To divorce him over cookies?!?!

[Thecookiecrazylady]

This has happened this morning and is tbh he norm if I ever ask him to get me stuff. Last time he told me they didn’t have wholemeal bread in Sainsbury’s so I jumped in the car and ofc they had an entire end aisle he’d just not looked.

Me: can you grab me some of the chocolate chip cookies in a brownish yellow bag from the free from section while you’re at Sainsburys. If they don’t have them that’s fine but if they do 👍🏻
Him: yeah no problem

Me:… what are those?
Him: your cookies
Me: No they’re not. I said brown/yellow bag these are in a bright purple box.
Him: they didn’t have the others
Me: but these ones aren’t dairy free
Him: yes they are
Me: it says ‘all butter’ on the box they’re just gluten free
Him: give them to the kids 🤷‍♀️ (kids won’t eat them)
Me: You just don’t even care do you? Can’t even make a basic effort to listen, give me a ring to check…or at least read the damn box to check whatever alternative you’re buying is safe for me.
Him: YOU SAID BROWN AND PURPLE BAG
Me: PURPLE NEVER LEFT MY MOUTH ONCE NEVER STOP GAS LIGHTING ME YOU ALWAYS DO THIS!
Him: I thought I had the right bloody ones!
Me: No you didn’t you literally answered ‘they didn’t have them’ when I asked about the brown bag ones. You knew you were buying an alternative and you didn’t even bother to check it was safe or check with me I wanted it. I didn’t even care about the cookies that much it’s just the way you behave. You are never wrong, you don’t give a crap and you turn everything around on me and it’s always my problem.

Ok it’s not just over cookies it’s a very ingrained pattern of ‘IDGAF’ behaviour that always gets turned around on me. Words put in my mouth, him claiming I said or did things I didn’t. For context I do all our shopping and make a huge effort to meet his very particular requirements, even going to multiple supermarkets for items. I care if he’s happy. The only reason I wasn’t doing this supermarket run myself was because I’m poorly.

I’m sorry but he’s showing he doesn’t care and can’t be bothered. Then throws it in your face when you pull him up on it.

My dh will FaceTime me if I wanted something specific but either couldn’t remember what, or needed an alternative. It isn’t hard

He also has schizophrenia and severe anxiety so going to the supermarket can be challenge for him in itself. Means I doubly appreciate it when he does it

Hah! I told DH off yesterday after I had just emptied the dishwasher and he let his lunch plate and mug on the worktop above it!

I completely empathise. It's like you're being ignored and you don't matter. I don't have an answer but I do have sympathy.

Hi there I know I will be blasted for this advice again on Mumsnet BUT... I would still recommend the Surrendered Wife book. You don't need to follow her every advice to see an improvement in your relationship. I used to have a husband exactly like yours. The Surrendered Wife method has brought very positive and lasting changes into my marriage. The book is available on Amazon and has a lot of excellent reviews. Whatever you are doing is clearly not working so you might consider doing something different and see what happens. I hope it helps

For me it was a suitcase. When we went on holiday, ExH would always book one less suitcase allowance than people. So for eg for four people, 3 cases. But it was always me that had to spread my stuff across various cases and cut back on what I was taking because he would pack all his sports gear (which he'd then not use) and snorkelling equipment etc.
One day I had enough. I was earning more money by then (I realised years later that he had also been financially abusing me) so I bought myself three suitcases (small, medium, large) and booked my own luggage allowance.
The following summer I went to a family wedding abroad that he tried to 'forbid' from going to. Went by myself.
Then I bought my own car. A make and model I'd always wanted. Nothing expensive but deemed unsuitable by Mr Controlling who had indulged his own car desires with an Mazda MX5.
Few months later I left him. Best decision I ever made. So yes, I get you, OP.

He also once bought chocolate eclairs for my birthday which I hate 🤷‍♀️

Give him a taste of his own bullshit.

Stop going the extra mile for him. Buy him any old substitute that's convenient for you instead of what he prefers.

See how he responds.
Insist he has always liked [whatever] and you've never once bought the better item, and he must be crazy if he thinks you would have gone three miles away to [X] supermarket just to get it for him

Seriously though, if he's telling you you have a problem, you need to reconsider the entire relationship. Life is too short to spend it being slowly destroyed by this sort of contempt and gaslighting.

Strike strike strike strike strike! Stop cooking for him, stop making a special effort to get the foods he likes, stop cleaning anything that’s his, stop doing his washing. Stop it all. And when he questions it tell him you’re matching his effort in the relationship now.

This ^

The need for dominance is a really ugly personality trait, and there is nothing you can do to change it.

Do not do this.

And that's not a knee-jerk reaction. (I'm going to put aside the right-wing, anti-feminist, religious fundamentalist undertones of Surrendered Wife ideology for a sec.) I speak as someone who actually read and attempted to follow that wretched book as a desperate last resort to try and 'save' my first marriage. I was at the end of my tether with a man who didn't give 2 shits about me, and I thought, stupidly, that maybe the answer lay in me changing MY behaviour, MY responses to him.

It didn't.

OP, as another poster said, this is death by a thousand cuts. IIWY I would be thinking hard about whether this is how I want to spend the rest of my life...

I second that with bells on, @TheSandHurtsMyFeelings

Hahaha I'm thinking exactly the same 🤣🤣

I understand that, but the only way her husband would have actually paid attention would be if she had not made a roast. There are thousands of similar threads.

OP has nothing to lose anyway. She is clearly at the end of her tether.

The lack of care hurts. Honestly, your better to end the relationship. It doesn't get better. He isnt suddley going to care more or change. You'll just go round and round while your slowly eroded. I've been with my H for 15 years and often say nothing just to keep the peace because I don't have the energy for the drama.

I asked my H to get tesco finest party food and M&S pastry for Christmas. He came home with the stuff we eat all the time. There was nothing special or nice about any of it. I told him I was disappointed, not over and over again, a few times. He lost his shit and had an adult tantrum. He was screaming, banging shit, following me round shouting at me for over an hour. He wouldntt let me leave the house. I obviously was the one who's mental, who's always going on, who can't bare to be happy. Who's on their high horse because I don't shout and scream. Anyhow, he left and went and stayed with his dad. He promised change but I can't see it happening. This is the last ditch attempt at making it work or I'm done.

@Kosenrufugirl I would suggest that there is potentially plenty to lose by 'surrendering' to a gaslighting man who withholds affection, blames OP and appears to take so little care of her needs or wants.

Speaking personally, it made things even worse for me and was terrible for my self-esteem / sense of self. It has emotional repercussions for me even though I'm now in a happy (new) marriage, and I regret trying it, hugely.

Don't want to derail the thread, though. Genuinely glad you feel happier in your relationship, and I guess the OP can make up her own mind as to whether it's an approach she wants to take.

@Faceache45

This is the last ditch attempt at making it work or I'm done.

After how he acted at Christmas and how you have to amend your own actions, walking on eggshells not to upset him generally, I think you should maybe consider yourself done now, and start researching how you can organise things to leave him behind and live a mentally less upsetting life. 🌹

It's not about cookies, it's that he doesn't care about you. Divorce TB

I have agreed to attend relationship counselling.

I have arranged personal counselling for myself.

He is meant to be arranging his own counselling which he hasn't.

I have been very clear that anything else and I'm done because the children are being impacted and frankly I don't want them around it.

Or, she could just stop trying and kick this disrespectful bugger to the kerb.

I think you have to try the last ditch attempt. I certainly did. I had to leave my marriage knowing I’d tried all I could and I was done. It took me a long time to reach that point. We’d done counselling (just awful, he manipulated the situation so I came away being told I was controlling!), date nights, I read books, watched video. Mine was also death by 1000 cuts. I remember trying to organise a date night and he sabotaged it and I thought ‘He just doesn’t want to spend time with me any more’. I gritted my teeth through Christmas and New Year but then I was done. I knew there was no coming back after that. I only ever had one pang of regret and it passed very quickly. He met someone else very quickly (within a couple of weeks). I met someone a year down the line which felt right for me.

So stop making the effort. He doesn’t appreciate it so why keep doing it.

For context I do all our shopping and make a huge effort to meet his very particular requirements, even going to multiple supermarkets for items. I care if he’s happy.

Just get things from one supermarket. He needs to learn to make do.

@Thecookiecrazylady have you posted before about a restaurant that you couldn’t eat anything at and he still insisted on going. Apologies if not

I can relate to all of this, bar the moving on to someone new. I am a narc magnet. No way in hell I'm getting into another relationship when I finally get out of this marriage.

@Kosenrufugirl is the Surrendered Wife book the one by Laura Doyle or Maria Buck?