How do you disengage in a relationship?

[NeedRelationshipAdvice]

I've namechanged, please excuse the unimaginative username.

Basically I am fed up with some things that my DH does and I think I need to disengage from the relationship a bit. I don't know if I want to end things or not but I think disengaging will give me a bit of breathing space and maybe make him pull his socks up, but not sure how to do it.

He does things such as say antagonistic things and then hates it when I protest, and makes out I am unreasonable and horrible for 'starting an argument', gets in a mood or a huff all the time about things, especially when I won't do as he says, these moods can last for days, and does nothing round the house.

We had a big argument yesterday as he said something very antagonistic to me and when I said it was unfair to say that, he went off on one and again went below the belt with his comments to me, as he always does, then had the cheek to tell me it was all my fault as I'd started the argument and he was just offering me advice (which I hadn't asked for, he took it upon himself to criticise something I was doing and was really mean and piss taking to me)

Any help would be appreciated.

He's a bully. He's deliberately picking fights and pushing buttons as a way to get you to lose your cool and rise to the bait ... Then he insults you, blames you, sulks and refuses to apologise accept responsibility for his behaviour. That's a bully.

Disengaging is an excellent idea and I think it's going to involve telling him to pack and leave for a while. Like all bullies he's unlikely to 'pull his socks up' if there are no serious consequences to his actions. I'm seeing no respect, no love... I don't think he even likes you very much. Do you have DCs?

Are we talking physically disengaging or emotionally disengaging OP?I emotionally disengaged but once you do it, its hard to get any respect back for the person. Not a problem for me as I left him, but I'm not sure how a temporary disengagement will work.

IME you disengage to protect to your own feelings when you initiate a split as you make that person less important to you. I'll tell you how I did it but if you still want to stay with him then I would advise more communication between you, not less.

I disengaged in a single moment (it seemed but looking back perhaps I had been preparing for a while). I had a moment of enlightenment that the man who once was my world & who I thought I would grow old with, was a petty selfish drunkard whose alcohol & cocaine were more important to him than our family. So from then on, he wasn't part of my family. The children were mine & my mind was my own. Nothing he said was important, it was just selfish ramblings & he was trying to make me feel guilty/ashamed/embarrassed when I knew I had no cause to feel like that. What he said was unimportant, what he was saying & doing did not affect me at all. He was on his own & it was his own fault.

You have to look at the world with just you & the kids (if applicable) as a priority & recognise that he just doesn't matter to you anymore. He can't hurt you as he is not your problem. You no longer have to look after him, he can do his own washing & ironing & look after himself. You no longer have to pretend you care & you will not let him take up any space in your head.

In your position then just ignore him, wear your ipod round the house so you don't have to listen to his selfish shit & make it clear that what he's saying is not important. He will get worse for a bit, but just think its not your problem, its his & you don't have to deal with it. Sleep somewhere else perhaps, cook your dinner at the time you want & don't prepare anything for him.If he's antagonistic then just think, what a twat & perhaps laugh to yourself. Regard him with contempt.

but remember if you do this, it may well be the end of your relationship.

An interesting post, tiredmummy. I have had those lightbulb moments too a couple of times. With a man it was more straightforward. But with my mother, harder. Because, sometimes with family, however much you distance yourself, somehow its easy to let your guard down and get sucked in, and disappointed once again .

Anyway, back to OP. You want to disengage, but not leave, which sounds like your feelings are confused. Two possibilities that come to mind. 1. Up the ante! Rather than disengage, fight back, stand your ground and demand respect. See what happens. 2. Take an objective view, another kind of disengaging if you like. Stand back and watch. "Watch" as he insults you. Instead of getting emotionally upset or reacting, become more passive and really watch his face and listen to his words, and internally consider what this means in terms of your own integrity. This can be helpful in really seeing what is going on clearly, as when we are very busy emotionally reacting (understandably) our focus can go off the source of the problem.

I think both options can be useful and helpful. I am not sure which I would choose myself, perhaps just see what feels right or appropriate to you at the time. Good luck.

I think you are going to need to be a bit more specific

Disengaging from a relationship is destructive, and if a poster came on here and said that her DH had disengaged, she would be told a) leave the bastard and b) he has an OW.

What you need to do is make yourself damned clear that this sort of behaviour is unacceptable and you will not tolerate it. Have a long and frank conversation with him and tell him that either things change or thats it, you are off. If you disengage, what do you hope to achieve?

If you are not sure if you want to leave, disengaging is only going to convince you that you do - you will be miserable, so you may as well leave. I would be rather bringing the situation to a head than basically switching off to his bullying, finding ways to either ignore it or stop it from happening, i think disengage is fooling yourself.

I've disengaged, things are still ticking along day today. But I've done this by just concentrating on me and my ds, organising stuff just for us. Just looking after us really, early nights and being 'lost' In my phone / tv / ds.
It's a really shitty time to go for my ds so for now things will carry on as above, meanwhile I'll be trying to do some saving whilst I wait for the inevitable explosion that finally ends it.

If by some miracle things magically sort themselves out, brilliant wonderful. But for now we will tick along like that

For me, the moment I disengaged from our relationship it was over with ExP (on my part), and I asked him to move out (he went to stay at his Mum's and has never returned).

With hindsight, I do think I missed a track in dealing with him.
If I was to have to live with his moody bullying tactics again, I would simply stop and film him on my phone whenever he got into a moody rant, or shouty etc.

Not only could I then send it to him so he could see just what if was like to be on the receiving end, I could send it to his family too - as they clearly disbelieve me and have heads in the sand as to his behaviour, and I would have a proper record of his unacceptable behaviour.

The wind up factor would be fantastic too!

Thank you for the replies everyone.

I don't feel that splitting is an option for now, but I need to disengage with him as his behaviour is upsetting me so much. I've got to stop letting it get to me when he starts being an arse and just let him get on with it.

I find it so hard to deal with when he's in a mood; he's a champion sulker and carries a bad mood on for days, even though he swears he doesn't.

I think that when you disengage you are setting out on the path to end the relationship. So I agree with Onetiredmummy. If you don't want it to end you are going to have to work really, really hard - but you have been trying to do that already.

I didn't realise at the time but in hindsight, the moment I began to disengage was when our marriage really ended. I have no regrets - other than wishing I'd done it earlier as it would have saved a whole lot of acrimony.

At the time I believed it was for the best - it enabled me to continue with a marriage I didn't want, but keeping stabily, security and a resident father for the children.

I disengaged when I realised love shouldn't be this hard, I looked at him shouting at me for some silly reason and thought you utter cunt this isn't how you love someone. I then waited until he had his next strop and helped him pack his things and refused to take him back after his usual 3 days of turning things round and blaming me down the phone carrying ons.