Shall I just go to the restaurant my DH booked or say something?

[reversegear]

For context we are in marriage counseling mostly for him being passive and leaving me to carry the load and me being the leader and stepping in, plus lots of other issues, but the lady said he needed to stop asking me what I want and be more decisive, she was also eluding to saying “I’ve looked at these three places, which would you prefer” she’s meaning real deep effort and thought.

Anyhow we have the meeting on Thursday and on Friday he’s like right we are out on Saturday night. Ok great that’s a start but when I said am I allowed to ask where, he gave me the name of the place we always go to and have been say 6-7 times, it’s lovely expensive restaurant but it’s the very easy simple go-to option and there isn’t much on the menu I fancy as they change it.

I feel really deflated, and a bit angry that’s he’s kind of just gone for something quick and easy, he’s not even sat down and looked at a new place.

i know this is part of the process, but everything in me wants to say something, and look at alternatives or just say don’t bother.

Or do you think I have to carry this and go along and the focus ny feeling with the marriage counselor?

For context he’s never booked anything.

The advantage of this is that you can choose what you like doing and where you like going. There are worse fates in life.

He played to his strengths and did lots of other things.

From OP:

• I’ve put up with some awful selfish crap from this man.
• He can book things, but only when they involve him, so nights out, work related things he’s a functioning man, just not with me.
• I don’t want to be in control, I’ve been put in this role but not by choice over years and years of having to step in.
• I'd swop lives with DH in a heartbeat
• I’ve tried to hand back delegate give him stuff, but then I end up like his bloody manager as he will drop the ball
• He lost my son due to getting the wrong day at school
• When I’ve tried in the past he will do it for 3 months then just drops all the balls and I find out our house isn’t insured or the cars aren’t MOT'd etc.
• It’s just non stop.
• I go away for my headspace and to get away from the non stop decisions.

It's hard to see someone who never does anything at home - but can in his personal life - as 'doing lots of other things' to make his marriage nicer for his wife. We're always saying a partner should lift you up, enhance your life.

OP doesn't sound very uplifted or enhanced.

Indeed. Yet posters are assuming that she’s ‘critical’, ‘controlling’ and so on.

It’s probably because he feels like he can’t do anything right. If you criticise him when he does act, he probably thinks - well, it’s safer for me not to do anything.

I wonder if he has ADHD? Perhaps check this. It sounds like there is a real possibility that he might.

He’s not a teenager navigating his first restaurant booking for a first date. He’s a grown ass married adult who shouldn’t need baby steps and hand holding in organising a date with his own wife!

Yeah it’s a bit like - “He never helps with the house work, and when he does, he does it all WRONG!” ie - he doesn’t do it the way I want it doing (so now goes for the safer option of not setting himself up for failure and criticism or just not bothering bc he’s pissed off.)

For fucks sake, he’s literally done what’s been asked of him and he’s still wrong. Yeah, I get it he’s starting from a low bar to get over but you can’t have it both ways.

I don’t talk like to any human being, but that tone of voice and attitude is fully expect to be divorced by now.

Im not in-fact a bossy, naggy shouty person who talks shit to my DH I haven’t said out loud what I’ve posted on here to him.

That’s the thing, I don’t criticize when he acts as he simply doesn’t act. It’s why I’m asking now as he has acted and I’ve navigating how to act, do I say perfect well done, or do I say can we take a look at some options.

But this whole thread is about you criticising the choice he’s just made!

But this whole thread is about you criticising the choice he’s just made!

I think in relationships it is very easy to slip into a role which becomes reinforced over time. You are probably not the kind of person to go out for a meal without having a table booked. Your DH maybe thinks "We're bound to get in somewhere". You end up always organising because he doesn't care if there is no plan and he gets lazier because he knows you will have a preference and make sure that is met. You are both adapting to new roles. I hope you have a lovely meal out and well done for taking on board criticism.

I think that’s the crux, I’m not 100% what his strengths are anymore, he’s essentially just given up and let me do everything including earn the money. And he’s worn me down by being so passive and letting me just do everything. I’ve said up thread this isn’t where I want to be I didn’t ask to have this massive imbalance of roles and it’s obviously not suiting me as I’m dead on my feet most days.

I can see why you’re frustrated, he knows he has to work on booking/taking the lead and instead of really thinking about it and putting some effort in to research somewhere new, he’s gone for an easier option.
Reading your comments it sounds like he is capable of booking something/doing something if it was for him alone so it’s not that he’s incapable , just thoughtless?
Only you know if he had turned around and said ‘right I’ve done some research and there is this really lovely Thai Restaurant that’s opened up with great reviews, I’d thought we’d give it a go so I’ve booked it’ wether you’d think it was the wrong choice and think he should have gone for a safe option.
I think women do carry more of the mental load, it doesn’t make it right but we do.
This week my child went to school without his pe kit because I hadn’t put it right next to his school bag for his Dad to take to breakfast club as I was on an early shift.
I had left it on the peg right by the front door, when I got the phone call to say child didn’t have pe kit and I mentioned it to DH that evening, his reply was that as I hadn’t left it by his school bag he wasn’t to know it was a pe day….
My reply was that I only knew it was a pe day because I looked at the timetable on the parent app which he is also on at the start of the year.
It’s annoying and just a small snap shot of the norm, chatting to other Mums it seems like it’s an issue in most households so your DH is far from unusual in not sharing the load.

Just let them think that it suits their narrative. But thanks for the back up 🙌

I also get where you and @Turquoisesea are coming from OP. My DH similar, I know it wasn't me that caused him to be so passive, as he is in lots of areas of his life but not so much as in family organisation. However I probably have contributed in how I have reacted when he has "made an effort" as he rarely has researched or considered the pros and cons.

In the end I have to remember that I like to/ am lucky to choose where we go and what we do, I always try to prioritise any input from him (and DCs) but ultimately as he rarely instigates and arranging, the majority is me having difficulty picking /weighing up 2 choices and he decides.

I agree with this.

The counselling is far too little far too late. He can't change his basic personality and you are already mentally out and down the road so one of you has to cut it off at the head and it won't be him.

Do both of you a favour and divorce him. You will have to divorce him as there is no way he would do it. Start afresh. This is no life.

To be fair reading the reply’s I now realise I have to be grateful he’s booked something he knows I like, he’s taken the safe option and I have to build on that slowly and gradually, yes I would have preferred something different or a bit more thought but I’m having to park in my head that for now in this stage and process.

If this is a genuine question then the answer is obvious. You asked DH to choose and book a restaurant all by himself. The stakes are very high for him. He's made a sensible choice (somewhere you both know and like). You don't query his choice in any way - you go to the restaurant with him and you enjoy all the things you DO like about that restaurant and try to be nice to DH and allow him to have a nice time too. Then you maybe think about how you've behaved in the past (this may well have been years back) and how that may have led or helped lead to the current situation. You may also want to take on board the fact that if the other person chooses where to eat out, there's a higher risk that you won't like it than if you always choose yourself. I'd guess that there have been plenty of occasions when you chose something that you liked and he didn't, but he doesn't think it's worth making an issue of it.

It's fantastic you have taken that on board.
It's something to discuss at the next therapy session. Even at the end of dinner you could say something like "It's was nice to get out together, next time you arrange something maybe we could try somewhere or something new".

I'd strongly suggest that you don't say that at the end of the meal. It's highly likely that you will say it and/or he will interpret it as a critical comment, undermining any positive feelings he has about the meal. Maybe you could try to spend the evening in a positive, appreciative frame of mind, accepting that you don't always have to get exactly what you want. If you're not happy with that, you need to stick with the status quo, when you make all the decisions and he accepts them.

This is all new to him, some people just aren't decision makers for other people as it may not be the other person's ideal choice, as in this case.

Yes he's played save, chosen what he thinks you like. Instead of him feeling he's being thrown in at the deep end have you thought about you yourself choosing two or three places you'd like to visit/eat out at/shopping, coffee stroll or which ever and asking him to decide which one it's to be, I know you're still doing the initial brain thinking but it might give him ideas for future trips out.

This is so weird to me. He's a grown man who doesn’t need to be babied, why are we all patting him on the back for...booking a restaurant? Something he's fully capable of? And why are you stewing and second guessing his whole thought process about this? In a healthy relationship one person would say, hey love I've booked such and such, what do you say? And the other would just say, nah I don't actually fancy that right now, could we try such and such this time?

It's not complicated.

I really doubt it’s all new to him and he manages to hold down a job and get through life before he met the op. I’m not sure why you’ve posted like he’s a child.