As my user name indicates...(long, sorry)

[needsomeperspective]

I want to write this all down so that I can get some perspective on my marriage. I feel so tangled up in my mind I just don't know what is reasonable or not anymore.

My husband and I have been married 3 years, together 4, and are in our mid / late 30s. We have 2 small children. I work full time, my husband stays at home with the children - this is purely down to financial pragmatism.

There are a number of issues in our marriage which I am finding difficult to handle.

Top of the list is my husband's moods and anger. There was a time when DH and I used to have a laugh together although he has never been easy going, always a worrier and always had anger issues. When we first got together he would fly into irrational rages induced by jealousy, percieved criticism, general "stress" etc. This rage sometimes got to the point of physical aggression (grabbing, choking, hair pulling, screaming inches from face etc.) although he has never hit me or actually caused me physical pain - just fear.

He was prescribed anti-anxiety meds 3 years ago which helped hugely with this issue and it only tended to re-emerge when he was extremely drunk or when he missed his pills for a couple of days. Still not ideal, but I could live with it. However, he came off his anti-anxiety medication at the New Year which correlates with the decline in his mental state. Over the last few months his moodiness and misery have re-emerged and he has become increasingly difficult to live with. He is short tempered, never seems happy, tuts and sighs at pretty much everything I do and we never seem to enjoy ourselves. I would LOVE to go for just one single day with him being consistently happy, cordial and engaging. It seems like forever since that happened.

I also DREAD him going out drinking (which to be fair happens very seldom now) because I'm scared of what state / mood he will be in when he comes home. He has a hair trigger and I have to be very careful not to set him off if I speak to him when he comes in after a night out. He also tends to get himself so obliterated that he loses keys / phone / wallet / can't find his way home / gets into fights / rings the doorbell / rings the home phone and wakes the babies. We have fought about this issue for our whole relationship but the only change he has made is to go out less often - he seems to be incapable of moderating his alcohol intake when he does go out. The last time this happened I abaolutely lost it and told him I couldn't take this any more and I wanted him to leave and could he move to the spare room. Cue 3 days of stonewalling from him before I broke down and apologised to HIM for what I'd said. No apology from him to me for anything.

I appreciate that he is very stressed being stuck at home with the babies all the time, plus we have financial worries and my job situation is insecure.

He has said he "didn't imagine his life would be like this" and I think in many ways regrets that we have the children (although he loves them to bits) and that our lifestyle is so confined and child-centric. He has said that he often wishes we could just be the two of us again, but I can't change things back now can I?!

Another issue is our sex life. We tend to have sex quite infrequently - once every 2 weeks or so on average. Occasionally more, sometimes less. I would have sex every day if I could, I crave the intimacy of our early years when I felt close to him and sex is the only thing right now which even comes close to bringing back that illusion for me. He however has said that he has a low sex drive and will never want it as much as I do. So we compromise. Or rather I just wait for him to initiate it - which isn't often. When we do have sex it is usually pretty perfunctory - rarely any kissing or touching outside of the obvious areas and no real feeling of intimacy or joy between us. I get the very strong feeling he only does it to keep me from getting too unhappy and to stave off a row not because he actually has any desire for me at all.

I shall add here that I have put on a good deal of weight with the babies which I am now trying to lose. He has never once complained about my weight or body and has told me he loves me for ME and doesn't care what I weigh. But equally when I confessed to him how much I am struggling to come to terms with my post-baby body he said and did nothing to reassure me. He never looks at and rarely touches my body which makes me want to hide it. I should add that he also has gained weight and feels very insecure about himself physically (he used to play a lot of sports competitively and was in excellent shape so notices a real difference in himself). He is extremely good looking but considers himself to be physically unattractive - this is just part of a much deeper lack of self-confidence and self-esteem.

I do not feel loved and supported right now and am struggling to communicate with my H about the changes I feel we need to make. He usually takes any such discussion as deeply offensive personal criticism and will consequently sulk, stonewall, speak angrily ("everything is all my fault again I see") or even fly into a rage despite my pleas to hold a reasonable constructive conversation. I want him to go back to the doctor and maybe try some different meds to see if they can iron out some of the unwelcome side effects of his previous pills (lethargy, tiredness, lack of libido). He says he will but still hasn't made an appointment - his reasons are he is worried we can't afford it or the babies have been too demanding for him to make a phone call. If I remind him he makes me feel like I am nagging / hounding him relentlessly.

Where do I go from here? Joint counselling?

Two children under two left alone with a man who has bad anger issues....don't tell me he wouldn't OP, because you can't know that. You just can't.

You give him that ultimatum and fast. (If you insist on wanting to stay)

I have a prediction about what will happen if he rejoins the workplace.

He will have an affair.

This is a punitive man who doesn't believe in equality. He resents your success and the requirement to be at home looking after his own children. You're enabling some of those views yourself by rationalising that because he's a man, he needs to be in work.

He controls you all the time by his behaviour, but because he doesn't fit the profile you've always had of controlling and abusive behaviour, you've missed all the signs. He is the ultimate passive-aggressor. He punishes you without you even realising he's doing it. As soon as you stayed with him after he'd been violent and cheated on you, the die was cast. He learnt that you'd get angry and threaten to leave when he punished you overtly but that because you're a rescuing type, you would stay and forgive. He's learnt that the most satisfying punishments are the ones you don't know about.

He'll go on punishing you if you let him, but again you won't know that he's doing it, until it's too late.

Op, I have read through all your posts (and the replies on here).

The overwhelming trend of your posts is that he does x, and he does y, and that he has never stopped you doing x or y, and that he needs to do x or y in order to make things better.

What about you, op?

How do you feel?

What do you want?

You talk about feeling that you should work hard to make it work because that?s how you grew up. But what is it that you actually want?

Do you love him? Take a step back for a minute, and think... Where do you see yourself in five years time?

Only you can make the decision to change things. It?s clear that you want change, but what change is it you genuinely want?

That would certainly be a possibility Charbon if he was in "normal" employment. His working environment is almost, if not totally, male dominated though and he would have little to no access to anyone female the entire time he is working away.

Note, I do not say "he would NEVER do that!". I believe, given the right set of circumstances, he could do that (I actually believe pretty much everyone on the planet could cheat under certain conditions) so we try to avoid circumstances where that could be an issue...

WannaBe - I do love my husband.

But I chose to marry him for a variety of reasons of which love was not actually the most important.

I decided to marry him, knowing his flaws and accepting them not least because I had a life and career into which he was prepared to fit himself - and not many men would or could do that. I felt our personalities were quite compatible and what we each brought to the relationship added value to each others areas of weakness - both practically speaking and emotionally. I tend to get bored easily and thought that his unpredictability would stop the marriage from getting stale (boy did I underestimate that!)

He wanted / needed someone pragmatic and not too melodramatic to provide him with the financial security and emotional consistency his life badly needed. It seems to work.

I will come back to you on what I want because I need to get it clear in my own mind.

Whatever happens, it seems clear that your marriage needs help. Where you are at, at the moment, is not working. We have had that too. As I have mentioned, me and my DH have been though challenges and it was a commitment on both sides to be honest, and listen to each other, to apologise where necessary, ask forgiveness where necessary...and commit to moving forward with making necessary changes. So, if depression is a problem (and it affects not just the sufferer, but the rest of the family too), then that has to be treated, whatever it entails. There are different medications/counselling/exercise...maybe a combination of all 3...but that seems essential to both your DH and to you. And the alcohol issue...I think that would need to be part of any commitment to move forward with necessary changes.
Is your DH aware of how desperate you feel? And of how you, at the moment, are prepared to do something positive for your relationship and DC to improving what you all have? Can he see that there is a problem? (sorry I may have missed this in earlier comments).

It's one of the reasons I found the Susan Forward book good - she looks at women with "rescuing" type personalities. Why would you think so little of your own safety that you would stay with a man after he choked you? Men who choke their partners are higher risk for killing them. I don't mean to be alarmist, but if he puts his hands in the wrong place or pushed too hard, your dcs would be without a mother - what would happen to them?

Why is your well-being less important to you than his well-being?

You've said he's already been unfaithful shortly after you got together. And now he's lost confidence about his weight and appearance -and according to you feels 'emasculated'. Well he's pretty much a sitting duck isn't he? It's not necessarily the workplace that will yield the woman or women concerned either, but all-male environments are notorious breeding grounds for that sort of emotional and sexual dishonesty. It's not the workplace - it's the lifestyle.

I second the recommendation for the Susan Forward book. It would be good for you to find out why you have these rescuing tendencies and why an assertive, intelligent, independent woman decided to overlook extreme violence and infidelity so early in her relationship.

he chose you well OP.

you're intelligent, empathetic, a "fixer", a "rescuer". you believe you can't do better than him... so you apply your mind to fixing him.

you have a million reasons why he does what he does, and you focus yourself on those.
you obsess about how to "help" him.
you list his "behavioural problems" and come up with ways to "solve" them.
you even make up lists of excuses that he'll make, or that you can make for him, in case he doesn't take your "help"...

and so the upshot is,
you remain faithfully serving a violent and unpredictable man who is currently at home with your small children every day, fucking them up little by little.

can i suggest you begin a new list? a list of excuses to give your children when they are older, and in therapy, trying to make sense of what happened in their home? and why their mother allowed it to carry on even though SHE was the one who had the power to stop it? i'm sorry to say it but that's the list you'll be using the most in 20 years' time.

i'm not the first person to say it on this thread but i have to reiterate this: it is appalling to me that you allow a man who chokes and verbally abuses you to be in charge of small children.

let me guess... "he would never do that to the children"? right?

but you say yourself that he's even had police involvement in his history of violence? road rage? work problems?

and he is now off the only thing that kept him under control... his medication?

and he's in sole charge of two little children who will soon start tantrumming and testing boundaries? while you are out of the country for weeks at a stretch?

you have made very poor decisions OP. your children are in danger and you are dithering around with excuses and justifications. i hope you can start applying that very well-made mind of yours to getting them OUT of this situation.

I hate to say it, but your partner reminds me so much of my own father growing up.

I have vague memories of things being pretty good when I was very small (and without much voice of my own), and he would tickle me and play with me. I loved him with all my heart.

In those early days, I never remember seeing him lose his temper, but I do remember overhearing my mother very sternly telling him that if he ever laid a hand on her or the kids, that she would leave. Its the first memory I have of her ever 'talking back to him', as she was normally very passive and 'keeping the peace'.

As I grew older (around 8), and my mum left the house to start working (they had both been unemployed until then), suddenly things started to go wrong with my dad, and in many ways it was as if he thought I should fill her place now she wasn't there.

He began to get irrationally angry for things I was meant to have done that I didn't even know I was supposed to (like washing the dishes or putting laundry on). Nothing I did was right, everything was criticised, and I felt like I was permanently walking on eggshells. I'd get frustrated and cry sometimes and he'd tell me he wouldn't get mad if I could "just be a good girl, and don't make him mad".

One day I got frustrated when he was telling me off for not doing something he'd never asked me to do, and told him so. He flew into a rage and pushed me off my feet, yelling "Don't talk back to me!"
I'd hurt my back the way I landed and began to scream, whereupon he got down on the floor, held his hand over my mouth and nose so that I couldn't breathe, while hissing "Shut up! Shut up!" until I was weak and limp (although still conscious).

He put me in my room after that (I was too terrified to make a peep), and had a long talk with me about how (and this is probably my clearest childhood memory of all, it changed my life):
-he didn't want to do that, but I had been bad and needed to learn
-he wouldn't do it any more if I was good
-if I told Mum she would be angry with me for making him mad
-she might take me away from him so that I wouldn't make him mad any more
-he didn't want that to happen because he loved me and would miss me

and then he hugged me for a long time, stroking my hair, and telling me 'just be a good girl, ok.'

From then on, life was never the same. His rages escalated slowly but steadily (always followed by the same chat). He beat me regularly (to the extent I have internal organ injuries to this day), and continued to smother me if I screamed.

My Mum was suspicious from time to time, and would ask me if anything was happening. I didn't want her to get mad at him or me, and would always firmly deny it, and come up with some pretty good (imaginative) excuses.

Anyway, I'm so sorry, this turned into way more of a personal narrative than I meant it to be (all comes spilling out).

Suffice to say that by the time I left home I was a wreck, self-harming, suicidal attempts (none of which anyone ever knew about), and permanently anxious. I went on to have some nasty abusive relationships of my own before striking it lucky with current DH (who is wonderful).

I have no contact with my father (never want to see him again), and struggle with anger at my mother (for not knowing/stopping things), and with myself for never saying anything, and never being 'good enough'.

Although my mother knows everything now (things came out eventually through my younger siblings who were also abused), and has nothing to do with him, she maintains until she is blue in the face that she had no idea, that she would have left him immediately if she did, and that she knew he could be angry, but never violent.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that you really will never know what goes on in the house when you're not there (because children are so easily manipulated to cover up), and someone who has form for physical violence (choking etc.) will almost inevitably repeat that behaviour.

I wish to god my mum had just left when she realised 'she' had to walk on eggshells around him or face anger. Because he expected just the same from us (children) as we grew older. And was able to manipulate us into accepting much worse.

Jesus, WhiteShores. I'm so, so sorry that your childhood was like that.

Whiteshores, you are so strong and brave. I am in awe of you. Am so glad you have a wonderful DH now. Your happiness is the ultimate fuck-you. Thank you for sharing that in the hope of helping others. I must say, whenever I read these sorts of threads, it seems a common feature that the children are very, very well-behaved and I always think 'I would've tried to be perfect, with a dad like that too', however young. When they get past a certain age, ie they get a full personality, these bastards seem to get freaked out and cannot cope and need to crush their spirits just like they do with their partners. If a man is prepared to be nasty to his adult partner, he is just as prepared to be nasty or even nastier to a tiny, vulnerable, easily-manipulated child, who cannot fight back or who has no avenue of escape open to them. I don't understand how some people can't see how obvious this is.

Thank you so much NicknameTaken and OxfordBags, but I really didn't mean to hijack .

It just breaks my heart to read something that looks like a snapshot of my early (and innocent) life, and I want to scream at the screen to make it different this time for these children, and not see the record repeat.

Thank you both again though, for your kind words. They mean a lot.

May be an impossible question, White, but is there anything your mother could have done that would have made it easier for you to tell? My DD (4) goes to her father every second weekend, and seems happy about it so far, but I do worry about later on.

(Sorry, don't mean to hijack).

(Off to collect said child now, so apologies in advance for not acknowledging any reply today).

WhiteShores you poor thing. x
OP WhiteShores' story is exactly what i fear for your children. i can't see this story ending in any other way tbh.

a person with rage problems, a history of violence, and a wish to "be himself" by stopping the only medication that has controlled his rages is not a person who should be in sole charge of children.

i know you're going to come back with something like "well i can't deny him a family life just because he's had a shit childhood, that would be unfair" etc. etc. ad nauseaum.

but you know what
i also had a very very shit childhood.
and i have never been violent with anyone. and i know MANY survivors of abuse who have never been violent to anyone. as a matter of principle, more than anything else.

he is choosing violence and rage as his preferred method of dealing with other human beings. he's even stopped taking the medication that prevents his rages. you cannot excuse that away. you cannot compassion it away, forgive it away, ignore it away, justify it away.

it is wrong for you to work so hard to ensure he has zero consequences for his actions.

it is wrong for you to deny your children the right to safety, all in the interests of making your P's life consequence-free.

I have serious anxiety issues, (panic attacks, social phobia, etc, etc.)have had them since childhood thanks to toxic bastard thankfully deceased father.

Never once have I choked my DH
Never once have I taken out my moods on my beloved children
Never once have I been violent or abusive to ANYONE
Never once have I decided to "stop" my meds, I need them to be well, my family needs me to be well all the time. I make damn sure I am well by having counselling, CBT and seeing my GP monthly.
I always make sure my prescriptions are filled.
My GP and I have a strategy when things get bad, I can get the additional meds I need, when I need them (tranquillisers) at very short notice.
I work and always have worked full time in a difficult, stressful job.

I take responsibility for myself, no-one needs to "manage" me. I know what I need to do to stay well and I damn well do it, for me, my family and everyone else around me.

Your DH is an abusive man-child, is hiding behind you and is probably hating you for it.

Get rid of this twat. The violence is more than enough of a reason.

Quite honestly, I really don't think so Nickname, although there were certainly signs she could have picked up on (I became progressively more withdrawn and depressed).

The trouble was that I really did love my dad (I was a Daddy's girl), believed every word he said, and would have done anything to avoid Mum and Dad splitting up (was getting to an age when I knew that sometimes happened).

My mum inadvertently backed up what my Dad was saying by saying to me once something along the lines of 'You know I would make him leave if he was hurting you, don't you?'

I believe/believed she would have, and so as far as I was concerned it became my responsibility to stop that happening too (by being 'more good' and hiding it from her).

I fell under the same spell so many adult women do... that the best solution was for him to change (especially since I remembered a happier time), and that I could make that happen by just... xyz.

I'm not sure I can think of any way you can get a child to talk who has been carefully manipulated not to. But signs (in my case with my father at least) include recurring physical injuries, no ability to say anything bad about him, excessive praising of him, extremely over-anxious to please him, withdrawing socially, generally over-anxious behaviour (startling, flinching, etc.), 'acting out' scenarios in play or drawings, thinking of herself as 'bad' or hating herself.

Theres more, but I would say these were the main ones in my case, although individual kids will deal with things differently as well.

When it comes to a potential abuser (or anyone actually), the biggest predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.

I wish you and your DD both the best.

this abuser chose you well, OP

unfortunately, your children didn't choose a life where mummy's time is greatly taken up looking after an inadequate man who is violent, unfaithful, intimidating, energy-sucking, and helpless

I think you should choose a better role model for your childen, this one is defective because he isn't helping himself and has no intention of doing so

why would he ? The passive aggression he has used so far is getting him everything he requires.

whiteshores and katie I am so sorry for your childhoods

I also had a fucked-up childhood because of my father, which is why I am often seen on these threads trying to make people understand that putting your relationship before your children is the worst thing you could ever do for them

I am so sorry, OP. This must be very, very hard for you to process. You want your marriage to work, we get that. But at what cost ? Please listen.

Yes AF sweetheart, that is it, exactly.

I hd to do a,lot of work to forgive my lovely mum for staying with him till I was 9. The repercussions for me have tainted my life. I am delighted he is dead and even more delighted that he was refused any contact with me so I was not made to see the bastard ever again.

The courts sometimes get it right

I've seen quite a few of your comments AF, and thought that your kind of passion must come from personal experience.

I admire your bravery and strength of persistance in getting the message across. Its not easy.

thanks, WS

WhiteShores

Couldn't agree more.

I completely agree with Oikopolis. This man is a potentially dangerous abuser. He does not need medication or CBT or anxiety management or counselling or a job. What he needs is to go on a perpetrator programme because that's what he is. As well as reading Lundy Bancroft get hold of a copy of Living with the Dominator by Pat Craven if you can.