To be really effing pissed off with my husband

[indecisioniskillingme]

DH and I have had a rocky year or so. The past few weeks we have been living apart 'sharing' ds 60/40ish.

It has been me initiating the separation and DH has consistently said he wants to try (but not really done anything except work on 'his' life - more time at the gym, more nights out etc - this is fine with me as part of the issue was that he had no life of his own.)

I moved back to the marital home yesterday. DH said he was really pleased. He was going out with friends last night so i knew i wouldnt see him and we had agreed we would be in separate rooms.

Ds (3yrs) came into my room this morning and had a chat and then asked where daddy was - I said he was in the other room and ds' face lit up and he went running into see his dad. He came back a minute later saying "daddy told me to go away because he had a late night". He looked absolutely gutted.

My heart broke a little for him. He hasn't seen his dad properly since Tuesday.

I am also pretty pissed off that he hasn't bothered to get up yet and say hello since I've moved back home because he wants to try.

I know it's still early but he wasn't drinking so won't be hungover and the last train gets home at midnight...

AIBU?

I can't see what has changed from why you originally left to when you moved back in apart from he has got more for him which he has managed to arrange and set up because he wants to and absolutely no changes for you as a couple apart from hot air.

Your child comes into to see you all lit up as they have just moved back in and you deflate them and send them away because you are tired and have a hang over? That is shit. You give them a big hug and cuddle.

He knew he had work this morning. He chose to go out last night. Deflating a happy to see him child is shit.

Remind him what he was saying and that you expect to see the actions to match the words.

Whatever you decide to do and it shouldn't be putting up and shutting up you have to sort it as the back and forth is disruptive for your child.

I think it's a bit off he went out last night tbh. You should have planned your moving back in better. Picked a night where you could have sat down over dinner and had a proper talk.

Sounds like the pair of you need to head in down to Relate and start communicating. You need to spell out what you need, he needs to listen, and vice versa.

you cant expect him to read your mind and do what you want him to do without telling him what it is you would like..

you do sound as though you are trying to find fault for the sake of it..

Sorry I think he sounds very U. Ok, if this wasn't a significant day, his spouse and child moving back in. He must've known your Ds was very excited. I think it is very lazy and sounds as if he can't be bothered. Plus he knew he had to be up for work in the morning anyway.

Plus it is soul destroying being with someone who never plans anything for you at all. Clearly he is able to plan for himself and his friends.......

But he has only just started doing that hasnt he cherries, and he knows what he wants. He clearly doesn't have a clue what the op is wanting, so perhaps he needs more specific guidance. They both need to get better at the communicating with each other side of things.

My soul isn't destroyed by living with a man who never plans anything for me. He has a million other qualities that make me feel special and loved and central to his world.

Ok, here's my take. The guy can't do right for doing wrong. You wanted him to get his own life, so he has started going out more. Then you move back in on a night which he has already planned a night out. He's thinking, bollocks, if I cancel she'll think I am going back to being boring and not having my own life, so I had better go out anyway. Perhaps the reason he stopped going out is because it leaves him knackered the next morning? I rarely drink much any more as it stops me sleeping properly and I have a terrible next morning. Then when he gets up he gets told off for not doing the right thing when DS came in when the reason he is tired is because he is trying to do what you had asked of him, ie go out more on his own.

Then he knows he has upset you, and next you say 'I want to go out to a bijou shop' - really not a bloke or 3 year old fun activity - so he thinks 'I can help here by offering to look after little one' and he does, and oh look, he's wrong again, he was meant to know you wanted the whole family to go to this shop. So now he is a bit worried because he knows he's got it wrong and you have taken yourself upstairs and he doesn't know if he is meant to go and talk to you or if he'll get it wrong again, so he is downstairs drinking tea waiting for YOU to set the tone, because it seems like everything he does is wrong, even though he is trying to guess what you want and do it right.

Not much of a welcome home

Well put ilikemysleep (ilikeyourname :) )

I think you are expecting him to be far more intuitive than he is. When you say you are off to a nearby village to buy a christening present, he is understanding it as, 'indecision already has plans for the day' rather than, 'wouldn't it be nice to go and have lunch together in nearby village'. He probably doesn't even realise he is invited. I think if you would like to have lunch together, you should actually ask him.

Sorry OP I think you're looking for problems. Very few people are full of sunshine and light first thing in the morning after a late night. And no one in their right mind initiates a family outing to a boutique to buy a christening present. I should think he thought he was doing the right thing by saying that he and your DS would stay at home after all, you'd just been complaining that he wasn't giving DS enough attention. I suspect the poor bloke doesn't know what he's supposed to do. Whatever the rights and wrongs of why you separated in the first place, it just sounds as if you have two entirely different sets of expectations of your relationship ... and that you really don't want to be there at all.

OP I am sure you feel you are being reasonable but all I can see is you saying he doesn't do or say anything you want (but don't tell) him.

A very similar story to my XW who towards the end gave me a list of things I didn't do but she wanted. Never mentioned the things I did do like coffee in bed every morning for 25 years and lie ins etc. I don't pretend for a moment I was perfect but I know there is a balanced view if you look for it.

When we separated (3 years ago) she spent at least 2 years telling me how she didn't have this, that or the other, and how hard done by she was. I would at least have expected her to tell me how great it was she wasn't with me any more!

It's a state of mind. Try to look for happiness in what you have, not what he doesn't do for you. Otherwise leave and stay left and at least one of you will be happier in the long run.

Ilikemysleep has put what I was thinking, so I won't repeat. Indecision, I really feel for you and whilst I think YABU, I think it comes from a desperate place. Like some of the others have pointed out, your DH can't do right for wrong because you're looking for the 'perfect' scenario; it doesn't exist. Your DH obviously isn't the planning/activity type and that sound like it's your thing, think about what he actually does do, it might not seem like much but it's perhaps what you can build on? Help him to contribute in the ways he actually can rather than trying to change him so much. I hope you sort it out, it's a heartbreaking situation for you all.

True, there are many other good qualities but this smacks of "can't be bothered" to me. Sorry op.

Did it feel better being separated or do you prefer living with him? You have experience of both. You're allowed a preference. Sometimes people are better parents apart.

First problem is that you need a mind reader.

You wanted him to perhaps get up and say hello, you wanted him to show his delight at you moving back in, you wanted him to plan something for the weekend, you wanted him to suggest you all to the bakery. But you also want him to come up with those ideas himself.

He won't.

He probably thought that offering to look after your ds whilst you went ot the bakery was a good idea, especially since you have just criticised him for not spending enough time with his ds. You are confusing. Either you want him to make a fuss of your ds or you don't. In my opinion you are expecting too much and you haven't given him a chance to respond. That's not fair.

After 14 years of marriage I have discovered that my husband is not a mind reader. He is practical, not terribly romantic and I can't change that; neither should I want to. I accept that he is the man I married. He thinks that a meat cleaver is a perfectly good Christmas present (because I needed one) and that a calculator was a wonderful birthday present (because I'm shit at maths). He was always like that and I ain't gonna change it now.

It sounds as though you really don't want to accept your husband the way he is, you want someone else.

He is always going to disappoint you I'm afraid.

Yes I'm sure there are men out there who act spontaneously and who love spending time with their families and who make a loving fuss over their wives, but I wouldn't want to be with any of those as I chose my dh, faults and all. You need to decide if you can accept your dh, warts an' all.

I don't think you want to accept him. He is delighted that you are back but you wanted him to make a huge fuss of you and show that delight. He didn't realise this. He thought that telling you how delighted he was would be enough. He's a man of words and not actions. You obviously want it the other way round, or both.

Start communicating with him. Even if it's just to say that it's not working. Don't leave him in the dark about your feelings.

I think I see the issue. You married an average man!

I think you have to take your DS's interpretation of being told to go away with a pinch of salt - because that's what it is - an interpretation.

Clearly your not happy in your marriage and advice will only be of any use depending on how much work you're prepared to put in and what your benchmark for walking away is. I would add the disclaimer that you do have to work on it, it's not about who should be doing what it's about achieving something you're content and happy with. It won't work if you resent that and it might be time to seriously put an end to it.

My DP sounds much like yours, and like others I realised creating expectations in my head and only dropping vague hints of what I wanted and expecting him to pick them up and run with it wasn't going to achieve anything apart from unhappiness for me. We're different people and have completely different experiences of what life should be like. I grew up in a household where time was spent very differently to what the norm was for DP.

I started being blunt and living the way I wanted to and making it clear what I wanted from him. In all honesty, showing him how I wanted to live has given him the tools to understand what I mean when I tell him I want to go 'out' because organising trips has given him the information to have a starting point to look at things we both enjoy. Asking him for hugs when I needed one has given him the information to know the cues before I need to ask.

It's not all one way though, he still can't bear inane chatter about my day at work (I can't blame him tbh, it's boring as hell), so unless it's something really bothering me I don't expect him to listen to me drone on. That works for us, it might not for you. I just wanted to illustrate that just because your unhappy doesn't mean you automatically get to dictate and judge everything the other person does.

" he says that he saw ds on Thursday (he gave him breakfast and dropped him at nursery at 8am) and that he spent last weekend with him,"

this^^ would piss me off tbh. it's the kind of justification my EXP uses. as if because he saw them what he considers 'recent' then that's his job done for now. I hate this attitude. they are your children always, they aren't like cleaning the bathroom ("I did it yesterday- don't need to do it again for a week")

You are setting him up to fail again.

Which is fine, if you are just looking for justification that you were right to leave.

But he can't win. Keep that in mind. You can't win at games you don't know you are playing, and setting constant tests never made anyone happy.

You need to tell him specifically what you want - he is not a mind reader. A lot of your issues seem very minor (not organizing anything). I am also rubbish at that but it doesn't mean I don't absolutely love and adore my DH.

I am also rubbish in the mornings (with or without a night out).

Ok people are not perfect but you have a son together. He deserves that you both work on this. DH needs to learn how to show you how special you are to him and you need to accept him for how he is but gradually teach him to behave more in the way you would like him to.

I'm sorry you are having a tough time and this colors the way you see everything. But you need to decide whether to give up (and do it quickly as it won't get easier) or work at this. All marriages / partnerships struggle at some point. At times I have wanted to call it a day. But I can honestly say now that I am glad I didn't. It took us a while to work out what we both needed to do to make each other happy. And from time to time we do have to remind each other.

I hope you find a way through this.

"And from time to time we do have to remind each other."

I think this is a pertinent point - the compromises/working never really stop it's naive to think otherwise imo. It's amazing how many couples who have been with each other for decades get pissy when they realise they both have very different ideas of how to spend their retirement.

I wonder if OP's frustrations began after having DS? It's a huge shift in the dynamics of a relationship and expectations change massively.

Thanks for all the posts... Very interesting.

I have in the past done specific things, eg. Date night where we agreed alternate weeks we would do something just us, in or out, no tv and engage with each other. I organised on my turn (a meal out), he forgot on his turn so I suggested we played a board game and chatted, then he didn't do anything on his turn.

I do feel I have tried on this one.

I do also feel we have to try for our son, but it is only ever me who does the trying on the relationship. Even DH agrees this.

Anyway - maybe I was BU but that is how I felt and still feel.

I also see that maybe I am setting him up to fail cause I feel I need justification to leave. Because we have a ds...

I just feel so lonely in my marriage :(

indecision, I actually kind of disagree with the majority here.

Say I was in a position where my marriage was so far on the rocks that my husband had left me. Say, after a couple of weeks of discussion and space, he'd agreed to come home. Well, personally I don't think it much matters what I have planned that evening. I'd pick up the phone and say 'I'm really sorry - DH and I are trying to make things work at the moment, and I have to prioritise there right now. Maybe next time.'

The being grumpy in the morning is secondary as far as I'm concerned. It seems it more the not unreasonable expectation that you come first in your partner's life, especially at a time when you really need to come first.