" I have been married for 22 years . The resentment toward my husband is so acute that sometimes I ca n’t stand to look at him . "
We recentlyaskedwomen of theBuzzFeed Communitywho are currently married but regret it to tell us how they’re navigating their relationship, and their answers were heartbreaking, honest, and thought-provoking. Here’s what they had to say:
1.“I pretty much operate as a single mother. I tried to rely on him to help me do things around the house or keep a job for years, but I got tired of being let down. So now, I don’t get my hopes up and do most things myself.”
" Divorce is expensive , and put up an autistic child is challenging . We do n’t make love each other anymore , but we still get laid the hell outta that little human beings . "
— ashleylangley85
2.“I’m not navigating; I’m ready to leave! I have no money, no access to transportation, and cannot do anything. Even without my husband. All because my mom died, and I drank again for a few months, after 15 years of sobriety. He never offered to help with my emotional pain; he just thought keeping me under lock and key for a year was the solution.
" All the money in the world in his account , yet I have $ 20.I should ’ve never stay as long as I did . But kids , health , and so on kept me under his control . "
— coolcake261
3.“Just before the wedding, I found out I was pregnant. I was happy. Our daughter was born eight months later. Immediately after she was born, my husband changed into his father, whose behavior he despised. No amount of talking or therapy helped — I was stuck. It has gotten worse since then. We will eventually divorce.”
— luckyowl258
4.“We started dating a year after my fiancé passed away in a car accident. He was the love of my life, and I was absolutely devastated. I realize now that I was so deeply traumatized; I got into a relationship out of fear of being alone. I’ve been with my now husband for 15 years — we’ve been married for 10. I didn’t have the emotional strength to leave in the beginning. Over time, my body began to deteriorate as the stress of grief and a terrible marriage weighed on me. My husband is also emotionally abusive. I’ve done a lot of intense healing. Now that I’m emotionally strong enough to leave, I physically and financially can’t.”
" I am now incapacitate by a neurologic disorder and had to leave my six - figure career . I spent a sight of sentence tempestuous and resentful . Today , I focus on happen privileged peace , speculate , and praying that somehow the universe will show me a way out . I write my first book last year and hope to make a new career as an writer to get back on my feet . Every day , I focus on being fine in a position that sincerely sucks . "
— Anonymous , 41 , Ohio
5.“I have been married for 32 years. We did not have children. My husband announced to me about 15 years ago that he would no longer have sex with me. I moved into a guest bedroom in our home. My life is quite lonely. I have no friends to talk to or do things with on weekends in my city. My best friend lives 50 miles from me, and we see each other only two to three times a year. My siblings live 70 miles from me and never come to visit. I’m the one who has to drive to visit them. My husband retired five years ago; he is 12 years older than me. He spends his day walking his dog in the morning and goes out every afternoon to drink beer with his buddies, sometimes staying out for eight hours. I work three days a week at an office 75 miles from home.”
" I ca n’t afford to move into a place of my own unless it ’s a humble one - bedroom flat . The rental food market in my field is very limited . I ’m looking for a part - time job to help pay for health insurance , which is over $ 1,000 a calendar month on the cheesy plan I could receive . I do n’t qualify for any kind of assistance programme through the state of California . I’ve address to a divorce attorney but feel trapped by the fact that I do n’t make enough money to afford a move . So , I just stay in limbo , living in the same house with him but hating every min of it . … I just hate the sight of him . I regularly attend church and am in a volunteer group affiliated with my church . I also wait on a Bible subject area grouping once a week and lento make newfangled association to unexampled friendly relationship , so I do n’t find quite as lonesome as I once did . I will one day be able to break free of this toxicity , but I need to save up every centime and ounce of strength I have to keep sour to make it to retreat and a new life . "
— Anonymous , 61 , California
6.“I have been married for 22 years and have one child who is 18. I did not know when I got married that my husband was a gambling addict. We ended up losing our home, filing for bankruptcy, and also losing a rental property we had purchased. The resentment is so intense that sometimes I can’t bear to look at him. We ended up leaving our dream house with nothing — we even lost all of our possessions.”
" I ca n’t leave alone because I have nowhere to go and can not survive on one remuneration . My husband steal from his employer to support his habit and now work a minimum wage job . The sense of loss is overpowering . He has been to rehab , but the sense of trustfulness will never be there again . "
— Anonymous , 51 , Canada
7.“I’m quiet quitting. I also tell every unmarried woman that I can to only bother with a relationship with a man if he actively improves your life. The key is evaluating if HE takes actual ACTION to improve your life, and it’s not just your life on average being easier or more convenient in some ways due to being in a relationship. There are worse things than being alone.”
— Anonymous , 35 , USA
8.“I don’t think I actually regret marrying him, but I regret thinking it was the only option. I also regret not caring enough about his parenting style, or having hard conversations about political beliefs and how they will affect how we raise our children.”
" Because we did n’t speak about these things , now with two kidskin , it ’s like meeting another soul sometimeswhen we ’re thrown into parenting dilemmas that negate our personal beliefs . "
— Anonymous , Texas
9.“I have been married for over 36 years. I’m a very highly educated first-generation college student. Growing up in a very dysfunctional family in the ’80s, feeling unloved, I married far too young and had children right away. While I recall periods of happiness, I haven’t felt that way in ages. Part of the issue is that I have been living with depression that began over 20 years ago as postpartum depression. In those years, I once again felt disregarded and uncared for. Now my husband is dealing with depression and other health issues.”
" I ’m send to give him what he never contribute me ( care ) as he break through this . I’m stick in a life history that , despite my education , does n’t provide a living wage , so divorce does n’t seem feasible . render my married man ’s health issue , I do n’t opine he ’ll be alive in 10 yr , so I ’ve decide to just await it out . "
— Anonymous , 55 , Illinois
10.“My husband and I are about to hit two years married after six and a half years together. Most days, I regret getting married, but not enough to seek a divorce. My husband and I met when I was 18, and he was 20, and we were in college. I had only dated a handful of people before him, and he’d never properly dated anyone. Hell, we lost our virginities to each other! I didn’t feel much attraction to him, but I wasn’t repulsed by him when we first started dating. I really liked his roommate, but he only saw me as a friend. I have always been plus-size; I’m a size 22, so I figured it’s better to stick with the guy who genuinely likes me as I am than looking for a needle in the haystack. Very few men will give a heavier girl a chance. I kept telling myself he’d grown on me and give me butterflies, but he never did.”
" We moved in together after three years and made a great team ! We had a very respectful and sport family relationship , and truly work well together — I never get a Dame Muriel Spark . I felt like I owe him after how well he treated me when other guy rope would n’t give me a chance . I did n’t want to unwrap his heart . We got engaged during my senior twelvemonth of college and were get married the next summer after grad school . I still wish I had ended up with his roommate , who does give me butterfly , but he never give way me a chance . So , I settled for the guy who did want me . Maybe in 10 years , I ’ll be grateful I married someone who does treat me well and eff me as I am . For now , I still daydream about find oneself someone I do palpate attraction to , but I ’m good staying married for the clock time being . "
— Anonymous , 25 , Florida
11.“We have been together since we were young teenagers. We were married and had two children before we were 20. We were rebels and decided we could make our own way with very little support from extended family. The decades were full of passion, both positive and negative. Now, we have zero passion and sleep in separate rooms. I wish I could leave, but we have this long-ingrained co-dependency that I fear if I left, he would just rot, and I wouldn’t care.”
" And I fear to learn that about myself . So , I just move through the days wait for one of us to give in to the inevitable . I gain too of late that we only have one life , and you should always be the main character reference , not the supporting role . "
— Anonymous , 45 , Tennessee
12.“It’s not going amazingly. We do have a child together, which I think makes it harder. And I love our child more than anything in the world, so I have no regrets about them, but I regret marrying my husband. I feel like I’m slowly falling out of love and mentally preparing myself for the day I finally leave. I foolishly overlooked many unresolved issues and red flags due to being young, which I now realize I don’t want to deal with forever.”
— Anonymous , 28 , Texas
13.“I’ve been with my husband for almost 20 years, and we have one child. He’s a good man, but I find myself wishing I didn’t marry him. When we were dating, he always had a job, but as soon as we got married, he let me take the lead on EVERYTHING. We both got our college degrees in our mid-20s, but I worked full time while taking night classes, and he became a full-time student. After working a job for two years, he quit (without discussion) and decided to start his own business. I had to find a way to pay all the bills, sometimes working two jobs while taking care of the kid and home, managing my mental health from all the stress AND having to keep his spirits up and reassure him that ‘no he doesn’t suck as a man,’ even though he didn’t pay a single bill or even help around the house.”
" He at long last got a part - prison term job , but still , everything is left up to me to decide or do . When he started his own business enterprise , he tell me to stop filing taxis because he would do them . It ’s been almost a decennium , and nothing has been file . I repent tie him as HE is my biggest expense . He spends so much money on gage — even when we ’re down to our last $ 20 , he ’ll use $ 10 to corrupt locoweed . He complains that he has no friends or wants to make more money , but he refuses to get therapy . He makes piffling to NO plans ; if I do n’t feel something for us to do , nothing gets done . He ’s an awesome person and a with child dad , butin my heart , I screw he ’s hang back my timbre of life story so far down . I ’m terrified of what the future tense will hold , and I have scare onset eff that when we get old , everything will continue to return on my shoulders . I secretly go for he passes away first , just so I get a prospect to fly on my own , but only if I ’m physically healthy enough to love it . I would miss and grieve him terribly because he ’s my best Quaker , but he ’s not a mate . I voyage by just not utter about it because therapy with / without him or discuss it just ca-ca him feel like a loser , and nothing change . He is n’t frightful enough for me to experience justified in divulge up our nursing home life , and I would worry about how he ’d survive without me . I ’d probably have to pay him alimony ! "
— Anonymous , 41
14.“The red flags were there from the beginning, but I was so desperate to get out of one horrible, abusive situation that I ran right into another one. We married after five years, and everyone knew it was a mistake. Over a decade later, I’m finally planning to leave, but it’s hard when your lives are intertwined, and he has so much control over my movements and finances. Thank god for the supportive friends who never left my side and have never said, ‘I told you so,’ or anything like that.”
" I never wanted to get married at all , and I ’m in the end finding myself and taking up space again , and I can not begin to say how good that feels . I can only imagine the exuberance when the divorce report are in reality sign , and I ’m free . "
— Anonymous
15.“I’ve been married for 25 years. Husband does not match my intelligence and problem-solving skills. I feel like his mother, making sure all runs smoothly in the household. I yearn to have an intelligent conversation with someone. He’s good at repairing things, so I try to focus on that positive. But my choice of partners is a disappointment overall. My advice: Don’t marry down.”
And finally…
16.“I feel either a background feeling of emptiness and depression or rising panic when I think about the exhausting logistics of leaving. I don’t regret my child, but there is zero love left, and I’d give anything to be able to click my fingers and be on the other side of the breakup.”
— Anonymous , 38 , UK
Note : Some response have been blue-pencil for length and/or clarity .
