@NearlyAHoarder
that's the bench mark, when people post and say ''what you need to do is sit down and tell your h how much this is affecting you'' - then I know, they just have no idea what some women are enduring. NO IDEA.
Not every husband is open to hearing your experience. In some relationships (the ones women are miserable in, the ones women want to leave) there is one perspective; his.
You can't just ''sit down and talk' in every ''relationship'''. Because the other person likes the balance of power exactly how it is and will do anything to avoid a reasonable ''sit down and talk'' where they have to admit that they have more freedom, less responsibility. No. They will avoid a conversation at all costs, by shouting, pouting, sulking, deflecting, projecting, stonewalling, verbally abusing etc etc
The idea that somebody could come to mumsnet and post a long thread about their distress without having first tried to communicate that distress to their partner is so unlikely.
But posters do offer up the advice ''what you need to do is calmly sit down with him and let him know how you feel''.
Sorry to keep quoting all your posts
Hoarder but you are hitting the point so much.
Absolutely all of this.
That's exactly what I used to do. Try to talk reasonably. I'd plan it all out. Rehearse it. I started knowing I wasn't wrong, about his spending, driving, lack of engagement, deceit ... and he would employ all of those tactics you mention.
His favourite was to act uncomprehending of what I was saying, wilfully 'misunderstand' every point, throw some irrelevant point at me related to something I may have done 15 years before. Eventually I would get angry, lose my temper etc. Then he would sneer at my 'rage', how 'hysterical' and 'crazy' I was. Once I moved to tears out of frustration & exhaustion, he'd really stick the knife in. He'd tell me how nobody liked me, friends, family. In this calm, faux-reasonable way. Over and over. When I was completely broken & in bits, he'd walk off, usually to switch on the TV & watch something like Friends, and start laughing. That final part was the worst of it. The laughing at a sitcom while I was in the next room, in bits.
Towards the end I had moments of such frustration & desperation, I might go back into the room like a madwoman, wailing like a banshee at him or ranting furiously. He used to laugh at me. And of course, I had portrayed myself as exactly the unhinged, crazy dervish he'd said I was ...
If I had described individual elements of this in an MN post, many may have said my behaviour was unreasonable (as it was) but I would also have hoped for wise, experienced posters who could have identified the abuse & starkly told me to LTB.