Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

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

The way things were...sorry long

7 replies

Ginga66 · 26/09/2013 22:18

I don't know what to do anymore.
Dh and iwill be married for five years on Saturday.
We have been together eigh. Have two dcs one and four. Youngest in bed with us, oldest often comes in. Sleep not great. Financial and job pressures galore.
He is off work at the moment and I am at the end of a long week commuting leaving before eight and getting back a six.
Dh managed Really well only calling on MIL three times as opposed to every single day. He knows I value her help but that if he is the SAHD it's his job to do childcare. I'd I am out I don't want them raised by granny if he is available as she misses a lot and has different ways to us. Ok for short spells and like I say I do appreciate it.
Basically he was doing well, house ok, some bits brilliant, kids great, food cooked etc.
But this was my sons first week at school all day and I wasn't there to pck him up which gutted me.
Dh mas been making all these little comments like he knows best. When he was working I did sometimes 24 hrs on my own and baths, dinner, bed etc ex. I never made him feel left out or guilty.
So tonight after another comment that he 'understand' dh1 implying I don't I just go him in the kitchen and calmly requested he could realise my week has not Been easy and excluding me is very painful please not to do it.
He got angry and dismissive telling me he was busy and why wasnt I? I had just put ds1 to bed and needed a five min bath as back hurting. I have disc lesion. He had sat after dinner for best part of an hr.
I said that he never stops, looks me in the eye, allows me to voice concern. He says that all I do is complain and say hateful things. Am slightly deaf and I couldn't hear him from two rooms away which he can't do either. I come to him if he can't hear me, he ignores me if I can't hear him.
Then he said just leave me alone and that he doesn't want to communicate with me. He says this whilst texting someone from the iPad which he didn't take his eyes from whilst we spoke.
I feel a my wits end. I know he does a good job but so do i! If he tells me something s it is information. If I tell him something it is complaining. If he goes out its because he needs to destress. If I do it's selfish. He will be going out the entire day of our anniversary and I have booked a film and his mother for the evening. He asked me if it was okay and I was so dumbstruck I said yes. If I had booked something on our anniversary I would have been made to feel like the worst wife. I've arranged to see my mom for the day which will be nice but even that he says can't you manag on your own even though he pent entire Monday with his n min hasn't seen kids all week.
When we were just dating he made lots of effort to be romantic. Now we are slogging away he never spontaneously hugs or kisses me. He says people change, he is too tired etc but he is not to tired to obsessively exercise or play on the iPad.
I really, really miss the way it used to be. I try to be nice no change, I try saying nothing no change. I try broaching it calmly I am complaining.. If I seem even mildly angry I have an anger problem. If I get very angry I'm mental.
Nothing I do or say is good enough. I feel like a complete failure. The course I am doing Is to get bette employment. I don't want to be away I miss kids. I wanted to be a SAHM until they were both a school but I earn three times what he does so that's not an option. I just feel damned if I do and damned if I don't.
He seems so unhappy too, always grumbling and dissatisfied. Never pays me compliments anymore. Never mind the occasional bunch of flowers or passionate embrace.
We still have sex which is one area of our relationship tha has survived thankfully but I don't undertand why he doesn't look me in the eye, kiss, hug etc.
I have had the LTB comments so unhelpful I'm looking for ways to cope. He may be on some autistic spectrum or emotionally abusive. I am no picnic either. I just feel very lonely.

OP posts:
CharlotteCollinsismovingon · 26/09/2013 22:31

Sounds like he sees you as different from him and inferior. He believes he has the right to judge you, criticise your motives, but his are beyond reproach and you should respect that. I'm not sure there's much you can do to cope better with living with that!

It also sounds like you've tried everything except for LTB, and nothing's working. You sound worn down and confused.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 27/09/2013 10:39

If you're unhappy together and 'LTB' is unhelpful you're in a no-win situation. You'll end up coping the way all people in that situation cope i.e. self-medicating with food, alcohol, credit cards or going the route of prescription drugs or seeking the attention of other men to provide the affection you're missing. Sorry.

hellsbellsmelons · 27/09/2013 10:51

If I get very angry I'm mental
This is a big, fat, flying red flag - abusive talk!!!
You sound like you've had enough and it's hardly surprising.
Nothing you say or do is working.
You really need to decide if you want to be worn down and unhappy for the next 20 years of your life, or not!!
Your decision!

AttilaTheMeerkat · 27/09/2013 11:00

Ginga

You have previously written about your H at some considerable length and nothing has really changed has it?. You're both still locked in your respective miseries and what are you both teaching your children about relationships here?. That needs your serious consideration. Is this the kind of relationship you would want for them as adults to have?.

You are clearly not coping at all and are just about holding it all together.

There is NO way of coping with abuse, there is no magic bullet that can fix the what is unfixable. You cannot counsel it or self medicate your own pain away, you can try but that will not work either and leave you with a whole heap of yet more problems. You cannot carry on regardless as you have so desperately tried to do, it has not worked. What you have tried has simply not worked. You cannot reason with an abuser.

You also cannot assume he is anywhere on the ASD spectrum either; he could equally (and perhaps more likely) not autistic at all.

Your H acts like this too because he can; he read the manual on how to snare a women into becoming interested then once she was hooked then wham no more nice guy. You are now seeing him for what he really is. He sees you as a non person, someone to hate.

What do you get out of this relationship now?. What needs of yours are being met here?. I would appreciate an answer to that question.

AttilaTheMeerkat · 27/09/2013 11:01

Why too is leaving him "unhelpful?". That also implies that some innate emotional needs of yours are currently being met. You also sound codependent which in a relationship is a very unhealthy state to be in.

Ginga66 · 27/09/2013 22:50

Well I see all of what u guys r saying. It's just up to me now isn't it? I feel a bit stronger.

OP posts:
OldernotWiser47 · 28/09/2013 01:29

Been there. Exactly that. Twice. Both times the man in my life OFFERED to do mainly home/ kids, because I am a high earner and, while similar level qualifications, they just couldn't earn a fraction., and I say that with a wan smile. I would have loved to work part time, and stay at home more, rather than work 80+hours in a very highly stressful job.
Both seemed to equate me going to work/ not being in the house with' going out', 'having time to myself'. It seemed to not occur to them that I was working.
So, when I got home, I was expected to ' not be lazy' or ' not nag' -if you're out all the time, we'll do it my way, etc . Any house work I did was discounted or repeated ' better'
Both were unhappy in their choice. It improved once Ex1 started working part time, but only divorce made him civil again. They both hated being upstaged/ emasculated by a woman ( Ex2 loved telling me I wasn't a proper woman- 'manbitch' was his favourite Angry )

No solution. On my third long term relationship, this time I have made it a priority that the man earns just slightly more than me. I think that may work-though we now neither have young children anymore, so no houseperson required.
Oh, and early in my marriage, another professional woman recommended "if you value your marriage, get a cleaner"
With hindsight, I say- ignore this advice at your peril!

New posts on this thread. Refresh page