When I got together with my DH six years ago, we quickly discovered, after the honeymoon period where we just about agreed on everything, that actually we are polar opposites on everything. All the inconsequential stuff. All the important stuff. Totally different. I even found out recently that he considers my taste to be garish. It's like nothing about us suits the other.
The unpleasant undertone to these fundamental differences is that he is older than me (only by 7 years) and assumes a somewhat parental/older brother attitude when it comes to disagreements. As if I'm just a bit slow on the uptake, possibly, or haven't finished school yet.
We reached an amicable truce several years ago, because we do hugely enjoy some areas of our relationship, and we make each other laugh and think, so it wasn't worth quitting the relationship even though it means we just can't civilly discuss politics or anything important.
Sorry, gibbering merrily away but don't want to dripfeed. I'll get to the point.
I'm a SAHM. Our DD is 4 months old. I do the lion's share, but DH will contribute. The trouble is, he will argue with me about how I do things, and question and question and quibble over and over. Discussions reoccur every week. I feel like he can't stand not being the one 'in the right' in this particular instance, even though I really am not heavy-handed about 'being the one at home', I really don't swan about like I am All That just because I do 90% of the parenting, but I get this sense from him that his opinion is still the only one that matters here, he is right, and he is going to do things his way, even when it detrimentally affects both of us.
It's really colouring my feelings for him significantly. I can't help but dislike him. I feel like it's the height of arrogance. The equivalent would be for me to appear in his office and gesture casually towards his computer and say, 'well, that's wrong for a start, but I'll fix it.'
Maybe there's even this sense of jostling for control, which I don't know how to handle. Next we're going to be arranging performance meetings and talking in corporate business speak.
Help?!
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Relationships
My DH is always right. Always.
purrpurr · 18/09/2013 21:14
FWIW, I'd have laughed to if my partner had said to me that he thinks he's a genius. It's the only sane response to such madness. And, of course, it's long been said that there's a fine line between genius and madness. 
I agree that a letter is a good way to go if all else fails for the exact reasons Talkative Jim gave. People like your DH hate that, as it's so much harder to talk over and rubbish a well-written letter (although that probably won't stop him trying).
You're not scrabbly purrpurr. You sound perfectly articulate and clear on this thread. Probably because people are paying you the basic human courtesy of listening to you instead of making you feel like you are depriving them of valuable oxygen. 
I think you are probably a man who respects his wife and probably just indulged in a bit of twattery. I think the OP's H has had more than enough bollockings and appeals to his better nature and has just carried on regardless.
I've been thinking a bit more about this. purrpurr I think you are going to be OK. I really do. You have insight, and you have had the sense to reach out to somewhere where the reality of what is going on in your relationship will be confirmed and where people will insist on your rights to be a full person. I really do think that is tremendously important. It will help you in whatever you decide. And it will help you succeed in whatever you decide to do. It will help because - I do believe this - belief in your fundamental right to a full human existence is absolutely paramount to getting through this sort of stuff (at all levels of crapness).
It may sound such a little thing, but I can only say that it has taken me years to get to this point, and, partly because it is a relatively new place for me to be, I can tell you: it makes a world of difference.
The main thing is that you really must hold on to that sense of yourself, your importance, your validity, etc, that you currently have. Don;t let it go, or be eroded. Use mn for validation. Not just from threads of your own - but reading other threads and realising that this sort of behaviour is named, and described, and documented: it is real, not your deluded imagination. And a lot of people (OK, a lot of women 
) are prepared to say it is unacceptable. That should give you strength. It really is half the fight.
So - if you decide to employ Snazzy's assertiveness techniques, or other poster's suggestions, or if you decide that you will leave - you (and your daughter) will be OK. You can do it. There is nothing implicitly at fault in you. Good luck.
Liking Sustained Programme Of Twattery. A new MN acronym perhaps?
'OP, I hate to say it - but I think you've got a bit of a SPOT problem'
on an otherwise v serious thread
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