To think a lot of middle aged men have a miserable disposition? Or is it just my DH?

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I get so frustrated with DH and how he comes across. He’s mid forties and whilst he’s always been a little serious and has a serious job, the miserable disposition has got worse as he’s aged. I find it incredibly rude and find myself over compensating around the kids to keep things upbeat. Is it just my DH?!

I don’t think you are being unreasonable being annoyed by this.
H is a bit older, he wanted babies, he got babies, now we have to work and pay for what we’ve done. H has a serious job, but also says he can’t think of anything more he would rather work to provide for than his family.

So yes, it sounds tedious having to pander to a grown man, father, husband’s what, ego?

What's a serious job? Are most other jobs non-serious?

I would check if he's depressed but honestly I've met so many men (and some women, but mostly men) like this and I really struggle to think depression because I think sometimes a glass half full, doesn't know what else to talk about unless it's a moan, not proactive in their own lives/joy person who is just like that personality wise, can LOOK like depression, and I find these people grasp onto 'I'm depressed' as an excuse to keep behaving like wankers and dragging the people around them down.

Pretty standard, I think. I approach this by taking the piss. It helps round here. If he's a kind man, you love eachother and there's a sense of humour under the Victor Meldrew, it'll hopefully help you too. (I actually call my husband Victor sometimes). Its not his name, but if the cap fits 😉

My DP is 62 and no More or less likely to be grumpy than anyone else. Still up for a challenge / change / fun. I’d be off if he wasn’t.

I did worry about this and DH - I did avoidance being in bedroom in evenings rather than living room and being upbeat with kids becuase it's wearing.

It was his job - more specifically management at his then workplace. He's changedjobs and mostly way happier with occaional grump when there's been a lot on.

you might believe it but that doesn't mean it's right
neither does your experience mean everyone else's is the same
I agree with @SatyrTights , I thought it was a really weird post.

not all women want or enjoy children or 'nest building' at all, and of those that do 'ecstatic' is still an utterly bizarre choice of word to describe it, I'd say satisfaction or pleasure or comfort would be more realistic. Even the most hardcore mommy bloggers and home-fluencers aren't writhing around in ecstasy as they clea the nfloors or change nappies.

Intended or not it managed to be both misogynistic AND misandrist - women are satisfied with little domestic lives whereas men are frustrated that they haven't achieved 'more'. Whereas in reality it's far more often women's career or life ambitions that have been curtailed by pregnancy and childcare.

plus at the same time ignoring the fact that many men do love and find a lot of joy and satisfaction in being good fathers, providers, etc.

just because you seem to know a lot of very old fashioned and traditional people doesn't mean that most of us don't live in 2025...

OP I could have written your post. No advice but solidarity!

Yep , if you havent got the man by 50 it’s too late , they are too curmudgeonly to form a good relationship with.

Mine's grumpy.

But we've made it into a joke so it's not so draining. "Snap out of it!" we scream at him.

I think you must know a very limited category of woman. Increasing numbers of women are choosing not to have children. Some of my most visibly fulfilled friends haven't. And of those women I know who do have children (including me), I wouldn't describe a single one as rendered 'ecstatic' by family life. DH wanted a child far more than I did. I'd have been quite happy not to have one. And while DS is fabulous and I'm delighted we have him, possessing a womb that grew a child hasn't turned me into some bizarre kind of Stepford Wife singing as I dust in my pinny, or breaming like the Oxo mum in ads.

Exactly. This was my husband at age 46. It was low testosterone, which causes low energy, irritability, even depression in some cases.

He went on testosterone replacement therapy and was back to his usual lovely self in a few days.

It's very common, by the way.

I didn't say all women enjoy children. I said that the majority of women want children and feel their lives are incomplete without them. I don't see how that can be furiously contested to be honest. You say "in reality it's far more often women's career or life ambitions that have been curtailed by pregnancy and childcare" and that's just my point. You are actually agreeing with me! Regardless of the pitfalls and obvious drawbacks, women still press ahead and have children even in cases of real financial hardship, because it's something they desperately want in their lives. I honestly think that if men had to put their careers and ambitions on hold and make harsh material sacrifices in order to bring another person into the world, a significant proportion of them wouldn't bother.

And exactly why younger women won't be bothering either

So how does this translate into women being rendered ecstatically happy and fulfilled by marriage to a grump who was reluctant to procreate and the care of their joint offspring?

They aren't all like that. Dh is a hoot and very enthusiastic about quite a lot of things. It sounds like yours was already a bit that way from the beginning though!

Well I'm going to add a little input from a male perspective..

I am middle aged, I can be grumpy. I suffer from depression and ill health.
Another factor is lack of appreciation sometimes, I struggle to work but always do in order for my family to have a good life, I feel this huge pressure of responsibility financially and mentally. I am often to person that is vented to so also absorb that.
I wish I could be less grumpy, and I know I am largely to blame but often some kind words eliminate these feelings.

Nope do not recognise this, we still have a good laugh together

No, I don’t think so.

Have you asked him what he’s so miserable about?

Isn't there a thread every two days about how a middle-aged woman hates everyone, can't tolerate the general public any more and has stopped disguising her tuts and disapproving looks, and everyone just ascribes it to peri and tells us it's so great not to give a fuck any more? Middle-aged men absolutely do not have a monopoly on grumpiness.

Personally I've witnessed many, many examples of middle-aged grumps of both sexes. Like everyone I can have my misanthropic moments but I always thought those old people were so unpleasant that I've vowed never to be like them.

That's fair. Maybe all the middle-aged grumpy men are just 'introverts', too, rather than demented misanthropes driven to hide on the sofa in perpetuity from the horror that is Other People.

And women aren't also responsible for their families' financial and other welfare, while dealing with ill health, spousal venting and lack of appreciation? Diddums.

Yes, I agree (though a lot of women find family life suffocating as well). The cliche that men love women and women love children and children love animals is pretty true. A lot of men get pressured into having kids (i.e the woman says either we have a child or I’ll find someone else). So they go along with it, find it even harder than they expected, become trapped in a job they hate, and then spend twenty years sulking.

Another big problem is that men today are so f-ing immature. When I think of my grandfathers generation, they were so different. My grandfather was working at 12, in a full-time job at 18 and then celebrating his 20th birthday on a troop ship bound for Egypt to fight the Germans. Maybe I’m looking back with rose tinted glasses, but I do think men of that generation were real men. I don’t mean real men in the sense of being macho, I just mean they were grown ups. They knew they had duties and responsibilities and they took them seriously - duties to their country, their community, their partner, their children, etc. They were taught certain codes of conduct, certain ways of behaving. All that has gone. I know men in their 30s and 40s, with kids, who will sit cross-legged on the floor playing on their X-box like 12-year-olds. And many of them really are like selfish, spoiled 12-year-olds. I have the letters my great grandfather wrote home to his wife from the trenches of WW1. God, they read like the letters of a mature and thoughtful 50-year-old. It’s staggering to think that he was just 22!

My DH is mid 40s and not like this

Wouldn't it be lovely if men could or would manage themselves?! As if women don't have enough to do!

I wonder how many male forums there are where men are telling other men to take their wives to the GP.

Clue: none.