Andrea had been married for about ten years when she really got a sense that her relationship with her husband was shifting. It was hard to point to anything concrete but there were signs that with hindsight she should have been looking for divorce advice. Here’s Andrea:
I knew he was probably keeping money from me because the amount of money that we had left every month was noticeably less. This was a few thousand dollars, and he got to the point where when it was time to write the check for the kids’ tuition, he would ask me how much it was, and then he would go to the bank, deposit it and then he would write the check and give it to me. I didn’t even have the checking account.
I got to the point where when I went to Target, I would use my ATM card so I could take $20 just to have some cash. Then we got to where he would go out of town on business and there would be no cash in the account. I had to go to my girls’ piggy banks to get money out to get gas to take them to school. Every time I would ask him he’d say,
“I’m going to put money in the account, I’ve just been really busy. I’m going to put money in the account, I’ve just been really busy.”
I remember saying to my dad and to my best friend,
“Something has happened with him. It’s like he’s had a stroke or something.”
He would do these weird things, like he took the car key for his car off my key ring, and I knew he had done it because who else would have done it? Then I found it by the end of the driveway, out by the mailbox, so I set it inside and said,
“Why did you take your key off of my key ring?”
He said, “I meant to tell you I did that. I told you I did that.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Yeah, but you were asleep when I told you.”
What do you say when someone says that? How do you argue with that kind of logic? There isn’t anything for you to say except “what?” And your eyes bulge out of your head like the ladies on the TV commercials, but we had a lot of those incidents. It was just thing after thing after thing.
I wanted to go on a vacation and we had never taken a family vacation unless it was to go visit family, and we never got on the plane to go. For a long time you could say “that’s because of our daughter with Autism” because you can’t take this kind of a child to a hotel, you can’t take this kind of child to a restaurant. That doesn’t work. But she had been gone for a couple years and I wanted to take a vacation. He was going on a business trip and the kids and I decided we would go with him.
Well, something came up, he said, with the travel plans, so we didn’t even travel on the plane together. He took one flight and the three of us took another flight and he had a layover in Las Vegas. In retrospect I’m sitting here going “duh” but anyway…then he started having other things where he would be gone for extended periods of time with no explanation. A couple of times he didn’t even come home overnight, and our relationship had deteriorated to the point where I was kind of glad because I just didn’t want to deal with him.
I had gone through a period where I tried really, really hard…I was making his favorite dinners, I would call and ask him what he wanted to eat and then I would make them and he would call and say he was running late, or he just wouldn’t show up. So the roast is dried out, the bread is burnt to a crisp, it was like “why am I bothering?” I just said forget it and I started making dinner for the girls and I. Then when he got home he would be angry and say “why did you eat without me?” Then he made an effort to be there but you could tell that every single dinner he was so angry.
One of us would end up in tears every single time. He didn’t like what I made, he would pick over whatever food it was and how terrible it was and how I didn’t know how to cook and I was an awful cook. I’m no gourmet, but I cook as well as any mom. It’s not like he was sitting down to macaroni and cheese or peanut butter and jelly. I made normal dinners, and I tried different things and I tried to make things that he liked, but all of a sudden I couldn’t do anything right.
Then he would go over what the kids were doing at school and if somebody didn’t do well on a test or a project, it was as if their whole life was reflected in that one grade and they were stupid. I was fat and they were stupid and we were all idiots and somebody would always be in tears. I got to where I would feed the kids so that they could have a peaceful meal and then I would sit down later with him if he came home. Then it got to the point where he would refuse to eat what I ate. He’d come home and then leave and go out and get something else. It was just one thing after another.
Then, my friend says to me on the phone one day,
“I have to tell you something. I think he’s having an affair.”
I was like ‘you’ve got to be kidding me. This is the most unpleasant man on the planet.’
The Divorce Coach Says
The money is here is a huge red flag. I know it’s really easy to discount this behavior and to want to believe what your spouse is telling you, but so many women I talk with, like Jen for example, say with hindsight they wished they’d done more to protect themselves financially. That means getting your own bank account, getting your credit card, pulling a credit report, making sure you know the details of all your marital accounts, changing passwords to accounts in your name. Even if it turns out you can work through your marital issues, doing this means you’re taking steps to be a more responsible, actively involved partner.
The behavior Andrea describes is certainly bizarre and she’s right about not knowing how to react to it. Because it’s not what we’d expect, most of us aren’t equipped with the knowledge or skills to react. We’re left puzzling about whether something really did happen the way we thought it happened or if we’re imagining or missing something. Jen’s husband was a pathological liar – when she I talked she said he told her so many lies she’ll probably never know the whole truth. Judy is another guest whose husband’s behavior changed so dramatically she thought he was going through male menopause.
This is where it helps to have a trusted friend, someone you can confide in who you know won’t be gossiping about you all around town, someone like Andrea’s friend who’ll ask you the questions you’re afraid to ask yourself.
Photo Credit: Brave Heart