I feel bad even writing this but....AIBU?

[Eliza22]

My DH is a good man. He works hard. Long hours, lots of travel.

We have a rule of no "devices" at the table. My DS (who has autism) used to like to bring his Nintendo ds to the table. Never to play but to have at the side of him. Years ago (when we married - DH is second marriage; DS is his stepson) we had words because DH would allow his own daughter to use her phone (texting) at the table and DH came down hard on DS for having his game device just next to him, unused.

So.... On Friday, me, DH and DS eating at the table. DH has his phone next to him (as HE usually does) and is constantly looking at it/typing. I said (tongue in cheek so as not to offend) "I thought we weren't supposed to use devices, at the table?!" DH fixed me with a condescending stare and said "I'm replying to important messages which allow ME to pay the mortgage". I was so upset. Maybe, over reacting? You see, I'm a sahm. I have a small income which goes into the family pot but contribute little to the financial setup. However, everything I do have, goes into the joint account. I do everything of a home-type nature....and I do mean everything. DS has only just gone back to school full time (he's now 15) due to bullying so yes, I'm aware that without dh's support, I couldn't look after DS in the way I have to.

AIBU to still, days later, want to tell him to shove his mortgage where the sun don't shine?

Op, ignore the couple of goady fuckers who have sniffed out a vulnerable woman and come to put the boot in

You sound like an amazing mum and a great person. Your husband sounds like a self important prick. It's disgusting he spoke to you like that. How demeaning and patronising. You are never 'too old' to start again.

I usually find it hard to get a good night sleep, long enough to keep me in good shape the next day, because my toddler wakes up a bit early, she also cries at night sometimes when her cover's off and she's feeling cold and it's me who gets up to cover her. Also, I experience aches in my arms since I had my lymph nodes taken out a few years back, I tend to wake up between few hours of sleep to exercise my arms for relief and try go back to sleep. My husband sleeps beside me and snores loud, he seem to be oblivious of all these happenings, although he claims he knows when I do my exercises and said that I snore as well. What gets to me is that I try to get as much sleep on Saturdays, if possible, wake up a bit later but my hubby who wakes up very early to go to work 4 days a week & comes home at 8pm, eats and go to bed, wakes up early around 6am on Saturday mornings as well and starts shifting & moving around frequently while on his phone, I think his movements wakes our toddler up early as well because she sleeps in her cot nearby. I work 2 days a week and look after the children, home and do school rounds on other days as we have a 7year old son and a step son. I tried not to complain, but after a while it was telling on my body, I felt tired, fatigued and so one Saturday morning, I said it as quietly and politely as I can, ' xx can you stop moving so much' as toddler was also awake & trying to go back to sleep, he flared up and jumped out of bed shouting that I have no respect for him, can he not lie down and relax in his bed if he's not ready to get up? why am I moaning, after all he tolerates it when I'm doing my exercises, it's morning anyway, if I can't sleep it means I just can't sleep and that's not his fault. I felt a bit shocked and just said, I'm still sleepy and trying to sleep a while longer that morning, but he stormed off leaving me and toddler awake in bed. We tried talking it through later as I was moody all that day, but he still insisted I didn't have respect for him by saying what I said.

Your husband has a job? Good for him. That does not make him better than you. Your husband does not have any special needs? That does not make him better than your son. If you look closer at what he is saying you will see he is being very disrespectful. Both your son and yourself have equal value, have skills, personal qualities and interests that no-one on the earth has exactly like you. No-one is better than you. That includes your husband.
I'm sure you can get back to the way of thinking you had before you met such a negative partner, when you were exactly the same person as now, working as a nurse, and feeling valued and valuable. You still have that value, and you can share it with others, not necessarily in paid work, but also in voluntary work, and simply through your interactions with others. You can choose to look within and feel happy about yourself, and to respect and treasure your many skills and valuable qualities. But it i only you have the power to do this, to start to feel better about yourself, and to start to see that your husband is very wrong, and is making disrespectful and horribly negative remarks which are in fact false, in order to make himself feel superior, and to keep you feeling inferior.

Can you start teaching your son to stop measuring his success by his grades, or his popularity. He sounds a clever young man, and a sensitive person who has many positive qualities.

Start to make changes towards building your self worth, whatever they may be. Maybe get together with your son at a coffee shop or somewhere away from your husband and your home, and start making plans about building a happy future.

www.cv-library.co.uk/job/203790606/School-Nurse-Complex-Learning-Difficulties?jobref=203790606&s=100213&trv_cid=3e9f2fa307c77417df8b05510bc874ada2ddad02&utm_source=Trovit&utm_medium=CPC&utm_campaign=campaign37
You sound pretty qualified for this. You don't say how old your DS is, but independent school staff usually get a hefty discount on fees too.

www.cv-library.co.uk/job/203433386/Lead-School-Nurse-School-Nurse?jobref=203433386&s=100213&trv_cid=ff06b412f167cc7ff35152d3618b26574b215612&utm_source=Trovit&utm_medium=CPC&utm_campaign=campaign37
Similar role in London

www.jobs.lady.co.uk/job/detail/id/2867

It says no children but they might be open to negotiation given he is 15 rather than 5. Comes with a 3 bed cottage.

Beefthief is clearly the OP's husband.

Okay. Here goes.
I'm 54 recently discovered I'm on the spectrum myself and I've been married for 26 years with a son who has ADD and is Aspie and now a young adult my husband is also Aspie and ADD.

We've been well off for a time but life happens and austerity hit us hard and so we no longer live in a big house with a big mortgage we now live in a private rented house and have next to nothing.

I am emotionally and physically drained and have next to no self-esteem. You and I have stuff in common but certainly not exactly the same.

I do know what it is like to find myself without a steady income and with a nervous anxious child and at one point we were homeless and living with a relative after a fire destroyed our previous long term home.

The one thing I know is that as long as you have a roof over your head and food on the table stuff isn't so awful as long as you live in a way where you are not feeling unwelcome and unwanted in your own home.

I think you should get advice from a solicitor/women's rights organisation/here about the legal position you are in.

Whether your husband likes it or not he has married you when you had a full time job and an independent lifestyle and during the marriage you became a fulltime housewife and lost your independence and self confidence.

When I got divorced many moons ago as a youngster I was told by my solicitor that the law looks into what has happened to you during the marriage and if during that time your husband has assumed the role of breadwinner and basically you've become a person who has lost their skills at supporting themselves then the law sees that as him now having financial responsibility for you.

I don't think it matters how long you've been married - I'd only been married a couple of years and my solicitor said I had the right to take him for half of everything back then.

As it was I didn't bother as I had no responsibilities and I just went to college and started again as I was young - but your circumstances are different - you've been married for a substantial time and you have a dependent child that your husband assumed responsibility for as well.

I think you need to get proper legal advice from someone who knows what the situation is now. I suspect you will find you are in a much stronger position than you realise.

I also know that if you find yourself living in a rented place without much money but (fingers crossed) it is a housing association type place and you get a calm tranquil atmosphere then you will find things are nicer than you feared.

It will be better for you and your son.

Please don't take your husband's valuation of the situation as accurate. I also think that he may have been emotionally abusing you subtly - it happens incrementally and you might not even realise it is happening. But there seems to be real grounds for a divorce on your part and as I said it is likely you are not trapped as badly as you feel you are. Good luck.

Beefthief is clearly the OP's husband.
Isn't it?!

OP - I'm so sorry for what you're going through. I've experienced similar from my exH, though the abuse didn't stop at the emotional. It took me a very long time (many years) to recognise it for what it was. Partly that was out of shame and also from trying to hold the family together. So wrong on so many counts. Bizarrely it was my ex who left in the end, bleating about how I'd kicked him out of the marital bed. (I'd been woken up twice by his physical violence.)

Abuse leads to loss of self-esteem, and this is made worse by the menopause. I agree with the others who suggest counselling as a way forward, to help you find yourself again in the middle of this maelstrom and work out what's best for YOU and DS. Checking in with your GP is also a good idea, wrt possible depression.

I had a high-powered job when I met my ex. Having kids totally changed the dynamics and his work was such that had I returned to my career and not been a SAHM, we'd have needed 24hr childcare. Not viable in any way. He left when the kids were 7, 5 & 2. I've had 2 jobs since then, neither anything to do with my career. Had to give up the FT one as one of my kids became ill and after a gap of a few years, I'm now doing p/t supply in a very low-skilled & low-paid local authority job, as it's nearby and flexible enough to work round her.

It's taken a very long time to get my head round all this; I'm a million miles from where I thought my life would lead, but family and health come first. At 56 I'm independent and more importantly have regained my self-esteem and joie-de-vivre. I'm much more the person I was 20 years ago and am now trying to work out what to do next workwise, for the next 10 years or so.

Sorry this is so long, but it's to encourage you that there IS a better and happier life for you & DS, with or without your DH. It's clear that the status quo is no longer viable. Very best of luck with it all.

Beefthief must be a bigamist many times over then. He pops up with shite like this all over the boards.

You sound like a nightmare Beefthief - your poor wife

I recieved a PM from a poster but cannot reply as it won't let me send it.

If it was you then the answer to your PM is "yes however continuity of care does increase my costs"

And sorry it took so long to respond

YANBU. Have a word with him about it. You may not be earning enough money to pay off a mortgage but raising a child with special needs and looking after a home can be harder than going out to work..

I happened upon this thread via the daily email.
I'm sorry, OP, that you feel the way you do, BUT I have a friend who, at 51, has started a nursing degree which she will finish when she will be your current age. It's NEVER too late.

I'm not eloquent. Nor particularly qualified to comment as my only DC is three and a normal little lump. I'm also currently not on speaking terms with tact. Therefore:
Stop bring a doormat. The environment you and your son live in can't be good for him.

Thank you for your replies. To everyone.

I didn't expect to get such a huge response and some varied and useful advice too. I will be asking MN HQ to remove my post and thread. Only because, I feel it's gone as far as it can and again, thanks you.

Lumps, finally. I never intended to become a doormat. I admire people who retrain and start all over again, at ANY age. But you've missed a huge factor and that is that I have sole responsibility for a 15 yr old son who has autism and a crippling co-morbid mental health condition. He has (in the past fortnight) gone back to school full time, after doing either only 4 yrs a day or being out of school altogether. Now, whilst I do my return to nursing/degree WHAT do you suggest I do with my son? Just a thought.

Stormtreader and others are exactly right! You don't "get out what you put in" just counting money just like the example with the 20£ and the bar.
You get a fair share of marital assets, reflecting that your domestic input and time and career setbacks etc affect you, and that you have contributed to the marital pot over these years! Don't accept anything less than what courts consider a fair divide of assets. It sounds like you should split - your share will hopefully allow you to support your DS in a safe environment while you figure out what's next.

Didn't mean to upset you. But surely you would be eligible for some sort of support. Either to enable you to continue to look after him full time or to have help with the looking after. Even if you've been out of the job a while you are qualified with vast expierience. You could bank work etc.
All I can think is that I wouldn't want my child, especially one that needed extra support, in an anxiety inducing environment.
I'm sorry I come across as abrupt.

All the very best to you OP. Don't you undervalue yourself or your son. Please think about getting legal advice. And come back for support any time. We're all on your side

Anyfucker - goady fuckers. Make me nearly spit my tea out laughing

Op, sounds like you feel you have to validate your existence which is not good. Talk to him, even if you feel it's over, you need to give yourself and him a chance to say exactly how you feel and what you want moving forward. I think you sound amazing

Glad this has been helpful OP, good luck you sound on the right track

OP may I suggest that you keep a copy of this thread on paper before it's deleted?
That way you will be able to go back to it and maybe some of the suggestions on here will make sense in a few months time or it might be a good reminder for you that your DH's attitude is just not on.

Good luck :)