I’ve been married for four years, and honestly, it feels like I’ve been carrying the weight of everything on my shoulders.
I’m 32, living in Manchester, and my husband, Richard, is eight years older than me. The whole time we’ve been together, I’ve been the one paying for everything—rent, bills, groceries, you name it. I’ve had enough. Today, I finally asked him for money, and instead of stepping up, he got angry, accused me of being ungrateful, and threatened to walk out. My life’s turned into some exhausting drama, and I don’t know how much longer I can take it.
Richard and I have been married four years, but I’ve never once felt loved or protected. He was married before me and has a daughter from that marriage. When his first marriage ended, he moved back in with his parents. While we were dating, he’d say he was staying at a mate’s place, but later I found out that was a lie. At the time, I brushed it off, thinking love would fix everything. Richard works as a sales manager for a big company, and his job is full of stress—except he takes it all out on me. He’s got a temper, flying off the handle over nothing, and I’ve never gotten any real support from him.
Whenever things got tough for me and I needed him most, Richard would just pack a bag and go stay with his mum. Once, I cracked after a week apart and begged him to come back. We live in my flat—the one I bought before we even got married—and I’m the one covering every expense. Richard’s never shown me a penny of his earnings. He claims he’s saving up for “our dream”—a cottage in the Lake District where we’ll supposedly live happily ever after. But the longer this goes on, the more it sounds like empty promises. I’m tired of waiting for a fairy tale.
Last winter, the heating bills went through the roof, and I finally worked up the nerve to ask Richard to chip in. He said he would—but after a month, still nothing. I’ve hit my limit. I can’t keep supporting a grown man who’s perfectly happy living off me. What happens if we have kids? Will they have to start working young just to feed their own dad? It’s ridiculous! At the end of the month, I confronted him directly—was he going to pay his share or not? Instead of answering, he blew up, called me selfish, and started packing his things again, threatening to leave.
I don’t get why he treats me like this. What did I do to deserve it? My heart’s breaking, and I can’t keep putting up with this unfairness. But every time he storms off and comes back, it chips away at me a little more. Four years of this, and I’m at the edge. How much longer can I hold myself together before everything just… falls apart?
