We've got it all wrong, how do we put it right?

[cheekymonk]

Morning all. Writing this after arguing with dh until at least midnight last night! We have been married over 10 years and have ds aged 7 and dd aged 16 months. Dh works away (was in navy but now in another job which means he can work away 1 2 or 3 nights per week). All our family live away and we have few friends in this area. We have a lot of debt and we are seeing CAMHS soon as ds is having difficulty accepting dd and suffers from anxiety.
Dh and I have been arguing most of weekend. I had food poisoning on fri and asked him to take dd to nursery but said i would take ds to school. I felt really rough and barely got to school but it is only 10 min walk. he refused to take ds when ds asked him to take him as ds could see I was unwell. me being ill highlights how much i do and how the family seem lost when i am not right. i love being needed so much but it is so much pressure! i have criticised dh and been really horrible, calling him useless etc. him and ds argue constantly and dh refuses to accept any responsibility or try to change. i realise that i am perhaps controlling and a bit of a perfectionist so whatever dh does may not be good enough. i just have got used to having to do almost everything. Dh works full time, i work part time but i do all the cooking and the lions share of everything else (housework, budget, making sure everyone is where they should be at right time with correct stuff etc). We take it in turns to put one child to bed so i do ds and he does dd one night then swap over, he spends all his time with us and is committed in that respect but I feel none of us have our space and we are hemmed in.not sure where to start in sorting things out but i know i resent him working away. Anyone have any advice or thoughts?

Reading your post, you sound truly overwhelmed and exhausted.

I would suggest couples counseling for the two of you. Is the constant arguing and perfectionism a normal part of your lives?

How are you dealing with your debt, have you had advice from CAB or been to debtors anonymous to try and deal with it? Is it shared debt, or are you upset that someone has been spending excessively?

All this stress (assuming that your home life is often as you describe it above) is going to affect all of you, and to be honest I feel anxious reading this as the pace is so fast and furious. You need to make a change as this will not be helping your son. Have you thought of going to your GP, print this out and tell them how you feel. Perhaps they could suggest some counseling that could help you get your head straight about what your needs and wants are?

Thanks daffydowndilly. I have been to GP and am on the waiting list for counselling. As for the debt, we are in an iva which is due to finsh next year but we have extra debt on top of this that i have been negotiating with recently. the debt is slightly more me really but a joint effort too! Dh barely looks at the bank account. We don't normally argue quite as much as we did this weekend but there is often tension. I don't think highly of dh which I know isn't good.

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I think its the usual pressures of it being tough with a lttle one but with stress of money, our living arrangements (live in 2 bed house, kids have room each, dh and i downstairs in dining room) and dh working away it is overwhelming.

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I know how overwhelming it can feel when your H works away Cheeky. STBXH always said that, as I had my own routines while he was away, he didn't know what to do when he was back, so he just stayed out of the way .

I think your lack of respect for each other is making you both argue. When you asked him to help you with taking DD, why did you still offer to take DS yourself? Surely if you can manage both when he's away, then he can too - especially as you were ill. You need to ask yourself why you didn't expect more of him.

Money pressures and cramped living conditions can't be helping the situation, but if there is mutual respect and love at the bottom of it you can work with it.

I second couples counselling before you both start down a road of insulting each other and bickering that is too far to come back. I speak from experience! X

Thank you doingitformyself. i agree, i question why my expectations are low too.
Our issues are
1, debt/money issues. We got through this weekend on less than £10. we had food in the cupboards but entertaining kids on barely nothing is draining.
2, cramped living conditions. kids have not much living space, we have no privacy.
3,dh working away. making me resentful and like he should make up for it when he is back. i feel he is not tuned in to kids needs.
4, My isolation. Unfriendly city we live in, as i say away from family.
5, My son's anxiety and arguments with dh.
6, All struggling with having toddler in house again1 I feel i can't cherish dd as much as everyone seems to put their own needs first.
7,Dh is very unhappy as am i due to all above
8, Effect on our marriage of all of the above.
9, also childcare. no help apart from paid help from nursery/holiday club etc. COST of this! I know however dd is not little for long and this will come.
We are pretty sure we are going to move up north and transfer our mortgage would would mean bigger property and lower repayments. We are priced out of area here.BUT ds starting junior school this year so aimimng to move by next sept is not ideal timing.
We always struggle to sleep when we are not together. This does give me comfort that all is not lost. we have been through so much with the Navy and all that separation and come through it so i know our roots are strong but yes, I am just tired of life always being so hard.

I'm just going to add this in - the most important "rule" in fair doings in a relationship, that I learnt from MN, is that you have equal amounts of free time. So if your DH is not allowing you to have as much free time as he does, then he needs to pull his weight more and you need to allow him to do so without criticising his efforts (assuming they're genuine efforts and not "If I do this really badly she'll never ask me again" efforts, of course).

Sounds like you've got too much on your hands at the moment - I hope the counselling will work for you both.

It does sound like you have a lot on your plate. MN is great for words of wisdom, but RL support is so important too - your isolation is probably one of the main things I would address first if I were you.

I've found my strength since moving to a lovely area, DD started school and I met some lovely friends around the corner. I would be wary of moving at the moment while you are depending on H for everything as that's a huge pressure for him. I know I expected more from my H than he was able to give me on his days off and maybe if I'd had good friends a couple of years ago I wouldn't have got into such a rut of being disappointed by his lack of time for me & the DCs.

Don't know what to suggest about money except checking that you are getting everything you are entitled to. Hope someone wiser is along soon! x

Thank you both. helpful advice x

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It can be really disheartening when you pour your heart out and don't get many replies, so I'm bumping again for you Cheeky.

People seem to have a lot of time and energy to put into arguing the toss with posters who don't listen to the advice they're given, while a genuine problem like yours isn't getting as much traffic as it deserves.

There are so many people who've been in this boat but maybe your title hasn't caught their attention - maybe next time post with a lewd and attention grabbing headline!

x

Do you feel that things would actually be easier for you if your H didn't live in the house? It sounds like he makes more work for you than he contributes. Why did he refuse to take DS to school?

And wrt to resenting his job, I'm there with you. STBXH has said "I feel like you resent my job" Damn right I do! Yes, it earns him decent money, but it takes him away from us most weekends, so he only has 4 days off every 2 months when the DCs aren't at school and even then he's too tired to be of any use.

His job requires military precision and organisation, which has made him a demanding perfectionist, he is never allowed to be wrong or take the blame for anything - a trait he carries into home life too.

And he wonders why he doesn't cut it as a dad and husband. I've told him I'd rather he bin the job and we downsize so that he can be happy doing something less stressful, but instead he's chosen to bin us and keep the stupid job.

Sorry that was a bit of a highjack OP! Do you think your H's job affects how he behaves towards you, as well as taking him away from you physically?

Sometimes some good can come out of a crisis, however difficult it may be at the time. It may force you and your DH to be real and honest, and get any help you can, just hang on in there.

Thanks doingitformyself for bumping! yes i was a bit disheartened but thought maybe it was just not that interesting! Sorry to heaer you have had problems too.
he refused to take ds as he said he didn't have enough time but then took afternoon off so 20 mins later in would have been ok!
Oh well.

You have to talk, you have to make a plan together without letting resentment or fear overwhelm you and push you into a place you don't really want to be. The theory that you need five positive interactions for every one negative I think is absolutely true, we tend to ruminate on the negative stuff much more. But I know how difficult it is to talk in such situations without emotion taking over.

I would try making a definite plan to sort out the practical problems. I know moving your son at 7 isn't ideal but it may be the best thing long term if I can get you into bigger and cheaper house.

Spero, I'd never heard that about 5:1. I think my ratio with H is about 1:1 - I've always told him he didn't have enough 'credits in the love bank' to be critical or make jokes about me, that's obviously why.

Can't help much, but just about something you mentioned earlier:
*but entertaining kids on barely nothing is draining"

You don't need money to entertain kids.

At 7 a ball, legos, a book (go to the library when you can), even toy cars make good entertainment.
He can also help a bit around the house.

Can you both find a way of addressing these issues calmly?

If you are ill, you are ill. Don't try to be superwoman.

I think that what Spero means is that to forgive/forget a bad thing we need five good things. Because we dwell on the bad and hardly register the good.
It obviously depends on the good and on the bad.:)

That would mean that a relationship that's 80% good only seems about average.

As in we take more notice of the one time our OHs are late in the week than the 4 times they were on time.

I think the5:1 ratio comes from Andre Marshall? He has done a lot of research and can apparently predict which couples will divorce with about 90% accuracy after listening to them debate something tricky - for eg money. He only needs about ten minutes of gusting their interactions. Apparently showing open contempt for your partner or stonewalling are the two biggest danger signs.

I agree with lueji - the few occasions of bad behaviour can overwhelm the good. i don't know if that is what is happening here but it might be something for both of you to consider.

At the end of the day I think it must be about kindness. If you can't be kind to each other, then really there is no point. But I also think it is hard to distinguish between struggling through a tough patch or being in a relationship that is dragging you both down.

With two small children I think you need to take some time to find out which.

I identified what was going wrong in my relationship and gave myself a time limit to notice any improvements. There were none, so I left. I don't regret that because it was not a good relationship, but being a single parent is hard sometimes and a relationship with another adult, who could be on your team and help you and just generally make life nicer is not something to be lightly thrown away.

Andrew, not Andre. That makes him sound weird.

Spero, your last para is exactly what I did. I flagged up the issues, pointed out what needed to happen to save the relationship, but it didn't happen so its over. I think its about being honest with each other and maybe if I'd listened when H had told me that he couldn't give me what I needed, we could have separated years ago and both moved on.

I have never been in a good and equal relationship, so i don't know if my advice will be of any use....but here goes...

I think there is a some truth that whilst many women look around to see what can be fixed, done, improved for themselves and for their families some/many men often just go along in the same old way as long as it just about works for them.

You are obviously a thoughtful and organised person; perhaps use this to highlight to him the 3 top priority things that need to change for you...be specific, be direst and give a time-scale and the reasons for it.

When we argue often everything comes out and it is overwhelming, depressing and awful. For both of you the argument may have made your problems seem insurmountable. if he is overwhelmed and lacks an ability to tease out the problems himself he'll stick his head in the sand and ignore them hoping they are going away.

You may find you get some better results by saying "DH once per week I would like to be able to ........... for me to do this please would you (arrive home by this time, put the DCs to bed, make dinner, make DS's lunch for the following day)....he will either rise to the challenge or not and if not then it gives you a specific and direct thing to challenge and work through together.

And I think Spero's point about kindness is very well made...perhaps make a pact together to be consciously kind to one-another (it needs to go both ways)

good luck and hope that you can find a way to do counselling together (Relate do have bursaries available)