A good friend of mine married a pastor. She birthed, raised, and home schooled his SEVEN children. SEVEN. CHILDREN. They both agreed that she should do that, they both agreed that homeschooling was the best thing for their family, they both agreed to all of this.
She spent over 30 years doing this. For 30 years she didn’t work outside the home. She didn’t know the terms of their lease. She didn’t have the passwords to “their” bank account(s), “their” assets.
He left her when she was in her fifties.
He said that he needed time to reflect and moved out of their house, but told her to focus on getting their last kid through high school (still homeschooled!) and he would take care of everything.
She reached out to the landlord months later asking where the lease renewal was only to find out it wasn’t getting renewed. Because her husband hadn’t paid the rent in OVER NINE MONTHS. The whole time he was promising her he was still taking care of her.
She and her sixteen year old youngest son found out they had to move out of their house with 3 weeks’ notice. She didn’t have a job or work experience or a degree or any idea how to get these things in 3 weeks. She didn’t own her own car. If she had not had friends to take her in, she and her son would have been literally out on the street.
It ruined that friendship, too. It’s a lot to ask someone to put you up indefinitely while you try to put your life together. She burned a lot of bridges taking what anyone would or could give because she had no other choice.
She did, eventually, hard years later, get on her feet again. But it will always be hard and she will never be where she could have been in life if she’d done things differently.
You might be very sure of your marriage. You might be very sure of your husband. He might love you now, and be a good man now, but the rest of your life will hopefully be a long, long time. People change. It CAN happen to you.