Is my husband gaslighting me - what’s going on?

[Acuppaforme25]

Since having our third child, I’m losing my sanity day by day.

my husband and I are struggling with the adjustment from 2-3 and having zero time for ourselves/ time together.

I never know what I’m going to get as some days he will start off in a great mood, we have a great time together chatting and he’s complimenting me. And then just like a switch, he will change and go in a mood and tell me that my perception of the situation is wrong.

two examples from today - this morning I looked after all the kids while he went to the gym for an hour and a half. He came back and was in such a great mood, thanking me for letting him go etc. It was my turn to then do a 30 min at home workout. However 28 mins in, he bursts in the room and tells me our toddler is crying (woken up from nap early because we had the plumber in and he was loud) and I had to go get him now. I said I just had 2 mins left and he took that the wrong way. I left to get our toddler but the rest of the day he told me that I was annoyed with him and he needed a rest after carrying the baby around the whole time.

Earlier that morning he had said we would go to the park in the afternoon. When the time came he said, I’ll stay with the baby at home and you go with the 2 older - I don’t need to come to everything the whole time. I then said I thought we’d agreed it was us all going earlier in the day and he said I’ve become too prone at making assumptions in conversations.

other things include us saying we will go out to cafes, swimming, etc which I communicate to our older two and then he decides to change the plan last minute. Our youngest will always have a complete meltdown because they had got in their head the plan. He tells me that I should be more flexible and stop telling our kids a “plan” for the day because “they don’t care and will do anything when it comes to it”.

We end up arguing over some kind of conversation nuance almost every day now and it leaves me in tears every time. My head feels so confused the whole time, that I feel I’m going crazy and struggle to communicate well with him. I ended up saying I felt like he is gaslighting me and he got upset.

Is this gaslighting or AIBU?

My general rule is that if someone makes you feel as though you're going mad, they are not your friend and they are bad for your mental health. I don't believe it happens by accident - I think either the person is deliberately manipulative or they learned at a very young age that this was a good way of getting their own way.

He's very selfish and lazy, isn't he? Did he used to be indulged by his parents?

It reads to me as though he can't, or won't ,cope with your older children and he is doing his best to avoid having to parent them.

@MounjaroMounjaro thanks for your response!

He’s great at taking out one child at a time and also does more than his fair share of housework! Our main issue is when it comes down to us both getting a bit of “me” time. I think he thinks because he does all the housework and takes our older 2 out on his own sometimes, that he deserves the rest more than I do.

I'm just trying to think what my DH would have done in this situation. He would have let me have my 30 minutes unless there was something absolutely dire that needed addressing or some sort of emergency. If the toddler was just crying, he would have just dealt with him, fed him whatever. He would have come to the park as a family as that is what we'd agreed unless for some reason he really didn't feel well or there was another sudden priority like a shop run needed or something. We do have arguments about communications and assumptions, disappointment where we were both having different expectations and usually come hand in hand with tiredness and lack of space. But we typically kind of work through it, and make steps to make sure we're both a bit clearer what the plan is e.g. I like to write stuff on a white board for the week so at least I can point to that and say 'look see it was on the board!'

@Gastons5dozenEggs
oh the board sounds like such a good idea!!! Although I fear he would still just say that I’m being inflexible. To stay sane as a mum of 3 I like to have a plan for the week!

I seemed to spend a lot of time in the early years saying 'Having a Y chromosome does not prevent you from being able to [sort the baby, load the dishwasher, hang out washing, take children to the park, etc, etc]'.

It doesn't improve the atmosphere at the time although it's less confrontational than most of the things I was tempted to say, but it was worth it. The children are grown up now but if DH starts suggesting I might do something that he can just as well do, one look at my face changes his mind. And if it doesn't I go 'hmm, Y chromosome problem, eh?'