"It feels like I'm never good enough for you!"

[TulipVictory]

Okay so what I really want to know is, is this me or him?

So it's our weekend off, we have children. It's raining outside and not a lot to do but trying to make the best of it and have a nice day. Anyway, yesterday my Husband was moping around all day, he looked like he was sad/down. I said to him a few times are you okay? And he says yes I'm fine but I can tell there's something wrong. Meanwhile I'm trying to be the upbeat one and have a nice day with the little ones. To be honest, I am the upbeat one, sometimes we are having a nice time, my husband comes home from work and he's just not a very chatty person and he tells the children off more than me/has more expectation of how they should behave I suppose e.g. he will think they are being noisy when I think they are just playing/being children so I think we do clash on that.

Anyway, back to my main point. By the evening, I could tell he was still moping and to be honest that brings the mood down of the whole day. Anyway, I ask him what's wrong and he says "it just feels like I'm never good enough for you!". I was like what do you mean? Give me examples? And he says because of the onion rings (I told him that he had put the onion rings in the oven too early and to be fair he hadnt even starting cooking the burgers yet). When I brought up the onion rings he said do you want to do it then! Which to be honest I thought was rude at the time but I was busy going out to the shop to get ice cream for our dessert which he likes! and I bought him beer from the shop. The other example he gave from yesterday was and "the passport photos". I got him to take a few extra shots of me as I thought they were too close. (Sorry I realise this is long winded). Anyway I was fuming I still am!! I stormed off and said really I have been creeping around you all day and it's about some onion rings!!! And he said no it's not just that it feels like nothing is ever good enough !! I said well it's me then thanks a lot and went up stairs to bath the kids.

To be honest I'm still fuming ! Nothing has changed I did not do anything different to normal! In my opinion, he has always been a bit of a man child! The reason I tell him things sometimes is because if I don't it doesn't get done. For example, if he hangs the children's towels up, if I don't tell him to rinse the bath at the same time then the bath will go unrinsed. If I ask him if he can take the bin out I also have to instruct him to put a bin bag back in or it doesn't get done. He has lately taken to get teasy with me for telling him what to do because he isn't stupid but if I don't it doesn't get done! Another example is he leaves his metal shaving foam on the bottom of the shower which leaves an orange ring, I always tell him to make sure he takes it out of the shower which he probably has done about once. I took it out myself yesterday and left it on the shower room floor, he still won't pick it up. Prior to this I took it out of the shower and put it on his bedside in the hope he would put it away? Did he? No! It remained there for more than a month. Sorry I know this sounds petty but I feel betrayed. I work part-time and him full time but I do all the food shopping, I cook all week, I do all the organising. I don't think he has ever bought a toy or item of clothing for our children.

Anyway whilst I was bathing the children after seeing how upset I was he text me saying "It's not the individual things that matter. What I'm trying to say is all I want is for you and our girls to be happy and I feel like I'm failing at both of those things. It feels like work is going well but the 2 most important things in my life, being a Good husband and a good father I'm failing at. I just want to be good at both of those things and I don't really know what it is but I feel like those 2 things I'm being shit at and don't know how to be better. It's not your fault and it's not theirs I just want to get everything right and feel like I get things wrong more. Than I do right". .... I feel like this is totally back-pedalling! I feel like he is trying to spin it with the it's not you, it's me! If I broached this with him, he would say no I'm reading it all wrong blablabla and that's not what he meant 🙄

Anyway, today he is trying to talk as if nothing has happened but I can't get past it to do that, I feel betrayed by him. I feel that maybe he has become unhappy in our relationship and the dynamics as this is what he meant in the first instance by saying nothing he ever does is good enough for me. I feel he just hasn't got the balls to say it!. In my opinion, he has no initiative, if I didn't ask him to do things, they wouldn't get done. This is the way it has always been, nothing has changed so I'm not sure why he is saying this now. If you've got this far, Thankyou for reading

You sound like a perfectionist.
It's your way or no way by the sounds of it.

Do you pull him up on everything?

I’m honestly stunned by some of the responses on this thread.

What sort of crap are you putting up with if you think the OP is being too demanding?!

Are we meant to rinse the bath?! I've literally never heard of this.

It sounds like you're in an unhealthy dynamic and not communicating well.

He's told you he's unhappy and feels like he's failing. Have you told him he's not failing? Do you build him up and express gratitude as well and pointing out small things that are wrong.

You're missing the woods for the trees here with the shaving cream and the bath rinsing and the accusation of backpedaling.

You can tell him you feel taken for granted/unappreciated etc when you have to do all the tidying and he doesn't listen to things that would make your life easier. You can HEAR him when he says that you criticising him is making him feel bad about himself.

Don't get lost in the detail, what you're actually fighting about is very big and goes to the core of your marriage

@Ionlydomassiveones

The problem for a lot of men is that where the wife is highly capable, efficient and dare I say controlling in the domestic arena they switch off. I would too. If my DH insisted the house had to run his way and took the lead on everything housework related, I wouldn’t bother. As it is, we work as a team. I’ve never prided myself on being the perfect mother and Hinch-perfect housekeeper. If you fulfil that role, expect the other partner to step back and to let you.

I feel that there's a lot of truth in this.

And I'd add that this doesn't stop at household duties, it can be anything, technology related, finance, raising the kids. When one part of the couple is very high achieving in one area, the other part lets them take over.

The old "oh but you're so good at it, that's why I don't do it!" trope.

There are such low expectations for partners on here....

There are such low expectations for partners on here....

I’d say for most men on here. My own Dad knew how to put a bag in a bin. He also rinsed the tub, cleaned the bathroom, wash dishes, cleaned the kitchen, do gardening, cook a few simple meals, etc and worked full time as did my mother. There was no need to ask each other to do what is pretty much chores. It wasn’t about being house-proud but having consideration for the person you chose to be with.

I notice the op said in her first post that her and dh clash over children’s behaviour-he tells them off more, minds their noise more. I wonder does he notice the kids mess? I ask because I wonder if he can notice if the kids leave mess or don’t do a chore (if they have them)?

Is it just his own mess he doesn’t see/mind?

It’s hard from the info given to tell whether the op has just been driven to distraction and ground down by a partner who wilfully let’s his partner pick up the slack on house stuff and then pulls the “I don’t do it because you do it better line” or if he genuinely does his share and the op just criticises regardless. I’m surprised at how quick people have been to label her a “nag”…a word with such old fashioned, misogynistic connotations.

I am a very messy person by nature who can easily create a whirlwind of mess and not really see it. But I live with other humans so I make a conscious effort to look and correct this. It baffles me that the op has been called exacting and controlling for wanting her husband to wipe a bath or put a bin bag in. I mean, if he genuinely doesn’t care, and the op does as suggested here and just leaves it as that’s his job, then does she just get in a dirty bath? Their kids too? Ditto bin liner?

Again it’s hard to tell I’m from posts but the onion ring thing. I mean, from that example yes, there would have been natural consequences so maybe next time he’d have organised himself better. But is that a one off, or is very meal he cooks the same thing? How is it that one person manages to cook a packet food with instructions correctly without anyone telling her but the other adult can’t?

Yes his text sounded sad for sure. It definitely feels like better communication is needed and an honest talk about who does what.

But from the examples given in the op I can’t understand how she’s come across and having impossible standards-they sound like really basic things that I would work on getting right if I were in the dh’s position.

@Goawayangryman

The old "oh but you're so good at it, that's why I don't do it!" trope.

There are such low expectations for partners on here....

Tbf DH would get his answer if he said that, but there are def posters who make it quite clear how much they criticise and micromanage their staff I mean partner. He looks after the children incorrectly , he feeds them incorrectly , he cleans incorrectly - all code for "not how I told him to do it".

@ButtockUp

You sound like a perfectionist. It's your way or no way by the sounds of it.

Do you pull him up on everything?

A perfectionist because you want a bin bag replaced and a dinner properly cooked so it's edible 🤣. Use heard it all now. OP stop being such a princess.

I can see both sides here- constantly not doing things properly and them acting like a victim when it's pointed out is annoying. However, unless there is a pattern of doing that often, i think you also need to consider he does feel quite down and offer a sympathetic ear and try and talk about how you both feel about things, rather than take it so personally and nitpick over exactly how he phrased it the first time round. Him being messy and disorganised being a reasonable thing to be irritated by, and him feeling bad about himself because he wishes he wasn't those things and can see its annoying you, are not mutually exclusive!

The examples you've given are, to me easy things to forget or get distracted from sometimes, and when I'm feeling low I would internally beat myself up about why I can't be more tidy, organised etc, so I can see where he might be coming from - it's more likely about him than you. But if he uses that as an excuse not to do things that's not on.

By the way, on the bin bag point, which most people seem to think is inexcusable, if I carry bin bags out of the kitchen to put outside, it's quite common I might forget to immediately go back into the kitchen to put a new bag in, especially if distracted by other things, and I know my husband has also forgotten at times. Thats a very easy job to forget to complete when you have to leave the room to do part of it , I think. It's never occured to either of us to complain about it, we just put a bag in when we next go to use it and see it's empty, glad that we didn't have to put the bin out this time because the other person did.

[quote Giraffesandbottoms]@ManAlive24

Bullying people who don’t subscribe to your views and opinions is not a good look[/quote]
You know what is a good look? Learning what words mean before you use them.

It does depend how often it happens. I can frequently cook dinner and leave the cooker on. DH will check if I've finished with it and turn it off. Yes that "have you finished" is a bit of a "you've left it on again" but he just turns it off. And I could totally take the bin out then come in and do something else and forget the bin bag. But then I also boil the kettle yet never get a drink, will go upstairs to the loo and come down with something else and then remember I need to pee etc.

@TulipVictory just a suggestion (sorry if has been said before). What I do is I email mine a list (the following needs doing: ... A, B, C, D...). And I email and say look I won't be nagging about this, please organise/buy/fix/deal with this. The downside is if it does not get done you have to chin up and go without (whatever was on the list). The up side is he is fully in charge and control and cannot shift the burden to "you are never satisfied with what I do/do not do" because you clearly stated what you would like him to do, he failed, his fault (not that this matters). I do it this way, and for most it works very well.

It sounds like he wants you to do it all, OP.

Dump him, does he add anything to you and your kids lives?

You wouldn't need to "micromanage" if he was capable of doing it correctly the first/second/third time of being asked. By the time it has happened three times, you're so annoyed that you're now the one "nagging". This is a perfect example of a man martyring themselves and making you believe you're at fault.

My mother thrived upon telling me I was stupid, incompetent and useless.

Turns out I'm not. But if you listen to her/anybody who only has her account to go on, I'm severely mentally disabled and shouldn't be allowed out in public or to eat anything more taxing than a supermarket sandwich cut into inch size pieces under full supervision because I choked on a Sherbet Fountain Christmas Day 1977 when she gave to me whilst I was walking.

It was all just another facet of her abuse. If she'd been able to grasp the concept of the internet, she'd be happily crowing that 'See! Everybody agrees with me that you're useless!' including now, because she loved dragging up inconsequential shite from ages ago to try to make you feel like crap all the time.

It's just such a waste of energy and for relationships to look for anything to make out that 'you wouldn't survive ten minutes without me'. When it's not outright abusive, that is.

I'd imagine that DP's XW enjoyed telling him he was shit all the time, too. Or at least was continually raging that he had failed and betrayed her because he put the mugs on the wrong side of the cupboard or the wrong colour towel in the wrong bathroom, etc. She certainly never gave the slightest impression of liking him when they were married, going by the friends who knew them both at the time.

You'll notice that it's his XW.

I don't spend my time raging about binbags and onion rings or contact lens packets left on the side instead of the bin. But then again, I have more in my life than a need to make somebody else feel shit; so the bits that get a bit cold need to be reheated in the microwave. Whatever, it's not as if I'm cooking it. So the bin bag needs replacing. I've not had to go outside in the pissing rain and handle food waste, smells and a load of cardboard when there's a hooley blowing. I'm still up on the deal. There's a ring on the shower floor. Oh well, a Pringles lid would prevent that - or next time, buying a can that is coated, so doesn't have the base that rusts. In the meantime, it comes off with a sponge.

DP isn't great at cleaning up as he goes along. Nothing to be gained from shouting at him that he's doing it wrong. Looked at ways where things could be made easier/more intuitive or logical for him, it's been massively better since the rejig. Occasionally I've spotted he's left something out on the countertop; no use yelling that he left something out AGAIN, just put it away.

The alternative happens when somebody who is constantly held in contempt and being told they're stupid/useless/a millstone/particularly inadequate child meets a person who doesn't see somebody to knock down into submission at every opportunity. They leave.

Im sorry you've had a terrible upbringing @NeverDropYourMooncup. But I don't consider the child abuse you clearly suffered is the same as this.

You may have more in your life than to be bothered by this, but it's clear the OP (who has long gone, and I don't blame her!) is tired of having to think of everything.

Clearly better communication is needed, but to minimise her feelings is unfair.

I could've written your post, OP. I'm not sure why you're getting such a rough time on here. Unless I tell my dh in detail it won't get done eg" can you put the ironing away, please?" means it will probably be left at top of stairs and not sorted into the correct DC s bedrooms, drawers or wardrobes so then I feel a d*ck by having to say " please can you take the ironing upstairs and put x,y and z here here and here and hang this up here?" Etc etc I don't know if it's deliberate laziness or genuinely not realising a bit more needs to be done to.complete the task properly.
I just end up resentful as means if I want it done properly I have to do it. I've only recently managed to get him to realise he doesn't "do the dishes for me"! He does them because it's part of the general household chores that we all have to crack on with to keep the house running smoothly!