DH just irritates me so much.....is it normal to feel this way?

[ABitTipsy]

I think it's because he is around a lot more because of the holidays. He has been at home for one day so far and is just winding me up. And I know I am being very unfair as he is actually doing loads with the DC's and cooking them their tea right now.

But, they are starving as we normally have tea at 5.30 and he has only started making it, so won't be ready for at least 20 mins, ie 6.30. I know it's not the end of the world but it just winds me up, he knows what time they normally eat and if I'd known he was going to leave it so late to cook their tea I'd have done it myself except I was busy doing stuff upstairs and didn't know he was faffing about not cooking their tea til I came down and saw he had only just started cooking it.

He is an intelligent man and perhaps he likes to save his brainpower for work, but at home he is so slow on the uptake, almost as if he is retarded. Eg, we're watching something on tv that we've recorded, the recording ends and it's the blurb after the show which is obviously out of date as it's talking about the next programme that we will not be watching and he just sits there, as if he's forgotten it's a recording and watches the 'blurb' until I tell him to switch it off and put on the normal tv. I know this is a ridiculous thing to get wound up about but it just does, he is just so slow to react and respond to things. I know I'm impatient and my reaction times are super quick, but he honestly sits there for ages after the recording has finished before he switches over.

He also mumbles, swallows his words and uses a very low tone of voice when he speaks so I ALWAYS have to ask him to repeat himself. I have heard him on the phone and I can tell he is being asked to repeat himself then as well by the person on the other end. Why oh why does he not realise that he needs to speak clearly so other people can hear him properly? It irritates the hell out of me. I have asked him why he speaks like this and he says it hurts his throat to speak up!!!!! wtf

I try and just ignore him if he mumbles but find it really hard. I want to know what he has said so always ask him to repeat himself. Why does he not learn to just speak up? He is not thick by any means.

He also always contradicts anything I say, not in a mean aggressive way, I think he just tries to play devil's advocate, but again it just winds me up because he does it ALL the time, not just occasionally, even when I know he does actually agree with me, he just can't seem to be able to just say, "Yes, dear" !

I find myself thinking twice before starting any sort of conversation with him as it's just so much hard work what with the mumbling and contradicting. Oh and don't get me started on the interrupting and talking over me. We have had countless arguments about this and he has accepted it is a problem and he tries for a while to stop, but inevitably slips back into the interrupting habit again.

He has a negative take on everything. Always looks for the flaws and reasons why we can't do something as opposed to being positive with a 'can do' attitude. I am intelligent enough myself to have considered the possible pitfalls in a prospective plan, but I still try and be positive and think it is possible. He just seems to focus on the negative. He NEVER gets excited or enthusiastic about anything, even something he wants to do. It's like he feels he has to restrain himself, as if it's childish to get excited and jump up and down about things! I don't literally jump up and down but I do get excited about eg going on a holiday, making plans for the future to do lovely things with the DC's etc, but he is just so calm and unexcitable if that's a word. His lack of enthusiasm gets me down at times, it's like he takes the wind out of my sails.

I know I'm moaning a lot, don't get me wrong, DH is a decent, solid, type of bloke, 100% reliable, decent etc. But he seems to lack any spark, enthusiasm, life. And it really gets me down.

Ok, rant over. Breathe.

Hope it's normal I'm feeling much the same as you at the moment - we are just going in to our 4th week of summer hols together...

Hmmmm, I know for me that the irritation at practically everything was the death knell sounding for the relationship, but I'm talking about before kids and marriage. Although it is still a massive sign to me that me and dh are in trouble relationship wise if I start to feel that way and that we need to do something about it.

That's probably not what you wanted to hear, sorry

Don't abandon hope, however, it may be only me that feels this way

wombling, 4 weeks together, I think there would be murder in our house at that point [shcok]

Unholy, nope, what you said had crossed my mind, about being irritated by nearly everything possibly being the beginning of the end of the relationship. I have already realised that whilst DH was the right person for me 10 years ago when we met and married, now, I'm not so sure. Not sure at all. But we have 2 young DC's and life is not bad or unhappy or even miserable. It's just not as wonderful as it could be if I was with somebody who was more on my wavelength, same silly sense of humour, same childish excitement about things etc.

DH is just too grown up, too adult, too cynical sometimes. Which in some ways is good as I can be a bit crazy and it might not be good for the DC's to have 2 mad parents, but I feel a bit stifled by him. He cannot do anything on impulse whereas I live my life by doing things on impulse. I'm ruled by my heart, he's ruled by his head. We are so different which once was nice, now it's just irritating.

It sounds like you might need a break from each other. Can you go and stay with a friend for the weekend and leave the DC with DH?

Are other things stressing you out at the moment? If you're under pressure it can make everything seem so irritating.

I think it is normal to get irritated though, just maybe not this much.

Tipsy - I could have written your last post myself. Dh and I have been together nearly 14 and he's great in lots of ways but we are so different and it's the little things that drive it home, like when I'm cooking dinner and singing along to the radio in the kitchen he'll get up and shut the door, the fact he never pays me compliments (he's not nasty he just doesn't comment - in fact he rarely has an opinion on anything that I ask him about and on the few occasions he does it's invariably negative). As you said, it's not an unhappy marriage at all just a bit, well, meh.....

When I get to feeling this irritated by my H I know it's time for me to have a break from him. I need it at regular intervals and I always come back refreshed and missing the special bits of him, that seem to get buried under the mountain of irritating things!

I often take the kids off on trips without H as he seems to stress about travelling, change in location, planning sightseeing or whatever, whereas me and kids just go with the flow much more.

It's OK to feel like that though.

Elephants, we are due to go away on holiday on Saturday so no chance at all of getting away from him, just the opposite in fact!

Perhaps you are right about other things stressing me out at the moment. TBH, I think I actually need to get away from the DC's. Have spent 2 weeks alone with them, we have done loads of fun things, met friends etc, but I think I need some 'me' time. Think I will leave DC's with DH tomorrow and go and do some holiday shopping all by myself. Hope that does the trick, if not, then it doesn't look very hopeful does it?

Having said that, DH and I had a lovely couple of days alone together a few weeks ago whilst the DC's were at the grandparents, so perhaps the DC's are the problem not DH

Hang on, DH just did the LOUDEST sneeze imaginable, and that has irritated me. He is so LOUD when he sneezes and coughs but mumbles when he talks. What is WRONG with him?

I am worried he is like his dad. His dad is very absent minded and often in a world of his own. He is in his 80's so is allowed to be like that, and MIL is very indulgent with him, laughing and tolerating his absent minded ways. But she is a lot younger than him and I think sees him almost as a harmless, eccentric old uncle iykwim.

Perhaps the best way to live with a man like DH is to be more humerous and indulgent but I can't. I just irritated and annoyed but feel I am being unreasonable so don't say anything to him but seethe silently inside which I know is not at all good for my health. In fact this is the first time I have talked about it, whether on MH or in RL, and getting it all off my chest feels wonderful.

The only thing DH ever shows any enthusiasm for is s*x and unfortunately I don't share the same level of enthusiasm for it as he does.

It's not looking good is it, we don't seem to have much in common at all.

Sorry for all the typos, should have edited before posting.

wombling, yes, it is just a bit, like you say, meh. Which actually was ok for a while, probably because I have been consumed by sorting out various issues of my own for the last few years and hardly noticed the state of our relationship. Now 'meh' is starting to not be enough and I want 'more', whatever that is. I couldn't describe it, but would know it if I saw it, iykwim? I just wish DH was more on my wavelength, I guess I like being a bit silly and thinking of mad things to do. But when I talk about my mad ideas, DH takes them seriously, and tries to think of ways to make it happen, but I don't want him to do that, I just want him to 'let go', stop being so sensible and serious all the time and just join in my current mad fantasy of us doing a 'gap year' and backpacking around the world when we are pensioners! Although I actually intend to do that so it's not just a fantasy.

loves2, thanks for saying it's ok to feel this way. It's hard as things are nowhere near bad enough to think about splitting up, I'm not unhappy or being abused like some MNer's I have read about.

But then part of the reason I married DH was that he seemed like a solid, dependable type of bloke, good marriage material as they say, and indeed he has lived up to expectations on that front, and he said himself early on that I might find him boring and I think he was right but I do love him dearly.

At least he is not controlling or possessive, he is happy for me to go off and do the things I enjoy, but it would be nice if he shared my excitement and enthusiasm and was a bit silly with me sometimes.

I have felt a bit like this recently... but when I actually stopped and thought about it, I realised it was down to hormonal swings... is that a possibility in your case?

montmartre, thanks for your suggestion and yes i do feel like I have got PMT this week, but it is completely the wrong time of the month for PMT so I am sure it's not that.

I think it might just be the DC's being at home getting to me a bit. I love, need lots of my own space and of course that has gone out of the window during the holidays. I thought I was coping quite well with the holidays but perhaps I'm not.

My territory (the house) has been invaded and taken over first by the DC's and now by DH as well. It's hard to adjust to when I'm used to having the place to myself for big chunks of the day and only have to 'share' it after school and at weekends during term time.

I often have mad fantasies about trips I'd like to do. Dh will barely discuss them though, as far as he's concerned unless we are actually in a position to make it happen there and then he doesn't want to know.
It does work for us though in that we're both happy to let each other go off and do our thing, and like you I need a lot of space (are you an only child by any chance - I think that's what it is with me?)
I think with us it has hit more since dd started school and I went back to work.

Hi

It does sound like you need a break and some 'me' time!

Once you've brought down your irritation levels, hopefully you can just ignore your dh's more annoying habits.

As they say, you cannot change anyone else, only yourself. With this in mind, perhaps you can focus more on the good in him, and try to bring out the best in him a bit more.

Take heart though, your post really doesn't read like that of someone in a doomed relationship! Just someone who needs a break and a bit more fun.

Just

Ooh this also sounds a lot like me a while ago. In the end I went away for 3 weeks on the pretext of catching up with family & friends in another part of the country. In my heart I thought it was all over. But after 3 weeks realised that for me it wasn't. I realised we weren't putting any effort to put the zing back in after a decade or so + DC taking up so much time and energy.
My DP is a teacher and I work from home so summer hols can be a great time for grating against each other. I make sure we dont start to spend too much time together and each get time for our own interests/friends and that seems to help.
Hellish hard though - the thought of do I not love him enough to carry on like this, to uproot the family, to make it on my own.
Sorry - no help, but I think I understand

Not sure what the last 'just' was for!

wombling, well, my DH does let me go on about my mad ideas and tries to join it, but he is just far too sensible. Eg when I was talking about our pensioner gap year he was asking if when the time comes will I be able to just go off and leave the DC's to fend for themselves? As if that's not something, I, as their mother, who as a full time SAHM has been with them 24/7 since they were born, has not already considered? Of course I've thought about leaving my DC's alone whilst we go off travelling, but by that time they will hopefully have left uni, got jobs and be standing on their own two feet, and we will easily be able to stay in touch with email,text,skype etc and we will also be ready to hop on a place and fly back if there was any sort of emergency.

Why can't he just join in my enthusiasm and excitement about travelling the world (we plan to rent out our house whilst we are away and live off the rent whilst travelling) instead of being all sensible and boring? Especially as it's all miles into the future, and when we actually can think about it seriously, I would only do it if the DC's were happy for us to go and not having work issues etc.

sunshiney, I'm sorry I can't do that. I cannot focus on the good and ignore the bad. I need to find a way of accepting the bad and not getting so irritated by it. I do know DH's good points and it's because of those that I am not considering splitting up. But just trying to ignoring the bad does not work for me. Sorry.

elena, that sounds fab. I would LOVE to get away, just me, for even a few days. But there's no chance of that for ages. The only thing that will help is the DC's going back to school and DH going back to work, in around 2 weeks time. Once I have the house to myself again for a few hours a day, I think I will be a lot more tolerant about everything.

But for now, I am going to make sure that tomorrow I get away first thing in the morning and have the whole day to myself.

Oh no, he's mumbling again, why does he bother even mumbling? What is the point?

Sorry, I just need to let of steam otherwise I might just punch him which would not be a good idea.

And he tries to be funny by pulling silly faces, but it's just not funny and I wish he would just stop trying to be something he's not. He's not a comedian, he's never really made me laugh , although we do laugh together about some things, but he himself is not one of those people that make you laugh. I used to indulge him by laughing a little when I knew he was trying to be funny, but now I just ignore him because I find it irritating.

And I find it really annoying when he sniggers when eg a newsreader on tv fluffs their lines. He sniggers in what I perceive to be quite a nasty way, and I really, really hate it when he does that.

Another thing I hate is how he seems to be so terrified if he or I make what he considers to a social 'faux pas', eg once when dropping DD off at school I was nearly about to park partly across somebody's drive, just for a second whilst DD jumped out, without turning the engine off, and I hadn't seen that the house owner was actually in his car about to pull out of his drive and as soon as I did see, I parked somewhere else and didn't block him in at all. But I could see DH, who was next to me in the passenger seat, cringing away because he thought I was about to park across this driveway and horror of horrors, unknowingly block this man in and it just annoyed me. It's hardly the end of the world if I had pulled across this man's drive, realised he was about to pull out and so of course I would have pulled away myself, immediately, within a matter of seconds.

But DH seems to either be sniggering at other people's public faux pas, eg newsreader fluffing lines or something similar, or cringing at me possibly committing a social faux pas (not that it happens very often but it seems he would be mortified if ever I did do something wrong or embarressing in public) eg once on holiday last year I somehow managed to put on my t-shirt inside out and back to front and only noticed once we were out in the town. I thought it was hilarious and it was hardly noticeable really (apart from the label sticking out under my chin ) and it was obvious he was hugely embarressed by me. Whereas another man would have just teased me and taken the mickey and just laughed about it. To me it was just one of those things that you do as a mum, but to him it was the height of embarressment.

It's just so sad. Life could be so much more fun, there are so many little things I find funny all the time, but he just doesn't see it and it's starting to make me really sad.

gosh, you don't sound very nice, tbh

do you know what, there are a lot of lonely women out there who would love to snap up a lovely family man like your DH

perhaps you should count a few blessings

DH only seems to get excited about Manchester United and Audi cars.

Other stuff, anything really gets a much whoopa as a dead tortoise.

I could have written your post. He's been arounf the house for over an year, with redundancy and trying to start a business, it's fucking well killed us.

Abittipsy - my DH is just the same!!!! He won't wear shorts to go on a bike ride when it's hot, was embarresed when I was hugging trees with DS2 in a wood with no one about, would not speak in a teacher meeting as he had just heard his voice on the camcorder at home and thought it sounded bad.

He blows his nose in the shower; can't open the back door to put out the recycling.

I got him and DS1 tickets to Farnborough Airshow and DS1 was almost hysterical about the Red Arrows and DH said "they were fun"

Where do you live? Can we get together and be fun and silly and enthusiastic and wild together?!?!?

It was pissing down last week and I though ti would be fun to put on cagools and do a silly dance in front on the french windows for the boys, especially as DS1 was miserable with scarlett fever.

He looked at me as if I had asked him to press his penis up against the old ladies window across the road.

No fucking fun. I did it anyway and the boys laughed their heads of.

AF, I will ignore your post as you don't know me and I am actually a very nice person. Just hugely irritated by various things about my DH which I need to get off my chest. Feel free to ignore my thread if you don't like it/me. Or would you like to me pretend my life is perfect just for you?

carocaro, OMG, you've made me laugh! I blame it on DH's mum. I could swear that the producers of Keeping Up Appearances must have met her at some point and based Hyacinth on her. She is sooooooo concerned about what people might think and not making a show of oneself in public, growing up with a mother like that has clearly rubbed off on DH. I just wish he would find a sense of humour. I do silly things on a almost daily basis but if I told him about any of them he would just be embarressed and laugh or snigger at me instead of with me.

perhaps you should show him this thread...it might make him be a better person ?

just a thought

Yup, count your blessings. You're lucky to have such a good man. Pity he doesn't make you laugh mind - the one person who can be guaranteed to make me laugh is my DH.

You know something, we all go through these times when we're a little bit fed up, we feel as though there's not much to life, not much excitement, etc, but you get through it. I'm a bit like you OP, I like to have 'me' time, and if I don't get it I get grouchy. If I get grouchy, DH makes me laugh, then he hands me my car keys and suggests I take myself off for half an hour, half a day, or whatever.

Hi Tipsy. It does sound a bit as though he can't do anything right. You want him to be more silly...but then you don't like his silly faces...Perhaps he doesn't speak loudly enough because you bite his head off every time he opens his mouth and he feels intimidated?

I know you are letting off steam, hormonal and tipsy but even Richard Dawkins doesn't annoy me in as many ways as your poor DH seems to annoy you.

Just a final thought.....he hasn't got a hearing problem has he? Just thought with him speaking too quietly, talking over you, and not realising his programme on TV has finished.....I used to work with someone who drove me mad, ignoring me, repeating what I'd said as though it was his idea etc - he actually couldn't hear very much. Has your DH had a hearing test recently?