the fruits of their sacrifices. He bemoaned his job, but didn’t want to change to something else. So, instead of being able to start toward the goal of becoming a stay at home mom like I wanted, I kept feeling pushed to take on more responsibility to be the financial support to the family so the bills could stay paid. I put off having children because we didn’t have a savings because he would spend as soon as it was saved. I looked for better jobs, but he didn’t. He was offered a dog, so we obviously had to get a house--rather than saying “no” to a dog we weren’t in a position to have. 

When the house was purchased, I got a better job, because the mortgage had to be paid somehow. I went back to school. I still somehow thought we’d be move in 5-6 years, so I didn’t deeply connect with peers at work or church, because this was temporary. But, he stayed where he was in his job & complained that we had junky cars but bought himself a new gun every year at tax time instead of saving for the things he was always so envious of: home improvements, more reliable car, family vacation. He’d claim to be a victim of “reverse discrimination” at work, rather than seeing that the chip on his shoulder impacted his ability to move up in his job. But despite that attitude, when he was offered a position that would have lead him down a path of management with the salary to go with it, he turned it down. Heaven forbid he have to work a weekend and possibly miss out on a fall hunting season. At the same time, I had been working 2 jobs which included nights til 10 or 11 pm, and nearly every weekend, but that didn’t impact his time.

The harder I worked to try to set an example of what our marriage could be, and what I knew he could do, the less he seemed to want to do better. I was doing all the trying, why should he? My success was emasculating. But at the same time: when were we going to have kids? When was HE going to get to be a dad? Never was it: here is the plan for him taking over so I could be a mom. 

The first five years of marriage, I guess the sex was good. I really wouldn’t know, because I had waited, like a “good girl”... but some of the things he said to me in the bedroom made me emotionally uncomfortable. Some of the things he wanted me to do to him made me physically uncomfortable. I asked him to not, but once things had started he finished however he liked. It wasn’t fun anymore, and I got to wondering what the point was if we were never going to be able to have kids. It wasn’t that good, it didn’t make me feel connected to him, it made me feel dirty. 

The inheritance from my grandma’s death was unexpected. I took it as a sign. It was a sign that we’d have some financial stability & could afford to have a baby. We started trying & sex seemed to get better, that it actually made me feel closer to him. Some of the time. He still wanted the things that made me uncomfortable the most. He was absolutely obsessed with getting me to do those things, no matter how much I tried to express how it made me feel physically and emotionally. 

When the inheritance money came, he talked me out of paying off the house. No, pay off the car first, and buy cabinets for the kitchen. We had a baby girl. I still thought he’d step up. I kept telling myself it’d be just a few more years, maybe by the time she was in kindergarten.  The money got spent, but not in a way that created long-term stability. 

But when I’d ask for help because I couldn’t do the duties of a stay at home mom when I was a working mom, he’d turn it into an attack. I was attacking his masculinity, I was attacking his ability to be a provider, I was attacking his spirituality. But then he’d help, for a little while. He’d make dinner a few times, and do a couple of loads of laundry, but nothing long-lasting. Getting up in the night with our baby was my job. I needed to keep her quiet if she was fussing because he needed his sleep, or couldn’t hear the TV. 

As soon as I was medically cleared for sex he wanted to know why I wasn’t as up for it as I had been before. He started insisting that I was rejecting him & making him feel unloved when I was exhausted from working an 8-9 hour day, finishing my Master’s degree, trying to keep up with the household chores that he didn’t care to do but definitely got angry if they weren’t done. 

He wanted to show off his “happy family” by dragging us along to all his hunting group activities & claiming to be “so proud” of my Master’s degree in School Counseling, while at the same time refusing couples counseling because it was too expensive and a bunch of hooey. We should just have more sex & do more praying & religious studies and we’d be fine. But we weren’t fine. If I expressed a need for help, his response was anger. If I expressed that his anger was frightening to me & I felt it was an issue, he excused it based on his troubled childhood & again insisted that counseling wouldn’t help & said I was too sensitive.

I started thinking about leaving him when our daughter was about 5. I’d wish he would just have an accident and die, because that way I’d be free & our daughter wouldn’t have to live with the memories & trauma of an angry father. But I had internalized that his anger was my fault. I hadn’t been patient enough, loving enough, understanding enough. Even though I was doing so much, I needed to do MORE. 

If I just did MORE then he’d be what I needed. He’d be kinder. He’d be more motivated. He’d do things around the house without my asking him to. 

But the more I did, the less he did & the more bitter he got.

And now, I’m broken and alone with 2 kids & him still spewing his anger in my direction. It’s still my fault. I went crazy. I was too demanding. I was illogical, overemotional & overly sensitive. I’m not the victim, I’m the vindictive wife who was frigid & controlling & never satisfied with what he could give me. He’s the victim. 

I still wish he would die. 

I still go to church, despite feeling betrayed by it. 

I am angry, and I hope it’s justified. I hope it fades. 

I don’t want to be broken forever. I want to heal & be happy again. 

I don’t remember the last time I was happy without still being filled with fear and anxiety. 

I’d like to be just happy again someday. 

happy birthday to me?

It’s my birthday in 2 days. My second birthday since essentially becoming single. My kids will be with their dad this weekend. 

I’m okay with most of this. 

I’m not okay with turning 43, being a single mom with 2 kids & feeling like I wasted the last 20 years on someone who never actually knew who I was or loved ME, that I spent decades learning about him & what he liked & wanted, but all he cared about was that I made him look successful & like a good member of the church & let him get things he wanted bc I had more earning power than he did. I hate that I spent so much time working on being a good wife & working hard to try to encourage him to see how he could achieve more for himself & didn’t realize that he never wanted to. 

He wanted a wife, he wanted kids, but he didn’t actually want to do the work. He wanted a house, he wanted nice cars, he wanted hunting vacations, but he didn’t want to pull long hours at a job or work more than one in order to actually GET them. 

When he said he thought he’d never get married, so he didn’t see the point of saving money to buy a house/nicer car/create a savings for himself, I should have run. If he didn’t see the point of taking care of himself into the future, why would he change now that he had a wife? Why would he change when he had a family?

The moment that he talked about how he had dated “a doctor” who paid for everything for him, I should have run. The moment he mentioned that he had dated a lingerie model, I should have run. The moment I realized he had a car that couldn’t drive from where he lived to the airport 2 hours away, I should have run. The moment I had to help pay off my wedding ring, I should have run. The moment that I had to be the one to apply for the loan for the new car for “us”  I should have run. 

So many red flags were there, but I was so intent on being in love. I wanted to be married so badly. 

And now I’m not married. I have kids I love, and I’m sure he loves them in his own way, but rather than respecting them as individuals, I feel like he sees them as a possession, as a way to make himself look good to others. Which I think is what I was. He loved me because he thought I’d always be compliant. That I didn’t mind working 40 hours a week, paying all the bills, doing all the housework & doing HIS hobbies every weekend. And that was before kids. 

I want to hope there’s more for me in the future than being stuck with him for another 16 years, but right now all I can focus on is now. I have to do more for my kids. I have to be stable for them. I can’t check out & I can’t do less. I have to be able to show them that they’re loved & I can provide the stability they need in their life, since I know their dad won’t do that for them. 

lonely

I have been feeling achingly lonely recently. I love my kids, but I need face-to-face interaction with adults who know me. I want to be with family.

I want to be able to talk about real things with people who won’t tell me that I can’t feel the way I feel because THEY have feelings in the opposite direction, and that by expressing my feelings THEY feel badly that they’re not doing whatever it is they need/want to do--which has nothing to do with what I’m talking about in that moment. 

I want to be with people who have known me my whole life and understand all the shitty baggage I carry daily, and that I have a fragile heart.

I want to be able to talk about TV shows and movies I like and books I’ve read and have them care regardless of whether they’ve seen them or not. 

I want someone who will HELP me with my burdens. Someone who will see me doing the dishes and come to the kitchen to wipe down counters or mop the floor so the chores are done sooner.

I want someone to bake with, cook with and eat too much food with. I want someone who will hold my children with care and love and tenderness. 

I want to be able to go on walks in the evening. I want people who will play with my kids while I take a walk alone. 

I want to feel safe. I want to feel seen. 

I want to be able to be alone and not lonely.

in flux

made it through the holidays. they felt weird, but still good. just me and the kids. i wanted to travel to see my sister, but i'm stuck with the dogs. can't afford to board them, nobody who can help with them partly because they're not available & partly because 2 of the dogs I have don't listen to anyone but my soon to be ex. 

would've let him take the kids for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, but he didn't ask. so whatever. 

now it's child support. getting it formalized & enforceable. 

then, mediation. 

then, freedom. 

well, to a degree. i know that as long as he's interested in trying to have any kind of relationship with the kids that i'm stuck with him. 

if he does what he should do & gets therapy so he can get over his rage issues & have a reasonably positive relationship with the kids, then i'll be okay with it. i'd love to be able to just pick up & move & stonewall him out of our lives, but i know that'll never happen. 

i just want us to be able to be civil for the sake of the kids. i don't need a friendly relationship with him. i just need a non-adversarial one. 

i've had one person ask me about dating. the whole concept seems foreign & scary to me. i didn't really date as a teen/young adult because i wasn't brave or self-confident enough to ask guys out, and i wasn't the kind of gal who got asked out because i was straightlaced & i think guys knew they'd have to TALK to me rather than just make out or score. 

then i was so afraid of being alone that i probably rushed into getting married. i never even thought of cheating for 20 years. not even an overly-flirtatious friendship. 

i read somewhere that it takes half as long as a relationship lasts to "get over" someone.. but i think i started getting over him years ago. 

i want to start looking like i'm moving on so he doesn't get it in his mind that he'll be able to get me back. 

a letter to my mother-in-law

 mother-in-law, 

i found the note you so cleverly concealed amongst the coloring pages for the kids. it was so delightful to see you again took the time to find an article written by someone we both respect due to our shared faith and use it to try to make me feel shame and guilt for finally choosing to stand up for myself against your son. 

i agree that contention is "of the devil" and that i should try to be patient and charitable toward othes. yes, it's my choice to feel anger at things, but even Jesus showed some righteous anger in the scriptures. also, you're also assuming that i'm angry. i'm not angry. i went far past angry more than 5 years ago. i am done.

i know you don't want to admit to yourself that you raised someone who could make his wife want to leave him. i get it. i have a son too, and seeing him at the age of two i hate to think that at some point in 30-50 years that he would treat a romantic partner of his the way your son has treated me. 

i would hate to think that he would grow up to think that it was okay to stop trying to better himself just because his significant other happens to get a job that pays more than him. i would hate to think that he would disregard his significant other's feelings when it comes to sex. i would hate to think that if his significant other was sharing their feelings with him that he would turn it into an argument regarding how his significant other is criticizing his worth and abilities rather than listening and seeing where he should take action. i would hate to think that if his significant other asked to him to go to counseling, whether individual or couples, that he would claim it was too expensive while continuing to pursue personal hobbies that cost far more than the cost of a therapy session. 

i would hate to think that he would decide that educating himself beyond high school was unimportant, so much so that he convinces himself that he knows more than those who actually take the time to study specific topics and specialties because he looked up something he agreed with on the internet. i would hate to think that he would tell people he was proud of his academically-minded significant other, while at the same time deriding their professional choices to them in private and insisting that their profession was the reason society was in decline. 

i would hate to think that he would shame his significant other for not doing "their share" of the housework and he chooses to not do dishes, not clean floors, not clean bathrooms, and only do his own laundry when he's out of socks and underwear. i would hate to think that he would shame his children for being children, not listen to his significant other regarding parenting suggestings, and feel that the only way to raise his children is through intimidation and fear. 

yes, your son can be a delightful person, at times. he can be kind, when he wants to be. he can be inquisitive, regarding topics he is specifically interested in. but more often than not over the last 10-15 years he has been selfish, thougthless and outright hateful and intolerant. 

i have been submissive, flexible, prayerful, and longsuffering in hopes that my example would help him change. i have done it long enough, because all he has done is take advantage of my patience. 

at this point, i'll focus on myself and our children. i'll teach them the gospel of peace, love, charity and forgiveness in hopes that our daughter will have the ability to stand up for herself sooner than i did, and that our son will not treat others the way your son has. and i'm happy to find the scriptures and religious articles to back up my point of view to send to you later. 

best, 

your grandchildren's mother.

An essay from the past

I wrote this many years ago as an assignment for a nonfiction writing class I took probably 8 years ago now. 

It's long, but it makes me feel like I should find time to write again. Not just journal, but actually write.

Nocturnal

    You get different answers when you think about something at three in the morning andthen again at three in the afternoon. I vaguely remember this as a punchline to a Peanuts comic strip with Snoopy laying on top of his doghouse. I would like to always be asleep at three in the morning, and not thinking about things. It would make the days easier. Especially days when I have to be at work, which is most days. So each night I put myself to bed at the most reasonable hour possible, which ends up being sometime between 9:00 and 11:30, not exactly a standard bedtime. In order to combat insomnia, the authorities say you should go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning. That is part of what they call “good sleep hygiene”. I attempt to practice good sleep hygiene: no television in the room, blinds drawn, dark as possible (I even own two sleep masks), avoid reading in bed, avoid using electronics in bed. According to the rules of good sleep hygiene, the bed is for two things: sleeping and sex. If I don’t fall asleep within 30 minutes, I’m supposed to get out of bed and dosomething else, somewhere else until I start to feel sleepy again. The activities shouldn’t be stimulating: no walks, no chores, no TV (the artificial light apparently messes with serotonin levels in the brain and inhibits production of melatonin which aids with sleep, or some such thing). Apparently it’s okay to read. Or sit on the couch. In the dark.

    I don’t wear earplugs. I fear not being able to be awakened at night if someone comes into my house (which I shouldn’t, because the dogs barking would be loud enough to wake me up, even with earplugs), and as a mother I want to be able to hear if my daughter wakes up in the night and needs me. No matter than my husband snores like a bear, and talks in his sleep. I also know he sleeps like a rock and wouldn’t be easily wakened by cries from a sad/scared/sick child in another room. So no earplugs. But I probably should wear earplugs, since he is often asleep far sooner than I am, and his snoring inhibits my ability to fall asleep because my brain fixates on the noise. I would like to smother him with a pillow. I jostle the bed in hopes that he will roll over and stop snoring long enough for me to fall asleep. With the amount of jostling I do in a night, I’m sure it would look to a stranger as if I was having seizures in my bed.

    The fear of being too deeply asleep is the same reason I don’t use over-the-counter or prescription sleep aids. Well, part of the reason, anyway. They tend to help me get to sleep, but not stay asleep. If I wake in the middle of the night, I can’t take more. And then there are the side effects like nightmares, sleepwalking, I don’t like the groggy feeling that comes with sleep aids in the morning, and sometimes well into the rest of the day. And then there are the sleep aids which have the side effect of alertness.

    So, I try to sleep the “natural” way, something that should come easily since everyone has to sleep. I should be able to lay down because I am tired, close my eyes and drift off into relaxing, rejuvenating sleep. 

    But I can’t sleep. Because my brain won’t stop. It runs a well-known list of to-dos and anxieties every night:

Laundry to be folded. Did the laundry in the washer get put in the dryer so it won’t mildew overnight? Did the dryer get turned on? Should I get out of bed to check the dryer? I’m pretty sure the laundry is okay I’ll stay in bed. The dishes didn’t get done, again. Did the leftovers from dinner get put away in the fridge, or are they sitting out on the stove, counter or table? I should get up and check to see if the food has been put away. No, I did put it away. I can stay in bed. Floors need swept, mopped or vacuumed. Dusting needs to be done. Is it trash day tomorrow? Bathroom needs cleaned. What if one of the dogs gets sick in the night? Or eliminates in the house? I’ll have to get up and clean it up which will wake him up. Did the car insurance get paid on time? I panic because I remember the one time I didn’t pay it on time and the policy got cancelled for 12 hours before I could call in and pay and reinstate it. Did I account for the auto-withdrawals coming out of the bank this week? Am I going to get an email notification that my bank account has gone into the red because I forgot about a check that I wrote for a bill, or have too many auto-withdrawals set up out of this paycheck? What if my husband gets shorted on hours this week so his check is less than we need it to be to make the bills? What if he gets into a car accident on the way to work in the morning? He’s a very aggressive driver, it could happen. What if the accident is his fault and we get sued and lose everything? What if I get into a car accident on the way to work tomorrow? What if I get hurt but my daughter is okay? What if my daughter gets hurt? We can’t afford a car accident because we can’t afford to replace a car.

    Since I can’t sleep, I cheat: I stay in bed and scan Facebook or play games with my phone shaded under my comforter. I try to covertly read a book hiding under my covers like I did when I was a teenager sharing a room with a sister, so as not to wake my roommate with my flashlight. This does not work so well because my breath makes it hot and claustrophobic under the blankets and I start feeling like I’m suffocating on my own exhale that is trapped beneath the blankets. I try to divert my brain and bore it into silence so that I can fall asleep. When I was younger, reading would excite my brain and keep it awake. I could read a five hundred-plus page novel in one sitting, starting at about lunchtime on a Saturday or Sunday and finishing up late at night. Now, I often find myself nodding off when I read, even when I’m not near a bed.

    There are times when I do get up from the bed because I have given up on sleep. I will creep out of my bedroom, leaving my husband sleeping like the dead and tiptoe into our daughter’s room and into the soft blue glow of her night-light that projects a halo of light with a drawing of the solar system onto the ceiling. I check that she has not kicked her blankets off and brush strands of hair from her face. In the dark the room has a quiet sense of mystery in the shadows of her bookshelf and baskets of toys. I make sure to close her closet doors if they are ajar, remembering the fears of my own childhood.

    Once when I was small, I looked into my slightly-open closet and saw what I swore was the severed head of a bearded man; when the light was turned on it turned out to be a transparent tote full of crafting supplies that belonged to my mother. My normally familiar and inviting room would become something alien in the darkness of the night, especially when there was no moon. The closet door had to be closed against the invasion of dark, creeping things that would accost me in the night, grabbing for my feet, tangling my hair and turning my dreams into nightmares. I used to stare at the ceiling at night with various siblings as we tried to obey our mother’s admonition to go to sleep, but were agitated and giggly as children are at bedtime. We would make up stories and sing songs and look for pictures the texturized ceiling created from the interplay of light and shadows coming from the moon or from the streetlamp across the street. It was the opposite of the cloud watching we would do laying on our backs on our back lawn in the afternoons.

    Some nights pain would shoot through my legs. Cramps and aches that would make sleep impossible. I would lie in my bed, kicking and stretching my legs trying to find relief and whimpering for my mother. I don’t think I was loud. In my memory I was never very loud, but my mother always came. Her dark silhouette would enter the room making soothing noises and she would massage the pain from my legs. Very likely she was not getting restful sleep herself, as I was one of many children in the house, including an infant after me every two years until I was ten. Those baby siblings would sleep in a rocking cradle in my parents’ room so that they could be soothed by my mother without her having to leave her room. She would only leave her room for the needs of the older children as they called to her from throughout the house. I’m sure she was bleary-eyed and unsteady on her feet as she navigated the hallways to our rooms as we called out due to nightmares, or pain in our limbs. I don’t remember what she looked like, only her beneficent shadow entering my room with soothing words of love. Growing pains, she called the pains that plagued me and would rub and smooth my rebellious legs and sing softly to lull me back into a peaceful sleep:

Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh.

Shadows of the evening, steal across the sky.

Jesus gives the weary calm and sweet repose

With Thy tend’rest blessings, may your eyelids close.

    I often sing this song to my own daughter at bedtime when she is restless. I will stroke her hair and rub her back until she falls asleep. I will remember my own mother stroking my hair and rubbing my back until I dozed off, and wish that she could sing me to sleep now. After checking on my daughter I will often walk through the house in the dark. I stand in the middle of the kitchen, looking out the window across the backyard and how foreign it looks in the dark. The chain-link dog kennel is the Bastille; the garden plot a desolate wasteland. I move from the kitchen into the living room, hoping the neighbors across the street don’t have the floodlight next to their garage turned on since it interrupts what is otherwise the peaceful darkness of my midnight wanderings. I look at the dead maple tree in the front lawn and the quiet expanse of my street. I sit on the couch and cover up with the crocheted throw blanket hoping to be able to sleep. If I can just sleep, it’ll all look different in the morning.

lost decades

 last night as i was getting ready for bed, a thought came to my mind:

all i ever wanted was to be a mom. a stay-at-home mom. 

he knew, and he NEVER tried to give that to me.

before we got married, we talked about my getting a job to pay off my credit card & save up some money until we got pregnant, and my going back to college to finish my degree since i didn't want to abandon that goal entirely. 

by year 2 of our marriage i was working 2 jobs. i had applied to college again since i got a tuition break where i worked my main job. then his hunting buddy's dog had a litter of puppies. he said if we didn't live in a no-pets apartment that he'd've wanted one the hunting buddy made a comment to the effect of "i'll just keep this one for you till you get a house"

so the househunting began. it was the early 2000's when getting a no-down payment home loan was easy. we really couldn't afford it. especially since i'd have to give up my 2nd job in order for me to go back to school.  

i wasn't comfortable with the idea of buying a house. we had no savings, no down payment & the mortgage would be more than our rent which we could barely afford as it was. but he insisted. he bought into the realtor & mortgage banker's insistence that we'd "grow into" the payment. 

he was offered a promotion at work within a year or two of us moving into the house that he declined. he didn't want to possibly give up an occasional weekend day, or adjust his work shift. he made an assumption that he wouldn't get to use his time off to go hunting when he wanted.  basically: he didn't want to take on more responsibility. he claimed that the increase in pay "wasn't worth it" because he'd supposedly end up working more than 40 hours a week without "enough" overtime. as much as he constantly bitched about his job, he didn't actually dislike it enough to change his situation. 

one of his friends started a construction company a few years before we had our daughter & offered him a project supervisor position at a starting hourly wage more than he was getting & with the possibility of increase as the company took off. even tho i could carry insurance through my job, he declined b/c "what about his 401K" & "what about my employee discount" at the old job. nevermind he could have still socked away money in a IRA to add to the existing 401K, and we wouldn't have needed the stupid discount because he'd've been making more. his friend's company took off in leaps & bounds and was doing huge construction projects within 5 years. 

all other jobs he "applied" for were actually done by me. i found the jobs, i told him about them, i explained to him why they were worth applying for, i filled out the applications. he went to exactly 2 interviews. the rest he blew off instead of calling in sick on interview day like most people in service-industry jobs do. 

he started collecting hunting dogs. i say this because we had dog #1 that got us the house, then we *had* to get another dog to be it's pal & because it was from "good bloodlines" and he saw dollar signs thinking we could breed puppies. that, of course, is not how it works with the most popular breed in the country when they're not show dogs. so then he found a different breed that was "even better" and we spent thousands of dollars to buy and train one. 

then i was done with my bachelor's. then i got a promotion. then my grandma died & we got an inheritance which i took as a sign that it was time to try to get pregnant. i finished my master's while pregnant & with a newborn. and another puppy. because an "opportunity" opened itself for him to get another dog & he again saw the possibility of making money of puppies. 

he was offered another promotion that he again refused, because it might involve us moving and he didn't want to have to navigate the process of selling the house & possibly temporarily moving into an apartment or leased home that would require even temporary rehoming of the dogs. 

all this time i'm working, and being a mom, and he's also expecting me to act as stay-at-home wife because he rarely does any of those tasks unless it's absolutely unavoidable. he was happy to have me as primary-income-childcaregiver-wife-housekeeper-mom proxy. he was okay with my being always uncomfortable and often unhappy but was fine with never changing his behaviors. 

i asked and asked for his help. for him to do more around the house, for us to go to couples counseling, for him to work on his anger. each time he would turn it around as me giving him a "guilt trip" for not being the manly provider, that we didn't have the money for that, that he should be allowed his "feelings" too. he claimed he "wanted" to be the primary earner so i didn't have to work so much, but he never actually tried to do that. 

he turned an optimist into a pessimist. i never had anxiety about the future until about 5 years into our marriage, and then i was constantly concerned about possible catastrophes. 

so here i am, regrouping. reorganizing. it can't get much worse from here, so i'll claw my way back to the top. i'll make a better life for me and my kids, and he can go do whatever he wants.