To not know if this marriage will ever work?

[FizzyWaterMelon]

First post so go easy on me please.

Tl:dr. Husband wants me to work part time and look after the house. Super high expectations make it impossible and we both feel like crap.

I've been with my now husband for just under two years. We got married in January, a rushed wedding as we'd just bought a house together. The house has needed a substantial amount of work done inxli9a new kitchen and bathroom, costing a small fortune we borrowed from my mum and came from his savings account. The house is in my name and me (and my mum) paid the deposit.

He is a really loving and caring guy. Always puts me first, looks out for me, makes sure I'm OK in stressful situations etc when my anxiety plays up.

When we met I had returned to uni and was going to pursue becoming a primary teacher, then later it changed to accountancy. I had always had a goal of having a good career that would allow me to live the lifestyle I want. I don't want lots of holidays, I just want to do things with my horse. We decided mutually that there was no point me getting a new career underway to then take so many years off to have children, and so I cancelled my uni course and finished with a BA.

Over the last few months and with me working various shift patterns from part time to full time, we have talked so many times about me only working part time and staying at home to look after the house etc while he works full time. We have discussed it that often I don't remember who's idea it was and feel he has been pushing me to give up my job so I an become a good little housewife.

My part time job pays the mortgage and for my horse. That was the deal, and he pays everything else. In return it's my job to take care of the house, do the washing etc. Except every time I do something he has a problem with it. I stopped doing washing in his day off as I was mixing loads and things weren't getting washed properly. I stopped cleaning as I was either doing it too quickly and therefore incorrectly or too slowly and taking too long.

Basically, everything I do he says is wrong, and it's getting me down. Tonight is the 2ns night in 6 weeks I'm sleeping on the couch. I do things a regular person does but everything is wrong and apparently shows I have no respect for him at all.

He is very considerate in some areas. Always makes sure my mum is OK now she's on her own, takes care of all the bills from his pay, wants me to have the best life I can. And in return I just need to treat him the way he treats me. The problem is I just can't. I always mess it up or over think it or only think about myself.

Am I being unreasonable? Should I just suck it up and work on being a better wife? Not many folk can say they only work part time with no kids and have so much free time.

Kudos if you go this far.

It’s only 2 years into the marriage.

Age is relative. I got married last year, we are both 50 married for the first time each.
Neither of us are ‘set in our ways’, you can’t generalise so easily. We’re violently gaming or solo kayaking and he’s ripping his fingers to shreds creating and making, or planning camp trips. Refereeing two young-ish kids too.

You’ve done a lot of responsibility at a young age, in a short space of time. Buying a house, rushed marriage, financial commitments with your Mum. Maybe you need to ease into it all a bit longer. Spend more time with your horse or at least get away from everything for a different perspective.

Your financial set up sounds odd for a married couple with no kids. The house being in your name means NOTHING now that you are married and living in the house. It's half his, unless you agree to change the split of assets using a Property Relationship Agreement. Or, do you have a pre-nup?

The starting point should be that he pays half the mortgage, half the running expenses for your joint home. And he finds a way to pay back/compensate for not contributing to the deposit.

At least the house is in your name! Let him move to a place of his own and he can scrub and polish to his own high standards. Who made you the skivvy????
For what it's worth, I'm in my 60s and I honestly don't know a single man of my age who's as old-school chauvinistic as this. My late dad - well, he was, but he'd have been well into his 90s by now.
Do you think his nose is out of joint because the house is in your name? I bet that rankles!

Supportive partners do not make you give up on your dreams to look after the house. Whatever you decide to do in your relationship, please go back and finish your course as soon as possible. It will make you more confident person and you will need the financial foundation to support yourself if you do end up divorced. Please also consider saving money each week in an emergency fund that he doesn’t know about incase you need to leave.

From my non-expert knowledge, abuse doesn’t start at level 10/10, it starts in such a covert way that you don’t know if a decision was made by you or them and you do not have any definitive examples of abusive behaviour, usually something just feels off and that sounds like the point you are at currently.

Sorry, I've just read the whole thread. Young woman, her whole life and career ahead of her, shackles herself to a nit-picking middleaged failure who needs to borrow money from her mum ... why????
Why would you throw away the best years of your life for this?

As others have said, he sounds controlling and not at all like he puts you first.

Even ignoring that, there are a few things I want to point out about your situation. He’s 50 and you’re 27. He’s going to be looking to retire in the next 20ish years, but you have 45+ years ahead of you before retirement age. What changes has he made to his pension planning to take your age and welfare into account? TBH you giving up work to look after the house (or children) is lunacy in this situation. You need to be investing in your financial potential.

What do you know about how you actually want to live your life? You talk about your horse and not needing holidays and that you were attracted to him because he’s “old fashioned” but you don’t seem to have standards of your own for how things should be looked after. You had plans to have a decent career that could improve your financial resilience and ensure you had a reasonably comfortable life but you’ve dropped those plans for something vague that’s turned into nothing. He’s got you sleeping on the couch instead of in a bed (Is this part of his old fashioned values? Or is this because you are too angry to sleep with him right now?) .

What do you see in him other than someone who can pay your bills and give you more time with your horse? What is really there? Because he doesn’t sound like he makes you feel that good. And he isn’t looking out for your financial security. Is he a generous lover? Is he intellectually stimulating? Does he make you feel like you can do more with him than without - and does that turn into reality or is it just surface talk?

What katy1213 said at 02.08.37. And watch out Fizzy, next he'll be pressuring you to get rid of the horse - don't you dare do that! (been there, done that, dumped the husband, kept the horses - felt liberated as I drove out of the driveway and never looked back).

I'm sorry but he sounds like an utter nob.

Please read what you wrote "The problem is I just can't. I always mess it up or over think it or only think about myself."

Why shouldn't you think about yourself? You said it yourself, "I just can't."

If you want to stay and be some sort of house keeper, keeping the house nice and tidy and just how he likes it, then stay. But it doesn't sound like what you really want. His control and his unkind words sound like they will wear you down.

"thankfully we can't get pregnant. Have looked into fostering and adoption as an alternative to having our own kids." May I ask why you cannot have children? You don't need to say but I had a lot of fertility treatment and I am an adopter.

" I'm 27 and he's 50, which I try not to bring into it and I don't think it should be relevant." I think it may be relevant. I also think when there are significant potential issues (like him being 23 years older than you) it does really help to have a very strong relationship to weather any storms. But you say "...the relationship has been anxiety ridden and riding out the storm..." This sounds like it hasn't been a lot of fun for you.

oh sorry, ignore my question.

"He had a vasectomy years ago that can't be reversed, so the only option would be ivf. Also, he had said I couldn't have a natural birth or breast feed ..." Why ever not? Having IVF wouldn't stop you having a natural birth or breastfeeding but you would need donor sperm or a donated embryo.

"He is also very happy to pull his weight with any children we might have, so he says"

The thing is, I am a mum to kids born when I was in my late thirties and mid forties, (the younger by adoption) but it still means I have relatively young kids and I am in my fifties. And it is quite knackering! So if you have not even got the children yet and he is already 50 how much energy will he have for raising them?

"we are supposed to be going to a skills to foster weekend this weekend with the general idea of first placement in about 6 months, but our relationship isn't healthy enough to bring an already damaged child into." Fostering is very different to adoption. Depending on the age of the children you may not be able to work at all (or one of you may not) if you have young fostered children. So who will give up work or would you only foster school age?

Sounds like, to some extent, your whole life, having or not having kids, and what you do with your time is being dictated to by this man who doesn't seem to make you happy! Is that a fair assessment or am I being unfair?

PS I am aware others in their 50s have tons of energy (like my own dh) but I don't!

OP I have to agree with PelicanPie* and others....

"Get the hell out as quickly as you can."

Get legal advice, and personally (and please do not be offended) I would look into some counselling just for you to see why you have allowed this man to so skillfully manipulate you. My guess is he did provide some things you felt you needed/swept you off your feed/was a force for good etc but now you can see that life with him is very hard, you don't seem to be able to be yourself, and that is always a bad thing.

off your feet...

he had said I couldn't have a natural birth or breast feed

WTF? This is not normal and controlling in the extreme. Please don't try to fix this relationship. Get out and fast. The longer you live together the more of a claim he'll have on the money from the house. Go get some legal advice asap.

You need to let the scales drop from your eyes fast. This man is taking your money, your future, your chance to have a career and to have kids.

Get out, get a good job or go back to uni, meet new people and have a great life on your own terms. Fuck this shit, it'll destroy you. Just because he's nice to you on the surface doesn't mean he's good for you. He's not, he's poison.

Good luck

He's done a real number on you. This is chilling. Make plans to ensure he leaves. I can't understand why you are sleeping on the sofa or why you think that's normal. It isn't.

Oh Op, this relationship sounds so wrong for you. Please look into a quick divorce and go and live the life you want to.

I honestly think that you're wasting your life with this man.

Wow...LTB, please.

I also suspect his claim his vasectomy can’t be reversed is gaslighting/ manipulation. Unless he’s tried and it hasn’t worked it seems highly unlikely he’d know that. Almost all vasectomies stand a shot at being reversed. It sounds to me like he doesn’t really want children - especially with him dictating to you how you can give birth and feed them (wtf!?). It all just sounds like he’s playing you in a lot of ways, OP.

OP - This is not the behaviour of a caring and loving man. No horse is worth living a life with this man.

Dear Fizzy, you've had heaps of solid advice on this thread. Is it helping to make things clear for you?

Listen up, Fizzy. I'm 54, old enough to be your mother, and am dumping my benevolent and hard-earned wisdom on you. Take it or leave it, but know that I offer it in solidarity and good faith.

At 27, your life brims with brilliant possibilities. You have a BA, which is a good foundation. Now go and qualify as a teacher, accountant, both, or whatever you want, and enjoy your career. Travel, cultivate your interests, take lovers, go to to gigs, dance all weekend and limp home in the early light! This is what your 20s are for! They are not for being an unpaid housekeeper to some miserable git who is old before his time.

If you still fancy this guy, you can keep him as a boyfriend/casual lover until you tire of him. But please do not stay in this marriage.

• For your H to borrow money off your DM is disgraceful. Marriage is a financial contract (no matter how much love is involved) and it seems clear to me that your H was in no financial position to marry you. You and your DM need to make sure he pays that money back. Otherwise what will happen to your DM in her old age? Will she have enough to live on?

• Fifty is not that old. However, many men of my age group grew up with feminist mothers and sulkily resentful fathers, and have decided to emulate their fathers, who wanted their wives to be their mummies, rather than strike an equal partnership with women. We don't put up with this shit and prefer to divorce their lazy arses. There are lots of 50-something Gen X women happily living our post-marital lives (going to gigs, pursuing careers, etc). Fizzy, you already know something is wrong. Leave now.

• Re fertility, it seems from your posts that there is nothing wrong with your equipment. The world is full of sexy, fertile young men, and if you decide to have children you can shag one or more of them, or even find a good one and marry him.

I understand how easy it is for an older person to manipulate a younger one. I had my fair share of "misunderstood" older men trying it on me when I was in my 20s. They'd say "You must be so lonely" (if I went one Saturday night without a date) or "I'm worried about you -- you might never find someone to settle down with" (unwed at 25) or, if I were applying for jobs in other cities, call me "a bit of a drifter".
So much pathetic BS.

Fizzy, you have to discover what you want and build your life around it. I suspect you're discovering that part-time work with little prospect of promotion, and a marriage to a dysfunctional gent who wants a compliant scullery maid, is not for you.

Keep talking to us. We'll be your sounding board.

He sounds extremely controlling. I’m so sorry to hear you didn’t finish your studies. I’d end it, sort the property and go back and finish your studies and find a therapist to help you figure out how you ended up marrying someone so manipulative

I couldn't have a natural birth or breast feed
What the fuck? Run for the hills op. Get a full time job and tell him to fuck off and die lonely in his clean house. You’re only 27- work out a way to return his deposit, if you have to, sell the house. But hopefully with a full time job you don’t have to. I’m sorry you cancelled your study plans for this guy but at 27 you can absolutely get your life back on track.

@groovergirl - you are SPOT ON with your comments about 50 yr old men emulating their sulkily resentful fathers. (Im married to one, but not for much longer)

Leave now. The first red flag was university. Apart from anything else, whilst your age gap might be just about OK now, next time you're at the shops, look at old men, and imagine being married to someone that age when you are younger than your husband is now. You are wasting your life on someone who is trying to control you, who is critical of everything you do, who already has you believing that you can't do anything right, who is trying to keep you at home (away from other men?). Was fostering and adoption your idea or his? Because I'll bet the next thing would be that he'll tell you it would be easier and better if you give up work entirely to look after the house and children. If that's your choice, fine. Not so fine if you feel forced into it.

@FizzyWaterMelon read @groovergirl 's post. She has it exactly right!

He's not good for you. He increases your anxiety. He's controlling and he bullies you. You could have children with someone else, but not with him

See a solicitor, sell the house and split the proceeds. Get divorced. Move on and be happy.

Make sure it's a bloody good lawyer too