I remember telling my husband issues I had with our marriage, the serious problems we had, and that I might leave him unless things improved. I did this for years. He told me I was being manipulative, controlling, and ultimatums don’t solve problems. I asked and begged multiple times to listen to me and we could work through these things because I was afraid our marriage would become unbearable and I would leave, and he told me I was “living in fear” and needed to be more brave and not a drama queen.
So then when I did leave, he told the counselor the problem was I wasn’t spending enough time with him and including him in my life. When I brought up the serious issues with our marriage and why I couldn’t stay anymore, he just shrugged and said I had blind sighted him and he had no idea I was unhappy. What he really meant was, he didn’t want to own his behavior, instead just be in denial, and pretend these issues weren’t real. The issues here, is drug addiction, refusing to take his antipsychotic medication for a serious mental illness, and corresponding mental breakdown and psychosis.
Given that you’ve written about your husband being unemployed, staying in bed all day being obsessed with conspiracy theories, my guess is he probably wasn’t interested in listening to you talk about your unhappiness. It doesn’t sound like he was receptive to you hearing it. If you had told him, would he have even listened? Or would it have just been a big fight and more drama to your already demanding life of taking care of him and your kids? I can see why you wouldn’t even tell him. Whenever I confronted mine, he’d get mean and we’d get into a fight where he’d make me apologize. If a spouse doesn’t have room in their life to hear you, then they can’t expect you to not take them by surprise.