AIBU to feel 'Ouch'?

[winsomewoman]

We had dinner last night with a couple of friends we hadn't seen for a long time and we were talking about all the things we'd been through over the years we've know each other.

When DP and I got together I arrived with a fairly clean slate. I'd already been through some of the more complicated things in life: my parents had both died young, I'd looked after my mum through the last year of her cancer and I'd ended up losing my home when my long-term relationship came to an end. So I was starting out fresh and unencumbered when DP and I met.

DP had been separated for a year and was about to start self-building a new home. We had a lovely first few months before the shit hit the fan and all the stress of a self-build, plus DP's acrimonious divorce, hit. We weathered that, with me providing support.

Then DP started a business and invited an old friend to be a partner. It took off quickly and they made serious money — at which point the old friend tried to take the whole business for himself and dump DP. The legal wrangling and civil court proceedings went on for four excruciating years, with the threat of bankruptcy hanging over DP. DP won, but it cost £150k, broke the business and left us both depressed and worn down.

Then DP's parents, in their late 70s, began to ail. Almost every time we had a holiday due, DP's dad would have a heart attack or a TIA: he had nine in all! DP's mum started to develop dementia. DP's family are in Scotland and DP was up and down most months for years. Until the mother died nearly three years ago barely a week went by without some new complication or emergency. This went on for more than seven years. We spent Christmas apart year after year. We'd organise Christmas with my family or friends, then there'd be an emergency with the in-laws and I'd be celebrating with the dog.

Throughout this my own life has been quite calm. I've been really fortunate to able to earn a decent living without much drama and we've had some lovely times when things have worked out well. I'm glad DP had such close, loving relationships with PiL and MiL. Although some of the things that happened to us as a result of OH's business and family have been a burden I don't feel resentful. I wish things had been easier, of course.

Anyway, last night we were having dinner with old friends who've known us for nearly 20 years and we all talked about some of the things we'd been through and one of them said, just fleetingly, to DP that it was lucky I'd been on the scene to offer support during the difficult times. On the way home in the car DP gave me a little speech about me not being the only one to have to put up with a lot. I was then told that I'm not the easiest person in the world to live with. Apparently many's the time DP has felt like leaving me. I asked for examples of why I'm so difficult to live with. The main complaint seems to be that I'm no fun.

Is it really much of a surprise that I'm not much fun (which I don't thin is true) when I've had years of worry about the business situation, all the hundreds of unpaid hours acting as builder's mate on the self-build, the Christmases spent alone because at the last minute PiL or MiL needed DP's presence, the holidays cancelled, all the sleepless nights?

All the times I've gritted my teeth and just got on with whatever's needed to get us through. I don't complain, I don't criticise. And now here we are. AIBU to feel really hurt? Anyone else out there with a partner for whom nothing ever seems to be easy?

I cant answer if YABU or not OP, but I can see why it hurts, it would hurt me too. I am sorry you are going through this. Obviously, from your OP we only know your side of the story and we don't know what your partner went through or felt during those 20 years apart from what you tell us. We rarely see our own faults ( including me). I think you need to reflect on that conversation and think about whether you can come back from this, if you can still trust him and also if you are happy with him. I wish you well OP and I am so sorry you are hurt.

I sympathise with you because one of my close relatives is like your DP. He went through a similar business thing, years of legal stuff then eventually won very expensively. Throughout this he was a thundercloud and it’s taken a good few years for him to be more easy company. I happen to know his (perfectly nice) wife gets it in the neck for not being fun and vibrant!

I think it’s the stress, it makes people feel helpless and they start unfairly blaming others for making them feel bad.

But yes I don’t blame you for being hurt by those comments one bit.

Show her how fun you can be and go out with some friends. Without her

She just sounds very self-absorbed OP.

The thing about supporting people through stuff is that some of them are grateful and some of them take it for granted and are not even aware of what they put you through.

That was a really horrible thing to say. There are people though who seem to attract trouble and drama into their lives while always claiming to have done the right thing. The acrimonious divorce was as a result of her marrying an unreasonable person. She chose to self-build and drag you into it. She chose to prioritise her parents over you for 7 years with you spending holidays on your own. She chose the shady business partner when she should have legally protected herself. Now she says that you're no fun.

Come now, no need to make up stuff to justify getting into a strop. There was no shady business partner. I didn't say I'd spent every holiday on my own for seven years. And I think many of us will have got together with someone we genuinely knew to be nice and kind and then discovered all was not what it seemed. See the Relationships board for plenty of examples.

Your punitive attitude can't be good for you or anyone else. There comes a point when, having done due diligence, one has to let go and trust. Otherwise it's a hard and lonely life.

Ow.

Taking the emotion out of this for a second, two facts:

1. DP hasn’t and will never leave you.
2. She needs you, your skills and your money too much.

Stop thinking about where she’s coming from and spend time thinking about what you want. Retirement is a good place to reassess, as it happens.

I’d be furious, incidentally - not only is DP bloody ungrateful, that’s insulting and greedy. And designed to make anyone feel inadequate.

While that poster was a bit harsh they make a fair point OP.

Your partner has attracted drama through her choices - it's never a good idea to mix business with pleasure/friends/family and inviting an old friend to be a partner in the business was risky. Equally many people choose not to self-build precisely because they're so stressful.

It's good to look after elderly parents, but TIAs are two a penny in elderly people and not worth cancelling a holiday over. A full stroke is a different matter.

Trusting someone who is very self-focused can be lonely and thankless.

@WetLookKnitwear

I sympathise with you because one of my close relatives is like your DP. He went through a similar business thing, years of legal stuff then eventually won very expensively. Throughout this he was a thundercloud and it’s taken a good few years for him to be more easy company. I happen to know his (perfectly nice) wife gets it in the neck for not being fun and vibrant!

I think it’s the stress, it makes people feel helpless and they start unfairly blaming others for making them feel bad.

But yes I don’t blame you for being hurt by those comments one bit.

I'm sorry to hear that anyone else has been through what we went through. It's like fighting a war in secret — because no one else can understand or wants to know the tedious legal intricacies of what and everyone assumes that you must have done something wrong to be sued. No, it's an aggressive business tactic, designed to wear you down and make you give in.

I think my DP handled it as well as can be expected and never blamed me for it, but even so there were shouty days and days when the frustration just got too much. I think it left us both depressed and exhausted. I hope your relative's wife gets a bit of love and support from those around her. I know what she's been through.

My DH once levelled at me that I was no fun.

He has since realised that me having to shoulder the burden of two small children, working, looking after the house and generally keeping us fed and clean, parents who were doing their best to break me, all while supporting him through deep depression and anxiety meant that I wasn't really in a position to be joyful and carefree at all times.

You've been taken for granted OP. Your partner seems to think their issues and trials haven't affected you, but the reality is that you've been keeping them going.

Ouch is right. They should be thanking you rather than haranguing you.

People do sometimes lash out when they’re feeling hurt or guilty. Your partner didn’t like being told how wonderfully supportive you are and how lucky she is to have you, because it made the relationship sound rather lop-sided. Rather than seeking reassurance that your relationship is actually pretty great, by talking about all the fun you’ve had together and how she would have provided the same sort of support for you had things been the other way round, she did the worst possible thing and tried to even things out in her mind by saying you’ve been hard to live with (too). Tbh, I would be inclined to tell her that you did not appreciate her pissing on your relationship, which you had thought was pretty good and worth all the hard times because of all the wonderful bits, but that if she feels differently, then she should leave rather than be a martyr - or apologise for being deliberately and unnecessarily nasty.

What's hit me like a ton of bricks is the realisation that all the hundreds of hours of sleep we both lost to anxiety, all the weekends I spent lugging floorboards and holding pipes and banging in nails, all the tears and despair as yet another set of problems loomed — that all that was taken for granted.

You really need to sit her down and tell her all this.

He has a delicate ego clearly. Gosh. He doesn't like the idea that someone has helped him along the way

@EthelTheAardvark

What's hit me like a ton of bricks is the realisation that all the hundreds of hours of sleep we both lost to anxiety, all the weekends I spent lugging floorboards and holding pipes and banging in nails, all the tears and despair as yet another set of problems loomed — that all that was taken for granted.

You really need to sit her down and tell her all this.

Yes.

I agree - and remind her that they were her problems that you shared because you loved her and now she's berating you for not being fun - you'd have far more chance of being fun if you hadn't had to take on such a burden for so long.

YANBU

I think you should put the support and all the bad times to one side for a moment.

You're going through a relatively good time at the moment, and your partner chose now to tell you something pretty horrible. They did this in the car on the way back from somewhere. It was almost as though someone has said something nice about you and she wanted to bring you down. And she has said she has felt like this for a long time.

If she had really ever thought about leaving you, I think its really disrespectful that she didn't actually sit and talk about how she was feeling and if there was any way as a couple she could improve the relationship. She is basically saying that if times got bad again she would just walk away rather than try and fix things and that's a really horrible position to put you in as you're always going to be second guessing how she is really feeling.

It sounds as though you're more of an introvert and she is an extrovert so maybe it's true that you're not matched socially any more. That doesn't mean you're not fun, and there are ways of saying it that don't blame you (as I have put it) but saying you're no fun is a very unkind way of putting it

So my gist is, if that's the way she feels then that's the way she feels but there are ways of dealing with those feelings and treating those who will be impacted by them with consideration and respect and she has done neither.

Lastly it doesn't sound like she has been a barrel of laughs either to be honest.

I'd be questioning her on if she wants to stay in the relationship, why she has never brought this up before, why she thought that time and place was appropriate to do so, what she wants for the future and have a think about what you want from the future. And if she does want to stay in the relationship then why say anything at all, it seems to me like it was just to put you down and make you feel bad in all honesty

Time to give a little speech of your own OP and don't pull any punches.

@TatianaBis, the business partner was a friend made through business who was then invited to become a partner because of his track record in business. Due diligence was carried out. It wasn't a case of going into business with a mate from the pub.

When you get a call telling you that your elderly relative has had a stroke they aren't always able to say at the time whether it's a stroke or a TIA (and the effects of TIAs don't always just last a few seconds). You just get told they've been admitted to hospital and it might be a good idea to come and see them because for some people a TIA is the aperitif before the Big One. I have to admit that after about the third or fourth 'stroke' my partner wasn't quite so stressed about racing to Scotland to say goodbye. I loved my mum dearly and DP had a wonderful relationship with both parents so I totally understood the need to go and see them when they were in trouble.

I wouldn't have said my DP is particularly self-focussed. I would say that she's a lot more outwardly focussed than I am. But who knows?

All the times I've gritted my teeth and just got on with whatever's needed to get us through. I don't complain, I don't criticise. And now here we are. AIBU to feel really hurt? Anyone else out there with a partner for whom nothing ever seems to be easy?

Different circumstances, same story. I suddenly became a lot less fun when someone else gave him more attention than me while I was doing all the work keeping a roof over our heads.

Listen to what your partner told you, Winsome, take as much time as you need to think about what you would like for you

At least his friends realise how good you've been for your DP. Maybe he hadn't realised just how much he has taken you for granted and reacted in that "real men never admit having been in the wrong"way. Still not acceptable to have made you feel that way.

In 18 years
You never got the faintest whiff your partner thought this?

I think that the conversation about her perspective on the support you have given her over the years is fair enough, prompted by her realising what your friend’s perspective was.

However “I’ve thought about leaving you many times” - completely out of the blue? That is shockingly cruel and emotionally manipulative, and it will make you feel that you had no idea what was going on in her mind in the past, if she was thinking this but you had no idea. I’m afraid I could not get past that, especially the implication that you are lucky she didn’t go through with it. How can you ever trust her in the future not to be thinking this silently again?

You sound genuinely kind & supportive,
She sounds like she has forgotten that you chose to stick by & support her in spite of years of shit... You could have said, not my circus....
& now, she has taken a pop at you because she is jealous that you got praise... Well, she needs telling she is an ungrateful cow. You have taken as many knocks as her, for her,
You not much fun anymore... OK... She can jog on alone

Maybe you could benefit from some quality me-time. I don't mean a spa day; I mean getting out and committing to a club/activity at least once a week.
Reconnect with others; go out; have fun; etc etc

Your DP sounds self absorbed and if she's lacking in insight too then you have my sympathy, because I know what that is like.

That's very very unkind. Someone has their ego dented. I'd see if I could organise a weekend away or have a little break to myself very soon and have some to consider whether I'm in a toxic relationship with a narcissist.

@Gazorpazorp

We are normally appreciative of the things we do for each other. We say thank you a lot: we don't take each other for granted.

Is it possible that she didn’t mean it to come out like it did? Perhaps she was feeling like your friend had implied she was a burden or a problem so she was trying to say that the relationship is 50/50, it’s not all Winsomewoman being the “good” one and her being the “bad” one. I know that’s not how you see it but maybe she felt embarrassed or humiliated at the idea that she’s been a drain, so was being defensive. Have you told her how you feel?

I thought this but the comments about thinking of leaving were a step too far for that, perhaps.