My head is all over the place at the moment and I don’t feel I can talk to anyone in real life so I am hoping someone here has some experience and can offer some advice.
When DH and I met about 17 years ago, we lived far apart from each other the whole time but we made it work for 5 years before we got married and finally moved in together.
Before we got married I only saw him for weekends and holidays and we had brilliant fun. He was energetic, exciting, really sociable, up for going on lots of days out and a genuinely fun and loving guy.
However, over the years (we have now been married for over 10 years and have 3DC) I have realised that I only saw the “weekend and holidays” DH and not who he actually is 90% of the time. When we have friends over or go to see family, pre marriage DH returns and he is relaxed, sociable, funny and helpful but when we are alone then he is really quite boring, always tired, always stressed, very focused on his own life and he rarely wants to do anything at weekends and almost gets annoyed when I bring up holiday ideas - although does usually have fun once on holiday.
Saying that, I have occasionally started taking the DC for days out without him because I feel we have more fun. When he comes, he almost seems to look for a way to spoil the mood and starts yelling at them to mind the roads or that they were not looking where they were going. His mum is the same if we go out with her so I assume that was his example growing up. It certainly wasn’t mine though so is alien to me and I hate how it ruins the mood and the DC’s excitement visibly lowers.
He also angers easily and if we have an argument he quickly decides that I am being unreasonable and attacking him and gets very defensive or dismissive. He is never violent to me or the kids but in the earlier days more than now, he did used to get stupidly angry and occasionally damage a toy or a door. Now he tends to just go out alone to calm down so is trying to address his temper.
I know the above makes him sound awful and anyone reading will quickly decide that I would be better off without him but it’s nothing like that simple.
He adores me and he lives for our DC. I know to my core that everything he does and works so hard to achieve is actually completely for all of us and we do have a comfortable home and have experienced some great opportunities because of his job and how hard he has worked to raise through the ranks.
However, I find myself increasingly wondering if life would be more enjoyable if I had married someone a bit less ambitious and so more relaxed and fun and without such an incessant striving for improvement. As the DC get older and he has more influence on them I also start to worry that his almost obsessive determination that things can always be improved will have a negative impact on them as they never feel good enough. My oldest DC is 12 and yesterday at dinner I winced inside as he proudly told DH that he had been given a start of term assessment grade of just one under the top mark and so had started great and still had room to make the top by the end of the year and DH basically said that surely he should be top already. DH didn’t seem to notice that our DC immediately withdrew from the conversation and that it had a negative effect on his confidence. In fact I find myself constantly mopping up after DH’s confidence attacks and in doing so I almost have to paint my DC’s own father as wrong and with unrealistic expectations. How long do I let this go on for and is this actually healthy for them? To have two parents who aren’t unified?
My DH also has, to me, what seems like a completely crazy idea that nobody can ever make a mistake and that if you do then you should berate yourself for at least the rest of the day. This will apply to making a wrong turn in a new area of town, forgetting to bring something along on a trip and so I now find myself being asked by my DC “not to tell daddy” that their water bottle has gone missing or they’ve left their coat at school. Is this ok? On one hand at least they can tell me and I feel I act more reasonably and we focus more on ways to look for the items rather than focus on the fact they’ve been lost but on the other hand I am now keeping secrets from my husband so we all have an easier life and he doesn’t end up going on at them for 20 minutes about how they don’t care about their stuff and if they did then it wouldn’t be lost or forgotten. I have actually tried to talk to DH about this point but he absolutely 100% cannot see it from any other perspective and thinks he is totally right and that mistakes or things forgotten are always deliberate and mean you are not good enough. As a strong woman, anytime he has tried to imply the same to anything I have forgotten, I can just tell him to shut up but the DC can’t do that so is it ok to leave them in this environment?
Despite all the above, the DC do love DH and would be absolutely devastated if we were to split up. It would certainly not be an easy road for all of us and I know it would also devastate DH as he does live for our DC and at times is bloody excellent with them and in honestly is much better at playing with them for hours than I am.
Has anyone had similar experience where their DH is not horrific and does work hard for their family and yet they have left and found they were happier, or conversely not happier?
Or has anyone had a similar experience and decided to truck on at least until the DC are older and then see where they’re at?
I’m not saying I’m unhappy all of the time and like any marriage ours has its ups and downs and ours has been ups for the majority of the years. I am also very sociable and can build quite a busy life for myself that brings me happiness but on down days I wonder if that is healthy as I end up organising so much time to not include him?
Sorry this is long but I needed to paint the whole picture and hope someone might have had similar experiences and not necessarily decided to leave.
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
DH is not who I thought I married. Has anyone stuck it out and been ok?
Lostinacloud · 07/10/2020 09:41
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