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Hi Alex,
I’m not a gay man, so I hope it’s OK that I send this here. No worries if you don’t want to answer. I'm reaching out because I'm struggling with my marriage. Straight cis femme, married to a man, but we're both open-minded and pretty far left politically. But I think I'm at the place where I just don't want to be in this relationship anymore. I'm emotionally exhausted, and I've gotten to a point where I need some stability, [especially] for my two girls.
I can't really point to any one thing, its more that stuff has just built up over the years. He has ongoing issues with several members of my family, and it's created so much tension. I don't want to get into the specifics, but basically he doesn't like some of my relatives, and I want to see them more and have them be part of my daughters' lives, and that's just not going to work if he's getting upset every time we want to visit.
He takes care of the girls while I work, but I've been paying most of the bills. I've talked to him about this so many times, like about putting them in daycare a few days a week so he could work more, and he always says no. I'm starting to feel like he doesn't actually want to work, and I'm so resentful now because I'm carrying all of it. And I want to be fair, he has mostly been a really good partner, and I do love him, he's amazing with our dog and the girls.
He also has a son who lives with us, and the whole living situation just feels like too much.
I've even offered to help him out financially, like cover a deposit and his first month's rent to make moving out easier, but it always goes back to work stuff or some reason it can't happen right now.
I think my mind is made up. I just don't know how to actually do the ending with kids in the middle of it. I just want my daughters to be OK.
Thanks for reading. Lily
Hi Lily,
All are welcome here. You're writing to a mostly-gay man about a big relationship decision: Leaving. Sure, we might have different sexual orientations, but I can still offer thoughts.
I don't flinch over divorce. Sometimes it's needed. I have seen women I love and admire get much happier after they make the decision to leave their husbands and follow through with it. Divorce is not, for anyone, a magic eraser easing all problems, and surely will introduce new ones into your life, perhaps ones you haven't even imagined yet, but leaving a situation that's not working is a big, brave investment in your own happiness, and I think that's always worth doing. If advice columnists can be divided into camps of "just leave him" or "make it work," I'm the former. All relationships end, so better, I think, to end it on your own terms, consciously and kindly, rather than letting it devolve into anger and resentment.
To be fair, I also don't put much stock in marriage, at least not the formal institution of it, beyond a mere belief that everyone should be allowed to do it if they wish. But remember, Lily: My community has a legacy of building families from bonds which, for most of history, were deemed aberrant and unable to participate in the institution of marriage. I think you'll find that queer people will agree that leaving is almost always the right move.
But what can I help you with? You're asking how to "do the ending," but you've already had some dialogue with him. You've clearly brought up the idea of separating, since you have offered to help him find a place and even offered to pay a month's rent for it. So you don't need help bringing the subject up. If anything, I think you might just need help reframing it, in your mind as well as his, as something decided rather than an ongoing discussion.
I suspect that, in previous talks, you've presented the idea of divorce as a problem you both have to work on, and he has (correctly) assumed that means it is, for the moment, stalled. Admittedly, I am curious about the details you don’t want to go into, as some would help flesh things out for me. I'd be interested to know his reasons for not wanting to work, and what exactly is going on with your relatives. If they’ve treated him poorly, that'd be something to consider. But the problem you describe clearly, the fact that you’re carrying the full financial load, is on its own a reason plenty of marriages end.
How long has this been going on? I've read thousands of messages from people in imperiled relationships, and nearly all of them state the timeline, because that's just how people talk about love. "It was good for the first few years, but last year things changed." "I've been dating a guy for about six months, and…" "I found out that my husband of 10 years did…" I have no temporal markers here. I don't say that to invalidate your experience, and regardless, I think you're right to leave, but a partner being unwilling to work for three months is different from one unwilling to work for twelve.
Regardless, here's what research says. The team at OurFamilyWizard, a co-parenting platform used by separated families, advises that you shouldn't announce a separation until you know with certainty it's happening, because ambiguity is hard on everyone, especially children.
According to the California Family Law Group, writing on amicable divorce, the only thing the two of you need to agree on now is that the marriage is definitely ending. Everything else, like the money and the housing and the timeline, comes later. The first move is to state this is a final decision rather than a moving point of discussion. There's a difference between "I don't think this is working" and "I've decided to end our marriage." The first opens negotiation and sets a stage for haggling and argument. The second is final.
Clarity is the kindest thing to give someone, even if it doesn't feel like it in the moment. A partner who senses ambiguity will pour their energy into reversing your decision rather than adjusting to it, prolonging the pain for everyone, including and especially your daughters.
In a way, you've cast yourself in two roles: You're the person ending your marriage and the one managing his exit from it. You're the higher earner, you love him, you want him to be okay, and there are children whose stability depends on his being okay. So, to some extent, I understand your impulse to ferry him out, give him an easy exit ramp. But he won't take it while divorce feels like something that might change. Those roles work against each other. As long as you are project-managing his exit, it remains your thing, something you are doing to him that he can resist. The stall and the financial caretaking are linked.
Personally, I'd point you to a mediator. At least in the beginning, skip the dueling lawyers, which is how amicable things get ugly, and find a single neutral third party. According to divorce mediator Joe Dillon of Equitable Mediation, who has spent nearly two decades helping couples separate without going to court, an amicable divorce doesn't require you and your spouse to agree on everything from the start. It just requires you both to commit to resolving things out of court. A mediator can help with that, along with all the details, like timeline and money, that don’t need to be your responsibility.
Now, let's talk about resentment. I hear it in your message. Culturally, this breadwinner-vs-homemaker dynamic is presented as the inverse of your relationship. In her book Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward, Gemma Hartley describes the invisible load often borne by women managing households while their husbands earn (read her argument for why this causes relationship breakdown in Harper’s Bazaar). Relationship expert Abby Medcalf, citing this research, notes that married women typically end up with about seven more hours of housework a week while married men end up with one fewer. You are the opposite of that. You're the breadwinner. Fuck yeah! The roles may be flipped, but the problem is similar: One person (you) is doing an unbalanced and inequitable amount of work without adequate support from the other.
In his book Why Marriages Succeed or Fail, psychologist John Gottman, whose research on couples is among the most cited in the field, identifies what he calls the “four horsemen” of relationship ruin: Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. He finds contempt to be the most corrosive and traces its origins directly to chronic, unspoken resentment that accumulates over time. Leaving now, while you can still say "he has mostly been a really good partner and I do love him," may be what preserves enough goodwill for you to co-parent peaceably. Staying until these feelings boil into something worse will serve no one.
Now to the point you care about most: Your girls.
According to clinicians at the Child Mind Institute, you and your husband should tell them together, present a united front, and not cast blame. Their guidance: "You want to model 'We've got this’ even if it's not true, or even if only one parent has got this.” Tell them in a calm moment, away from a holiday or stressful week. Keep the explanation simple and let questions come rather than flooding them with details they don’t ask about and aren't ready for.
California psychologist and mediator Joan B. Kelly, as related in Today's Parent, describes a couple who did everything right in telling their four-year-old: They were gentle, clear, and reassured him that both parents still loved him. When they finished, the boy was silent a moment, then asked them: "Who's going to look after me?" Kelly notes from this that young children often ask questions about these kinds of logistical specifics: Where they will sleep, who will pick them up, whether the dog is coming, and so on. Prepare answers to these questions in advance.
Gentle recap: Tell him this is a final decision. When he goes for reasons it can't or shouldn't happen, acknowledge his concern and return to the fact that the debate is no longer open. Case closed. Hand the logistics to a mediator so you can stop managing his exit. And when it's time to tell the girls, do it together as steadily and unified as you can.
Wars in relationships typically start in all you don't say, all the ways two people fail to communicate. So be clear, calm, direct, and genuinely unwilling to fight, so there's nothing for him to push against. This is how to move forward. It'll be awful sometimes, but things will work out in the end. Good luck.
Hey there! I’m Alexander Cheves. I’m a sex writer and former sex worker—I worked in the business for over 12 years. You can read my sex-and-culture column Last Call in Out and my book My Love Is a Beast: Confessions, from Unbound Edition Press. But be warned: Kirkus Reviews says the book is "not for squeamish readers.”
Here, I’m offering sex and relationship advice to Out’s readers. Send your question to askbeastly@gmail.com
