Dear Prudence,
Last week, I told my husband to leave our home. I’ve done this many times over the past three years, for good reasons—drinking too much, not adequately treating his mental illness, verbally abusing our kids and me, and making terrible financial decisions that affect all of us. Every time, I’ve let him come back, sometimes because it benefited me (I needed him to watch the kids over the summer), and sometimes because the kids begged me to give him another chance. The last time I let him come back, the only thing I asked of him was to be respectful to me and our kids. Last week, he screamed at me because I made pasta for dinner. I’d asked him to pick up a chicken dinner at the grocery store, but he was late, and he didn’t call or reply to my texts. The kids were hungry, so I made some pasta. He screamed at me for wasting his time and his money.
I told him to leave and I really mean it this time. Now he’s telling our kids, his family, and even people at church that he can’t believe I kicked him out over something so insignificant. He’s got everyone thinking this one tiny thing isn’t worth “making him leave,” but in my view it’s one tiny thing piled up on top of everything else he’s done over three years. Am I wrong? Does it really seem that I really ending a marriage over pasta versus chicken, or am I ending a marriage after three years of continued abuse and disrespect, with one tiny last straw that finally broke my back?
—Straws