Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Original poster

DH's behaviour getting stranger and stranger

170 replies

Pandaredbear · 14/07/2021 13:02

DH has been showing some strange behaviours over the past few years (he may have always been like this but perhaps I haven't noticed?). The older we get (currently late 30s), the less tolerance I am having with a grown man tantrumming. Whereas before it would have upset me, i am finding myself no longer caring if he makes a fool out of himself. I just have no time for dramas at all anymore. Life is too short.

Anyway, his latest thing is whenever he sees me busy with something around the house, he will purposefully call me over and get my attention. Then when I go to see what it is he wants, he will talk about something trivial and then ask why I am always lingering around, wanting to speak to him I just don't know how to react to these funny little games....

OP posts:

SarahBellam · 16/07/2021 06:38

Your semi regular reminder to stop trying to diagnose people on the internet. It’s can only be done by a qualified psychologist or psychiatrist and can take a couple of years to establish a pattern of behaviours.

OP, your DH is acting like a self centred, controlling, dick. Do you want to stay with him?

Shehasadiamondinthesky · 16/07/2021 06:40

It sounds to me like he has a mental illness and needs to be assessed. Quite honestly if he refuses I'd leave him.

tillytills · 16/07/2021 06:48

@MargosKaftan

Oh and a wise woman told me, never try to change unacceptable behaviour in a man, just leave. Its not your job to turn him into a better man, its your job to find a better man.

I like this

DinosaurDiana · 16/07/2021 07:09

He thinks his ‘dad’ jokes are funny. They’re not, they’re tedious and you should tell him.

EvenMoreFuriousVexation · 16/07/2021 07:31

He sounds very similar to my XH. Lack of personal hygiene etc.

I stuck it out because "for better for worse, sickness and health etc" and depression is after all a medical condition. I pushed him to go to the doctor, reminded him to take his meds, reminded him to wash himself, reminded him to brush his teeth, reminded him that children need love instead of verbal abuse, reminded him that parenting means ignoring whining, reminded him blah blah blah.

I finally realised he wasn't depressed, he was deliberately doing shit to punish me and DS. Because his parents were abusive and he was bitter enough to want his DS to suffer the same way. "Why should he get a nice mum? I didn't"

In a way I was glad once he said that as it gave me the impetus to leave.

FortunesFave · 16/07/2021 07:54

I've got to ask....why are you putting all the little type faces when you're describing what really is disgusting behaviour.

I'm genuinely confused. Surely you're posting because you want advice on how to leave?

MoreAloneTime · 16/07/2021 08:10

I agree, the emojis make it really hard to read the tone of your posts OP.

Chickychickydodah · 16/07/2021 08:24

If you’re cleaning give him a duster or hoover and tell him he a talk as you do things.
Stop going to him .

FetchezLaVache · 16/07/2021 08:28

"Why should he get a nice mum? I didn't"

Jeez, @EvenMoreFuriousVexation, what a horrible man. Your poor DS. How is their relationship now?

(Sorry for the thread derail btw!)

C8H10N4O2 · 16/07/2021 08:52

@Unanananana

Women are not rehabs for men.

He sounds quite deranged. No diagnosis is enough of an excuse to be a cunt.

Stop answering his attention seeking bleating. Call out his furious looks and stupid lies loudly and publically. What is your job/house/children situation? Is this what you see for your future?

Well said.

OP at your age you may have 50 years in front of you with this man. If he has an actual MH type problem it needs addressing, if this is the real him then frankly I'd start planning for my own life.

ChargingBuck · 16/07/2021 09:28

@FortunesFave

I've got to ask....why are you putting all the little

type faces when you're describing what really is disgusting behaviour.

I'm genuinely confused. Surely you're posting because you want advice on how to leave?

FortunesFace & @MoreAloneTime -

Because OP is putting a brave face on her shitty situation.
"Genuinely confused" that you can't see that.

AtrociousCircumstance · 16/07/2021 10:52

Why are you with someone so pathetic and toxic?

SomeNameorOther · 16/07/2021 11:52

He's seen your self esteem, confidence, positivity and he needs to slap it down to a level where he is in charge again. So

you've lost weight - he's putting weight on
you're doing well at work - he almost certainly isn't
etc

Then, all that attention you paid to yourself which has raised you up can be deflected to getting him into shape.....

This'll be an endless cycle unless you stop it.

There is only one thing worse than staying with an abusive man for years, and that's staying with an abusive man for years plus one day (to badly paraphrase a wise and experienced MNer of old).

NowEvenBetter · 16/07/2021 12:11

Eugh, how embarrassing for you to have picked him. There’s literally zero reason to continue to have no standards by tolerating your stinking failure of a husband. Get a solicitor to start the divorce and enjoy the next five decades.

messybun101 · 16/07/2021 12:37

Oh, no op this isn't ok

Women are not rehabs for men.
*
He sounds quite deranged. No diagnosis is enough of an excuse to be a cunt*

Yes - completely agree with this. I wouldn't be wasting my time running around his beck and call I'd be making financial arrangements to leave with your DCs.

They shouldn't grow up to think it's ok behaving like an unattractive unhealthy loser sitting unwashed for three weeks in his underpants. It's bizarre.

SamusIsAGirl · 16/07/2021 13:01

I had depression. I didn't want my family around me and I was not a good person to be around. But did I leave it to them to fix it? No. It was reactive depression but it was still up to me to treat the symptoms as best I could until the cause was resolved. (It was job-seeking reactive depression). I went to the GP and got something that at least made me sleep at night because I'm a grown-ass adult and if there is a problem I know of, I have to fix it for me.

The fact he isn't indicates that it is not a problem for him and he's quite happy with his depression and making your life hard. It also is a pretty terrible role model for the DCs in terms of how an adult is supposed to act.

justasking111 · 16/07/2021 15:01

Anyone remember pig pen from Charlie brown. @Pandaredbear . I couldn't stomach a man who didn't wash, nor should you

Regularsizedrudy · 16/07/2021 15:31

You say you’re standing up to him now.. but you’re really not. You are tolerating all this awful behaviour. Letting it go and not fighting back are not the same as standing up

Boood · 16/07/2021 15:43

It sounds as though he is trying very hard to be controlling and abusive, and you aren’t having it. That’s all very well, but in the long term it’s wearing to live like that. Resisting him all the time will chip away (rightly) at any love and respect you have for him until there’s none left and then you’ll regret leaving it so long. It’s not a way to live, you should have better than that.

olivesnutsandcheeseplease · 16/07/2021 18:50

Sounds like you're in a perfect position to leave him (or better still kick him out)

Please don't continue like this though, it's a terrible example of how to behave (his behaviour) to your small children.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7