Aww, Help, I'm so sorry. I totally feel you on this.
Do think it's good your are being proactive and getting prepared. Totally understand where you are coming from and
really wish I hadn't subjected my son to so much of the same thing in his teen yr.s. I applaud your strength in standing up for yourself during this difficult time.
~Cat

Help,

Does SD know this is coming? Maybe if she understood where things are headed and her role it might get her attention too like it has for your DH. How old is she?

I think you're doing the right thing, hwt, the only thing you as a mother *can* do in good conscience.

You *& your daughter* are just too convenient as scapegoats for this disfunctional family.

As for that crying & begging & "things'll be different if you'll just move back in, put the money back in the joint account" stuff, I'll tell you a story:

My first marriage, all 5.5 loong years of it, was miserable;
I was isolated, lonely, & subjected to every kind of criticism & surprise attack you can think of, including the final straw-
one spring my husband said he just didn't love me any more & he moved in with a girl he worked with.

(This was our fourth spring together, & the third time that he'd moved out on me!)

I cried, I begged, I did everything (which is a mistake, it's too ego-satisfying to have someone begging you, you never give them what they want because then they'd stop begging!).

Finally I blew my nose & moved & got 2 roommates & went on.

Then he came over & was contrite & said he missed me, loved me, didn't know what had gotten into him, wasn't happy with "her", she was too much like him, all they ever did was sit around the apartment, & he was bored bored bored.

Puhleeeze take me back sylvia!

Since this was the 3rd time he'd moved out, I was scared, but I was lonely, too, & at the time I thought it would be infinitely better to be married than to be living with roommates forever & ever.

so I told him we'd talk it over *if* we went to counselling, something he'd scoffed at before.

He agreed.
eagerly.

so we started "seeing" each other.

Then he started coming by the house, & he was so miserable & so uncomfortable (which I now realize was theatrics & manipulation), & he said he felt so unhappy & so inadequate seeing those girls living with me when he wasn't, like he didn't belong any more.

I talked it over with "those girls", & they reluctantly agreed to take on a new "roommate".

Great news, hubs! You can stay!

"Well, no, actually, that won't work;
I'd feel uncomfortable, like I was just another roommate, not like you really cared about me."

told the girls...& they moved out.

& he moved in.

After a week, when I figured he'd had plenty of time to settle down & get over his emotional upset, I brought up the subject of counselling again.

"Oh.
Well.
*I* don't need it, sylvia.
But if you feel like *you* need it, I'll pay for it."

& there I was.

It took me 2 more years to get emotionally depleted enough to decide that I'd live in a tent rather than stay in an isolated, critical, loveless environment.

& I've been so glad ever since that I made that decision & didn't melt when he tried the same "I need you, I love you, I don't know what made me act that way, it'll never happen again" nonsense for the umpteenth time.

Years later, I heard that his 2nd wife gave up on him, too, for the same reasons.

so when (not if, *when*) you feel tempted to "give him (or give the marriage, which is a good ploy manipulators love; it puts some of the responsibility on your shoulders) another chance", just breathe in, breathe out, & say to yourself, silently or out loud, "but if *you* need counselling, hwt, I, big man that I am, I'll *pay* for it."

"I just don't have any fight left in me. Dh cried when I told him all this and told me we could work on this."

A really entertaining Southern writer named Lewis Grizzard started out as a sports writer & went on to write humor columns for the newspaper, & then he wrote books.

hilarious, poignant books that would make you laugh out loud while you were wiping tears from your eyes.

titles like
"Don't Bend Over in the Garden, Granny, Them Taters Got Eyes"
"My Daddy Was a Pistol & I'm a Son of a Gun"
"Elvis Is Dead & I Don't Feel So Good Myself"
"Hug Your Momma Tonight, I Wish I Could Hug Mine"

One of his eternal topics was his 4 marriages.

& one of the things he said, paraphrasing, was that when a man says he's through, it means he's ready to start negotiating.
but when a woman says she's through, it's too late;
she's through.

Don't let someone else haul you back into the ring if you don't have any fight left in you;
& nobody should have to have "fight" left in her to endure her life with a husband.

Help I think you are so brave to start seperating finances and making back-up plans. If you do decide to start working on your marriage keep your seperate finances and back-up plans. Don't let yourself get manipulated. And if you do work on things and your hubby actually sees the errors of his ways and keeps up with his changes then great. But if he doesn't do not feel bad for throwing in the towel.

I love Sylvia's line "but when a woman says she's through, it's too late; she's through" That was the story of my past relationships. When I finally had enough and told the guys it was over all of a sudden they were ready to do what I had been begging them to do. Problem was even when they did it I just could not get my old feelings back. Emotionally I had already cut ties with them before I admitted to them or myself that things were over.

life doesn't have to be miserable and we don't have to endure, life is too short to not ejoy it. of course no one has to be happy all the time, it is not possible but we don't have to endure marriages or relationships. we have to endure serious illnesses, and other hardships and tragedies that we have no control over. But we don't have to "endure" marriages. what for?