My husband and I are both 31, we have a four year old daughter. We live with my husband’s siblings in a house purchased by my in-laws from HCMC.
My mom said I shouldn’t marry her when we were dating, but I loved her, so I got pregnant and we had a forced marriage. My husband told me to quit my job at the time as I was often tired and promised to support me and our child financially.
But he quit his job two months before I was due. He wanted to start a startup with his cousin, but they got into a fight and abandoned their original plan without even implementing it. My husband applied for unemployment benefit and worked as a motorcycle courier until the pandemic hit.
He has not returned to work since then, even after the pandemic was brought under control. All he did in a day was play video games and cook for me. He also didn’t take good care of our child as he was busy playing games.
Because of this, we argued several times. And every time we argued, he would beat our child, saying she was beaten because of me. He also swore at me, my parents and all my family.
I was sad and regretted not having followed my mother’s advice, but I dared not tell her about my problem. I didn’t want her to feel bad for me and cry.
Also, my husband always apologized after our fights, so I forgave him.
I started working again at the beginning of 2022. Things were going well at first because my husband took care of the household chores while I worked.
I gave him 4-5 million VND per month (about $168-211), and he received an additional 5 million VND per month as interest from his investment. I was afraid that we couldn’t last long with this total income, so I urged him to find a job, but he refused.
He started leaving our house for his hometown whenever we argued and stayed there for at least a month.
I felt like I was living like a single mother who worked and took care of our child on her own at the same time.
So I stopped giving money to my husband. And he stopped doing household chores out of revenge.
My mother passed away last year. I became sad and during a big fight with my husband after my mother died, I decided to end my relationship with him. I moved with our daughter.
But again, I forgave him when he apologized, not because I still loved him, but because I wanted my daughter to have a complete family.
My husband treated me well for a while after this incident. But it wasn’t long before we started arguing again every two or three months. I told him again that I wanted a divorce, but he didn’t want me to.
Since then, we have been living in this tense situation. And he showed no signs of wanting to look for a job, despite my suggesting it to him several times.
Then we recently had another big argument. My husband insulted me, my family and even my dead mother. I felt hopeless with this man and was motivated to file for divorce this time.
I found a house to rent and I think I will move with my daughter. If I have to work overtime, I’ll send her to private daycare. The question of whether we can live like this in the long term will be examined later.
The only remaining problem is that I don’t know how to inform my in-laws and my own family of my decision. My in-laws are Christians, so it will be difficult for me to tell them that I want a divorce. Not to mention they treated me pretty well.
I have not been close to my father, as he divorced my mother because she had poor health and could not take care of him. I have an older brother, but I don’t know how to start a conversation with him about my story either.
What should I do now?