To be hurt to be told “not interested”?

[Bathalfcomplainer]

So DH ran the Bath Half marathon yesterday. I was supporting with the kids (2 and 5) and after watching the start, we traipsed around Bath battling crowds to get to a play area. The usual hassle but had a good time there, until DD#2 decided to poop herself. This is unusual - she’s 99% potty trained during the day. So I had no spare change of clothes! So we are in the pay toilets trying to clean up when DD#1 is sick over the pram (too much spinning on the roundabout).

Total panic. Both crying, both filthy, this toilet is filthy too but at least has a baby change table.

Finally manage to improvise a pair of trousers out of a coat (it’s freezing). Eldest refuses to move. Manage to drag her out and up the hill with the promise of letting her watch YouTube later (which I hate - this is my bribe of last resort).

We were on track to watch DH cross the finish line before all this, but now had no chance of making it across town in time. DH phones to ask where we are. He’s super fuming that we weren’t there to see him. I say I know, I’m sorry, please listen to why. But he hangs up and texts “not interested”, and then more about being “let down”, and “you have no respect”. He says “I’ll see you at home”.

(An empty threat as I had the park & ride tickets).

We eventually meet up about 40 minutes later after I’ve dragged two filthy screaming crying girls back across town. We agreed to just head home.

He later admits he was being unfair but doesn’t go so far as to apologise. Now, the next day, he tells me he’s feeling depressed about how we weren’t there for him and didn’t go out for pizza afterwards like he wanted.

By the way, for context, this is his 5th half marathon, and he did more than 25 races last year, and I nearly always have the kids while he does this. We always try to watch him at the finish and most of the time we make it, but the reality of kids aged 2 and 5 is that hanging around waiting in cold, entertainmentless race venues doesn’t always make this possible!!! And he’s always raging when I’m not there cheering.

Am I being unreasonable to feel hurt at this situation?

Surely whoever does the cooking should order the food? It doesn't make any sense that he orders it and then you have to work out what to cook.

He's not exactly father of the year is he? Hitting your daughter and ignoring them while he watches tv

OP. Go to counselling on your own. Find one who specialises in DV. Cancel all of your Saturday activities. All of that for a 5 year old woman s ridiculous! This is all too much pressure. Your husband is ruining your kids childhood and ruining your ability to enjoy your kids childhood. I have a 5 year old and she does a couple of after school clubs and that’s it. Weekends are precious lie-in, refresh, sofa chilling, board game playing, ad-hoc cinema trip time. How are you ever going to do “what a wonderful sunny Saturday, let’s pack a picnic and head to the beach/park” days? You (and your kids) are missing out on a huge chunk of life. You are massively over scheduled. He’s running your life to the extreme. This is not ok and not normal. Don’t you want the space/time to smell your kids hair, chill and chat and enjoy them. When was the last time you sat and did painting on a Saturday afternoon with them? Last Saturday, I baked cookies (with their help) they sat and made, cut, glue, painted creations. Then we sat and watched a transformers movie. We were in our PJs until Sunday. Don’t you want that? It’s bliss. It’s my favourite part of parenting those random, ad-hoc, lovely nothing going on weekends. We play hide and seek and tickle games and build jigsaws. This is how we bond. They come out with the funniest things that I stand there and think “remember this it’s the best thing they’ve said”. You can’t get that if you’re rush, rush, rush. Your daughter isn’t going to be an Olympic level swimmer/ballerina/dancing expert is she? Do you even know where her passions lie? You’ve chocked her so far full of what he believes is important. What does he know? She could be the next Banksy (if allowed to spend Saturday doing creative stuff) or the next female Gordon Ramsey (if allowed to spend Saturdays experimenting with baking). When was the last time she got to sit at the kitchen table breaking a box of eggs and mixing food colouring into rice/pasta? My 5 year old does that regularly while I listen to the radio and drink tea wearing my slippers. That could be your life. Don’t you want more of the quality and not this weird stressy strange stuff your husband had instigated? Plus the hitting...WTF are you doing? My eldest is now almost finished primary. These precious years go so quickly. Now she’s only interested in hanging with her mates but I have years of those “hanging out with mum” memories. Do not waste them with pointless commuting to and from endless activities. Do not let a man, any man, ruin your precious weekends with your little ones. Tell him no. From now on, once the door shuts on a Friday it doesn’t open again until Monday morning for you and the kids. Do this for 6 months and see what a difference it makes to your mental health, stress levels and relationship with your kids. He can go off jollying if he wants but you will no longer be his facilitator.

Are you comfortable with dealing with what happens when your child tells teachers that her father shouts at her and hits her?

He seems to need a lot of attention is he like that in other areas of his life ?

What BeUpStanding said. Great post.

Yanbu. He is bvvvvvvu.

*Partner orders food for the week using Tesco delivery to try to save us time. This is one of the things he does on the phone as well as Facebook.

Delivery arrived tonight and as usual it’s a pretty random selection. He’s got vague meal plan ideas but it’s not coherent and always leaves me to do the master chef invention test every night with what we have. I did the shopping order last week and it was more organised but he wanted to go back to doing the order himself this week.
So despite the fact theat he is not the cook, therefore doesn't know what ingredients you want, and he doesn't meal plan so presumably meals are a hotch potch and food may go to waste if not used, he insists on ordering the shopping. Do you see how controlling this is?

Despite headache still being a killer there is no suggestion that we deviate from our normal evening so off to the kitchen I go.
So not that kind and generous then. Even if he has no idea how to cook, presumably he could have knocked together sandwiches for you all, or a frozen pizza, or a takeaway?

While I’m cooking, kids are starving so I give them strawberries as a snack. He’s watching Chicago fire. Strawberries are on the floor. I say could you please clean those up. He stares at me and sighs. I clean them up.
Again, not the sign of someone who is kind. He knows you have a bad headache, and are trying to cook a meal, yet he still leaves you to clear up as well, even though all he's doing is watching a screen.

Eldest wants someone to go upstairs with her to get her pyjamas. He’s not moving. She’s crying for him. I pause dinner and come out to go upstairs with her, but she only wants him. He pauses and shouts at her for needing someone to go with her, then goes. I assume he’s angry because his TV watching has been interrupted.
Horrible behaviour, to shout at his children because they want his attention.

Eldest was acting up trying to ride scooter round living room while we unpack the shopping. She rides it into the door and he clips her round the head and shouts at her. It’s a light hit and he says sorry. I tell her that it was wrong for him to hit but right to say sorry when you’ve done something wrong. She’s happy and acting up again within 2 minutes*
He hits her and shouts at her some more.

it’s just walking on eggshells all the time to avoid triggering a flip out - this won't just be you walking on eggshells, you know. This will be your children too. This will be there childhood, with a constant feeling of anxiety because they know they can't risk upsetting Dad. This will shape their lives for ever. It does that to children who grow up with this.

You're not ready to face up to his controlling ways. To face up to his 'flip outs' or his shouty, head clipping behaviour yet. And yet you must start to see this for what it is, for the sake of your children.

Can you go for some counselling for yourself? Or do the Freedom course online?

Op I think you need a bit of clear head time to yourself to process all of this. Do you have any child free hours this week go for a walk and find some space and decide where to go next.

Hope you ok 💐

Shouting and swearing at the OP is guaranteed to make her feel a million times worse and hide the thread. If you want to support her and help her understand her situation it’s not going to be by doing that.

OP I understand you are trying to do your absolute best to keep everyone happy and look after your family. Unfortunately you can’t change or stop your dh’s behaviour and you’re trying to navigate around it but it sounds like it’s centre stage most of the time from small actions like ignoring the children and snapping at food prep time to huge actions like swearing, slamming doors, moods and of course the hitting, which actually happened in a relatively low stress time. Even if these bad times aren’t constant they are very very significant for your self worth and your children’s.
Did you imagine family life to be like this? How much of your time do you end up feeling like shit and worrying?
Leaving is a huge daunting leap and the last thing you want is a broken family and all the stuff you have to go through to get there with a man like that, but the first step is to speak to someone honestly, get counselling and talk through the different options. You don’t have to stay in this situation and you can break away in stages. What he’s doing isn’t ok. It’s extremely selfish, don’t let him brainwash you into thinking it’s acceptable because he says it is.

We won't need to blame Op ..we won't need to advise Op ..we won't need to do anything...If the little one goes to school and tells them daddy hit her then it will be out of everyones hands.Maybe loosing 30% of the children might cause some responsibility to be taken somewhere? Whilst I feel for women who are being abused.live in constant fear and are reaching out for help with an aim to escape..wonderful women who are trapped ...standing by and watching the abuse being shifted to the kids too well I am sorry for my sarcasm but thats a whole new ball game...if that wouldnt make you step up to make changes then what would? Little girls playing,mummy cooking dinner and daddy ...yes the 30% wonderful devoted daddy randomly just ever so lightly (and I will never believe that in a million years anyone who can hit children is out of control and wont care if its light or not) strikes out.....just another normal evening ....its a shame and its scandalous.I am so so sorry for those children....lets hope they do say something and lets hope for enforced intervention because its desperatly needed here.

OP, if you read no further posts, the last few are a good place to start. AgathaF and Karwomannghia have written useful posts.

It does take time to realise what a number a po partner has done on you, to realise that your partner is abusive. But please take that time to get your head around this. You and your children deserve much better than this.

I would expect OP was previously conditioned to accept abuse, either by being brought up with an abuser in the house or by having a previous partner who was abusive.
Abuse starts slowly, and steadily ramps up. By the time it reaches the sort of level OP and her DDs are enduring, the abuser has convinced victims that a) this is 'normal', that men are the rulers of the home and must always be obeyed, that b) there is a way to stop the man's verbal and physical abuse and it's about 'respect' ie being utterly compliant... but this is a lie, because the man likes hitting and shouting and seeing you all cry and cower, and if he let you relax then you might stop paying him all your attention...

He hit your daughter? How hard doesn't matter, it's the intention and emotion behind it that matters.

Yes he only has to be a bastard 30% of the time because everything goes his way the remaining 70% it’s when it doesn’t it flares

And you have basically told your daughter that it doesn’t matter what someone does hit her abuse her etc as long as they say sorry afterwards. Not he should have done it but that it’s ok because he said sorry
The problem is OP that the abuse here is not just of you but of your children and indeed far more reading through of them than you

Reanimated I agree and the cycle is going to continue with her daughters until someone breaks it

This sounds awful. He sounds awful, and you sound slightly brainwashed. Because when things happen over and over again it's normal to you and you end up minimising it but this sounds really shit.
I hope you find the strength to stand up for yourself and your dds and leave this man.

He knew you had a splitting headache and still got angry when you couldn't do your usual 100% of the home childcare and jobs.

If you two were separated, you wouldn't have done any less than you did last night with the bonus that dinner would have been easier because you'd be allowed to shop for actual meals of stuff.

Once your front door closed, he did LITERALLY nothing without it being a huge issue, you do see that? Your "70% good guy" wouldn't even pick up dropped strawberries in his own house while you cooked dinner with a splitting headache.

This is shit isn’t it?

Oh darling, everything I read just makes me so sad for you and your girls. Do you want them to think that's how marriages work and then pick a similar partner and have a similar shit life? Is there anything good about this man?

I’m hoping this thread isn’t real.

What do you think will happen if your child reports being hit at school?

You need to stop minimising his behaviour and the consequences of it. The kindness shown during the 70% (and to be honest you’ve described nothing above and beyond what a normal parent/partner does) counts for nothing.

You really need to think about the long term impact this will have on your children, even if you are not prepared to consider yourself. Be in no doubt about the damage being inflicted on them.

Why is he sat on his arse watching telly while you're trying to cook with a splitting headache?

But worse than that, he hit your daughter. And you're OK with that?

He ordered the shopping because he wanted to make sure there were foods he likes in the fridge. He is an athlete, after all!

He went to the Play and Stay because he wanted other people to think he’s a great dad, and anyway he didn’t have to look after your DD2 by himself.

If he cared about helping you out when you were sick he would have picked both kids up and taken them out to eat and give you a rest.

He hit your DD to make sure you were uneasy about asking him to contribute to looking after her again. It’s easier for you to just keep doing it. Also to punish you for being ill and making him do a little bit more, or feel bad for not doing more.

He signed her up for all these classes on Saturday to make sure he doesn’t have to look after the kids and so you are running around all day with them, plus he can boast about it.

He makes sure you are so busy and exhausted you don’t have enough headspace to make plans to leave.

He lets the house fill up so that it is constant white noise telling you to do more, and he can use it anytime as an excuse to get angry and vent it on you.

It will not get better.

I think you should get your ducks in a row.

Then tell him to “jog on”.

Despite headache still being a killer there is no suggestion that we deviate from our normal evening so off to the kitchen I go.

Why don’t you suggest it then. Conversation in my house would be, ‘do you mind cooking my head is killing me.’ DH: ‘Of course, have you taken any paracetamol? Do you want me to get you some? Go and sit down’.
But you won’t because you’re treading on eggshells.

Strawberries are on the floor. I say could you please clean those up. He stares at me and sighs. I clean them up

Not on. You’re asking him to do some basic parenting, but he refuses, so you do it. Again because it’s easier and prevents an argument. He can’t even be bothered to go upstairs with his own DD who wants his attention.

Why are you with him? I can’t work out what you get from this relationship. You spend your whole life running around after him (how ironic), dragging your kids around to watch him race, forcing your DD to do endless activities which you end up doing the running around for and you spend your time at home worrying about not pissing him off, oh and he hit your child. What examples are you both setting for your children? He sounds horrible. Wake up.

If you are real - which I now doubt - all I can say is that I hope someone recognises you from these posts and informs social services.

Most people who have a splitting headache would remind their partner and ask them to do the dinner. He is selfish and won't bother unless you tell him.

Many people are basically quite selfish and need reminding. It is not unusual. If our partners throw a strop when they are reminded that we have a splitting headache, we decide that the headache is bad enough that we need to lie down and leave them to it.

You are encouraging selfish and petulant behaviour by just going along with what he wants. If this endangering your children or making their life miserable, this has to stop.

I can just imagine my shitty exh coming back with "I didn't give them the strawberries" if asked to clear them up. I can imagine being in just this situation, except for the hitting - he never did this but was still an abusive twat.

OP you have to leave. He is a horrible horrible man.