Anyone else married to a moaning miserable old git?

[nomedoit]

Posted about this before and I am trying but I feel so worn down by this.

Basically my DH moans and groans his way through life. It's especially bad at the weekends. It is the same script every weekend.
"I'm tired, I've got a headache, I need a nap."
He doesn't want to do anything, go anywhere or join in. I feel like a single parent. It really drags me down. I wish he would move out at times. I don't want a divorce. I love him and he is a good, honest person who used to make me laugh and inspire me.

Now he is like a human black hole.

He is NOT depressed. We have gone down that route. He is a builder and manages lots of projects, clients and sub-contractors quite easily. Although there is a lot of drama. Every day there is a new crisis (a batch of roof tiles has a fault - cue weeping and wailing). But he always sorts it out. It is when he gets home, he feels entitled to give up and lie on the couch.

I am ignoring him as much as I can, NOT asking him how he is feeling or making constructive comments. "Why don't you take an aspirin, then?" I go out without him. But I feel it is making me tired and depressed being around him.

[basingstoke]

DH at the moment...

[MouseWheat]

My DH is exactly the same. It's so draining. I am on the verge of ending our marriage because I don't want our DC to grow up in this negative environment. It has sucked the life out of me in seven years. I don't know if counselling can fix this. I am gutted to be in this position but I don't think I can excuse his moods, anger, hypersensitivity and inability to take even the tiniest criticism anymore. He's also a perfectionist and seems to need constant praise. He can be so lovely, but those episodes are so few and far between these days. :( :(

[Omigawd]

Sounds like the impact of many months (years?) of daily stress to me, and that your DH doesn't have a way to get it out his system. Noh obby, sport, exercise etc etc he can do?

[MrsS01]

Not any more :)

Sometimes divorce can be a wonderful thing!

[UnhappyLizzie]

I sympathise with everyone on this thread who has this problem. Negative people drag you down and it's very boring.

My husband has this personality type. Like MouseWheat I found it draining and it wore me down.

I was always this positive Pollyanna-type character who spend her time trying to cheer him up and get him to count his blessings. Eventually I got sick of it.

Now, after 11 years of marriage, the roles have reversed. I am the miserable, negative one. He made me like this and I hate myself.

If you get your dh to take it seriously, he might be able to change. If you go to counselling it could help him see the corrosive effect this has on you, and the relationship in general.

Otherwise it will really drag you down and you might end up in my situation - where you no longer love your husband and you resent the years he spent being so gloomy and grumpy and your relationship has been destroyed. Don't ignore it, try to get it to change before it is too late. I have nothing to work with in my marriage, it is too late for me. But you still love your dh.

Good luck

[trumpton]

I asked DH what it was like living on Panet Pessimism and raised a smile . Didn't get one when I called him a Joy-sucker. ( sucks all the enjoyment out of going anyhere. )

He has improved ,I think he realised that now DC are grown up I could walk away easily from a discontented man.

His mother is worse and now I point and laugh. Learned behavior I guess, imprinted early.

[ASecretLemonadeDrinker]

My DH is like this - I was going to start a thread! Yesterday I told him enough was enough. He says he going to try and improve (always excuse after excuse) if I didn't know he wasn't depressed, I'd say he was depressed. He definatly isn't though , but he is so fucking miserable. Never spends time with the kids doing nice stuff - always moaning moaning, saying they have to get to bed early tonight (out of his way basically) , acts like they are a pain not a joy. I've had enough. I feel so sad I've wasted my 'best' years (18-25 so far) with this miserable life sucker, except of course I have the boys now. I'm so stuck now though - our house is rented out and we are at MILs. I have nowhere to go :(

[MouseWheat]

My situation has come to a head in the last couple of days and I've told DH I want to live apart as I feel he can't cope with the pressure of small children and I think we would get on better but tbh, I think I've already moved on in my head. He wants to try counselling (I've asked him to do this with me several times over the last 18 months or so) but its taken this to get him to agree. He is now pulling out all the stops to improve. I think it might be too little too late. My parents are now fully aware of the situation and have told me I am no longer the bubbly, happy-go-lucky girl I was and that they never invite us anywhere anymore because they don't want to put me in a position where I have to make excuses for him :( My mum confessed that she's physically had to restrain my dad on several occasions over the years because of the way he's treated me in front of them. The saddest thing is I've got so used to this behaviour/treatment that I can no longer tell what's unacceptable anymore. My best friend has said pretty much the same thing about the way he speaks to me. I am shocked.

Sorry to hijack OP. It's just good to have found a place where other people understand.

[elmofan]

Oh Mouse Could you go stay with your parents for a few days with your dc's ? Just to give you some space to think about what you want to do next .

Asecretlemonadedrinker It's never too late to start enjoying life , do you have any friends / family that you could stay with until you find somewhere to live with your boys ?

[nomedoit]

Mouse, your situation sounds awful and tbh your DH sounds quite abusive if other people have noticed. Mine is miserable, negative etc but he is basically an allright husband.

I think in these situations the partner becomes a sort of audience for the negativity. If these men were on their own, what would they do? Maybe sit around in the pub putting the world to rights I don't know.

I find the weekends the worst. Right now he is out at work buzzing around quite happily. I totally agree about the perfectionism. Mine mulls over every little detail and comment people make. I get asked a hundred times if I think a project is good.

I get very worn down and demoralised. I also get exhausted trying to get him to do anything.

We had a big row on Sunday which is a perfect example. I suggested going to a fun softball game (we are in US) for children which is held on a Friday night. All ages, just a very casual thing. It would give DD some exercise and burn off some energy which we have agreed she needs to do more of.

He sighs, pauses for ever, then replies, as I know he will, "Hmm. I don't like softball."

Me. "Why don't you like softball?"

Him. "I don't know." Sigh. "I never have liked it."

Because there is so much not to like about kids' softball???

[nomedoit]

This was one of his classics:

Sigh.

"I'll never be able to afford a Corvette."

Sigh.

"But then I'd only crash it and break my neck anyway."

[lookwhoschirpy]

I have just named changed to start a post on this VERY subject.

My DH is also a miserable git and its wearing me down. He can be very entertaining, and all of our friends think he's hilarious (which I do too) but they cross patch phases are getting more frequent and he's becoming incredibly dull.

I've started pulling him up on it straight away but it seems to have got worse not better.

For example, I went to see Take That recently (admittedly not his cup of tea).
I came home very excited, showed him pictures on my phone. His reaction

• 'well it's OK but I don't see the point of it' (of the big fuck off statue that stands all by itself'
  
• ' it looks like you had shit seats'
  
• ' sounds like my idea of hell'
  

Why couldn't he just say 'that looks great, I'm glad you had a nice time'

On Sunday, the hottest day ever, he moaned at DS (5) for using the hosepipe to clean the path (We had been painting) as he got water on his scooter and 'it might rust'

I can kind of ignore it but it gets me down when he moans at the DC - I worry they can't brush it off the way I can and it will get to the point where they don't do anything good as it makes no difference to him.

[Asinine]

It's very common to moan, whine and complain. The best antidote is humour so make fun of the grumpy folk whenever possible. It's for their own good.

So whatever their objection to whatever you're proposing to do exaggerate it until even they can see it's ridiculous.

So: 'I don't like softball'. Say 'yeah, there might be kids there or people. You don't like people, do you, or balls, especially soft ones....and it could be dangerous, you might get hit, or it might rain, or you could be struck by lightning, or a meteorite, or ...YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY ENJOY IT... or you could just lie on the sofa getting older until you die'



Seriously some men in their 40s have a male menopause with low mood, due to testosterone tailing off.

[nomedoit]

I don't get me started on testosterone!!!

We did get his levels tested (twice) and they are perfectly normal although I do know that low testosterone can be a problem

I do think though that there is a psychological element - they get miserable because they are aging. DH was very happy yesterday because he carried more bricks than some 25-year-old working with him. Actually grinned.

I get a lot of, "When I was 20 I could run twenty miles uphill backwards and then swim the Channel." To be fair, he was ultra-fit when he was younger but now takes no exercise whatsoever and moans about his paunch...

[MouseWheat]

nomedoit I have today had the realisation that my DH is not merely a "miserable git" but is more likely an emotional abuser. I stumbled across the EA support thread and it just clicked with me. I can barely type this for tears. I am 100% certain I am a "victim" of verbal abuse and more than likely there is an element of EA too. I am devastated and feel so stupid, and yet I am still trying to excuse it in my head. I feel sorry for him too.

Just wanted to thank you for this thread. It's led to me opening my eyes. Off to lurk on EA
thread now :(

[lookwhoschirpy]

My DH does no exercise either and has put on a lot of weight. He has never done exercise in his life but his metabolism has obviously slowed.

The thing that winds me up the most is that he mocks other people a lot (which I do too, to be fair) but tends to favour people who have actually achieved something. Or he loves it when people fail at things.

So he will take the piss out of someone who runs a marathon and gets blisters, or plays in a band but isn't successul etc. I just want to scream at him 'What the fuck do you do that's so great'

It's just so draining.

[nomedoit]

Mouse it sounds that way from the little you have said. I am sorry. You will get a lot of very good advice on these boards from people who have been in your situation.

lookwho Mine doesn't really look up from the TV long enough to notice what other people are doing. God, I know how draining it is. At the weekend I felt as though the life had been sucked out of me.

His GP advised him to exercise but he hasn't. I run and sometimes he says he will do a 5k with me but it never happens. The last time we went on holiday he didn't even get in the pool!!! To be fair, his job can be very active. But he also eats a lot of junk which I am sure makes it worse. I make a big salad every night with dinner and he leaves most of his btw. In the evenings he comes home, collapses on the sofa and starts the "Fuck, I'm so tired, I've got a headache, I need a nap," routine. I look at other DH's who are outside, playing with the kids, going for a run etc and I think his job is no more stressful or busy than theirs. I honestly think it is his attitude.

[nomedoit]

Oh, another classic. I have done quite a lot of work marketing his construction business (which is my background, I enjoy doing it).

So I have done ads, flyers, built a website, done nice business cards. And it is paying off.

So one day I'm going on to him enthusiastically about building a brand image and he looks up and says,

"But if people want something done, they'll come and find me."

[JamieAgain]

Aaargh

I really sympathise. My dad is like this and I and my son have definitely inherited a negativity trait (worrier, pessimism).

But I work very hard on this, hate people who never show any enthusiasm, and I absolutely accept that my DH has the right to not be an emotional punchbag. He needs to know how this is dragging you down. Tell him in no uncertain terms.

What do you think he'd do if you showed him (possibly edited highlights) of this thread?

[kerala]

My FIL is like this - have you read Harry Potter? He is like one of the dementors who suck the fun and joy out of everything. I cannot bear spending anytime with him. Always tutting and sighing, worrying about MIL's rubbish behaviour towards us but not having the balls to do anything about it. We still laugh about his "catchphrase" sighing and saying "its bound to rain". Around my ILs I turn into a manic Pollyanna type which is exhausting. Ironically DH totally reacted against it is the most positive up beat can do person I know. Can't imagine being married to someone like this must be terribly wearing.

[kerala]

I think of them as Eeyore characters - just like the donkey from Winnie the Pooh (which am forced to read alot atm).

[kerrytwowolves1]

I know this is an old thread but only just come across it. This has made me feel soo much better cause I'm married to a miserable old git too, who also happens to be a builder!

[Dowser]

Yes good thread. I'm the moaner, but that's at far as it goes. Once I've had my moan or rant I'm as right as rain.

But...I don't expect OH to make me feel better , that's up to me. It's just my way of getting it out of my system...better out than in I always say and if ever he suggests doing stuff which is rare s I'm always the one doing the suggesting, I always agree to doing it.

I notice some good co counselling techniques there. ;-)

[Icecreambythesea]

I could have written this about my OH. He never wants to do anything or go anywhere. He just wants to sit and play on his computer all day.

I know that he suffers with social anxiety and he really does make an effort on special occasions but I can't help but feel that both myself and the children are missing out because of his behaviour.

Could anxiety be the reason behind your DH's behaviour OP?