I don't how to make a man happy, there is just something missing in me, says DH

[DreamyParentoid]

We are married. Have two beautiful girls, 2 yrs and 9 months. A lovely, if messy, home, and our relationship is tragically empty on the inside. He says he is in a living hell. That he looks back and sees how much happier he has been in other relationships that were filled with life. That I am just totally taken up with the kids and don't have time or energy for anything else. He doesn't get a look in. No cuddles, the kids get it all.

But I do everything, all the housework, kids meals, most of the childcare. H provides really well. He sleeps in a different bed because he doesn't want to be woken up by breastfeeding sounds and to get a good nights sleep.

It is not the first time he has said something like this. But he doesn't want to split up. He has just given up hope of it being any better. It has all just come up for him. But I'm not to worry. It'll be better soon because he will put his feelings back in a box.

Shit, shit, shit.

I have arranged to see a counsellor which has really helped. But I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to try and be all the things he has said he'd like. Then the other part knows that I am those things if he was nicer to me. He wants more physical contact but I find it hard to be nice to him when he is being so difficult. Then I think if I can just get strong and be myself and get through this bit then we can sort it out.

I just needed to say. I've got to take daughter to nursery now and make it look like I haven't been crying.

This all sounds melodramatic, but it does help to say it in this dramatic way!

xx

[MistAllChuckingFrighty]

Show him the door

[KoalaFace]

Didn't want to read and run. I'm sorry things are so hard at the moment. All I can say is your husband sounds like a nasty piece of work and I'm sad for you that you're getting blamed for clearly being too busy and exhausted to be the man pleaser he wants you to be.

[Anniegetyourgun]

Nice how he's blaming you for his lack of input into the relationship. It sounds suspiciously as though he is giving himself permission to look elsewhere for the bit that's missing, tbh.

[JessicaBeatriceFletcher]

I have known similar marriages where the DH does do his "fair share" but has been totally pushed aside by the wife in favour of the kids.

If your DH really does nothing around the house, then I'm more inclined to agree with Mist

[morethanpotatoprints]

I think you both need to talk.
He sounds like he hasn't got a clue what you are doing all day and what life is like for you.
I find it sad you don't sleep together, that would help the closeness come back to your relationship and give him the cuddles he says he is missing.
What about your feelings? Write them down or better still a letter.
May sound daft but me and dh used to do this in the early days and it always worked. You can't but in, interrupt a letter and you can keep going back to points.
It is hard for both of you when dc are little and it does get better, but it takes you both to want to and be able to sing from the same hymn sheet.
Tell him that feelings in a box will store up resentment and that will be far worse for your relationship.

[Joysmum]

Being married is about wanting to make the person you are with happy, not marrying for your own happiness.

It sounds to me like your husband is only thinking of his own happiness, not how he can make you happy?

Does he have a point? Do you have any time for each other? If not, and if you both want to but can't and there is disparity in effort put in on his part then he has the option to put that disparity right to give you more time and energy to work on your marriage, or else he's kissing goodbye to any chance of improving things.

Either way, from what you've written, he sounds like he's deliberately setting out to hurt you and that's simply not acceptable on any level.

[Gossipyfishwife]

Hi Dreamy. I am sorry that you have hit this wall in your marriage. Lots of men, including my ex, feel they have to compete with their children for their wives' attention.
He does sound a bit of an arse. Remind him that you have wants and needs and perhaps he could step up a little more and allow you to be more of the person you are (along with the wife and mother role)
Don't be responsible for his happiness. Your life isn't all about him.

[VikingLady]

So what does he want? You must be exhausted! All the childcare, housework and trying to please him too! It really doesn't sound like it is you, or your fault. I know being a sahm you tend to think you should be the full-on surrendered wife of the 1950s,but it really isn't feasible (or good for you). An awful lot of them were anaesthetised by gin and Valium.

What does your counsellor say?

[Lweji]

So, he wanted a family but no children, or at least the responsibilities that comes with them.
He doesn't want to split up?
He wants more sex, presumably? On tap?

Or he is having an affair, while playing the respectable family man.

I'd call him on to assume his responsibilities as a father, and as a co-inhabitant of the house.
I'm sure you'd be happier without him.
As for him, it's irrelevant. He's having the life he wants apart from the sex, apparently.

[NomNomDePlum]

tell him to try being a grown up for five minutes. he gets to sleep at night, you are doing his housework and looking after his children, seemingly on your own, seemingly twenty-four seven. how about he tries being a few of the things that you'd like?

i suggest that you suggest that he is lucky to have the emotional space to put his feelings in a box. arsehole.

also, sympathies; it's very hard to be anything for yourself or anybody else when your children are so small. it will pass. and maybe by then he'll have worked things out or fucked off and left you to find an actual partner rather than an entitled tosser.

[Lweji]

Men don't have to compete with the children if they are not playing children themselves.
If they act as grown ups and give as much as the women, they collaborate and I'm sure the couple can still find enough attention for each other.

[RevelsRoulette]

Lovely man. Don't ever let him slip away from you. you're soooooo lucky.

It's the dream of every woman to get their claws into a man who wants to do nothing on the domestic front and have you as general dogsbody. Only in this way can you have the energy to make him your top priority and entertain and amuse him at all times.

Perhaps if he chose to participate in raising the kids he helped to create, and chose to participate in maintaining the home he wants to live in, his maid, childminder, court jester and aid to masturbation might step up and fulfil her obligations to her lord and master.

I do love these men who think that they can work a 40 or 50 hour week and that is equal to the woman working every day of the week, day and night, because he brings in The Money.

[UC]

Can you see the counsellor together?

I found the time with two small children very very difficult, and the kids were all-consuming. We didn't survive as a couple, and split when DS2 was 18 months old.

My exH never told me how he felt until after he left. I also felt unhappy at times, and undervalued, over-worked and under-loved. But we didn't discuss it, I just thought it would get better as the kids got older. I wish we had been to counselling together, and been able to discuss how empty things had become between us before it got to the point when there could be no going back. We only got to a counselling room after he'd had an affair, and left. Way too late.

Would your H be willing to join you in counselling? It sounds as though he needs to understand that "providing" isn't just about providing financially, it's about emotional support and provision too. It sounds as though he works and provides money, and leaves everything else to you. That's not right, and how can he expect you to be all loving and generous with affection if you feel undervalued and knackered?

TBH, sleeping in a different bed because he doesn't want to hear the noise of you feeding sounds like he is rather selfish... They are his kids too.... He can't say all this, then put his feelings in a "box" and pretend they aren't there. They are out there, you are now aware of them, and this will only lead to resentment and more unhappiness.

Good luck.

[MadBusLady]

Good grief, what a tiny, tiny violin he has.

Stop taking this twat seriously. This is ludicrous. He can't continually lay into you about your inadequacies as a wife and declare sadly that he doesn't want to break up, before "putting his feelings back in a box" until next time he decides you need a bit of tormenting.

If he's unhappy, he can propose solutions and you can work on them together. But he's not is he, he's just being horrible.

Do you think it's worth getting him in a room with the counsellor and getting him to own some of these things he's saying? And I do mean the bad stuff about how "you don't know how to make a man happy" not the sanitised version where he suddenly expresses his problems constructively - if he does that just because there's a third party in the room then you know you are onto an arsehole.

[WaitingForMe]

Saying he'll put his feelings in a box is very passive aggressive!

If he wants something, he should articulate it as a request then ask what you need him to do to make that a possibility (not a certainty!).

[MistAllChuckingFrighty]

Look love, you could open the door to him in a BunnyGirl outfit with his slippers and G+T, on your knees with your smackers round his knackers, a broom up your arse so you sweep the floor while you are down there, kids sweetly asleep in bed, house sparkling like a new pin and have an adoring smile on your face at all times

and it still wouldn't be enough

don't even try to turn yourself into some sort of performing sex monkey to please him, you will detest yourself later when you twig that he had set you up to fail

[TheFabulousIdiot]

He wants more sex.
You want more equality.

Tell him that men who do fuck all to help in the house and with childcare tend to get less sex because their wives/partners are too tired.

He needs to grow up and stop acting like a child.

[specialsubject]

tell him to book a week's leave. During that time you go away on holiday. He does everything that you do for that week. When you return, ask him how it went and if he now understands why you don't have the energy for sex.

or shortcut it and just tell him.

or tell him that as he clearly finds you uninteresting and only useful for sex, he should leave, just keep paying the money.

this isn't a marriage.

[Twinklestein]

He is talking about himself: he doesn't know how to make himself happy, there is something missing within himself. Lacking the courage to face this he choses to blame you.

You have done nothing wrong, I've no doubt you're the best wife & mother you can be. With another happier (more mature, less self-absorbed) man, you would be absolutely fine.

To think you are going to want more sex with him when you speaks to you like this is ridiculous.

[LuciusMalfoyisSmokingHot]

I'd find it hard to kiss and cuddle a man who obviously expects it to lead to sex, that annoy the fuck out of me.

Leave him with the kids for a week, and then see how easy he finds being a mother and a domestic slave.

[LadyInDisguise]

So he is complaining because ... his children are taking too much energy/attention/cuddles out of you so he doesn't get any?

I am always at people who have an issue and then just spill their problem and expect other people to pick up the pieces and sort the problem out.
If he has an issue with less intimacy, then he needs to 1- says it a non threatening way, 2- ask what would help you and 3- propose solutions of his own (ie look at what he does himself and put himself in question first).

I haven't seen him doing any of that yet.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

I can't abide anyone who sets it up that their love is conditional. As said up thread, you'll never make this man happy because it suits him to tell you he isn't. That way you are nicely worried and flogging yourself to death trying please His Almightiness.

I'd tell him to stop looking back at these supposedly happy relationships but to look straight ahead for a new one.... and, to be specially helpful, you'll find him a suitcase to pack and open the door for him.

Call this idiot's bluff.

[LuciusMalfoyisSmokingHot]

Tell him to find a new happy relationship, i can tell you, he'd fail because idiots like that are never happy.

They leave one relationship because it was miserable and tell their new partner their last relationship was amazing, but thats true though, because they'd still be with that last person wouldnt they.

And i bet he exes would tell a very different story to the one hes telling.

[LuciusMalfoyisSmokingHot]

*not

[TwistingPassage]

Wow, he sounds a real charmer! Bullying you into changing (into what exactly?) as you don't quite cut the mustard, while you dedicate yourself to caring for his children and doing all the domestic drudgery.

No advice really, but at some point you will need to ask yourself whether his presence is really creating the happy family home you would like to give the kids, and whether his contributions are worth the misery he chooses to inflict on you.