I am fighting to save my marriage, and the person I seem to be fighting against is my husband. A little background, we had a rough time dating, because he had a hard time being faithful. I caught him cheating three times, and left him, but he kept asking for forgiveness, promising to change, and I bought into it. My bad, if I had it to do over again, I would not forgive after the second time. But, water under the bridge; we got married after four years of dating. One of the things we talked about a lot while dating was how unfair it was that some men thought women should have to handle the majority of the housework, cooking, etc., while also holding down a full time job. He talked the talk, and while we were dating, he appeared to walk the walk. Fast forward to today (and I am leaving out a bit of detail to try to protect my anonymity). I do ALL the housework. I do ALL the cooking. I do the majority of the childcare (he feeds our son breakfast, and dresses him for school during the week, I do literally everything else). He works most weekends, which means he has two days off work during the week when he is home alone. I come home to a house with dishes in the sink, the carpet not vacuumed, no food cooking, etc. He usually asks me what I am going to do about dinner, despite the fact that he’s been home all day. I am also the main breadwinner, last year I made more than double what he made, I pay the mortgage, I pay for daycare, insurance (including the child he has outside of our marriage), most groceries, etc. I have tried to talk to him, not often; because I don’t want to “nag” usually I bring it up every other month. We tried going to counseling once, but the counselor was a true idiot, he was always late and would veer off topic for long periods of time. I haven’t been able to convince him to try another counselor; he says it is a waste of time. He doesn’t have any close friends that I can talk to confidentially to help, and I am absolutely drowning. I hate to think my child will grow up in a broken home, but I can’t deal with things this way much longer. I know for a fact that if I ask my husband to leave, he will not, and to be honest, I am afraid of his temper. While he has never hit me, he has grabbed me, shaken me (a long time ago) and he throws things when he’s very angry. If I leave, I will still have to pay the mortgage, since he can’t afford it alone, or risk losing a house I have invested a lot of money into. I hope this doesn’t seem as though I think I am perfect, I definitely have my faults. I have gained some weight during our marriage (I am a size 12/14), I have a hard time communicating negative emotions, and I am a little bit of a hermit. Nevertheless, I feel I am and have put my all into this marriage, and I am not getting much if anything in return. He is not a dub, and never has been, so that is not the issue. Any and all serious advice is welcome.
PS: I should mention, he is very good with our son, and has never displayed any aggressive behavior towards him. I would not stand in the way of their relationship, nor would I try to interfere in their spending time together. In fact, I believe if we were to separate, their relationship would improve, as they would have more alone time. I am definitely my son’s favorite parent, mostly because of the time we spend together.