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

Anyone know if OP, Dreamy, is still participating in this thread at all, or is it spiralling down its own plughole without her now? Lots of good advice given, but most of it easier to say than to do in real life situation.

Hi,

An still reading, though been busy so hard to find time to write. Also difficult to know what to say. Dh doing lots for kids, making playroom very sweet. Myself am feeling overwhelmed by this thread and reality. Sure I get it now. But also researching separating with small children and suggestions of what to do and they r all terrifying. I can't think how I'd deal with it with d1. We have a lovely home, sure I am feeling this difficulty with dh, but I can't quite believe that it means leaving or messing this all up. Our lives and all the other bits that work. It's so against my programming to break my marriage vows or go back on the commitment I made. That thing inside me hasn't snapped yet. I need space to think.

And for however crap u have read about him being as a husband, he is te children's father. All this stuff that I'm reading, realising is almost impossible for me to process.

So yes, I am still here. But when u write the words about get out or he'll never change, that's so easy to say from outside. I'm sure it's hard won knowledge in some cases. But I don't know how to deal with it. I am just coping at the moment. Sitting with it.

Ah, Dreamy, it's not for any of us to say how you should live your life and of course no matter how eloquently anybody may describe things we will never have the full picture of what your life is like.

People are sharing experience and advice gained from those experiences.

Only you can make decisions about your own life and those of your children. If you feel that the good outweighs the bad, well, then hang in there.
I do believe that it is impossible for anybody to change another person unless that person wants/needs the change for themselves. I am hoping for you that your DH is one of those people.
I know people in relationships/marriages that would never work for me, but they do for them.
As long as you are both happy then whatever works for you as a couple is ok.

I just don't think it is fair that you should be doing all the partnership work yourself, bending over backwards to explain and set boundaries and ask for respect whereas he gets away with making cups of tea.

You sound lovely and have every right to expect a happy family life.
V best of luck to you all x.

Well said PD
And best of luck to Dreamy and family whatever paths you take x

I totally understand your desire to see this work out OP, whether it will is unknowable, of course you want to put everything you can into resolving these problems.

If posters here take a pessimistic view it's only because they have been were you are, did what you did, and it didn't work. In retrospect they regret the wasted effort. However, you are not there yet.

If staying together is your goal, I would suggest that in order to achieve the changes necessary to make the relationship work, your husband needs to believe that you are ready to leave before he will undertake any real modification in behaviour.

Stand firm and believe in yourself.

Best of luck. xx

I secretly (even to myself at times) wanted to leave my marriage for years, but felt an overwhelming obligation to stay, because of the DCs, my vows and my Christian faith.

But my marriage was similar to yours. He told me often that I shouldn't talk to him about my day. He told me once that given the choice between DIY and spending time with the DCs, he'd choose DIY every time. It was easy to believe as he left all the childcare to me as well as the housework. He enjoyed telling me how I should change. Nothing was ever his fault (usually it was mine). When he saw that I wanted him to change he said he would (and had already ), but he still wanted me to be responsible for directing and managing his change.

I was grateful for cups of tea, too. But I wanted him to get some sort of counselling and I'd told him that in a letter in which I set out the three most important problems I saw in our relationship (control, criticism and narcissism - although I didn't express it remotely like that in my letter!). It was my private target: he needed to get counselling to show that he was serious about changing. I decided I wouldn't accept anything else, and I gave him nine months to do it in, which may seem a long time, but I recognised I still needed a lot of thinking time, too.

Well, after five months of cups of tea but little more substantial, I started looking into leaving. (I'd read and thought lots about the effects on the DCs of staying, along the same line of what posters on this thread have said about your DD witnessing arguments. I'd also read up about divorce in a Christian context.) And like you, I found it overwhelming. Even when I wanted to be out, I didn't think I could manage the process of actually leaving. It took me another six months to tell H it was over for good. I only got through the process of separating by breaking it all down into tiny little steps and tackling each one separately: real baby steps.

That's my story - I hope I haven't gone on too much and some of it is useful. Leaving is a huge thing, so not to be rushed. And in posting my story, I'm not recommending to you that you leave him, but giving you an idea of what it can look like when someone decides to.

Take your time. Stop posting for a few months (or forever!) if you want to. You can come back any time you like, to this thread or start a new one. Let all the ideas in this thread simmer for a bit. There's plenty in here to come back to and reread, anyway.

Wow, that was a long post.

It was a very good post, IMO.

It does take a long time until we completely give up, and even then we often don't leave immediately.
If it wasn't for DV and the threats he made, I would probably still be with exH.

I do hope he changes and that you both find a way to be happy together.
The only thing I'd say is that, looking at his past behaviour, do not ever let him think that you won't leave. I suspect his only drive to be the man you would like him to be is not to lose his family. Which is a shame, and it may well backfire, as he may get tired and think of other ways to control you and get back to what he was. But you have hope, and that's a good thing. Just don't get blinded by it.

Hay thank you Charlottecollinsinherowbplace. That was great :)

Aw, thanks both.

By the way, am printing out these statements:

You shouldn't have to shove boulders uphill on a daily basis just to have the bare minimum acceptable from your life partner.

It shouldn't be a monumental struggle just not to be stepped on

and turning them into fridge magnets - I love them!

Yeh, the boulders one particularly struck me too Charlotte
Bet there's a lot of lurkers and semi-lurkers like me on this thread

Liking your new name BTW Charlotte

HA ha ha

So he was not brestfed and he cant hear the sound of breastfeeding.
He feels neglected.
He has to put his feelings in a box.
He was raised by nannies.

I think i kbow the next line: his first nanny was blonde. And you are brunette.

I know that some people find all this intellectual but im sorry it looks to me like a teenager who went to library and read two books on popular psychology.

Please tell me that you havent named your dcs Oedipus, Electra, Antigone etc?

I believe they are known as FOO issues, and are generally held not to be a reasonable excuse for disrespectful behaviour.

At least not by the time you are a grown adult.

You may not be there yet but one of the main reasons to seriously consider leaving is that the marriage you are modelling to your children is almost always replicated in their future adult relationships. My mother insists that her (abusive, controlling) marriage is her business and nobody elses. She has failed to notice that all four of her children are in abusive marriages, either as abusers or abused. I said 'are' but in my case it's 'were'. It took me a while, also in part because of my christian beliefs, also because I was so conditioned to accept crumbs by my parents' marriage.

This may sound like theory, hard to grasp when the life you have is lovely in a lot of ways. It is hard to dismantle a life, a marriage; but you would not be doing it just for you and your comfort, you would be doing it for your children and their future relationships.

I hate to say this but it seems likely that he could circumvent your agonising by making the decision for you and repeating his past behaviour ie going off with someone else. He seems to be preparing the ground for that, building an argument for it.

Laquitar

Agree totally. It's not exactly cutting-edge intellectualism.

I completely agree with CharlotteCollins post above –it takes a VERY long time to leave. I felt powerless/hopeless/responsible about my STBXH and paralysed about 'splitting the family' for months, years, one stage overlapped massively with the next with much see-sawing in between. When the time comes, it's like an 'alignment of the planets' so it may not be soon. I wish I had posted on here sooner, it would have speeded things up for me!

Thread is twenty pages already but only a nanosecond in the life of your relationship. Most of us on this thread are upset because we are seeing you constantly 'pouring water into a broken bucket'. But really sitting with it is fine because it's all part of the process. Keep coming on here OP.

Thank you. What's it like after you leave? Where do u go? What do u do? What do I need to think about?

What's it like for the children? What r the practicalities of co-parenting when they r little? Is there an optimum time / age?

If u left, r u happier?

Having made the decision to leave (the second time - I got hoovered back in the first time), I felt totally at peace. It was good that I took months getting to that decision, because once I was there, I was unmovable.

My support network for emotional and practical support while I worked out how to leave consisted of (in no particular order and not all at the same time):

Women's Aid support worker
EA thread
Freedom Programme group
counsellor while I was still deciding
many websites about separating and divorce
a number of solicitors for free half hours before I found one I trusted
a few close family members
a couple of close friends

My DCs are getting a better deal now, because they don't see him treating me disdainfully and they get a break from his constant negativity. And when they see him, they actually get to spend time with him, which happened rarely before. They don't understand why we split up and I find it hard to explain beyond "Living with Daddy made me sad. Now I'm happier I can be a better parent." Anything more seems to encourage them to take sides. I'm still working on that. The same goes for practicalities: I'm still working out what's best.

Now I've got my own place to live in and therefore a physical separation, I feel much happier. I feel like I am reconnected with the person I was before I got married, who had gone missing years ago. I can make my own decisions and nobody tells me they're bad decisions (although I still expect it!); I can make plans, buy things, budget the way I want to, talk to who I want to - it's like waking up from a bad dream and living again. Or being released from prison.

If u left, r u happier?

Sorry, not much time, but just wanted to say yes!

Hay

Wondering if anyone is still there? Xxx

I'm still reading Dreamy, I hope you're ok?

Hi, you ok?