�Dear Anne
My husband works all the time and if he's not working he's sleeping. He has lied to me about our financial situation. As a result of this we have had to remorgage the house to pay off the debts and I feel he has betrayed me. We live in a tiny two bedroomed house that needs lots of work. We have been married for eight years and have three children. I now have plans to leave him but I am so scared of being on my own with the children. Initially I thought I could stay just for the children but I don't know if that is realistic. I have asked him many times to change his ways. He always says he will but he never does. I don't find him attractive any more and we have not had sex in over a year. How will I survive if I am on my own? I am also scared he will make my life very difficult if I do go. I care about my children so much and I do not want them to get hurt. Abby
Dear Abby
Thank you for your letter. I appreciate that you are feeling both neglected and betrayed, but at the same time you're scared about making the jump to living alone. So how can you decide what to do?
Firstly, it helps to realise that you do have alternatives. You could perhaps decide to ask him if marriage guidance counselling could help you improve the communication between you and resolve your differences. Then again, if he's unwilling to go for that you might choose to have individual counselling. This will help you shore up your confidence so that whatever happens you'll be better able to tackle it. Working through self-help and relationship books could be very useful too. Any mother has plenty of skills such as time-management, budgeting, cooking, cleaning, organisation and so on in addition to work-skills, and recognising all your good qualities can allow you to feel more positive about yourself and the future. The future, of course, doesn't happen all at once. It's a question of making the best of each moment, and knowing that situations vary and people grow.
You can also start building up your social network so that you have friends who will help and support you whether or not you decide to go it alone. With small children you have the opportunity of making friends with other parents as you wait outside the school gates. You never know who'll turn out to be a friend unless you talk to them.
In the meantime it never hurts to find out any information that could come in handy. You might talk to the Citizens Advice Bureau, who could tell you what allowances you'd be entitled to. They also offer free initial consultations with a lawyer. Their website is at www.nacab.org.uk and from this you can find your nearest branch. Or you could ring around law firms in your area to see which offer free initial consultations. This will let you find out about divorce and financial settlements in your circumstances, as well as discussing other fears you may have about how your husband might respond.
