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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

Original poster

I don't how to make a man happy, there is just something missing in me, says DH

508 replies

DreamyParentoid · 18/11/2013 10:12

We are married. Have two beautiful girls, 2 yrs and 9 months. A lovely, if messy, home, and our relationship is tragically empty on the inside. He says he is in a living hell. That he looks back and sees how much happier he has been in other relationships that were filled with life. That I am just totally taken up with the kids and don't have time or energy for anything else. He doesn't get a look in. No cuddles, the kids get it all.

But I do everything, all the housework, kids meals, most of the childcare. H provides really well. He sleeps in a different bed because he doesn't want to be woken up by breastfeeding sounds and to get a good nights sleep.

It is not the first time he has said something like this. But he doesn't want to split up. He has just given up hope of it being any better. It has all just come up for him. But I'm not to worry. It'll be better soon because he will put his feelings back in a box.

Shit, shit, shit.

I have arranged to see a counsellor which has really helped. But I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to try and be all the things he has said he'd like. Then the other part knows that I am those things if he was nicer to me. He wants more physical contact but I find it hard to be nice to him when he is being so difficult. Then I think if I can just get strong and be myself and get through this bit then we can sort it out.

I just needed to say. I've got to take daughter to nursery now and make it look like I haven't been crying.

This all sounds melodramatic, but it does help to say it in this dramatic way!

xx

OP posts:
Lweji · 21/11/2013 11:46

Actually, not that I danced to his tune as such, not as OP.
But certainly happy to get rid of his demands. E.g. for me to get a take away when getting home by underground/train from the airport after being away for work, when he could have walked 10 min for it, or rang them. Angry

Lweji · 21/11/2013 11:55

Or, maybe, Bonsoir, the husbands with secons wives only realised after divorcing that they need to work at the relationship too. Wink

Bonsoir · 21/11/2013 12:01

It is precisely because the OP is not taking her marriage very seriously that I say the things I do. Her H is not an abuser. The opinions on this thread are extraordinary.

Lweji · 21/11/2013 12:04

Gasp!

TheDoctrineOfWho · 21/11/2013 12:04

Do you think her husband is taking "to love and to cherish" particularly seriously?

LurcioLovesFrankie · 21/11/2013 12:05

Bonsoir - are you reading the same OP as the rest of us? The one where she does all the housework? Where she's been to see a counsellor to try to work at things? Where she makes him a homecooked meal which he ignores, then berates her for not being a mind-reader and bringing it to him on a tray to eat in front of the telly while he ignores his family?

You're half right - there is someone in this marriage who's not taking the marriage seriously, but it sure as hell ain't the OP.

Bonsoir · 21/11/2013 12:06

Men can work very hard at their relationships but when their wives refuse to work too they walk away. It happens again and again... Women are not all in the right when it comes to relationships.

Bonsoir · 21/11/2013 12:08

The OP was pretty upfront about the fact that she wasn't doing the housework and that she was ignoring her husband in favour of her DC.

Lweji · 21/11/2013 12:09

The poor OP started off by asking what she could do to make it better, when her OH is being an entitled prat, FGS. She posted desperate to find a way of making a relationship with an abuser work.

How on earth is she not taking her marriage seriously?

Lweji · 21/11/2013 12:10

She wasn't doing the housework? Angry She is doing ALL of it.

How was she ignoring her OH in favour of her children, if she is the one who has to do everything for them, and he moved into another room? Who is ignoring who?

LuciusMalfoyisSmokingHot · 21/11/2013 12:12

Bonsoir, your giving me the hump now.

Her dcs are small vulnerable people, the arsehole husband is a fully grown man, you really think she should drop the kids and wipe that man childs back side.

If you've choosen to stay in a marriage that is that shit, thats your choice, dont guilt the OP into staying in the same.

TheDoctrineOfWho · 21/11/2013 12:14

"All of the housework, kids meals, most of the childcare" - it's in the OP!

LuciusMalfoyisSmokingHot · 21/11/2013 12:15

Also, theres 2 people in that marriage, one of them has already been married and have kids.

Hes the common denominator.

hellsbellsmelons · 21/11/2013 12:15

Yes OP - How very dare you put 2 very small children first, when clearly you should be giving all your attention to your poor DH and making sure the house the clean and tidy. Who really cares about the DC anyway!! Shock

Seriously though - listen to the vast majority of women on here and ignore the others!!!

wordfactory · 21/11/2013 12:18

Well I do agree that some women get completely over run by motherhood and don't tend to their relationship or themselves.

In the same way that some men get completely over run by their careers and don't tend to their relationship or themselves.

However, their are some people who just need too much attention. Whatever their partners do, it will never be enough. They will have them dancing around on a stick and still be unhappy. These people have form...

Lweji · 21/11/2013 12:27

I'd have probably agreed that the OP only cared about her children if her OH had, say, booked a weekend away or arranged for dinner out and a babysitter, and she had said no.
If while she put the children to bed, he had finished off dinner and she didn't sit with him at the table preferring to watch TV. Oh, wait a minute... it seems that he's the one not spending time with her.

Loopyloulu · 21/11/2013 12:49

Men can work very hard at their relationships but when their wives refuse to work too they walk away. It happens again and again... Women are not all in the right when it comes to relationships.

Bonsoir Indeed.

But I can't quite see how this has any bearing whatsoever on the OP- can you?

DonkeysDontRideBicycles · 21/11/2013 13:04

I do everything, all the housework, kids meals, most of the childcare.
A lovely, if messy, home
Messy means not showroom perfect, she didn't say she does sweet FA apart from the DCs.

Bonsoir do you mean that this DH has lost the woman he married? Pre-DCs she probably was an altogether different creature. Maybe when they met she was working and they had the luxury of ample free time and could lavish attention on each other. But it's hardly anything unusual if now all she does is Mummy and home stuff. From his POV when he gets home from work that is him finished for the day. He is a 'good provider' and no doubt feels he deserves to put his feet up. Unless they have paid help, she otoh is still working 24/7. Feeding and nurturing a baby and toddler and lack of sleep won't help either.

British, French or Klingon, that which was pleasing to him has now fizzled out. He didn't wake up and find DW cuddling a 2 year old and 9 month old out of the blue. It was a gradual process. What did he expect when he got her pregnant first time round? He must have experienced similar in his first marriage.

Starting a family is a big change. There's not a massive age gap, when the toddler starts nursery or pre-school there'll be an improvement again. Telling OP he feels he has to hide his feelings and not show his unhappiness isn't true is it if he has already made it plain he expects more and feels somehow cheated. Going around with a long face expecting her to magic up more hours in the day or fully functioning independent pre-schoolers isn't helping is it.

LisaMed · 21/11/2013 13:10

I think Bonsoir has to think that being sexy and doing all the housework will keep a man happy as her husband has form for running off with another woman (ie Bonsoir) and it would be a bit bad if Bonsoir thought that it could happen to her even though she was sexy and a really good housewife. All I can say is that if happened to Anthea Turner it could happen to anyone.

I think the mark of a marriage is not sexy/provider/housework but how kind the people in it are to each other. I think everything goes from that. If there is no kindness, and no way back to kindness then I think the marriage is stuffed. That's just what I think.

If the kindness runs only one way then the marriage is definitely stuffed. I also suspect that the OP's husband is looking for a way out. In those circumstances I think the OP should be kind to herself.

Bonsoir · 21/11/2013 13:12

By definition, if the home is messy, the housework is not being done. I think that the OP means "Any housework that gets done in this house is done by me not by my H". If she is a SAHM and her H is working, she is responsible for seeing the housework gets done (employing a cleaner if need be - there is no need to be a martyr to housekeeping). And making all the children's meals doesn't sound too back breaking.

The OP sounds bone idle to me.

AllThatGlistens · 21/11/2013 13:28

Thankfully, Bonsoir most people on this thread aren't about to give any credence to your 'opinions'. Hmm

Bonsoir · 21/11/2013 13:30

Maybe not, but that does not mean that I am not trying to help the OP.

wordfactory · 21/11/2013 13:31

Men don't leave their wives because the house is messy.

Men don't leave their wives because she no longer looks 'sexy'.

Some men cite these as reasons to justify their actions. And silly other women gobble it down.

LuciusMalfoyisSmokingHot · 21/11/2013 13:31

Bonsoir is trying to be "Controversial" and to be honest, people who are trying to be "Controversial" are actually attention seekers.

TheDoctrineOfWho · 21/11/2013 13:32

So laundry, hoovering, cleaning, cooking aren't housework if the house is messy?

And how does "read my mind and bring me dinner" factor in with you?