Lainie

Thank you so much for your suggestions. I am truly alone on this. I wish I had someone to help me. Thank God for eNotAlone! And for all you wonderful people!

I have been married four years. I have a three year old and a one year old. I've been a stay-at-home mom for four years. My husband works almost twelve hours a day, six days a week. I enjoy staying home with my kids. They are at times difficult, being young and full of energy. In addition to my caring for the children, I cook, clean, do laundry, do the household budget, do the grocery shopping (with the kids), and .just recently the yard work. My husband is always gone since he works all of the time. Whenever he is home all he does is watch tv, play video games, leave a mess wherever he's been. He cannot even watch the children when I want to take a break, he has no patience to go chasing after the one year old nor the patience to try to understand what my three year old is saying. He never takes me out. Always has an excuse like he's either too tired or we have no money or he'd say he isn't sure how long he'd be at work. But if one of his siblings or a friend wants to go out, he willingly goes. We cannot have a conversation without us getting into a fight. I feel he doesn't even listen to me when I talk to him. When I "let loose" from exhaustion, I cry. I cry from frustration and fatigue. Instead of comforting me, he becomes angry because "all I do is cry". Whenever I ask him to to do something, such as, mow the lawn. He says he will. Two weeks later, it's not done. I badger him to do it, then I'm a nag. I'm a nag whenever I ask for his help. He is so inconsiderate. I would be struggling with bags of groceries and instead of helping me, he'd pass me by. Then to top if off, I have "major" issues with his mother. She's a mean, cruel woman. She insults me right and left and in front of him. Not because I did or said anything bad to her. She's just that type of person, meaning, when she's miserable, she wants everyone to be miserable. He never defends me. When I bring it up to him, he responds by saying, "Oh she said that?" or "You're making things up" or "What do you want me to do? Kill her?" As if to say. "Oh well. Live with it." I get so frustrated. I try to talk to him. I tell him things like, "I want to do something fun" or "Why is is it I have to do everything by myself?" "Why can't you defend me whenver your mother insults me?" He responds by saying that I am "Self important" and "Selfish" and that all I care about is "me, me, me". Once I was just so tired of all the housework, chasing after the kids, getting insulted by his mother, and lack of sleep that I cried and cried and couldn't stop. He looked at me as if he were disgusted and told me that I was crazy and that I should get help. That made me so angry that I hit him and I said, "I hate you." And he responded by saying, "Go ahead, keep hitting me. I'll call the police on you and show them my bruises. Then I'll take the kids away from you because you're crazy and violent." That was the last time I hit him. Since then, I've swallowed all my anger and frustrations. Then today was just it. I got so tired of waiting for him to mow the lawn. Our lawn resembled a jungle. I got up at 6:00 in the morning since the kids were asleep, I tried to mow the lawn. But the lawn mower broke, so I got on my hands and knees and used a kitchen knife to cut the weeds and grass. I was so tired and exhausted. He comes out to go to work looks at me like I'm a piece of crap and said, "What did you use to cut the grass?" "Kitchen knife" I responded, "You need to do the rest." He said, "I'm not going to use a kitchen knife." Then he turned up his nose and told me to move the garbage can because he couldn't back out of the driveway. I could barely move and he wanted ME to do it. So I did it, then he said, "Oh, by the way, the kids are awake and they're hungry." With those words he left...I went inside and cried. I cried right along with my hungry one year old. I want to divorce him, but I'm terrified that he'll take my children away from me. Am I over acting? Please help..

I've been married for four years and have two young children. I am fortunate enough to stay at home full time with my children. My husband's profession has him working almost twelve hour days (this includes his commute) and he works six days a week. Although I enjoy being home with my kids, I never really fully adjusted to it. I gave up my career as soon as I had my first born. I've never felt complete since. My husband and I have our ups and downs. He's rarely home and if he is, he is either tired or has things to do. He always makes time for our kids and he tries to make to time for me, but there's just too much going on. We haven't gone out in months. Either because he's working or we go out as a family. Money is tight, one of the reasons why we don't go out (just the two of us). When we are alone together, it's always discussions about friends, family or money problems. We just end up arguing...I have voiced to him about wanting to go back to work, but we both decided that with the cost of childcare, my whole paycheck might just go to that. I have even told him how lonely I've felt for the longest time, he would tell me I'm just too needy. I don't have any close friends to talk to and I don't really go out with friends because there's never really any money to spare....I have just felt soo alone. I thought that having two small children would take up all my time, it does and so does running the house, but there are times when I just feel an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. Now, the problem. Just recently, I got in touch with an old friend from grammar school. We were good friends then, he and I, and I even had a crush on him. It has been fifteen years, but when we spoke to each other (once over the phone), it was like no time had passed at all. He was still the same, but no longer that little boy. He knows I'm married with children and he's in a commited relationship. During the course of the conversation. I was just brought back to the past and I found myself falling for him again. He admitted to me that he used to have a crush on me and I told him that I had a crush on him back then also. It was a friendly conversation, catching up on each other's lives. He mentioned during the conversation that he had looked for me for a long time and I asked him why, but he'd never really answer my question. So now we communicate through email almost everyday and he has a sense of humor and makes me laugh. Just receiving an email from him would brighten up my day. I would send him an email, a few minutes later he would respond...then back and forth (when we can). I haven't seen him, but I think I'm falling for him. I don't know why. I'm thinking maybe it's an escape from loneliness or am I just reliving those carefree days as a child with an old childhood crush? Now, I can't seem to get him out of my head. No matter what I do, all I think about is him. Sometimes, I don't even care if my husband comes home late or not. I don't know what to do. If I could it all over, I wish I had never met up with this guy again. I don't know how he feels about me, he's always been good about hiding his true feelings. I didn't even know then he had a crush on me. So I feel guilty being married and thinking about another guy. What should I do?