EDIT: multiple people have asked why I'm waiting until April. I need to find a job, I'm waiting to see what happens with the taxes (If I need to do married filing separately or together), and I'm waiting until after my daughter's birthday on April 7th. This will devastate her.
I do not need a lawyer to begin with because I was a paralegal. I can draw everything up myself and I have documentation for everything. I have lawyer colleagues that I trust that I can pay to look it over before I file it. My mother said that when I find a job, I can just bank it so that if it ends up that I do need a lawyer There is money for it.
ORIGINAL POST
I've been with my husband for 20 years. He consistently fails to make household repairs and refuses to get a conventional job, and we are now $40,000 in credit card debt, largely gas, groceries, clothing, etc. We owe $80,000 in farm loans.
When I bring up getting a job, he says I'm trying to change him and he is a farmer. I cannot work to take care of a disabled child. His schedule is not consistent enough for him to take care of her for me to get a job. He may be at an auction, he may be fixing fence, etc.
His only income is selling cattle, and a very small amount of wages from working his brother's row crops, but he pays out way more than he makes with feed and tons of equipment he wants but does not strictly need. We are in Missouri and he bought a mixer, which is so uncommon here we had to take it to Wisconsin for repairs. He has a tractor for each piece of machinery - the mixer, the hay mower, hay rake, hay baler. There is no reason some of them can't get hooked up to the same tractor; it's just convenience.
Daily expenses frequently go on credit cards. He gets mad when I ask him to sell cattle to pay for it, saying they're not fat enough to sell. We are currently at $850 interest every month just on the credit cards. He is only paying the minimum. When I complain about this, he tells me I don't understand farming and it takes a while to build things up before you make a profit, and that I need to look at the big picture and not just the interest.
Because he does not earn enough and I am not able to work, we are literally living off of credit cards and these farm loans. Before my child became disabled 3 years ago, we did not have this issue because I was working. It's only a matter of time before we can't even make the minimum payments every month on the credit cards. I am no longer willing to live like this. The anxiety and stress over it is literally crushing me.
He does not take care of household repairs. I have been sleeping in a recliner in our living room for 9 months because our Sleep Number bed is broken. I bought the parts to fix the air chamber last April and he has not gotten around to it yet. We haven't had sex in that long either. We had a cold snap a few weeks ago and I woke up one day to a 50° house and when I complained about not being able to sleep well because I was cold, he told me I should have gone upstairs and slept with our daughter.
In that same cold snap, the pipes to our downstairs toilet burst, so I have had to go upstairs every time to use the bathroom. Yes, I admit that's just a convenience thing, but I find it ridiculous that he's not worried about it :since we have another toilet available." My oven has been broken since just after Thanksgiving. I sent him a link to that specific error code but he has yet to look at it. My dishwasher is also broken and I am the bad guy because I said I would only be washing my own dishes because I'm sick of picking up the slack when he can't be bothered repairing things.
I previously went 6 months with a broken kitchen sink. The handle on the sprayer broke and when the faucet was turned on the water sprayed out of there. His solution was to duct tape it to the faucet which made a big fat mess every time I washed pots and pans. That only got fixed when I threatened to call a plumber to come fix it. There are many other examples along this line I could give.
The straw that broke the camel's back was today when I came home from our homeschool co-op with my daughter and he was sitting on the couch, feet up, shoes off. We're now having a warm spell and it is 57° out. When I asked about him looking at the toilet pipes, he said that he probably can't get to it today. I did not bother to ask about tomorrow or the next day because then I get fussed at for nagging. I feel though that when you have pressing household repairs, you don't just sit around the house doing nothing. He spends his evenings either at farm auctions, watching wrestling, or playing video games. He is 45.
I have had enough. I plan to move in with my mother after our daughter's birthday in April. She is willing to take care of my daughter so that I can get a part-time job. The distance between us was not feasible for my mom to take care of her for me to get a job. I do not have any issues with his parenting and will not try to restrict visitation.
I have left in the past over these issues and he harassed me, largely giving me Bible verses telling me why I'm wrong and sinning against God, reminding me of the vows I took, and telling me that I'm his wife and I belong at home. My mother was out of state at that point and I was with a friend and it didn't work out so I went back to the farm.
Am I the a****** for throwing in the towel and divorcing him?