DH doesn't like me keeping a journal

[bertiebassett]

Have namechanged for this one...

Bit of background: DH and I are going through a bad patch. Lots of issues (his stress, our communication, my stubborness etc). Have had 6 Relate sessions so far...progress is slow.

Anyway, I keep a journal. Have done for years on and off. I like writing down the things that matter to me and keeping track of them (DCs milestones, my thoughts and emotions, realtionship stuff, my acheivements etc). It's also a way of me making sense of my thoughts IYKWIM. I'm not always great at communicating my thoughts to others and I find it helps to reflect on what I'm feeling.

I've never really talked about my journal until recently (although I'm pretty sure DH knew I kept one!). Something came up in a Relate session where he denied having said something to me a few months earlier, that I knew he had (because I'd written about it at the time in my journal). He got a bit angry that I suggested he said it (not that it was anything particularly horrid!). I didn't make anything of it at the time but a few days later I asked him about it.

It was a bit tricky to bring it up...but I mentioned my journal and said (as nicely as I could!) that I'd written about my thoughts following this thing that he'd said a few months beforehand. I'd brought it up it in the Relate session as I felt it might be relevant/important. Did he really not remember saying it (which was absolutely fine after all we all forget stuff don't we?) or had he just not wanted to talk about it in the session (which again was fine but why hadn't he wanted to talk about it? Was it a very sensitive issue for him that we should discuss in private?).

Anyway he's now realised that I keep this journal and write down down my thoughts. Unfortunately he seems to see it as a place where I write down bad stuff about him/our relationship. I've tried to explain that I write down my thoughts about everything (not just him) and that there's good stuff there as well!

He's really gone off on one about it...this morning saying that it's illegal to write things about other people without their permission...that I'm somehow abusing his human rights or something...

Your thoughts please?

Blimey...I don't know...

It might actually be easier if DS and I go and visit her sometime.

I need to have the "this isn't working is it?" conversation with DH....I don't know when that will be...whenever I pluck up the courage? When I get an opportunity? Maybe a visit to DMs could be a good excuse to get away for a bit afterwards...

DH was a bit difficult last time my family stayed (dictating which days suited him and then being grumpy when they were here).

Oh that takes me back!

That and all the other details of life with an EA man found in the threads on this board.

I wish I could paint you a picture of how much better life is without the soul-sucking presence of an EA man in it anymore - it's up there in my username, bertie.

How about you have that "this isn't working is it?" conversation with yourself. Think of your needs. think of your wants and desires. Think of the life you and the DC deserve. Is it in the hands of your H to provide you with happiness? Or in yours?

To whom do you want to hand that power?

It sounds like you might be more relaxed (and therefore be happier) if you went to your mum's with your DS. If so, I'd make a decision about when and book the tickets, so you'll definitely be going and you'll have it to look forward to.

Something Crystals said about them (ie DPs/DHs) getting inside your head by reading a journal, it sparked a thought. My DH would constantly say to me 'What are you saying' in a conversational way, meaning tell me what you're thinking. I found it so invasive, that he demand I tell him what I'm thinking - it's private, thank you, I might be daydreaming about Gary Barlow or some such (more likely thinking about how much I wanted to leave), and then because he is insisting I tell him I'd have to make something up. V stressful. So I got into the habit of saying 'Nothing much'. This bugged him, I could see, and I think it was because I was denying him access to my inner thoughts. He could bug my computer (possibly), he could check up on who I'd been phoning, he could control everything in our life, but he couldn't get into my head.

It's THIS simple bertie

If something this wankbadger agrees to makes AN Other Person happy, he won't like it and will put a stop to it if at all possible.

If he can't stop it happening, he will ruin it.

Your happiness is his enemy. He can hurt you by hurting your son, he knows this. Your DS will be collateral damage anytime he wants to get at you. Your son therefore is not allowed to be happy either. This will only progress as he gets older.

You say your Ex is being nice to DS, but slagging him off in his earshot. You have any idea what effect that has on the self esteem to know that you are a pain in the arse?

He then told you that you had to cancel the DM trip, knowing that it was what YOU wanted, and also what your DS wanted. Double bubble, he gets to hurt 2 birds with one foul stone. There is your Mr Nasty, he was making you think that all was OK, just so when he dealt the fatal blow to your hope for the DM trip, it would come out of greater shock.

My Ex refused to participate in our DS birthdays, used to sulk and pout the whole time. The last time (with it been known that he was going away back under his rock) he stropped off to see friends the night before our DS 5th birthday and only returned after 11pm, not even a phone call.

Last year he rang and sang to him. What a total load of BS. I told him that too.

I suggest you invite your DM anyway and tell her what is going on. So that when he is rude, she knows it's not her, nor you, but his abuse.

You need to get out bertie.

Or go to your mothers but still tell her what is going on. You need to peel back the facade of this sham now, start letting the truth in.

happyhissy ... wankbadger ... love it!

Sooooo.....I'm taking all your advice on board ladies... Thanks so much for you time and comments. You are all so brilliant I don't know what I'd have done without you.

I've just had a good chat to my DB & have his support too...

I know what I have to do now...not sure when it will be (but it will be soon)...wish me luck?

I'll post again (probably another thread) when we have had "the conversation"...