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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 don't want a huge blow up with H over this, so need opinions please

357 replies

Loutwenty · 26/06/2013 11:28

I don't know where to start really. This is long, sorry, I am just so confused at the moment.

Been with dh for 2 1/2 years, married for just over 1. We got together quite fast as I was having a terrible relationship breakdown with exh, so we moved in together after only 6 months. I had been married 12 years but living separate lives for 10 of them. I have a 10 year old child from that marriage.

I don't work, but I study full time. DH works, but in a job he hates, he did a stupid uni course as a mature student at 25, graduated shortly after we moved in together and couldn't find the mystical job that he hankered after (the route he took isn't a route into them anyway iyswim). So now he has a boring, normal job and is not a rock star like he spent his early 20s thinking he'd be, this is apparently, my fault as now he has responsibilities

I was a sahm during my first marriage, my ex worked abroad during the week and we lived in rural scotland, so I kind of had to be! I married young too, so never had much work experience, aside from a bit of freelance stuff pre 20, so when I left, I was floundering.

Last sept I started college and I have totally found myself. I have studied a subject I love, so much so that I have excelled and done a couple of further courses myself and at my own expense to further my knowledge.

However, I am at a crossroads at the moment where in order to continue I can do a degree. My father and ex always told me I was thick. My father said I was so stupid that there was no point in staying at school post 16, and my ex was very successful and talked down to me always. Since studying, I know that's not true. I have passed with all distinctions, my tutors have been behind me all the way and are pushing me to skip a level and go to a degree.

Ok so two issues!

  1. I study hard. Really, really hard, not only with the course I have been doing, but with the additional courses I have taken on. I have a criminal law level 3 qualification to complete over the summer, it is not easy. But yet, because I am in the house more, doing 'nothing' (!) as he says, all house work falls to me. He does not lift a finger. He will 'help' wash up a couple of times a week, but he lets me firmly know he is 'helping' me and expects full on, falling to my knees gratitude.

I make him breakfast in bed every morning, regardless of if I am leaving half an hour earlier than him to get to college, I run his bath, wash his hair. All this for an easy life or he sulks. I am not well today and stressed. So I didn't get out of bed before him as usual. He usually has to start getting dressed at 7.50, by 7.30 he was already huffing as I hadn't got up to get his breakfast and coffee. 7.40 ds comes in with his cereal - a 10 year old puts him to shame lol - so I get up, feed the cats and stupidly make his breakfast as I couldn't face a strop. He could tell I was upset, so asks why (but not in a concerned way, he gets pissed off at me when I am upset) so I tell him, just for once, I am fed up of the morning waitress service. So then he says, well, I wan't hungry anyway and throws a strop that he won't be able to drink his coffee, it will be too hot.

He has his dinner cooked and ready for when he walks through the door as well, regardless of if I am eating or not. My first husband was a shit, but he never, ever expected anyone to cook and clean up after him, so I have never experienced this before. Is this normal? I feel like a housekeeper, I hate it. I know he works, but really, to do nothing in your own home? when I talk to him, he says to tell him what needs doing and he will. But a) He is not a teenager and I am not his mother b) this is his home too, I am not the boss of cleaning and c) he gets in such a mood if I do ask him to do anything. He'll do it, but it's not worth the sulking afterwards.

When I talk to him about it, he gets angry and tells me to stop acting like I have a hard life.

  1. With regard to study, I have been offered an amazing chance to do a degree I will love. But I will have to commit to three years, hard wok with pretty full on work placements. We want another child. I have had several MC, so I can't wait any longer, certainly not 3 or 4 years, I am 34. So I am looking into OU degrees as they will be more compatible.

DH isnt happy about any of this. He says he will support me, but this week keeps throwing hissy fits, about how much he hates his job, how it's not fair and I can't complain as at least I am doing something I want to do. It's not my fault that, by his own admission, he did a degree which would basically buy him 3 more years 'free' drinking time' in his mid 20's. It is also not my fault that I have turned out to be more intelligent than people thought I was.

And I know that if I do OU, I will get the 'I got to work!' card thrown at me and I will be doing all the house, studying and looking after a baby on my own.

I am confused and I don't know what to do for the best, or, if I want to stay with him at all at the moment.

OP posts:
DoesBuggerAll · 26/06/2013 17:48

This reply has been deleted

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lottiegarbanzo · 26/06/2013 17:51

My advice there was get some friends and set DH some conditions and deadlines - a staged ultimatum. That stands but I'd be making the ultimatum short and demanding, then sending him back to his mum. Your son will be much happier and respect you more, long term.

donnab1983 · 26/06/2013 17:52

Maybe just the threat of leaving/chucking him out might give him the nudge he needs to sort himself out?

BOF · 26/06/2013 17:53

Do you need a cuddle, DoesBuggerAll? Sad

Loutwenty · 26/06/2013 17:58

Does, i like you being here, you are actually providing me with some much needed entertainment.

I wondered when you would pounce on my benefits.

Would you like me to send you a bank statement?

Also, I am going to buy some wine at the weekend, the money might be out of tax credits or housing benefits, I don't know as they are muddled in my account, but is that ok with you? Thought i'd better check first.

OP posts:
BOF · 26/06/2013 18:01

He's sad because he hasn't got a nice lady to wash his hair, and his mummy didn't love him. He needs our compassion.

nenevomito · 26/06/2013 18:02

Does, shouldn't you be watching or entertaining your kids or something while you wait for your wife to get home from work?

waddlecakes · 26/06/2013 18:15

I don't hate SAHMs. I dislike people who disparage other peoples jobs despite never having had one themselves. And its not just her husband - she refers to her father as a ''lowly mechanic'' a few posts back.

Based on this, and based on the fact that she obviously holds her mother in better regard than her father, and her mother came from an well-off background and only made her money doing buy to let, and also based on the fact that social work in relaity is an extremely tiring, difficult, ''dirty hands'' job, I can almost guarantee you that this OP will not be working, and that the studying is simply something she enjoys and a way of justifying flitting from one provider to another.

MissStrawberry · 26/06/2013 18:15

Sarcastic comments like that at 5.58pm are going to get you nowhere if you seriously want help with the mess your life is in.

Do you?

Loutwenty · 26/06/2013 18:26

Umm.....the 'lowly' mechanic was actually in response to Does and the comment that my father must have had something to do with my mother's money. I was pointing out that she was the one who had made money - before and after she met him. He was a mechanic - it was her who made investments and made lots.

All sarcastic comment are directed at him/her. I am sorry I claim benefits, but at least I am studying for a career - I could just be claiming JSA until I got a job in a shop. I figure when I get a job, it will be far more than minimum wage - I will make up the tax I would have paid.

OP posts:
waddlecakes · 26/06/2013 18:29

''I am sorry I claim benefits, but at least I am studying for a career - I could just be claiming JSA until I got a job in a shop. I figure when I get a job, it will be far more than minimum wage - I will make up the tax I would have paid.''

Yeah! Or you could be doing the course part-time/by distance whilst getting work, no matter how ''lowly'' in something relating to your field, thus getting hands on experience of the job and/or context, whilst also being financial independent and free to leave a man you clearly neither respect nor want to be with.

donnab1983 · 26/06/2013 18:30

Lou I don't think you should have to justify your financial situation, you were only asking for advice on your husbands ways :)

OxfordBags · 26/06/2013 18:30

Ironic comments from someone called DoesBuggerAll, hmmm Hmm Also unhelpful, pointless and spiteful.

OP, wake up and smell the coffee! This is a man who gets more upset about his packed lunch being not being in his bag than he does you having a miscarriage! What has gone so wrong in your childhood that you would demean yourself to stay with a sociopath like this?!

You know all this doing stuff for him like packed lunches, washing hair, etc., is a proper psychological coping tool, don't you? You are giving the love that YOU so desperately and crave to somebody else, in the hope it will be reciprocated. You don't know how to get it any other way. Please find a way to get it that doesn't involve you lowering yourself to the status of a slave.

And I reiterate, you staying with this man virtually GUARANTEES that your Ds will grow up to be like him. How will it not? He is learning, every day, that men act like this, and women let them (and should let them, he also learns from you). You might be positive and loving to him, but what he's learning about how to treat a woman doesn't come from that, it comes from what he sees. And if it's what we're getting a glimpse of, he will grow up to be a pathetic, whining, irresponsible manchild misogynist who treats women like shit on his shoes, and when they lose a child, it is less important than him getting breakfast in bed. You say you would hate for Ds to emulate this man, so stop teching your son that his future female partners should act like you!

BOF · 26/06/2013 18:31

Lou, you are allowing yourself to be distracted from decent advice here by focussing on defending yourself from moronic opinions. I think that you need to tune some posts out and concentrate on working out what is useful to you in this thread. You are under no obligation to engage with every single poster.

waddlecakes · 26/06/2013 18:34

No actually BOF, the advice from everyone is all the same: leave the guy.

It's just some people are trying to look a bit deeper at underlying issues.

Or would you prefer to have read 10 pages of ''OMFG you wash his hair?????? What?! His hair?????''

Loutwenty · 26/06/2013 18:35

Waddles - I am fully qualified in level 2 health and social care with distinctions now. Yes, I could get a job - would probably be in a care home or a youth group. You need level 3 for the really good jobs with prospects.

After talking to my tutors, my best bet is to study, while doing placements to gain much needed experience (fwiw, I have loved the dirty, hands on one I have done with offenders so far and can't wait to do more - been emailed this afternoon about an amazing placement opportunity with drug rehab).

My son still needs after school care/taking to school as he has some special needs, so any job I got now would have to be cost effected to that or part time. I will be having him all summer holiday too as his father has taken on work abroad.

I am not a scrounger, I have thought this all through and taken advice. Studying to a higher level is the best bet for my future, and believe me, I will be working.

OP posts:
Hullygully · 26/06/2013 18:37

Perhaps the fact that you bother to answer StupidFuckAll and Wankercakes with a degree of seriousness illustrates why you put up with total shit from HairWashTosspot

BOF · 26/06/2013 18:37
Loutwenty · 26/06/2013 18:37

I am going to hash it out with him and give him an ultimatum.

I am not scared of being on my own, so be it.

OP posts:
Hullygully · 26/06/2013 18:39

Leopards and spots

but if you must go through the motions...

Loutwenty · 26/06/2013 18:39

BOF and Hully - I don't know why I feel the need to defend myself. I'm not some feckless scrounger, I am trying to do something for myself that's all.

OP posts:
Loutwenty · 26/06/2013 18:40

Hully - I think I do have to. Just have it out with him once and for all.

Then he can go, whatever. The posts re ds have made me think, I don't want ds to keep seeing me unhappy.

OP posts:
Hullygully · 26/06/2013 18:41

They are just waggling their little wieners frantically in the wind, desperate to release some venom

Do think better of yourself.

MissStrawberry · 26/06/2013 18:56

Your DS is learning that men are superior and woman are skivvies.

waddlecakes · 26/06/2013 19:05

''Yes, I could get a job - would probably be in a care home or a youth group. You need level 3 for the really good jobs with prospects.''

What does that mean? That you don't give a shit about getting hands-on experience, just want to skip straight from a thousand years of books to pushing paper? You're right, we don't have enough management with no experience of the actual job around.