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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

SO bored of family life

7 replies

AgapeParker · 25/10/2013 14:38

I can't decide if this is me feeling spoilt and a bit snowed under, or if it's a real thing that needs fixing.

DH and I have been together for the best part of 20 years. I love him and he is a good person. I also find him incredibly frustrating. He's maddeningly logical at work but at home has an ability to completely ignore stark facts that makes me incandescent with rage after 20 years of it.

For the first ten years of the relationship, where we had no child and no mortgage (= no maintenance responsibilities etc) I think I essentially overlooked this side of him, either got around it or let it go. By now it has got to the stage where I feel so despondent about bringing things up with him that I pre-judge his reaction and feel worse when he behaves as I expect. So, for example, looking for a house: if our budget is £40K, and fees are £3k, he will look at houses worth £40k and just shrug when I mention the fees. If the boiler needs fixing, he will go and look at it and find extraordinary reasons for us not needing to fix it: "it was fixed last year" was a memorable one.

We moved about 8 years ago and since then he has made minimal attempts to make friends, either for himself or for our family. He is happy (he says) seeing his parents at weekends and vegging in the evenings. I do not want to spend a lot of time with his family. His mother has made signs that not only does she not really want to spend time with me, (e.g. leaving the room leaving my sentence hanging in the air) but has also stopped showing any interest in ds (10) and is visibly stressed by him and makes strange cryptic comments about him being gawky or weird.

I'm at the end of that particular tether, so we've stopped seeing them as much - naturally he completely ignores this bad feeling as it doesn't affect him - but it means I am stuck at home with him all weekend and every evening by default. Home just isn't an interesting place to be. All activity is tech-based or science based. DS I adore but I don't expect he and I to be companions at his age.

I go out and do my own thing with my friends and my hobbies and come back and we have little to talk about. I have this overwhelming feeling that things should be somehow different and that we are all missing out. I've never really voiced it before in this way and I'm slightly ashamed of myself for not being able to be more buoyant and get them going a bit more; at the same time i also think: oh god I need a holiday from my own family.

OP posts:
CogitoErgoSometimes · 25/10/2013 14:43

What is it you find loveable exactly?

AgapeParker · 25/10/2013 14:48

He's kind, funny, does things to make us laugh, pretty much equal in the parenting/domestic sphere (unless it's hard stuff in which case he retreats into this state of 'well what if this weren't true? let's pretend it isn't and talk about that!' my words ).

OP posts:
AgapeParker · 25/10/2013 14:51

Works hard, creative, supportive of my business (it always looks so crap writing this stuff down!).

OP posts:
CogitoErgoSometimes · 25/10/2013 14:53

That's something I suppose. If this was just some behavioural tic he might change his ways with threats or encouragement, but it sounds that you're talking about his core personality ie. it's not going to change. If it's not bad enough to pack up and leave him over, you're probably looking at living increasingly separate lives, getting more hobbies, being with more friends, holidaying apart etc.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 25/10/2013 14:54

I notice your list doesn't include anything particularly personal or intimate... Hmm Accidental or deliberate omission?

AgapeParker · 25/10/2013 14:57

He is emotionally constipated, and I am tired. But there is intimacy in kindness and laughter.

OP posts:
wordyBird · 25/10/2013 17:45

What strikes me first is that he doesn't sound very concerned that you're not happy.
Generally when you love someone, you care enough to notice if they're happy or not. And if they're not, you want to know more.

But you've said, for example, that you're at the end of your tether regarding your in laws - yet he completely ignores this bad feeling as it doesn't affect him. So he's not bothered if you're upset then? Or is it just this topic he ignores?

Also, your home life is boring and irritating you, from the sound of it. Even though you're finding things to do on your own, you're not really finding much to talk about with each other.

It seems as though you've lost the companionship in your relationship, your sense of being a team with shared loves or interests. You seem a little like flatmates, sharing the space amicably but not really connected emotionally.

What would you like to have happen, if you could wave a magic wand?

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