A battle within me

Things have been well for us these one or two weeks.

Thoughts of divorce continued to linger in my mind since the last post. But about two weeks ago, he smsed me,"I don't want to quarrel with you. I want us to have a week without quarrels." I was moved. Subsequently, I could see that he's making efforts to avoid fights with me. He would try to get things done the way I want them to. He minimised his procrastination time. He gave me a stipulated time for what he would do for the chores. We haven't had too big a fight these two weeks.

Thoughts of divorce still nag in my head sometimes because I hate to nag. Very often, I ask myself if I want to spend the rest of my life nagging at a man. To me, asking him to do a thing twice is as good as nagging already. But sometimes, I wonder if I'm trying to look for excuses for a divorce.

A cousin is finally going for a divorce after having 5 kids and a marriage of close to twenty years. She said to my elder sister,"Congratulate me. I've decided to let it go at last. I'm finally getting a divorce." I feel that it's really sad if a woman only gets a divorce after 20 years of unhappiness. What's there to be left for the woman? I shudder to imagine myself going down this route even 5 years later, or worse, 10 or 20 years later. I would feel that my whole life is wasted on a bastard and hate myself for not leaving him earlier.

At the same time, I wonder if it's right (actually, I know it's wrong) for me to hold all these thoughts of divorce. Divorce is not from God. Yet, another part of me asks if I should continue to hold onto a marriage that does not make me happy just because God frowns upon divorces.

There're times when I wish he is unfaithful to me, so that I have a 'valid' reason to divorce him. I don't know what it takes for a woman to hope that her husband strays.

Things are well now. But deep down in my heart, I know it's only a matter of time that we fight, and loudly at that, again.

As long as the issues are there, it's impossible for us to live happily ever after.

He's still buying soccer bets after two warnings from me that I would certainly leave him if he buys them again.

Although they are in smaller amounts, I'm not sure if I should tolerate this habit. It disturbs me that he does not regard my warnings very much. Either that or it's because he is sure that I will not leave him even if I find out that he's still betting on soccer.

I continue to worry over his credit card debts.
I don't know when they will be settled. Is he really going to take 10 years to repay them? I really don't know.

He mentioned about the reno loan yesterday and reminded me that I promised to help take it up. I didn't say anything, but honestly, my take is this: if the renovation had been worthwhile, I wouldn't mind help paying for it. But the house is in a half-renovated condition, with lousy workmanship. I know I'll feel unbalanced if I help pay for it. Afterall, he was the one who insisted on using this contractor against my wish. He insisted on paying the contractor one lump sum of $11k even before he started on it. And the contractor kept refusing to complete the work and going back on what's stated on his invoices when he finally started any work at all. It gave me so much stress and caused me alot of distress. And it strained our relationship badly. It was a total mistake to take that contractor up because it changed our relationship as well. It made me lose my respect for him for making such a lousy decision, and not being able to get the contractor to do his work. It totally didn't worth the money and effort. Paying for the reno loan would remind me of all these pains.

He was talking about shifting house one or two years later.
I doubt it will come true. Firstly, very few people, if there's any, will want to buy our second-floor flat. Secondly, the contractor had done some illegal stuff in our flat without the hdb's approval. We would be fined and required to restore things in their original state at our own expense if we want to put it up for sale. Thirdly, I have my reservations about continuing to live with him. I seriously don't know how long this marriage will last. I wish I can stop having such thoughts, but I can't help it.