My husband and I recently bought a house which traps me in my marriage for at least several years if I don’t want to lose all my money. We’ve been married five years and separated twice. Once for a year in 2021 and again from Spring 2023-Spring 2024. We never said we were broken up, but did not live together during those periods. My husband is an alcoholic that falls in and out of recovery. The physical separation was due to his relapsing. Yes, buying a house with him was dumb, but here we are.
My current issue is household inequity. We both work earning nearly equal salaries. I have one child from my first marriage and he has none. I take care of anything child related which makes sense since she is mine. The problem is, I also take care of the two cats we adopted together, all cooking, all cleaning, making sure bills are paid, yard work and house maintenance. I take care of my own car and he maintains his. I feel like I have a disproportionate amount on my plate and often get little sleep to get it all done while he both gets full nights and nap time. I’ve pointed out the inequity and asked him to take more on. We even got those “Fair Play” cards where you divide up tasks and own them. He took about a third of them yet hasn’t followed through on anything. He claims he can’t see when things need doing. Today, I mentioned we can’t do laundry because we are having basement work done and had to disconnect the utility sink. He didn’t know the laundry water drains into the utility sink. For some reason this put me over the edge. He is 45 years old and I don’t know how he doesn’t know basic things like this.
Everyone I ever talk to says to just divorce him, but with only owning this home two months, it would destroy me financially. How do I just accept things for a few more years?
For added context, we are both men as many will assume I am his wife not his husband.