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

[Loutwenty]

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.

2. 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.

Lou can I please recommend a good therapist/life coach.
I can see that you are not mentally ill but you obviously have huge self-esteem issues, that need dealing with.
And please, for the love of all things holy, do not have a child with this man

Anyfucky - sorry! It's just that you tell people social care/social science and they think it's wiping arses or being woo for a living.

Nilby - nope not much savings now, just a couple of grand. Exh fleeced me in divorce (long story) and I used the rest to live on for a year/pay deposits/rent/pay for my college course when I first moved here, claiming housing benefit is a relatively new thing since savings were depleted and dh got a job.

Did you see my link, Lou re social science degree ?

I really believe you should dump Whiny Fuckface and get on with your degree. In fact, forget OU and do the faster track. You will get help with childcare etc and no more servility to a prick like your husband

Can you really not see how BAD this really is OP?

Uprooting your son to escape this arse of a man is the least of yours or your childs worries.

And for people saying don't have a baby - I know, I know. I am on the pill.

But I only miscarried in May, at 14 weeks, so I am still so raw from it, I am still devastated.

Loutwenty, I think you should listen carefully to what waddlecakes is saying. Then, when you've stopped laughing, you should leave your icklebaby husband and do your degree.

Although I'm tempted to say LTB, it sounds as though you would be happy to stay with him so long as he changes. Well, the only way he's going to change is if you stop enabling him. Sit him down and say that from now on you will not be providing breakfast in bed, if he wants breakfast he can bloody well get up and make it himself. You will not be washing his hair - either he washes it himself or it remains dirty. He needs to start pulling his weight around the house. Make this non-negotiable, and fergawdssake just STOP doing these things for him. He won't starve. If it's a deal breaker for him, and you end up splitting up, well, I doubt if he'll find another sucker woman who would be happy to serve him this way! His loss. He needs a wake-up call.

In the meantime, concentrate on your future and your education, and bringing up your son to be independent and capable - ie, unlike your DH!

I don't understand how you even want to have a sexual relationship with someone like this - at what point during the hair washing and serving breakfast in bed do you actually feel sexually attracted to him?

Oh Ragwort, it gets better, he has a low sex drive, so that doesn't happen a lot either.

Christ, I bet you lot are clamouring for him.

I will have it out with him, then leave. Give him a chance to change? Possibly, but I can't go on like this.

I habe had a horrendous three years, it's been hard to see though the fog.

And I would fucking murder my ds if he expected this of a woman.

you've had a horrendous 3 years - but you've only know your H for 2.5 years :(

It doesn't sound as if you've ever been happy with him - do you think he's the rebound guy afterall?

The last 6 months living with ex was awful - he hated that I wanted to move on, I was trying to make a like for myself in my old home city, spending weekends there (where I met now dh). He wanted to be the one living a glam life, shagging around, it suited him that I was stuck up there alone on a smallholding, he could look good and respectable in front of work collegues. He stole from me and made my life hell.

I thought I had fallen in love (I did fall in love) when I met dh. I'd been alone for so many years in my farce of a marriage (i found out when I was 4 months pregnant with ds that ex had a thing for prostitutes).

Before ds was born we were in separate rooms, but I had just bought a house and land with my mothers money, I was young, ex was older and powerful family, I was told I would lose ds so I stayed, for years. I sat on that farm and did nothing but look after ds and grow veg.

Then I met dh, the only man I had spoken to in 10 years who wasn't a 60 year old farmer.

We do have moments of happiness, believe it or not, hence why I do everything to have a quiet life.

You do know that this isn't ever going to work for either of you ?

He needs some time on his own to grow up and mature. You need some time on your own to prove to yourself that you can stand on your own two feet.

You control his finances, you run his bath, feed him in bed, he sulks, takes money from his mother, moans about responsibility.....sounds like he acts and you treat him like a teenage son.

What part of that is healthy for either of you ? You provided each other with support when you both needed it but seriously, time to move on with your life.

Also, read DoesBuggerAll's posts, have a good think about them, and after you've said a little prayer for such a sad and damaged little man, leave your icklebaby husband and do your degree.

Does- bloody hell! if you must know, my mother's money was her own. She was a professional and made good buy to let investments in the 80's as well as being from a fairly privileged background herself. My dad was in the air force in the 60s, but then a lowly mechanic until he retired - is that good enough for you?

I am not a man hater.

Lou - that isn't enough :( Just leave him. You deserve so much more - why can't you believe that? Your DS? Of course he's going to grow up to be just like his step father - why wouldn't he? Doesn't he deserve more?

Send that stupid bastard back to his mother and get on with your life -you are perfectly able to make it a good one for you and DS, why are you choosing not to?????

So you asked how it would work with others. I work full time with a pretty full on job . DH has a flexible job, and has been a SAHP. Our general approach is that there should be equal contribution. If there are things that need to be done when we are both at home, I would expect that we share these. If there are things that could be done when DH is at home and I am not (or am working at home), I would generally hope he would do this subject to looking after the children which comes first. Our DC are now school age and when DH was a SAHP recently he did sometimes meet up with people or go to the cricket or some other hobby when they were had school. I had no problem with him doing that but would then expect to have a bit more leisure time myself to make up for it. Clearly it is not quite that scientific in practice!
If he was studying, then whether i would see it more as a hobby or as a contribution to the family would depend on the purpose of the study. Some people do study as a hobby rather than as a means to an end, and if it was that kind of study and he did not get much done during the day i would be quite miffed if I then had to spend my weekends doing half the housework after working all week. if it is a means to a better job, then I think the study should be treated in the same way as work or childcare so would expect to share tasks when I am in.

If you are minded to stay (and I think you are on to a loser here), I would explain to him very clearly that the study is leading to you getting a decent job and once you getthat job he will have the opportunity to consider a career change/retraining as you will be able to financially support the family (as he is currently doing), but in the meantime he has to view your study as akin to work and help out more around the house.

I think the hair washing is shocking btw and is the main thing that makes me think there is zero chance of an attitude change. I can at least see that you making his breakfast etc saves him time (even though it is still outrageous), but you washing his hair does not save him any time as he still needs to be there, and it can only be about him wanting you to be subservient.

And the only input my ex put into my martial home was to gamble most of it away and borrow against it for sums he couldn't repay.

There are some posters with odd agendas - don't keep justifying yourself to them, they are only here to stir up trouble.

What BOF says. All of it.

Lou, I read your other thread about 'settling' and being upset DH wasn't interested in your travel stories and, while i could understand you - at 34, wanting another baby and a step-dad for DS - settling for an unsatisfactory younger man, what I couldn't understand was why an apparently attractive 25-yo (when you got together), would 'settle' for a woman who didn't really love him and just saw him as providing stability. You've just explained very fully. He's a lazy-arse who wanted a slave.