I have been married to my husband for 10 years. 2 children & a mortgage.
I feel like I’m now at a crossroad & I don’t know what to do.
Husband works away mon-fri. I work 3 days a week.
As he works away I do all the school runs, after school activities (they have something on every single day), house work, dog walking, cooking, appointments, errands etc etc.
When he gets home in a Friday It is ALWAYS me that has to ask how his week has been. He’ll then talk about it for a while and then all he will ask is “kids been ok?”
This is all. I tell him, maybe update him on things that they’ve done during the week and then it’s back to staring at his phone / tv. He never ever ever asks how MY week has gone. How I am doing.
When he gets home on a Friday it takes him 20 minutes after getting into the house before even saying hi to me. he goes straight upstairs and has a shower & gets changed etc first, he then plonks himself on the sofa and just looks at his phone. He claims I should get up and greet him coming into the house… all I ask is that he pokes his head round the living room door and say “hey I’m home, just going to get changed then we can catch up?” But no.
He is also great at giving me the silent treatment. This is something he does especially if I reject sex (I often just have it now to avoid this). He can be quite an arrogant person & often belittles me / makes crude jokes about me in front of others & is condescending. Examples of this behavior include:
If he asks me to help him with something and I do it slightly wrong he talks down to me because obviously I must be a very stupid person not to understand immediately what to do.
We was at market and I noticed a purse on one of the tables so handed it over to the stall holder and said “I think someone has left this here”
He said “well OBVIOUSLY someone has left that there…” (rolled eyes at stall holder).
He claimed soda water had sugar in it and when I tried to tell him it didn’t he spoke down to me like I was clearly an idiot.
Siri put him right on this occasion…
I asked him for my birthday if he could not bring his drone with him (we go out walking a lot) as it takes him away from me & the kids whilst he messes about flying it. He said I was not to tell him what he could & couldn’t do and he brought it with him.
He cannot bring himself to be friendly & chatty with any of my friends at all even thought I spent more time around his family & friends and am always polite.
Whenever he gives me the silent treatment and I ask him what is wrong he just says “nothing” and quite often after having sex he is then fine with me again.
Living with him is like walking around on eggshells. Trying not to say something he thinks is stupid. He also mimics me (not in a nice way) when I pronouncing a certain word with a slight lisp (something I am now very conscious about). We only communicate if we are talking about him & his hobbies (his latest DIY project etc). I imagine he finds me a very boring person as beyond working / looking after the kids I don’t do much. I love walking and get out in the countryside as much as I can but other than that all I do is read / watch tv in the evenings and get to the gym when I can.
However, not all is doom & gloom. He is a good father, kids adore him, he earns a lot and never ever questions what I spend any money on, he is very good at DIY and after a weekend away recently when I came home he had built me a new dressing table completely unexpectedly.
I feel so conflicted. He can be a nice person and generally I do think his heart is in the right place but on the other hand he is so unreasonably rude, makes me feel utterly dull & boring and recently made a comment about how I do nothing for him…
My downfalls, and what he brings up a lot about me is that I am not very affectionate. Now I am generally not a very affectionate person anyway, I am with my children but not with my partner. This isn’t something new however I will say I never instigate sex (because he knocked me back a couple of times years ago & it took my confidence away ) and I don’t give him hugs, we never kiss etc.
However why would I want to be affectionate to this kind of person anyway?
I guess I just want some kind opinions on how this all looks from an outsider prospective. When you are in this situation you try to gloss over the bad points and tell yourself all isn’t so bad but writing it down…