To think that *Some men steal the joy

[Vodkaandpepsimax]

Out of life?

I see it around me, with friend’s husbands and then often have it at home with mine and also grew up with a dad who veered between super fun, very imaginative and funny to very grumpy…It would feel like a lot revolved around his mood, whereas mum stayed pretty constant (or pretended to be at least)
Yesterday, trying to get all christmassy (I enjoy it all and especially for dd, 6’s sake) went to a christmas event, Dh silent in the car, me singing along awkwardly with dd to a Mr Tumble xmas cd. It was very busy when we arrived, lots of time to park, yes annoying, but dh so moody about it, I offer to drive/park, he snaps back. Complains about queues for the hot chocolate…just takes the joy out of the experience. I’ve booked for just dd and I to go to see The Nutcracker as I know it will be a much nicer, special experience just us, but obviously need to do things as a family.
Anyone else in this situation

It's nnot all men
Entitled Narcissistic men ruin all celebration/ peronal/happy events for their partners and families in particular.
The spotlight is not on them you see

🙄

This.

Exactly.

It's a matter of being discerning, keeping one's eyes open, not being so hellbent on marriage/kids that any jackass will do, and maintaining independence.

Making sure one doesn't end up with a juvenile, selfish POS is not a matter of luck.

The red flags are always there. I bet friends and family could have pointed them out from Day One.

This, totally! My neighbour's husband is like this - whatever's stressing or upsetting her, you know he's going to say 'Come on love - this is fixable! Let's do blah blah' and do something useful, or just try to cheer her up.

Mine - like my father - seems to be more upset with me for being upset...

But if you're born and brought up in the Acme Red Flag Factory, they don't stand out... you develop Red Flag Colour Blindness.

And often the first thing they do is isolate you from friends and family (even assuming your family has your best interests at heart - mine didn't).

I remember someone on here saying once 'He treated me badly, but not as badly as my parents did, so it seemed like an escape'... 🙁

I agree with this.

My exh was obviously not perfect. That's why he's my ex. And, when I look back there absolutely were red flags warning of the attitudes/behaviour that eventually led to us divorcing.

His behaviour wasn't my responsibility but assuming it would change/ignoring it was.

@BettyBardMacDonald we are going have to agree to disagree - in my case the red flags appeared about 10 years in - everyone in family and friends thought he was fab

My mother used to get very angry if either myself or my two brothers dared to be upset...especially if it was in front of my grandmother or other members of her family...I think because she felt it made her look less than 'perfect'. She really did see us as extensions of her, not people in our own right.

But I do think a lot more men than women just do not enjoy being parents. Some of them don't have the emotional maturity to hide or, or make the most of it. Like others have posted, it's usually someone who has always been very self-centered and selfish.

I don't think it was fully evident in any huge way for many women when dating.
They probably had grown up with similar men and thought it normal.

i would have been hyper sensitive to moody people in general and actively avoided them.
i certainly would never have maried a moody man having been reared in a home with a spoiled moody toddler.
Of course when it suited him he was charming and witty.

I believe children and the effort involved can trigger them rebelling against the obligations of thinking of others.
Women are often conditioned to accept selfishness and then when children come along it escalates.

When I was graduating I invited two great friends to attend and when my parents queried it I simply said it was a happy occasion that I wasn't having spoiled by my father.

Quelle surprise and outrage which I simply ignored by not replying to any contact for 6 months including not seeing my parents over Christmas.

That was me laying down a firm boundary that I was fully done.
My father made several efforts but by that point I really didn't care enough to engage.

He lived the rest of his life with the consequences of his behaviour.

I invited the wonderful parents of my dear old friends that I grew up with to my wedding.
My parents were not invited to a single wedding of one of my friends because my friends were fully briefed on his moods over the years.
They had seen him in action.

That public snub was embarrassing but again I simply wouldn't entertain it.
My mother had allowed him to destroy every single occasion growing up and excused him when I protested.

She chose not to believe me when I told her during my teenage years that I wouldn't visit when I grew up.
She was wrong.

Grumpy men destroy childhoods.
I wish more women realised it and stopped covering for them.

My husband doesn't have a very acute emotional intelligence. He struggles to read the room, and will escalate things with children rather than calming them down. He's very immature, and plays the victim a lot. If we go somewhere/do something and a minor thing doesn't go as planned/he can totally lose his shit and self control. Talk about being dramatic and over the top "Why me? I'm always unlucky, my life is shit etc...".
The kids see that and I worry a lot about them . As a counsellor told me, 'You're always trying to hold everyone's feelings ". I suppose I want the kids to be happy/I want to be happy but being around him sometimes is so joy draining...

My DH is fine now, (been together 35-ish years, 2 DC around 30,) and has been fine for 12-15 years. (Was fine for the first 10 years together too.) But he had a few years of being like this. Grumpy as fuck when he didn't want to do something - spoiling it for everyone else. And sometimes even being a grumpy twat before I was going out to meet friends or if something was coming up, like one of our DC's birthday party, family coming, or an evening out. Not always/every time, but SOMEtimes.

It's like he was being purposely miserable to try and sabotage things, (to make me miserable and stressed) and I never knew why. He would spend half the night/afternoon with a face like this >>> 🙄😑I'd be like 'what is wrong?' He would say 'nothing!' Sometimes he would say 'as if you don't know!' I would be racking my brains trying to think back to what I could have said or done. 'WHAT?' I would say .. He would just walk off with this >>> face. I had obviously said the 'wrong' thing at some point in the day.

He spoilt many a trip out (for 5 or 6 years) with his face like thunder, and it was like 'if I choose to be miserable, no-one else will be happy either.' I did lots of stuff on my own with my 2 DC (without him) because we had a much nicer time without him. I got sick of not knowing what mood he was going to get up in/come home from work in, and I got sick of walking on eggshells.

I'm not sure what was going on with him, or why I tolerated it/stuck with him for those 5 or 6 years. 60 year old me wouldn't, but 30-35 year old me did.

I agree with the poster way back who said most men have phases in their life - some phases longer than others - where they are inherently selfish and self centred, and always put themselves first. (And don't give a shit about anyone else most of the time.) Spending any surplus money on themselves and doing what THEY want. Some men are just like this for always!

One example is the bloke over the road from us. One of my DC came to visit today, and parked their car on the road at the bottom of our driveway, and the bloke opposite parked his big ass car directly opposite our DC's, so most vehicles struggled to get through. He didn't give a shit.

One large people carrier came down the road, and was beeping for one of the cars to be moved as she couldn't get through. I said to my DC 'don't you fucking DARE move your car! That cunt parked there AFTER you. HE blocked the road up.' The woman beeped and beeped for about 2-3 minutes, then she did a beep of her horn that went on for about 20 seconds, and then she reversed, and went off around the other way (extra 200 yards drive.) No woman I know would have done what he did. (Parked right opposite a parked car, blocking the road to most traffic.) Typical selfish, thoughtless, 'IDGAF' behaviour that many men display.

@CatNoon · Yesterday 21:55

It’s because most men, are fundamentally far more selfish and self-centred than (most) women are. They don’t bother making an effort to enjoy something for someone else’s sake. They don’t care or can’t see or choose not to see how their foul mood affects everyone else. They feel a sense of entitlement to their grumpiness. And this seems to just get worse the older they get.

Nailed it!

Agreed.

When you are young and carefree, moodiness can be exciting, challenging, sexy. It wasn’t for me, but I could see friends going for this type. They make crap life partners.

Eureka moment! Thought it was just mine 😂

What board is that on? Haven't seen it.

It’s because most men, are fundamentally far more selfish and self-centred than (most) women are. They don’t bother making an effort to enjoy something for someone else’s sake. They don’t care or can’t see or choose not to see how their foul mood affects everyone else. They feel a sense of entitlement to their grumpiness. And this seems to just get worse the older they get.

I agree with this. And I have every sympathy with women who start off with a nice guy and end up with a grumpy man.

But I also think that when considering their relationships women focus on all the positives - he is funny, nice, makes me laugh etc etc. When what we should be looking at equally hard is what are his faults and can you live with them. My mother said that to me - the most important thing is to assess what your partner's faults are and decide if you can live with them.

The red flags are nearly always there - not he is a grumpy bastard when dating but maybe a bit of "I picked the restaurant and I had to dance around him all evening because he wasn't that keen on my pick but the next day he was lovely" that's a red flag. But it can be hard to see if you haven't been shown how to see it.

My ex husband was a moody, miserable, joy-stealing, utterly lazy, critical Fuck!!!

BUT NOW I’M FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🩷🌟

Yes.I totally agree with math anxiety. There's some men out there that have to control EVERYTHING! (I'm married to one.)
Just have a good time. By worrying/fretting about it, you're just feeding his ego.)

Social dementors - I have one of those. Think he gets it from his mother! 😂

Yes always! I dread holidays for this reason. I grew up with a dad who was the same, and I’ve married a man the same! Like walking on egg shells x

I’ve been to things that I didn’t particularly want to go to, but when it’s Christmas etc or events for families / kids I don’t ever recall moaning or moping about during.
seeing the kids happy was always enough for me. Maybe I’m different, I’ve had lots of friends moan about being dragged to family type events.

One of the reasons I divorced XH was because of an evening he ruined around Christmas. Driving into town (his idea, rather than get the train) to see the Christmas lights, he spent a lot of the drive stamping aggressively on the brakes, getting angry when other drivers tried to merge and so on. After I'd persuaded him to let me drive ,he flung himself dramatically forward in the passenger seat as if I'd performed an emergency stop. It was awful.

DP, on the other hand is one of the ones who can make any trip fun and exciting. He puts up with me anxiously saying "Oh it's ok, we can leave it and go home" if traffic gets bad, or something doesn't go according to plan, because he recognises it as a kind of trauma response to previous men's actions, and just says "Nah, it's fine, it's just a bit of traffic, it'll pass in a bit". It's a revelation tbh.

This reminds me of my holiday last year, there was a group of women in their 50/60’s having THE best time .. dancing laughing together looked so happy not a man in sight. Then I remember looking round at the seats seeing a couple of husband & wives sat together looking so glum, not talking, no smiling and definitely no dancing. I could see those women watching the group up dancing and was thinking I bet they wish they were with them and not their miserable husbands.

@SouthMumof2 I remember a holiday in Majorca where I was with H and his elderly dad( who I like) and my H was moaning at something minuscule - I was ignoring him moaning and laughing at a post my friends who were on a night out had posted- out of the blue H said, yep, ignore me, bet you are wishing you were with your mates ( we are late 50s) and I responded- 'yep absolutely' -which shocked him as normally I would have said 'don't be silly' !!