I just don't know what to do anymore. I think I am losing my mind. I have been married for 23 years and I can say that 20 of those years - I have been miserable. My husband is a very controlling, very jealous, and very insecure man. I will be turning 50 this year, and feel that I have missed out on so much in life living in my "prision". When I was 40, I used to say, will I still be letting him run my life when I am 50? Now that I am almost 50, I do not want to be saying this when I am 60! I told him 7 years ago that I wanted a divorce, but we chose to work it out. This past weekend, I told him again that I did not want to be married, that I wanted to be on my own so I can see what it feels like to be an adult. I cry every day because I want out so bad, but don't know how to do it. My son is off at college but we have a daughter who is 16. I do not want to take her away from her friends and school. If I leave, I want to sell the house and split our equity, but I do not want to buy anything in the same area, but I have to, because of my daughter. I was thinking of renting something until she goes off to college, but the rents in the area are more than my mortgage. I am also sick about hurting my husband. How can he still want to stay with me even though I have told him twice that I want a divorce? Our sex life sucks, because I can't stand him touching me. We never do anything together on weekends and when we do, it's always with friends.

Ever since I have known my husband, he always played tennis with his friends on the weekends. This time was not just for an hour - they played all day and into the night. Therefore, I spent the whole weekend with my children. Now, all of a sudden, this year, he is not playing tennis and is trying to spend time with me. IT'S TOO LATE! I don't want him in my life on weekends. I want him out of the house.

I just don't know what to do. I am just falling apart.

I am SO sorry you are going through this. It is ironic, I am only 32 and feel like I am living in a prison. Married 6 yrs and over the next 24 hours I will be separating from my husband who is abusive, two children are involved, 3 and 8. Imagine the guilt I am going through. What opened my eyes besides realizing that what is going on in my marriage is abuse is the Love Bank thing. So your husband played tennis all those years, did his thing, and what happened is slowly over time your bank went dry. Not enough time with you and the kids..... my husband plays golf every weekend and does his thing, which always involves drinking, and when we separate, things won't be that different. The kids ask all the time "where's Daddy?" I say he's golfing......he is gone doing his thing anyway. I just won't have to deal with the drunken rages. It's amazing if you don't nurture love how it just goes away. Every living thing needs to be nurtured. So, imagine when you don't nurture someone AND abuse them. double wammies. Have you suggested marriage counseling to him. Your daughter already realizes probably that all is not well and has not been well for sometime. You can't fool dogs and you can't fool kids. She needs a stable happy home, which if you are like me you have acted and pretended for a long time.

ThinkingIamInsane,

Before I give you any advice, I need a little more information. Can you give me an example of your husband being controlling? That word is used a lot, and people mean different things by it from telling you not buy soy milk, to only giving you enough gas to drive to the grocery store on the exact route he's laid out on the day he wants you to go.

Also, is your husband abusive? I don't mean emotionally, mentally, or verbally. I mean is he physically abusive? Or threaten you with physical abuse? Those cases need the kind of advice we can't give here.

One more question, when you two chose to work on the marriage seven years ago, what did you do? Did you see a counselor, agree to change certain behaviors, etc? Did you do the necessary work?

This is a good place to be. If you really feel you need to divorce, we can be very supportive. However, this is a pro-marriage site; our first interest is in saving a marriage by restoring romantic love. That last part is the most important. We don't want people to live in the cage of a miserable marriage. Instead, we want people to learn how create and maintain romantic "in-love" love, so that their marriages feel joyous.