To think these messaged are unfair

[Overwhelmed79]

I'm away with work (from Sat to Tues). I have two young kids at home with DH (their dad)

I've organised a family friend to come over Monday and Tuesday mornings to help get them dropped off to school so H can get to work on time (he could manage it timing wise but it would be tight)

H is showing zero interest in what I'm up to even though this event is big for my career. He doesnt pick up or any any questions

But he is sending me the odd message about how upset my 3 year old is and how much he misses me. He messaged "DS will not be happy you're staying until Tuesday. He's very upset you know. I'm trying to help but he wants you" and then going silent.

I can't leave early. I don't want to leave early.

H will say he's just telling me what's going in at home but I feel he's being unfair. I feel guilt reading these messages

Am I being unreasonable to think he should keep it to himself? I'll be home tomorrow!

Christ, why are you with this fucking prick?

Reply with a bright and breezy, “The more practice you get, the better it will go. I’d better go away more often so the kids get used to daddy time”.

When they start telling you you've made things up in your head that's a serious red flag!

He’s an arse. Don’t let him guilt you when you’re working. He’s a parent and he has to pick up the slack, as you would if the roles were reversed. I would go as far as ignoring the messages and tell him straight to stop this behaviour. It isn’t in your head, it’s deliberate and he knows it at he’s trying to make it out to be your problem by trying to convince you that it’s in your head. This is gaslighting. Call him out on it and let him know you’re onto him. He can laugh all he wants but address this issue straight away and tell him it’s not acceptable. I’d even throw in some extra details and say you can’t message until later as you’ve been invited out for post work drinks. Leave the pig hanging.

Next time he mocks your job respond with 'me taking nonsense for hours is what pays the rent'

Perfect!

I can't tell you how happy it makes me that it's 2024, you've posted here @Overwhelmed79, and dozens of women have told you straight how it is and what he's doing, and you can make an informed choice about how to react now.

My kids are grown up now but when they were young I was in your shoes - being guilt-tripped, gaslighted and emotionally blackmailed into giving up a career that was intended to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads, and - irony of ironies - I was hoping would enable my XH to give up his own hated career and pursue his creative dreams. It was all tough enough without also being made to feel so guilty for everything I was doing for the family, and, I now know, being announced the loser day after day in a parenting beauty contest I didn't even know I was entered into.

I wasted years being the family handmaiden and became massively deskilled professionally, my children mostly fell for the competitive parenting and it's an uphill struggle to counteract that now they're adults, and the relationship tanked anyway, mainly because I got so I couldn't look at him without snarling. I will never forgive him for the years of covert warfare. I'm retraining now, but I wish so much I hadn't made the mistake of handing over so much of my agency. It cost me so much financially, professionally, health-wise and in my relationships.

I hope you make better choices than me. You've done well to identify his manipulativeness while you're in the midst of it, which is difficult under stress. Don't be scared to call him out on his behaviour. You've got so much more to lose if you don't.

Your husband is being unfair. Try to ignore the comments. Of course your children will miss you when you are away but that is no reason not to go especially if it will further your career and thus help the family in the long run.

Oh dear, I'm sorry he's making you feel guilty for going away despite your best efforts to lighten the load for him while you're away.
I think you've probably got the message from other pp by now - raise your expectations of him. don't send in help for such a routine event etc etc.
It sounds like you need to have a good conversation with him once you're back about parenting and your relationship.
Good luck x

If you’re the main earner and the main carer and he either ghosts you or guilt trips you and gaslights you why don’t you just divorce him? He brings nothing but misery to your table

I’m sorry that you have such an unsupportive partner. Only you can decide what you do about that, but your children are being moulded and shaped by the relationships they see.

My partner was happy for me to take jobs overseas for months at a time and said that he felt it was important that our children knew that both parents were equally capable of looking after a family. Boys should know that they have a responsibility to parent equally, and girls should know that they weren’t tied to the home as soon as they had children.

He is an absolute AH but for goodness sake stop encouraging him by going on about feeling guilty. You gave him tge bullets by doing this!

This is a very good response

“You’ve made up the way I’ve made you feel in your head” That’s called gaslighting this man gives me the ick. Drop the deadweight girl seriously.

I think i’d be tempted to show him the responses on here! He’s behaving appallingly!

Ugh. He sounds like a prick, and one of those men in whom becoming a father brings out the closet misogynist. My own dad was like this, he disparaged my mum's career and didn't want to do much hands on parenting. She ended up earning more and getting further in her career than he did and he resented her for it even after divorce. But funnily enough, he also didn't like it when he got saddled with a second wife who didn't want to work and he had to be sole breadwinner either.

In summary, a lot of men seem to be just a bit fucking pathetic, and this doesn't seem to change a great deal across the generations.

What positive things does he bring to the table OP? What's keeping you with him?

@CrazyGoatLady Kids. Money. Home.

All I see is bad options.

If I leave and he does bare minimum - my kids will miss out on having a dad and I'll have to give up my career

Or

He demands 5050 and my kids will struggle with that. As will I.

Or he sees them every other weekend and share holidays, or some other such arrangement, as is standard and far more likely than either of those options.

You're catastrophising as it makes it easier to put off doing what you know you need to do. This is perfectly normal and completely understandable. Just recognise that it’s what you’re doing.

I agree with above poster, you will be able to make arrangements that don’t mean you have to give up your career.

how has he been since you got back home?

"You've made that feeling up in your head'
What a pathetic, manipulative response! Sounds as if your children are coping better with your absence than he is.
It's perfectly natural for a child to miss mum. It's natural for mum to feel awkward about leaving them. But short separations are not unhealthy or unnatural. It's a part of life. Knowing that you are going away but coming home soon builds resilience and confidence.
Sounds as if DH has more growing up to do than the children.
Don't feel guilty, you have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.

Is he being a great dad now, bitching and whining about having to look after his own children (with help) for 3 days and being a baby about you going away for work? What exactly would they miss out on, a dad who resents looking after them?

I know there's a school of thought that says better a shit present dad than no dad at all, but I'm not sure that always stacks up. It's not the woman's responsibility to stay with a shit man because if he leaves he won't bother with his kids.

Yeah - I get that @CrazyGoatLady . I think an absent dad s better than a really shit one. But perhaps the worst is a really shit one who insists on 5050 to get out of maintance/punish ex.

Maybe I've spent too long on the divorce pages on MN reading about the horror show of the family courts @ThatTealViewer I just know if he is neglectful or abusive - which he could be - I have little power to stop that happening. If I could guarantee he would be a safe, responsible and reliable co parent I'd be gone tomorrow in all honesty

He sounds like a narcissist.

Would he really ask for 50:50 when he can't parent them alone for 5 minutes?

I was married to someone like that. Been divorced and best ever.

As my EH was doing the same to sabotage my career. To play with my head and use my children in his emotional warfare against me. He wanted the luxury of 2 incomes yet hate I earned more, and hated he hd to actually PARENT as in his eyes, that is a woman's job.

He sabotaged job interviews, travel schedules. He knew I was travelling internationally for work, and the day before I had to leave, he had an 'emergency' meeting in another country which left me home with my child... and I eventually got re-structured out.

Maybe he is sulking s he actually hs to parent. He needs to deal with that. Or maybe he is jealous of your success, whihc is toxic as he will rope the kids in as flying monkeys to bring you down.