My husband and I have been married for almost 4 years now. I was raised in the Sountern Baptist church by godly parents and until I experienced marriage, I would have said the only legitimate reasons for divorce would be abuse and unrepentant infidelity. He was raised Catholic but has not regularly attended church since the 6th grade. I am a regular attender at a local Presbyterian church, but I fear that if I go into details with my sunday school class, it would make our relationship more difficult if we are able to stay together. Describing some of his behavior to my friends (who do not know him) almost invariably results in the comment that he is emotionally and verbally abusing me and an expression of concern that he will escalate to physical violence.
Our relationship could best be summarized in this way: He feels that all of our marital problems are caused by my failure to keep the house clean. We DO fight a lot more when I am so busy that I can't keep it up. I feel that no matter what happens in our home, he shouldn't be making the hurtful statements he makes, and that as part of the respect he should have for me as his wife, he should be able to look at everything I do as a big picture. He feels that if the statement is true at the time he makes it (such as I hate you, I want you to leave and never come back, You are the laziest person I know etc) then he is completely justified in saying it. This is how he was raised. I have watched my mother in law tell my 10 year old nephew that its ok if he hits his sister because she was teasing him and he was mad.
Recently, our marriage has been undergoing some severe stressors, and while I wouldn't normally be trying to make this type of huge decision under this kind of stress, I just despair of it ever getting better. Over the summer, our relationship was fairly stable. I believe in large part due to the fact that I began taking a mild antidepressant. Since September, we have been audited by the IRS and been renovating our basement. I am 39 weeks pregnant with our second child and broke my ankle last week. I cannot bear any weight on it and am on crutches in a split level house. My mom has flown in to help me until shortly after the baby is born and he has pretty much ignored her existance to the point of extreme rudeness. Before my mom got here, he spent most of the evening yelling at me about how God was punishing me for my laziness by causing me to break my ankle, about how lazy I am, and about how we live in the biggest pigsty in the nation (it wasn't pristinely clean, but it was about an hour or 2 worth of straightening). Last night, he started fighting with me about my sleeping in the recliner in our living room because he wanted to work on the computer in there and didn't want to listen to me complain (about pain, about the noise he makes, about turning the TV on the middle of the night etc).We have not slept in the same room in almost a year because he says I am incompatible to sleep with.
Even my parents, who raised me not to believe in divorce, have said repeatedly that they will come and get me anytime and fully support any decision I make.
If I didn't have children with him, I honestly think I would already by gone. We live in Colorado and my parents live in Georgia. I cannot afford the cost of living in Colorado and won't be able to support myself for at least a year (I am in graduate school) so I need my parents nearby to help (I would probably live with them).
I am really struggling with what God would have me do. I can stay with him. I need antidepressants to do it, but I will be ok. I am getting used to the emotional ups and downs. I am very concerned about my daughters, both my 2 year old and the one that will be born in the next few days. It makes me SO sad to say that I do not want them to marry a man in anyway shape or form similar to their father. Maybe, if I leave he will be a better father to them because they won't see how he treats women. He tells me he loves me, but often says if I don't like it I should leave. He is completely unwilling to go to counseling with me because he thinks this is entirely my problem and my fault.
