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

[DreamyParentoid]

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

Hi Dreamy, I've been watching for a while and just wanted to give you an unmumsnetty squeeze. I think that the language your husband is using is horrible and unreasonable, but also wonder if actually the problem is the way he's verbalising his problems (his, not yours) rather than what he actually means.

He doesn't want the relationship to fail either. I wonder if what he really means is that he just wants more attention from you. Giving him his dinner on a tray is a small thing but does he really mean 'not so long ago you'd have given me dinner on a tray and now things have changed and I'm feeling pushed out'.

As a mother I do really understand that your focus is on your DC at the moment, but also as someone in a second relationship whose marriage imploded spectacularly, I also wonder if your DH is just unable to eloquently explain, without getting overemotional, and hence angry, that he misses you.
Is what he's trying to say actually that 9 months co-sleeping while he is in the spare room is enough and he wants to hold you again?
What I'm reading from this thread, with all it's extreme opinions, is that you are quite rightly very involved with your DC, and that your husband is trying to grab your attention, albeit not in the most mature way.....but he is a man, and I wonder if he has left it too long, so that he is angry and panicked before he addresses the issues; hence the horrible words and dramatic (adolescent) phrasing.
It seems that neither of you want the relationship to fail. I hope that you can find some common ground to move forward from here. (I'd actually put a hug here but MN apparently forbids it x)

This is how women end up staying with abusive men for years.
Poor men don't really mean what they say. Their abuse is just their love that they can't express properly.
However they are quite capable of expressing themselves at work and with other people.

It is often said here that when a man tells you who he is listen to him. They do mean what they say when they feel comfortable and in charge. It's the pleas when they feel they are losing control that we should doubt. They are only saying and doing it to keep what they have and rarely lasts long.

I agree that he doesn't want to lose this relationship, but I very much doubt it's out of love for the OP. His actions don't show love, only selfishness and entitlement when he's not under the threat of losing his home comforts.

By all means give him a chance, but don't lose sight of what you really want out of this marriage.

Hay,

I really thank those last two posts. It has been a funny week. I did have my bags packed, then got cross on Sunday and took girls to my folks. When we got back, late, dh and I discussed a lot. Thanks to the fabulous discussion on here and the chance I've been given to develope a language in a place that was very unable to speak, I was able to really put my point of view across.

We talked about projections and particularly the idea that he feels angry at me for abandoning him, but maybe actually I haven't and a lot of what's happened are just logistics related to having a family. The big one was him recognising that maybe some of this anger wasn't actually at me, but at his mother because he wasn't breastfed, was brought up by nannies, left to cry a lot, sent to boarding school age 7 then she left his Dad. So massively under cuddled and over intellectualised.

It seems up and down. He heard a lot, but if he can apply it I don't know. I asked him if he really thinks about my best interests. He says he does and he is trying to help by making me better organised!!! I've been clear about needing him not to lash out when he is hurting or blame the relationship for things that r logistics.

He has made me cups of tea!

My counsellor was excellent yesterday. It's so cool to go into real detail with her. We saw how this I also massively mirroring how my dad spoke to my mum. It is like we r boh bringing up each others shadow and I we can but really clock them and love them we could be onto something healing.

He has come back into my bed for two nights. That's really cool. I think it is time to get d2 moving towards a cot, though I feel a bit tired for making changes, maybe an early night will assist that.

He still seems challenged by saying things in an unbossy or assuming way. We had another argument about that this morning. I feel awful to argue in front of d1. But then I want to stand up for myself so I also don't want to let things lie. I would rather her see me strong, but I do get saddened by arguing.

My hope is I could respond and point things out either in a less charged way or later... Over wine... But in reality I just told him he was bossy and treating me like an assistant! He was hurt because he wants us to be doing these house hold projects together. He feels like he ought to be able o just ask me to do stuff. He later apologiesed and conceded he hadn't explained why there was such an urgency about me clearing a particular cupboard today!

My sister can't see why I stay. That's hard.

But in another place there is exceptional movement. I I can remember the ground I've made and protect it!

The trick seems to be to keep really clear about what the boundaries are and keep reinforcing them clearly and lovingly. There is something big working itself out through us. This feels like a life's work all right here right now!

I can't say how much this thread is helping. I got so disheartened when we argued this morning. He is still childish. But he did also admit that. He said "can't you just think of it like you have three children?". I said I don't want to have to because I want an equal partner... He said where he feels unhappy makes him harsh. I said I don't want to stay with someone who is harsh to me and that I won't.

Xxx

You can't make a man happy...

All that means is you don't make him happy.
He's not up till now done any work in the relationship....

... long may it continue.

Good luck with him reforming.

Sniggered at can't you just think of it like you have three children and wondered how he'd feel if you point out that children don't make love with parents.

Aw OP, I don't want to rain on your parade, but this line, He has made me cups of tea! made me feel so sad for you when I think of everything my partner does for me.

I'm not clear from your recent post as to whether your plan is try to work on your relationship or not.

He said "can't you just think of it like you have three children?"

A very odd thing for an adult man to say, he's basically asking you to be his mother. The detail you give about his lack of mothering as a child is fascinating and may be fundamental to his behaviour.

I wonder if he felt at the start of the relationship with you and his ex that he got the mother he wanted, and then you both had kids and 'abandoned' him, just like his mother did?

My father was sent to boarding school at 7 and there is a whole side of him that is totally emotionally stunted.

As I said in my first post on then thread, when your husband says that you don't know how to make a man happy I think he's talking about himself. He doesn't know why he's unhappy or how to fix it, so he blames you. He may think that if you were different then he may be ok, but he's looking at the problem from the wrong end.

"He still seems challenged by saying things in an unbossy or assuming way. We had another argument about that this morning. I feel awful to argue in front of d1. But then I want to stand up for myself so I also don't want to let things lie. I would rather her see me strong, but I do get saddened by arguing"

At heart he has not changed at all.

I was wondering what you learnt about relationships and you have basically repeated what you learnt from your own parents relationship with each other. What do you think you are teaching your own children now about relationships, yep, more messed up lessons on same.

What do you get out of this relationship now?. What needs of yours are being met here?.

If his version of kindness is also down to making you cups of tea I do not know who is the most sad to be honest with you, you though are really selling yourself short here.

He is a manchild who will bleed you dry ultimately.

Re this comment:-
"But he did also admit that. He said "can't you just think of it like you have three children?".

Yuck, just yuck.

As for the comment:-
"The trick seems to be to keep really clear about what the boundaries are and keep reinforcing them clearly and lovingly. There is something big working itself out through us. This feels like a life's work all right here right now!"

He was never your project to rescue and or save. Do not make changing him your life's work because you will fail abjectly at doing so. He can only change his own behaviours and he does not want to.

I was boarding schooled, services & so on and had a lot of difficulty forming non-acquisitive relationships with women (didn't know how not to be a needy pest).

Oddly, with the unsurprising lack of success I got better (with a diversion into a sort of sickening fascination as to how many women like "bad" men; I learnt to fake that for a bit.).

I can't imagine anyone outside their 20s behaving as OP's partner does. Just, eew.

"He still seems challenged by saying things in an unbossy or assuming way. We had another argument about that this morning. I feel awful to argue in front of d1. But then I want to stand up for myself so I also don't want to let things lie. I would rather her see me strong, but I do get saddened by arguing"

He at heart has nor changed an iota.

Your child is seeing her parents argue and perhaps even blames herself for her mum and dad arguing. She is not seeing you as strong.

I think you are both indulging in too much sub-therapeutic discussion and not facing head-on the fact he's not nice enough to you and not pulling his weight domestically.

You'd be much better off with a normal sort of bloke who cooked dinner and didn't blame you for his non-breastfeeding mum, you know.

Or, as more succinct posters than I have put it: 'Yuck' and 'ewww'.

Only he can resolve his own issues.

Not even you can fix him.

You are NOT responsible for his happiness. Only he is.

He needs to go to counselling on his own to work through his issues.

"The big one was him recognising that maybe some of this anger wasn't actually at me, but at his mother because he wasn't breastfed, was brought up by nannies, left to cry a lot, sent to boarding school age 7 then she left his Dad. So massively under cuddled and over intellectualised.

I asked him if he really thinks about my best interests. He says he does and he is trying to help by making me better organised!!!

In other words: the way he behaves is the result of what other people have done to him and not his responsibility.

And the solution is for him to change you. Not himself.

I got stopped by the same things Cory did. Mom did not breast feed him?? And he can help by better organizing you???

Lord help us.

So he grew up with an emotionally distant mother and it's your job now to step into her shoes and be a parent - while presumably also remaining subservient to him.

He still seems challenged by saying things in an unbossy or assuming way.
He feels like he ought to be able o just ask me to do stuff.

I am glad you went for counselling on your own. He probably enjoys knowing so much of what you are talking about centres on him.

Whilst your dh views the relationship problems as being 100% down to you and it is 100% for you to change the likelihood that the relationship will end in divorce is 100%.

OP - is it worth sticking with this emotional juvenile?

Also not sure about the lack of progress.
He's still being selfish, wanting to be mothered (3 children, WTF?), but at the same time lording you around (make you better organised). And playing the poor me (not breastfed - seriously?).

It doesn't look good.

He needs to be an adult. A responsible adult at home. He needs to acknowledge that he has a participating role at home and accept you (and himself) as you are. He needs to realise he needs to sort himself out and become a better person to stay with you.

Oh my god... Stop making excuses from him, stop accepting crumbs.

accepting excuses

Oh my god... Stop making excuses from him, stop accepting crumbs.

^^ this.
The fact that he's made you some cups of tea being a big deal is exactly this - it's crumbs. You deserve more respect.

If one of your friends was describing their marriage like this, what would you tell them?

making me cups of tea

I have been there too and it is horrible, when all those small loving attentions seem to have been totally switched off.

And how pathetically grateful you feel when they reappear again :(

Just make sure that you don't set the expectations of your life to such narrow boundaries that you fundamentally give up on being loved.

Plenty of us have had a really shit childhood. We dont go on to think we have a right to visit all our pain and angst on other people. What happened to him isn't your fault, you weren't even there.

It doesn't sound to me that he has any intention of working with his demons to develop a healthy future. It looks like he feels he has a get-out clause for shockingly bad behaviour. He doesn't. He needs to work it out instead of holding court but I really don't think he has any intention of doing that.

That said..... ime (and apols if this offends), planting a new idea into a man's consciousness can take time to germinate. You could get lucky - let's hope so. But if you are ridiculously pleased that he is making you cups of tea (hasn't he done that as a matter of course before now?? ) then I do wonder if you can raise the bar to the level that is required. (Actually, higher, because he is such a baby)

Have a read of this, OP

While the article is aimed at people in new or casual relationships, the principles still apply.

www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/why-explaining-reexplaining-disrespect-is-like-saying-im-open-to-negotiating-on-my-boundaries/

It is easy to say, don't accept crumbs - but the problem is that you get used to a slightly smaller and ever so slightly smaller piece of toast, until one day even the crumbs are enough.