Exasperated with nip screw husband.

OP I would suggest you have a chat with Headway, the brain injury charity.

Even if you are already decided on leaving i think it would help you with figuring out the way ahead.

Richard Hammond of Top Gear, remember his terrible accident. Well his wife finally filled for divorce. He came home a different man. His daughter wrote about it recently. The personality changes broke the family up. Terribly sad.

He has been spending our savings like water since his brain damage. He thinks it's hilarious and jokes about it.

We saved for our retirement - H doesn't think (he's absolutely convinced he could die any minute) he has long left to live so he's enjoying spending while he can.

@MyOtherCarIsAPorsche

You really, really need to protect your financial future because he obviously doesn't give a shit about it. If I were you I'd move at least half of it into an account in your own name, one that he cannot access and preferably in a different bank or investment firm. You are risking being left in dire financial straits if he should predecease you.

It is your money too. Protect your share. Separating our finances was one of the first things I was advised to do when things really started going off the rails. Having funds that he could not touch was a lifesaver when I had to leave. I'm normally all about joint finances and that's what DH and I gladly had, until this happened. Now it's all about protecting myself and securing my financial future.

And if you don't have access, if he's put all the savings into his name only and refuses to give you access, you need to consult a solicitor. I saw one early on to find out what my legal position was as far as him running up debt or getting into any kind of legal trouble but other aspects of joint finances were pointed out to me. I took their advice and am glad I did!

I realize I'm coming from now living the 'worst case scenario', but remember 'hope for the best, prepare for the worst'. It was scary for me, I felt like I was 'stealing' when I moved half our finances into my own name, but thank God I did!

Good luck to you, whatever you decide.

OP, I do wonder if he has got frontal lobe damage and it sounds like he might. I’m not sure I could stay with a partner with a brain injury like this. You are well within your life to reconsider your life plan. Would he be willing to go to the GP and ask for a referral to neurology as a start?

As an aside, I think you need a current account and you need to move some savings into it. Who knows what lies ahead but I think you need to have some readily accessible money yourself.

Op Id seriously try and persue a medical side with dh.

Accessing to Google there is an increased risk of developing early dementia (under 65).

He is pushing all your buttons and making life miserable. I would push him towards GP or even have a chat with your own GP about your worries.

I think it is a contraction of two related terms of Georgian origin - a 'Screw' meaning miser, and 'Nipcheese' meaning the same. To describe someone as a the latter meant they would pare the cheese right down to the rind to save money - squeeze the last drop out of something to get their money's worth. (Based on teenage reading of Georgette Heyer novels - she's very good on 18th century vernacular!)

1 Order a dishwasher asap. Get it fitted so he can’t send it back.
2 no one has heard of Nip Screw so please enlighten us all to its full meaning!

@MyOtherCarIsAPorsche

Get your dishwasher and get it installed by all means!

But then, think about your life and if this is the way you want to spend the rest of it.

Without giving you my complete sob story, my DH underwent a radical personality change about 6 months ago after a health crisis. He flipped 180 degrees from being my loving, supportive, and caring husband of 38 years into a verbally abusive, controlling, and frightening stranger. I ended up leaving when it became unendurable. Actually, I had to be escorted out by the police because he refused to let me leave. I am a long way from healed, I probably never will be completely healed, and my life is 'complicated' because we are so entwined. But I am living in a calm home now and can make decisions and speak my own mind without having to 'hear about it'. Do I think he will ever become who he was? No. But I will love him until the day I die anyway, I just can't live with him.

You have two choices, you either stay where you are and put up with his meanness, emotional abuse*, and his temper until one of you dies, or you quietly make plans and leave. My DC saw the change in DH and supported me completely in leaving. Chances are yours will too if you have been honest about how he's treated you and how it is affecting you.

*telling someone to fuck off, criticizing their decisions, returning easily afforded items they've purchased, indulging themselves whilst denying their partner the same, and treating them differently than they treat others IS emotional abuse.

Don't know if anyone else has said this. Order the new dishwasher and pay for the old one to be taken away at the same time. You could also pay for them to install, that should stop him sending it back. Why do you send things back, he should do it himself if thats what he wants.

Do you want to live with him anymore? You don't have to. You've been looking after him for years probably and enough is enough now ... you have a right to a peaceful life

I remember your old threads, all when your daughter was expecting twins, right.

i would tell your H to go to a GP, get some therapy or realise he will be alone FFS

A fifteen year old dishwasher is worth fixing. Buying new because an old item wants fixing is one of the drivers of pollution in our consumer economy. Your DH is on the planet's side. Let him do the washing-up, though.😉

"I once used my friend's phone to call him - a 'plumber' (although he was a gas engineer) to come and mend my shower. He said he'd drop in after 6pm on his way home from work until I gave him our address when he promptly told me to F Off."

Didn't he recognise your voice?

A decent dishwasher costs about 500 quid and lasts around five years. So £2 a week or 40p a day.

Doesn't sound like a big expense for the convenience.

It my well be that your hubby prefers to wash the dishes himself. Let him know that perhaps this is the best option all around. Besides, he will be 40 pence up a day. If it's okay for you to wash the dishes by default then surely it's okay to revisit that arrangement and adjust.

Jamesblonde2

Waste not want not.

Have you heard yourself - you hate washing up, 2 days of washing up. Bloody hell it’s only a bit of washing up.

I’m nowhere near tight, but putting stuff in landfill when there’s nothing wrong with it is wanton waste.

Previous generations will be turning in their graves.

Mid-November and now it's going to take something special to beat this gem to Most Self-Righteous MN Post of the Year Award.

It's in the bag, really.

@MyOtherCarIsAPorsche This sounds like very good advice! It is worded much more succinctly and with more subject understanding than my comment above (PP might be a medical professional).

Please consider this advice so that you can be confident that you have done everything you can should you later feel that you need to make a radical (separation/divorce) change. Would your DDs maybe be better placed to raise this with your husband in light of his behaviour towards you? I guess that you might not want to involve DDs, but if you end up leaving their dad, it might be better for your relationship if they can see that you have tried everything else first. Good luck!

@AnnaMagnani right Op, he needs to see his Drs and see if they can help. If this is him for the rest of his life then I don't see how you'll be happy again. Please see if there is medical help for him, I don't think the new him likes you anymore _ is he envious of your better health?

@MyOtherCarIsAPorsche I once used my friend's phone to call him - a 'plumber' (although he was a gas engineer) to come and mend my shower. He said he'd drop in after 6pm on his way home from work until I gave him our address when he promptly told me to F Off

That's simultaneously very funny and not funny at all.

@MyOtherCarIsAPorsche when he threw the remote or phone was it aimed at you? Has he thrown anything at walls or doors? Have the grandchildren been present when he’s ’gone berserk’ about something? Do you think he could be dangerous to young children in your care when he loses his temper?

Do you realise this is domestic abuse? I know he’s been seriously unwell but he’s an abuser.

putting stuff in landfill when there’s nothing wrong with it is wanton waste

There is something wrong with it, though. It's broken. They've tried to mend it once and it's broken again. It needs replacing this time.

Previous generations will be turning in their graves

Nah, both my grandmothers grew up in slums in the 1910s and lived through the war, and would absolutely both be saying 'He should buy her the bleedin' dishwasher, the tight bugger'. They loved new stuff, precisely because they grew up with nothing and spent decades having to make do and mend.