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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Relationships

Please tell me......

14 replies

Wearehamandcheese · 13/09/2013 08:40

That its possible to get back from the point where you just don't think you can stand the OH any more.

Im really struggling at the moment to have him here. He's just driving me crazy. Wasn't so bad when he was working but after loosing his job and being home I just can't take much more. I feel awful but he's just to much right now.

How do people get back from this?

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Lweji · 13/09/2013 08:50

It depends on what is too much and how much both of you work on it.

Are you at home?
Can you find a job or activity?

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Wearehamandcheese · 13/09/2013 08:55

I have a part time job it's really not much though. I'm trying to be sunspot hectic I know it can't be easy being unemployed after years of working. But I don't think I can take much more. I'm seeing less and less of the person I love and more and more of the annoying habits , I feel like I constantly nag him , his bellowing voice goes right through me even the snoring in the ear at night just makes me wanna kick him out the room. God I sound awful, I'm not I promise I just can't stand it sometimes

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Wearehamandcheese · 13/09/2013 08:56

Oh ffs damn phone- sympathetic

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Lweji · 13/09/2013 09:58

Apparently it can happen when couples retire.

Could you send him off looking for jobs, or charity work, or errands?
Or do you think you are resenting him somehow?

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Wearehamandcheese · 13/09/2013 11:12

I don't know tbh. I don't know if its me, I just like my own space and just resenting the constant intrusion after having more time to myself or whether this is actually what living together is like I've just not experienced it so full in before.

I'm just tired , tired of pointing out bloody obvious things and feeling like I've got three kids at home not just two. He just doesn't feel like a co-parent and partner, more an extra burden if that makes any sense. It's probably just me but I can't help get fed up of it.

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Zoe789 · 13/09/2013 11:20

So you've told him you want help and he's not listening or helping.

Wonder why that is? ~Does he know that you fear ending the relationship more than you fear going it alone? It may be leaping forward a few steps here, but go to counselling on your own. There's a saying 'you get what you tolerate' and that was what happened to me for 8 years!

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Zoe789 · 13/09/2013 11:22

Sorry, just read that back and it doesn't sound sympathetic. I am not blaming you by saying that you get what you tolerate. I just mean that that is why situations like yours continue for so long. I think often the husbands that sit on their ass while you do everything know that the wife fears the end of the marriage more than she fears taking on all of the donkey work. Not generalising about men here, a certain type of man will just tune out the talk. so all the advice in the world to 'sit down and talk reasonably' will just be filed under white noise.

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Wearehamandcheese · 13/09/2013 11:31

I guess I've felt tied to him for a long time because of being financially dependant on him. But now that's gone suddenly everything has become harder to deal with because I know I could get out now. I'm just trying to work out whether I would be able to say what I want to say and what's been driving me crazy now or whether that would just be me being a bitch. I know what it would look like from the outside but I just don't think he sees the future the same way I do. I struggle to accept now that this is it. That this is as far as we will go in terms of the relationship in terms of the dynamic and in terms of ambition and hope things being how I want my life to be.

I'm not explaining very well but I hope you can gather what I mean.

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Zoe789 · 13/09/2013 12:07

I know what you mean. You are explaining it well.

Also, it's the point when a lot of issues come to the fore, and it's not unusual. I had always been independent but after the second child, I realised I could no longer carry on in a relationship that was so flawed. I had carried the inequality out of optimism, fear of change, fear of confrontation..........

It's hard to distinguish between what is reasonable optimism, giving a partner/husband the benefit of the doubt and what is never going to happen, or change. That's really hard, especially when you're in the eye of the storm!

So, before you 'sit down and talk to him' (the advice always given! as though, the problem could have got to this point if he were a reasonable man) I think you need to have it really clear in your own head, what are you asking for? a more equal relationship? hardly unreasonable! are you prepared to carry on with no voice? you feel you can't speak out or that would make you a bitch! That seems pretty miserable. You feel things aren't fair, but you can't speak out as that would make you a bitch! Is that because in the past when you have (perhaps) gently challenged his assumptions about money, childcare, free time etc, he has reacted in a way that lets you know that he will cling on to the 'power' he has in the relationship.

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Wearehamandcheese · 13/09/2013 12:10

He's never said anything that directly indicates "I'm the one earning the money I can do what I like"

But there have been times I feel like he's tried to prove a point that he can if that makes sense. It could all be me reading it wrong but sometimes it has felt like he knows I'm here with the kids and can't do anything about it.

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Zoe789 · 13/09/2013 12:20

Oh no, it's not an announcement! it's just a sense of entitlement isn't it?

Money is power.

the fact that you're not even sure if you're reading the situation correctly is another worrying sign. You feel you can't challenge him? You can't insist that your role is valued, that you're valued?

The status quo that is going unchallenged at the moment is that he earns the money and he is entitled and you ought to be grateful. You might say that's not quite right, but when you say he has made the point to you that you could have less!!! that sounds to me like he's reminding you to be grateful for what little you have, not that he is feeling guilty that the division of income &/or free time is 65/35 to him!
Guessing.

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Wearehamandcheese · 13/09/2013 12:29

Lets just say we didnt see things the same way, but now he's not working he doesn't have the upper hand and I won't be reliant on him.

I just don't know if this is my chance to go it alone and move on in my life, or a test to see how much we can take together and maybe strengthen the relationship. Just trying to work it all out.

But to outside it will be - no job, no money , now she dumps him , shows what she thinks of him.

It's not that at all, in fact I've let so much slide for fear of him leaving me and not having the financial ability to support myself, and now it could be my chance to speak up.

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TheSilverySoothsayer · 13/09/2013 12:32

wear I know that feeling of having no space to oneself. And that space is needed - so you can think. Can you go for a regular walk on your own?

My DF was made redundant and got depressed, my DM was demented by it - but he kept on applying for jobs and got one.

My Ex failed to search for work for years and was round the house all the time and not helping. It clouded my thinking for some years - then I found MN.

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Wearehamandcheese · 13/09/2013 12:39

I guess as I've never emotionally needed somebody, I can do things myself, we don't socialise together really maybe once a year we see mutual friends but he sees his friend and I see mine. The only support I needed from him
Was financial. That's not to say I didn't want to be with him just that I'm a person on my own I don't need to have him on my arm all the time i see people on my own I don't like to be mauled about and I'm not all lovey dovey so I do see being pawed at as an annoyance and a lack of respect , because ultimately I like to talk, share interests etc but I don't think we have any mutual interests. We don't have much in common at all really.