Feeling hurt not sure if it is reasonable

[Offred]

Dh wrote on the calendar he was out with his friend x last night. Last night was also our mutual friends' last night in town before a big bike trip. On sat DH bumped into the woman he had a long term crush (him repressed and her a bit of a user towards him) on in the supermarket. That evening he mistakenly called me by her name.

I suspected last night would not really be night out with friend x as he has used this as a cover to meet crush before in secret.

Pics turn up on Facebook - mutual friend had tagged me of several of our mutual friends (I met him through them) having a laugh in pub, him sat next to crush. All friends I've not seen for aaaages.

Recently he had got jealous about me going over to see the one who is leaving and staying too long and it wasn't all that irrational, was quite understandable in fact that he would feel that way, so I can understand why he would want to spend time with this guy without me.

I can also understand why he'd want to see all of them without me since although we met independently they are his school friends.

I can even understand why he'd want to see crush without me and am not really arsed (I like her).

BUT I feel so hurt that he has been so secretive about it and deliberately excluded me. Also secondarily that I missed mutual friend who has helped me a lot this year's leaving do :( Not sure where to go from here without him being angry and defensive - how he reacts if he has done something wrong.

Although he is lovely I do have these issues with him occasionally where he will decide I will feel a certain way erroneously and then react angrily if I bring it up. He always calms down straight away and always sees my perspective and feels sorry but I am already feeling fragile just now and feel i cannot actually take the angry defensive reaction if I bring it up.

:(

Maybe I just want a hand hold.

I would be unhappy about him not being truthful and it speaks volumes that if you bring that up then his first reaction is to get on the defensive and attack you.

Are you getting enough out of this relationship to make feeling the way you do worthwhile? I wouldn't want to put up with it but no-one else can make that decision for you.

Genuinely in balance I do. I can be an emotional vampire, he puts up with a lot from me in terms of having to deal with and support me through the stress of dealing with my xp (father of eldest two), he makes me laugh, he is generally loving and supportive and never complains, always treats me with kindness. Just every once in a while (about once a year) he'll do something mean and secretive like this because he has got it in his mind I'll be cross if he talks to me about it but he wants to do it. The first year of marriage he told me he was going to a weekend stag do straight from work after he had left for work. He is getting better not worse!

I suppose I just don't want to suck it up and not complain about it this time.

So maybe I need a pep talk. Grew up in a house full of conflict and normally do anything to avoid it.

I'm quite forthright bossy and opinionated so I wouldn't let it go, I can and have forgiven my OH much in the years we've been together but lying to me would be a step too far no matter what the reason.

We all have our tipping points and only you can know what yours are but don't let the fear of conflict put you off or feel that because he puts up with a lot from you that you have to suck it up.

Feel like such a knob about this stuff. I'm such a confident and self-assured person usually, I do things all the time every day to help other people stand up and assert themselves. People think i'm such a ball-breaker they would be to know how frightened and fragile I am in this way. Anything to do with relationships I'm such an introverted brooder and I keep plodding on thinking I'm asserting myself and my boundaries then finding out I'm actually just kidding myself and i'm being walked all over. I feel embarrassed! I suppose anyone I might be with would walk over me in some way if I don't find myself some way of being assertive (and a little less fragile) in the longer term. I suppose the problem is more me than him, how do I learn to be assertive in relationships about my boundaries?

Your post is a bit confusing. Let me see if I've got this straight.

Your DH told you he was going out with his mate and gave you the impression that it would just be the two of them hanging out together.

Turns out it was a big get together with a load of your mutual friends including the original mate he was suppose to be seeing, a biker friend of yours and this woman he has a crush on?

And you think that he didn't tell you everyone else was going to be there because:

a. he's jealous of your friendship with the biker friend
b. he thinks you'll flip because you're jealous of his friendship with the woman he has a crush on?

I think he is being shitty and underhand. I'd be really hurt if my DP did this to me.

Tell us more about him sneaking out to meet his crush and using his mate as an excuse. That sounds seriously shitty too.

I don't think you're being unreasonable here.

Yes, that's right. Last year he said he was meeting same friend he said he was meeting last night, he does meet this friend most weeks. We went out to the park with our mutual friends and children soon after because he was off, the one he has/had crush on was there, she said it was lovely to see him in the pub the other night with a big smile which is the first I'd heard of it. I don't think he knew I heard her say that and she wasn't being secretive, just him.

I don't even care if he does meet her, since that time he has arranged a drink specifically with her and her alone that he did tell me about. They share nothing but history and I like her but I don't like that he lied (by omission) about meeting her that time (she works shifts as does her partner and they have children so it would have been arranged not a last minute thing).

He was texting and texting the last couple of days so I was suspicious about this drink and he was guarded over the phone so didn't want to pester. I think he was being territorial over the biker friend rather than the crush because he feels like I'm impinging on his relationship with him. But then again the secrecy... Biker friend assumes DH has told me things/shown me things and speaks about them all the time I have to say "he doesn't tell me anything about his friends/day so you'll have to tell me if you want me to know" we don't have a precedent of him sharing. I tell him things always that I think he needs to know, I think he doesn't really understand the difference between privacy and secrecy.

It sounds pathetic written like that, I would like to shake myself and say "say something FGS!!!" but I just notice things, build a file against him in my brain. I know I'll be angry for a few days and then gloss over it, add the next thing to the file when it happens. Not very healthy.

Nope. He lied!
Doesn't matter why.
You aren't overreacting

I'm definitely not one of those people who thinks couples should do everything together. Having separate friends and going out separately is healthy.

But I just cannot imagine a group of mine and DP's mutual friends organising a get together and me deliberately not telling him about it. Or pretending it was just a drink with a mate when it wasn't.

Would you ever do that to your DH?

It reads to me that he actively didn't want you there.

In fact it sounds like he's not very inclusive of you in his life full stop.

Lying by omission is still lying. And it's not on. If I found out my DP had lied to me about anything, I would see him in a whole different light. It almost wouldn't matter what he'd lied about. It would be more the fact that he was capable of lying at all IYSWIM?

I can see you're trying to blame yourself here But I really think he's not behaving very well towards you and you have every right to call him out on it.

No, I'd never do that to him.

So, how do I bring it up and deal with the initial angry reaction? What normally happens is I back off and withdraw/don't engage with him, then I don't speak to him for a while and eventually he understands what I was trying to say and tries to be nice to me.

I have to study tonight, he is working till late tomorrow, I am out (thank god) Friday for my friends' 40th and Saturday for my sisters' 27th so Sunday is the next time we'll have a chance to talk. I have time to prepare, strategies would be helpful.

You're not unreasonable.
What I don't understand is why, when you've said you don't mind him seeing various people, he feels the need to lie about it.

Why do you think that is?

He isn't very inclusive of me in his life no, I'm not unhappy with that though. It irritates me when our mutual friends treat me as an extension of him when i was a person in my own right to them before we got together. I can see why he wants time with them without me and why some of them now see me as his wife rather than me. I definitely think dh actively didn't want me there last night but I would have been/am fine with that really. I'm only upset that he is secretive and lies about feeling like that (probably because he feels bad about it). But it is hurtful. Especially when people assume I've been told/asked/invited and tag me in photos/talk to me about it because I feel foolish.

If it was me I'd just say, "I was really hurt that you didn't tell me everyone was meeting up. I thought you were just going to have a drink with [friend] and when I saw the photos of everyone having a laugh on facebook I felt excluded and a bit shit. Why didn't you tell me?"

If he is decent and reasonable then he'll understand why you felt that way and be apologetic.

If he's a twat then he'll get angry and somehow make out like it's your fault for being controlling.

It doesn't bode well that you're already expecting him to be angry. There's absolutely no reason for him to get angry at all.

Think about it. If someone came to you and told you that something you'd done had hurt their feelings, you'd be sorry, right?

So if you tell him that he hurt your feelings by lying and he gets really angry in response, that's a completely inappropriate response.

I don't know hell.

I wonder if it is because he doesn't feel confident in asserting that he wants to do things like meet the crush woman or see the mutual friends by himself but he still wants to do it so he ostriches and tells himself it is because I'll be cross.

When I was pregnant with the twins and ill I did stop him doing some things because I physically couldn't cope with a 3 and 2 year old and being so ill/pregnant by myself. It could be a hangover from that because he never quite understood how incapable I was then.

The main thing was saying I wouldn't be able to manage if he was away at work thursday and Friday and then went to Italy for a wedding straight from work over sat/sun/mon. Was heavily pregnant and being very sick, had bad spd. He was angry, then eventually calmed down and was sorry, then he did the thing with the stag do where he left for work and texted to say had I remembered he wouldn't be back all weekend.

Well that's just cowardly of him. Sounds like you were justifiably angry.

He was out of order expecting that he should be allowed to go to a wedding, essentially leaving you alone for 5 days, while you were so heavily pregnant and sick.

And the stag do thing was him being a pussy. He knew he was out of order with that too, so he just presented you with a fait accompli and you had no choice but to suck it up.

Not fair.

To give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment, do you have form for being especially clingy or controlling normally? That is, when you're not about to pop with twins and throwing up every 20 minutes?

No, entirely the opposite. When we were doing the long distance thing it was him who couldn't cope and moved up here and when he was working away the same. He's not had a relationship before though and suffers from a certain amount of "women say/do..." from his peer group.

It fed into that narrative when I was so dependent in pg and he didn't understand why/it so couldn't adjust to the total switch in our positions.

Well going straight from work to a stag weekend and only telling you he was gone when he was gone is a bit to be honest. I'm all for independence but that action alone placed you last on his list.

Do have your own circle of friends and do you have hobbies?

He sounds like a bit of an immature dick at best. And a sneaky liar at worst.

Neither option is good.

Stop blaming yourself. It sounds like you tread on eggshells quite a bit. Do you hide your feelings and pretend you're okay with stuff that you're not to avoid him being angry?

If my husband went off on a stag weekend straight from work on a Friday, and only told me after the event he would be told he wasn't welcome back

Why would you tolerate that, and try to convince yourself that you are the one that is hard to live with ?

If he keeps doing these disrespectful and sneaky things, but is "sorry" afterwards how does that justify him making you feel like shit ?

He will simply carry on doing so. Does he tell your friends that you knew you were invited but couldn't be arsed to turn up ? I would be interested in how he explained your absence

I am surprised that you would bite your tongue at being sidelined in such a humiliating fashion

I think you should find some backbone, and stop making excuses for him. He sounds quite horrible actually.

I would not be happy at all about my DH doing something so underhand and deceitful.
Why should you feel bad about challenging him about it. Sorry from him is NOT good enough.
Do you feel that vulnerable and incapable that you are scared to challenge him--if so your marraige is not great.
As AF said it's time to grow a backbone and challenge him, he gets away with it every time as you "accept" his feeble apology--NO MORE. you are worth more than that. Time to let him know you will not stand for him being so inconsiderate and lying again.
If it continues l would be considering my options..

Hell - I've had my own various hobbies yes and my own friends, obviously my friendships have suffered a hit because of having the twins and losing some mutual friends back to him but things are improving all the time on that score as the babies near age 3. He doesn't actually have any hobbies and I get a bit sick of having him under my feet all the time if anything as I was pretty happy as a single mum and need space from him as well as the dcs.

When he did that with the stag do I was fuming but literally had no option but to have him back home because I was so sick. It is the only time we've come close to an argument and to be fair to him he was freaking out about having gone from a single man up to age thirty to a married man with 2 dcs, a mortgage and a suddenly pregnant and dependent wife and twins on the way. It all happened in a short space of time.

AF - yes I can't believe I'm being such a wuss about it. I know I'm still vulnerable to head fuckery unfortunately.