Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

I want DH to be tougher with me

177 replies

bananacrepe · 27/06/2012 14:29

I know I may get flame for this. I know I should be thanking my lucky stars - and I am, but at the same time I want things to change.

Since I confessed to my affair two months ago DH hasn't shown he is angry with me at all. He is hugely hurt, I know that, and I am deeply sorry and regret it immensely. We are both aware of why it happened and I've been completely honest with him. I am finding it hard to let go of OM (who, incidentally, now pretty much hates me), partly because he seems to want to refuse to acknowledge his part in everything, and can't deal with the guilt, wanting to live on cloud 9 with his new gf (I still believe there was an overlap between me and her. She of course doesn't know this). He is also refusing to answer any questions DH has for him. I think he wants us both to disappear.

Anyway... One of the reasons for the affair - and in saying this I am NOT in any way blaming DH for it - my actions were and are my own responsibility - was because I felt (though I didn't realise this at the time) the relationship was unequal. OM challenged me in a way DH never has. I have suffered from depression and anxiety on and off for a few years, and DH has dealt with that by trying to keep me a calm as possible, which basically meant giving into me. I never really realised how much this was happening until the affair.

I have spoken to him about it but he is still doing it. I am trying hard to be better, to do more for him, to be less irritable and calmer, and I'm getting there. But if something isn't done or I he disagrees with me I wish to goodness he would say so! I don't want him walking on eggshells. I need to know that if I do something to upset him he will tell me. I have found myself pushing him in the past just to get a reaction. I realise this is my problem, and I am working on it, but equally I want him to be happy and I want him to say if I've done something that makes him unhappy. I am trying my best and making sure I'm not doing anything to annoy him or upset him but I need it to be more equal or it won't work. I don't want to be the boss. I don't want to be in charge. I want to be a team now that I have this chance (that I really didn't deserve) to make a go of things.

OP posts:
LadyInDisguise · 30/06/2012 08:30

math I have to disagree with you.
My DP is the type who says very little, never says what he thinks because he thinks that otherwise the world will end (his words!).
He has always been like this.
He will says yes to things he is not quite happy with and will obviously struggle with it (anything from choosing where to spend the Saturday together to important decisions such as buying a house!).
But he isn't 'walking on egg shell'. That's the way he is.
But it does make it very difficult in a relationship. Even if from the outside he looked like the calm and reasonable one.

I do not think that from what the OP is saying, it is possible to know if it's one or the other.

So instead of putting the OP down, it might be more efficient to support her in finding support in RL and giving her guidance on how to best deal with the next few weeks. My advice would be to back off from asking questions and wanting to change things (him or the relationship) instead!
And doing some work on herself to 'improve herself' which we call all do with (you and me included!)..

A good counsellor will be able to tell the OP if there is EA from her. he will be able to point things out. You are not in the place to do so from an internet forum. The way you say things, the words you use will never accurately reflect what you think (starting by these well known physical signals).

you might be right but you might also be completely wrong. And in this case, you are being extremely hurtful.

LadyInDisguise · 30/06/2012 08:35

why couldn't you do that for years instead of making it all about you and your moods and your need to vent

I can see plenty of reason from that:
depression
some deep seated childhood issues
etc...

So in your view, someone is then wrong to have made some work on themselves, realize their short comings and decided to do something about it because ... 'they should have done it before'....

God, in which ideal world are you living? One where everyone is self aware and is able to tackle every single of their issues? have you done so yourself?
Because my experience is that becoming aware is the first step of a very long way, usual something that is a life long work.
But it is also so much better than never realizing.

Are you always putting people down for realizing that they have done something wrong??

sharklet · 30/06/2012 08:51

Banana

I obviously am not a fly on the wall, and cannot see for myself the dynamic. It is very easy to think that you sounds reasonable, even when you don't. I mentioned before this sounds like my Mum and Dad, I know you are not the same people, but in all honesty my Mum is convinced she is reasonable with my Dad when she asks him questions. He is so frightened of her reaction when he answers he has been reduced for years to short minimal answers.

^I'll give you an example: he's watching something on tv that I'm not particularly interested in; I ask him if he's watching it because there's nothing else on or because he really wants to - I have to really encourage him to be honest and not just say what he thinks he wants to hear. If its something he wants, sometimes I'll stay, sometimes I'll suggest I go watch what I want to upstairs if it's something I've been looking forward to, or read a book. I'm not funny about it at all and I honestly wouldn't mind if he did the same - we don't have to be tied together. He then moans that I won't be in the room so straight away turns it over to what I want, which frustrates me because I don't want him to always do what I want!

If the boot is on the other foot he is still quick to moan if he doesn't want to watch what I've chosen, so I will usually turn it off. ^

I have sat through this same scenario in my folks house. My Mum convinced she is being reasonable, but with all her baggage and her high strung nature it comes out as angry and nagging. My Dad just trying to keep the peace as he is so sick of feeling nagged. We actually recorded my mum once having what she thought was a calm and reasonable conversation with someone, and played it back to her. She was angry (VERY) but it was a shock to her. Have you tried looking from another perspective. This is where a counsellor can help.

Really not trying to bash you here - but it might help if you can be strong enough to listen to how you sound and it may be quite telling.

Thistledew · 30/06/2012 09:11

Banana - the example you give re the TV is a classic example of poor communication on your part. You say that you ask him if he is watching it because he wants to or because there is nothing else on.

Firstly, what a bizarre question! Is it not likely that just like anyone else he would have flicked through the options before choosing what he most wants to watch. It may be interesting him a lot or a little, so quantifying exactly how much he wants to watch it is a pretty hard question to answer.

Secondly, it is obviously a loaded question with a subtext. You were not just taking a survey about his viewing habits but leading up to suggesting/ saying something else. I can well imagine the poor bloke desperately trying to work out how to answer you whilst trying to adjust his answer to some unknown factor that you are raising. I can just picture him thinking "Well, I didn't plan on watching this, but it is quite interesting, but she obviously wants to watch something else, and I have no idea if I want to watch this more, or whether I want to watch this more than she wants to watch her thing. Bloody hell, how do I answer?".

You then get frustrated and cross. He picks up on that, and next time you have a similar situation, his anxiety about trying to answer in the 'right' way so that you don't get cross grows, and he finds it harder to answer at all.

All of this could have been avoided if you had just said "I want to watch x. Do you want to watch it with me here or shall I watch it upstairs?".

Why drag him into some sort of mind reading game when clear and direct communication would have caused much less fuss?

bananacrepe · 30/06/2012 09:24

Thistle, where did I say I get cross in that situation? I honestly cannot remember the last time I have got cross about something like that. I've obviously given the impression that I'm some kind of raving shouty monster which I promise you I'm not. Feeling a bit like I can't win here - if I try to explain myself all I'm getting is that I'm in some way deluded and can't tell what I'm really like Sad It implies that I have virtually no self awareness.

There are two sides to everything. I was woken up in the night by DH touching me. I pushed his hand away but had to fight him off (he is very strong) because he kept putting his arms round me saying he wanted me (physically). He wouldn't listen when I kept saying get off me. He has no memory of this this morning, and knowing him as I do and knowing what his sleep is like I believe him. But I am a bit scared. This has never happened before.

OP posts:
bananacrepe · 30/06/2012 09:25

And I'm not justifying anything I've done with that - it has come totally out of the blue - but it has obviously affected how I feel.

OP posts:
Dprince · 30/06/2012 09:38

Banana what is really going on?
Earlier you said your dh thinks you are mad or upset with him when you are upset at something else. So therefore your body language must show your emotions. Or he wouldn't know would he. You then say you get frustrated when he doesn't tell you what he wants. Your body language will be showing that.
Asking questions that have a subtext are difficult to answer.
you started this thread making out he was wonderful and have so far drip fed that he had an affair first, that he is possibly ea, that he refuses to communicate and get help and now he has tried to molest you in his sleep and your are frightened.
I think you should leave this thread and really think about your marriage and is it has ever been as good as you think. If you need more advice perhaps a name change and another post being more honest.
I don't think you are purposely being dishonest but that you are not being honest with yourself and this shows in the constant back and forth and changing/ adding of details.

LurkingAndLearningForNow · 30/06/2012 09:44

Just split up. He's miserable, you're manipulative and this whole thread is suss.

If you want genuine advice you need to be honest.

bananacrepe · 30/06/2012 09:46

Gah. I am clearly just crap at explaining myself. He isn't ea, and I've never said that. He finds it hard to say what he thinks. The thing last night was totally out of the blue so I'm not drip feeding because it only just happened! It's just another thing that has added to my confusion. Yes, he cheated on me, but while it affected me I got over it and it was years ago, and as I've said, nowhere near as long or as involved as mine was, so I didn't think it was relevant to refer to it except in the context of what I did (ie I know how it felt)

OP posts:
Thistledew · 30/06/2012 10:16

You said that you become frustrated with him. Can you honestly say that you do not let this show in how you speak to him, your tone of voice, your body language, your choice of words? If so, you must have a remarkable control over yourself that is not shared by 99% of the population. If indeed it is true, then repressing your feelings to that extent is probably deeply unhealthy for you.

Either way, being open to looking again at how you communicate sounds like the first step you will both need to take in order to save your relationship. At the moment you are coming across as being very resistant to taking that first step. Are you sure that you actually want to save your relationship, or is this thread really about seeking 'permission' to leave it?

Dprince · 30/06/2012 10:16

But you can't accept you actions have led to him being closed off. You say he has always been like that and it hurts you. He refuses to get help. So which is it? You married a man with a personality trait you don't like or he is closed off on purpose.
The reason I am saying about the drip feeding is that everytime you are challenged you add something in.
I am not sure what you are looking from mn. All advice is knocked back, apart from the advice supporting your almost victim status and even then some is.
What advice do you need?

amillionyears · 30/06/2012 10:17

You are trying to put things right and sort things out.
You admit that you are not good at explaining things.
And he is reluctant to tell you how he feels.
Perhaps for now,you need to show him how you feel.
Not by words,but by actions.
Make him feel secure
Make him feel safe.
Give him hugs,kisses.
Do actions.Practice it and mean it.

amillionyears · 30/06/2012 10:20

I once read that speaking is a very blunt instrument.
We have four other senses which us humans hardly use.

UnlikelyAmazonian · 30/06/2012 10:29

I think your H sounds passive aggressive.

I also don't think he sounds nice or reasonable at all.

Regardless of what you have done for now:
a) he has had an affair so is a cheating deceitful person too, even if you have got over it.

b) It's quite possible he takes some perverse pleasure in not engaging in conversations with you especially when you have spilled your guts to him. One word answers can drive you round the bloody twist and he must know that but is happy to see you self-sabotage and fuck up the relationship while he drifts around being the silent 'nice' one.

c) He seems very controlling of YOU - the small example you give of the TV is very telling. He moans at you, he wants you to stay in the room. WTF? He needs a mother not a wife.

d) Your self-esteem sounds so trashed that you STILL think you have to beat yourself up, wear sack-cloth and ashes, and learn to accept that he is what he is. Which is a hideous way to live. BTW I suspect he doesn't want counselling because he has NO intention of actually being anything other than an emotional retard with no desire to 'open up'. He probably has the sum total of zero to 'open up' about. He sounds shallow.

e) I bet he basks in the idea that everyone sees him as the nice reasonable calm rock, while you are the unfaithful demanding screechy depressive HE has turned you into over the last 9 years.

I think you sound nice. Tortured probably within a silent and depressing marriage, but nice anyway.

As for the OM - you MUST see him as the loser he is. A selfish needy shallow prick. Much like your husband. You have a lot to offer the world. I would pack your H in and go and do something incredible with your life and your angsts - go abroad, work in a third-world country maybe, travel a little.

Just out of interest, do you both work? What do you do? And is the relationship financially equal? Who does the lion's share of housework, AND, why do you not have kids?

AnyFucker · 30/06/2012 11:19

I have only one thing to say here

Wouldn't you both be better off with someone else ?

UnlikelyAmazonian · 30/06/2012 12:02

That's sort of what I meant AF Grin

AnyFucker · 30/06/2012 12:23

Hello, UA Smile

How's things with you ?

Dprince · 30/06/2012 12:47

I think that is the realisation that the OP will come to in time. I am not sure is ready to accept that yet.

UnlikelyAmazonian · 30/06/2012 13:07

Ok thanks AF. Ds very poorly though. Sad

AnyFucker · 30/06/2012 13:20

I heard something about your son, UA, but wasn't 100% sure it was you.

I am very sorry indeed x

bananacrepe · 30/06/2012 13:33

Have been struggling with that thought for about nine months. Been together our whole adult lives. Everyone would be shocked to say the least if we broke up as we've always been the golden couple. That's why I'm analysing everything so much Sad

Really sorry about your son UA Sad hope he gets better fast.

OP posts:
bananacrepe · 30/06/2012 13:37

We both work, he earns slightly more. We share housework but I have to ask him - he doesn't have much initiative, though he is getting better. We don't have kids because firstly I changed careers, which put things back, then he wasn't ready, then we tried for months and nothing happened and it all got too stressful - which is when my feelings started to change and the affair came a few months later. It's hard not to think that none of this would have happened if I had got pregnant.

OP posts:
amillionyears · 30/06/2012 13:40

bananacrepe,it is up to you both how your relationship ends up going,but I would advise you to concentrate on just you two.Not another man,not what everyone else is going to say and think if you break up,not your neighbour and the dog,iyswim.You two.You need to stop getting distracted by everyone else,and concentrate on you two,as there are things to be done.

mathanxiety · 01/07/2012 01:21

LadyinDisguise, Banana herself has said her H considers he walks on eggshells. She herself has said she has been the one in charge. She has played mind games with him (pushing him to get a reaction). I do not think having treated someone like that for several years she can now turn around and just because she has changed somewhat expect his way of responding to her to change.

There is nothing wrong with doing things better. There is nothing wrong with recognising your mistakes and changing the way you treat someone. What is wrong here is the assumption that the slate can be wiped clear just because Banana has turned a corner. That assumption shows an inability to put herself in her H's shoes.

It is a life's work, as you point out. And the 'hurry up and get with the programme because I'm taking this relationship in a different direction now' attitude is just as much a domineering attitude as what she may have been doing in the past, and as fatal to the chances of this relationship improving.

Banana -- you are expecting your H to judge you by your intentions and not by what you say or do or express in body language. You need to examine your style of communication very closely with a therapist and you need to try to imagine how you come across to your H. Not how your intentions come across but your actual words and gestures.

I agree with UA that you sound nice and well meaning and I think you genuinely want to solve this and do your utmost to get the relationship better. And I also think you sound frustrated that things are not working the way you want them to but I think you need some professional insight into why that might be.

sternface · 02/07/2012 17:46

I agree with Math.

No-one here can diagnose a personality disorder. Very few professionals can do so, actually.

All we can do here is to reflect back what we see in your posts Banana and our interpretation of the events you describe.

The two events you've described on this thread over the weekend for me, have a very different interpretation to the ones you offer.

I think you are setting your husband up to fail and then when he does, you blame him for it.

You know that your husband is desperate to keep you and will seemingly do anything to make you happy. As I will suggest later, I think a part of you has always despised him for that, especially now that you have 'done your worst' and he is still there, forgiving you. So you know that if you make the merest suggestion that you want to watch something else on TV, he will accede to your request. And that it will irritate the hell out of you that he is so weak and unchallenging. So instead of acknowledging that, you set the situation up so that this is what would happen. If it were otherwise, you would have calmly popped elsewhere with no fuss and watched something else.

Similarly, you know your husband is missing physical intimacy and that his esteem about his sexual attraction to you has been diminished by your affair. But his conscious self doesn't put any pressure on you to have sex - and if you'd remained in separate rooms despite his request, the unconscious is where his desire for you might have remained. But you didn't and so he acted out in his sleep what he cannot articulate in the conscious world - and you judge him for it. Again I have to wonder how a male poster who'd had an affair, was still obsessing about the OW and kept physically rejecting his forgiving wife, would be treated by other posters who seem keen to let you off the hook for these cruelties.

Having read this thread and your others, I do wonder whether at some level you have always known there is a manipulative and dark side to your personality? There are clues that others might sense this, from your lack of sustained friendships with other women. I wonder whether you have always respected your husband less because he couldn't see these traits? And liked the OM more because he could see your faults (maybe they mirrored his) and yet still appeared to want you? I can see that your hate of him would be magnified to the extent that it is (and explains a lot) precisely because he could see your behaviour more clearly, appeared to accept you despite it and then rejected you in favour of someone else?

I don't think anyone is 'all good' or 'all bad'. I think all we can hope for is to see others and ourselves clearly, work on our own faults and try to treat people who love us with dignity and compassion. That means accepting your husband's personality and acknowledging that he is somewhat blind to your faults. I think if you got some help acknowledging them yourself this relationship might only work if you had the belief that your husband actually loved the real you - and not his idealised version of you. I also think you need help to process your anger towards the OM - and dig a bit deeper about what it is about his behaviour that is really angering you to this extent. Is it as I suggest because he knew you too well, recognised a kindred spirit and rejected you because of it?

I think if you don't start considering these issues and dealing with them, you will continue to be cruel to your husband and your marriage will not work, although it might survive only as long as you're prepared to stay in it. If your husband were posting here, I'd advise him to get some space from you and think about what he wants from life, because at the moment I can't think that this relationship is healthy for him. I asked you before if you loved him enough to set him free? I think you need to make a decision about that.