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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

Can you come back from starting to really dislike Dh?

32 replies

RBD · 02/06/2013 19:26

Have name changed for this.

But I am really starting to almost hate Dh.

We are very isolated where we live, all family is abroad and I am struggling to learn the language so am stuck at home all day with our 2 dd's who are 4 and 2.

Dh tbf, does all the shopping and the majority of the cooking. Mainly as I have no bank card or bank account and he enjoys cooking more then me, I see it as a chore.

But that is all he does. I do everything else. When he gets in from work, other than cooking the evening meal he sits on the computer playing on-line games, watching sport on-line or chatting on FB every night and pretty much ignoring everything else. The children will be playing up and climbing all over me and he barely notices half the time.

The other night we did not eat till midnight. He has decided we were having chicken fried rice, and after I had sorted the kids dinner out, he said he was waiting for me to do the rice, as I always cook the rice and he does the rest...so I did the rice, and then sat and waited hours for him to make the rest of it, he was too busy on his online game chatting and laughing. Tbf, I should have just gone and got something else myself, but I was curious and too annoyed waiting to see just how long he would leave it!

I am fed up of having to get up of a morning and pick up empty pop bottles and empty crisp bags from where he sits.

What has really annoyed me and quite frankly made him never want to touch me again is a few nights ago. I had fallen asleep reading, and woke up when my book dropped and hit me in the face! I turned the light off and started dozing off again. He decided he wanted sex, and started snuggling and kissing my back, I said I was too tired and already half asleep, but he just carried on bloody well practically humping my back, saying I could just lie there, I only needed to remove my underwear. He was only half joking, but he just went on and on, tugging away until I gave up and told him to just get on with it and lifted up to remove my underwear, at which point he gave this fucking childish little "he he he" and just got on with it! He then rolls over and falls asleep snoring away, and I am left lying there bloody furious and awake for ages. Quite frankly though I feel as if he used me to bloody well masturbate on, it was not sex was it!

Every time I look at him I just think he is a childish, selfish fucking twat. He had never done anything like the above before, sometimes I had started out not quite in the mood, and had either got into it, or stayed not in the mood and he was fine with that and we did not have sex, just cuddled or chatted for a bit.

I feel like if I had the courage or the means to even do it, i would be home with my parents like a shot. I gave up a career to move here with him, for a job he really wanted, and what has it got me, nothing! I am bloody stuck here with nowhere to go, no family, no friends and no way of getting home.

OP posts:
ClarryG · 02/06/2013 22:56

I think marigolds has it right.

Apart from anything else you must be horrendously lonely and horrendously bored . And there is a chance that someone like your DP who hasn't been in that position (and is thoughtless and inconsiderate) doesn't appreciate that. But he needs to realise that you can't live an isolated life and him come home and sit on the computer. You need to get out and mix and to get a break from the kids.

So some straight talking is required but if there is no improvement you will have to leave for the uk, for your sanity!!

RBD · 02/06/2013 23:02

"Apart from anything else you must be horrendously lonely and horrendously bored . And there is a chance that someone like your DP who hasn't been in that position (and is thoughtless and inconsiderate) doesn't appreciate that."

That is very true. I have always been more of a loner anyway, while Dh is very sociable. And other then the kids, Dh is all I have right now! So, all my focus is sort of on him, and every little thing he does pisses me off. I find myself rolling my eyes behind his back a lot Sad which is not nice. I never used to think of him as selfish, because he wasn't really.

OP posts:
MerryMarigold · 03/06/2013 09:32

It's also worth bearing in mind that however horrendous it is for you (and it's certainly extremely difficult for you), it may also be stressful for him living abroad. The computer stuff sounds like an addiction and a retreat from real life. I know I can do this with MN/ internet generally when I am not feeling too good. Also if he is not generally selfish, but has become so, something is going on with him. I think it's time for a good, honest evaluation of how things are going abroad and whether your family can handle it. There is no shame in saying, "This is not for us" and whether it means a paycut or a lifestyle change, I would prioritise saving your marriage above other things.

Not to say, there aren't steps to make it better in the short term, but I just feel it sounds like you are both unhappy and not coping well with the lifestyle abroad.

MerryMarigold · 03/06/2013 09:35

If he refuses to listen to you or even attempt to change or make it better, that's the red flag for me.

startlife · 03/06/2013 11:12

I really relate to your situation as we moved a few years ago for H and I'm now mostly at home whereas I previously worked full time. Our dc's bedrooms are off the living area so sleep is disrupted and I never relax in the evenings (or get the chance for a lie in as the noise always travels).

Although I am still in the UK it's not the same as I have to travel significantly to visit family and friends. I have also lost my financial independence.

Sadly our situation has got much worse and despite counselling H doesn't have empathy. He has a stimulating job, he lives in a house he likes and has access to finances. He chooses not to understand or can't..I've given up trying to figure out why, the impact to me is the same.

I think you need to have a discussion with your H asap. Tell him it's not working for you and he needs to find ways to make changes. If he's supportive the situation may get better for you. Listen to HOW he is handling your issues. My H is either defensive or stonewalls but would never say no to the changes. He just never follows through on the actions as he perceives that they may have an negative impact on him. i.e I have asked him to reduce working hours/frequency that he goes away with work so that I can get a job. He will half heartedly go along with it but in reality he is not committed to treating me as an equal.

We have been together 12 years an he has changed since I have been dependant on him - it seems to have flipped a switch that means he now thinks I am no longer a person in my own right.

If your H doesn't know you are sad & lonely then that's the first step - make him aware. Think through what changes you would need and suggest a timeline. Would be be open to moving back to the UK if he really needed to? My H won't move..he cites financial reasons but I know that's not the case. Even if we take a financial loss surely a partner's happiness has value?

RBD · 03/06/2013 12:40

See, the thing is he is more than happy for me to visit my parents in the summer. I wanted to go for at least 6 weeks, and he is fine with that (well he will miss us ofc he says but he knows I want to go for a decent visit if it is only once a year), and going on about he will only need £40 a week for food and travel so I can have everything else.

I also said when we move (and we do have to move soon as the lease is up on where we are) I would love a room of my own! I need time alone...and again, he is fine with this and makes sure we are looking at places where I could have this.

I just feel too reliant on him, reliant on him keeping the job (there is no worries about this at all, but in the last 5 years he had been made redundant twice so I am a bit nervous that we now do not have me working as a back up) I am fully reliant on him for any adult social interaction, other than skyping my parents or family. He must feel that pressure too?

The first step is to start language lessons, if nothing else it will get me out and meeting people in the same boat as me, and lead to me finding work hopefully. I love working, while I have 2 close friends from home, I have always treat work colleagues as friends and never had a place where i did not get on very well with the people I worked with. I had the same job for years, that I actually left 2 years ago, and worked somewhere else for a year before this move came up, but I still miss my old job(the one I was at for years) and the ppl there quite a bit. I loved that job.

We have agreed to have 2 nights a week with no computers on, no games etc. Tv here is crap so we have signed up to lovefilm and netflix to have something to watch together and we both have very similar tastes so that is ok.

We had a very short talk about the other night, waited until we went to bed, as oldest dc was still awake until midnight and I was knackered tbh by the time we went to bed. He seemed genuinely shocked. I mean before, I have joked to him when he has started "making moves" that he should not expect me to kiss him or help as i was too tired, and he can just get on with it, but in a joky laughy way and I have obviously physically been participating. I was very obviously not physically participating the other night. I just cannot get my head around it. As I say, never ever has anything like this happened before, if i really wasnt in the mood, he would be fine and we would chat and cuddle, he has never done that before. We normally have quite a healthy sex life. We have had a quite long dry period lately, due to him being away with work, a spate of illness, he had a bad back and spent a cpl of weeks on the sofa etc, one thing after the other really. As I say he seemed quite shocked/upset and does not seem to be able to explain it himself either.

OP posts:
badguider · 03/06/2013 12:52

Oh wow. You need a life... and I mean that in the nicest way.
You've moved away from family but what else makes up a life?

friends, for you as an individual
friends for you both as a couple
friends for the kids
intellectual stimulation (work, study or voluntary) for you
a bit of fun/down time for you

what else do you need/want?

If I were you I'd start work on these things (language classes - out of the house, some kind of playgroup, some other type of social interaction...) THEN you can decide if your husband's behaviour the other night is an aberration you can come back from or a sign of wider unacceptable behaviour.

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