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! Haha, no you haven't scared me off! I spent the day in a friends kitchen and then picked up dd from nursery, went to shops, made supper and have been reading them all the while.

Feel hugely supported by fabulous time ladies have spent writing. Laughed, cried, but now am going to put girls to bed so I can write a proper response. Would like to fill out picture. Am wanting to sort things out yet astounded by reality of number of people saying get out of there and a number of other things that have previously been going round my (maddened) head.

Xx

Thank you

Ok, kids sleeping.

There is some amazing advice and hard won wisdom in these answers. I wish some of it weren't true. To answer some, there are places where he does feel lonely and isolated and I have been more there for the girls than him and him saying that is valid. To answer others, he has been here before, married with two girls and had an affair a d left their mum so this is a big pattern, but he says he doesn't want to make the same mistake again. So there is a place I do have some leverage and a stronger hand for calling his bluff exploits.

But I do feel pretty squashed and depressed by this all and am scared I will never be able to be in my full power while with him.

So my hope (nieve possibly) was that I'd give it a couple of years, really do my own counselling on my stuff, get the strength to really call him on his behaviour. But more importantly get in my power, happy with myself and not fall into these headgame traps. He has recently given up some stuff that is him making an effort for us. Then somehow I was going to get him to engage in going tantric in some beautiful way and he was going to be so greatful! Ha ha. It's funny when you see it written down.

So then another part of me thinks, of course I am appalled to think of the girls seeing him put me down and maybe it's better to leave sooner, while they won't really remember. I can hardly bear that thought. While its liberating and I do feel relieved by it, I also think if we can sort it out we must and he is just projecting this mad stuff on me and if I could just make him see that....

Welcome to the merry go round of my mind. What is tragic is that this is what I am thinking about while I breastfeed. What sort of horrid homeopathy is that for my girls?!

I wish I wasn't obsessed with solving it and just got on with my life, but some how without leaving him. I am scared to do that. It is a bit hellish... But maybe it'll get better. I will gear up to the letter I think. I've got to do something, not just let it go. I can hear him talking downstairs. I'm going to go down and see the lay of the land.

Thank u again.

So he really cant be happy in any relationship, if hes repeating a pattern, then he needs alot of help to find out why.

Hes gonna jump from relationship to relationship, picking fault in everyone he has, if he doesnt get the help.

I wish I wasn't obsessed with solving it

That is the problem, right there.
Even without before leaving him, you can simply tell him that you're very sorry for him, but he should work on making himself happy, as well as his family. And that if he made you happy, perhaps then he'd feel his was a happy relationship. As long as he expects others to be responsible for his happiness he won't be.
Essentially, disengage. It's not your problem to solve it.

He is an energy vampire, but you know this don't you op?

< sigh >

It really sounds like he can't cope with the attention not being on him. Is he quite self centred?

If his previous relationship was just dandy, why does he think he had an affair and left after he had kids?

By the way, does he see or support those kids?

Doesn't want to repeat the same mistake again?

Reading between the lines I'd interpret this as

"I don't want to have an affair but right now your driving me to it"

Because that is what he actually believes, you know that, don't you?

He believes that if his current partner isn't filling that big hole inside him, then he has the right to go off and find another, crucially without being decent enough to end the relationship with the current partner first.

Don't get into competing with this "imaginary" other woman. Hopefully at this stage she's just an illusion, but he believes in her and he's brought the illusion into your marriage. You are being set up to fail.

I think you need to let him know that you don't accept this fantasy of his. Tell him it's time to sh*t or get off the pot. In or out, but if he stays and ever raises the idea of thinking he might be better off elsewhere, or ever criticizes you again for not being the superwoman in his head, you will kick him out.

And mean it.

I had something similar from my DH when our son was 15 months. It nearly brought me to my knees.

The only good thing I did was to call his bluff and calmly say that if he really thought that he didn't want to be in the relationship then we needed to separate.

Seriously consider doing this.

he has been here before, married with two girls and had an affair a d left their mum so this is a big pattern

Simple answer it is not you, it is him! He has been there, done that and is heading for repeating the same old pattern. Got married, had more kids, got bored...

He needs to look at himself and make changes to make himself happier not tell you that you are incapable of making him happy.

"I have been there more for the girls than him"

Yes. That's because they're your children - babies - and they need you to put them first.

A good husband/father will appreciate you doing that and love you for it because they're his babies too and he wants the best for them.

A grown up man, as others have already said I think, doesn't need to compete with his children for his partner's attention because he is not a child himself, because he sees the two of you as a team, with a common purpose.

I think the light is beginning to dawn for you, I know what you're saying about wishing it weren't true. It's very painful to acknowledge that someone you've given your heart to is actually not the man you wish him to be. But he sounds emotionally abusive and it's clearly hurting you.

Try to start seeing his lies for what they are. It's good you're drawing strength from the replies on here. As a pp has said, it isn't you with something missing, it's him.

If he's serious about not repeating that pattern, he needs to get into therapy

... to work out why he finds normal life 'a living hell'. And why he wants to escape off onto fantasy (tantric) island. Or why he thinks that is the answer. Like, really look at it and see how foolish it is

I wish I were feeling hopeful.

Hi!

Just been downstairs, made a fish pie. Dh was watching tv relevant to his work after having come a engaged in kitchen speaking to me about trivial things in a nice way.

I served up. He wanted to finish program connected to his work. So I ate mine and he got his after the prog had finished. Said it tasted lovely.

Then we did have a bit of a talk. He explained that he was explaining how he is feeling and I seem to want him to lie or just shut up about where he is at. That I really didn't seem to know how to be kind to him. That he could b anyone living in the house, paying the bills, that he was my blind spot. That me not just bringing him the food while he was watching something that really mattered to him was a microcosm of the macrocosm because I do something that's supposed to b nice (make supper) then leave him out with it (we had a friend staying and he went and got some too).

So what if that is true? Maybe I am cold and distant?

We went on. He explained that he is up for just cracking on, looking very brow beaten and depressed. I said it doesn't sound like it was a good thing, and he said it really was better than the pain of divorce on children, and that he can handle it. I said I'm not sure i can, with the put downs and moodiness. I said about maybe this is a pattern of his and he said that I loved psychoanalysing him and that was like astrology but that wasn't the same as intimacy and really knowing someone.

That I don't really know or understand what to do to touch him, take care of him. And that he has given up hope of that, and I should just concentrate on caring for the kids and he will do the providing and we'll see how we do.

I said that this wasn't what I wanted.

Then he said an interesting thing.

He said you take the initiative then. Honestly.

Ok it's not much, I've just got excited by a tiny chink of light.

It is funny when u see it written down.

But look, my mum was adopted, she never saw a functioning relationship cos she was just adopted by an elderly ww1 nurse. My Dad started having affairs when I was 3 months old. Maybe I don't know how to look after a man! Maybe the fates haven't taught me that.

How do you do that?!

It seems unfair, but maybe there is some important reason this is happening to me and good life lessons I can draw from it?!

I didn't mean to neglect him, but d2 is still in my bed. I have a cot. I move her out, but it just works more easily for tiredness / breast feeding / teething. He doesn't like the presents I buy him, he says I just don't really get him.

Oh it's true! I don't. It all seems like madness! When the children r so lovely! Pffff

"Ok it's not much, I've just got excited by a tiny chink of light."

You think there was a chink of light in that tirade of passive-aggressive abusive shit he just served you?

You fucking COOKED FOR HIM.

He couldn't even be arsed to get up from watching the TV.

But somehow YOU are a bad and unfeeling person for not serving him his dinner on his lap?

Are you fucking KIDDING ME?

There is NO INITIATIVE you could take that would be acceptable to this manipulative fucker.

Can't you see that?

You make him a meal - it's not good enough because you should have realised that the TV he was watching was so important he needed to eat on the sofa WITHOUT HIM SAYING ANYTHING.

You buy him presents - they're not good enough because you don't GET HIM (what age is he? 16?)

He doesn't get to decide that you have to stay in this shitty marriage with him belittling you constantly, blaming you for his atrocious behaviour, and (eventually) cheating on you.

He is using your children to emotionally blackmail you into staying with him so he can continue to grind you down.

Because THAT is what makes him tick. Making you feel like shit.

I'm finding it quite hard to work out who said what (sorry!) but I've understood enough to actually physically cringe. It's not often I cringe at posts - I don't ever remember cringing in quite this way, in my gut. Something about him makes me shrivvle inside...

Maybe it's because my twin is similar. Nobody understands her, nobody gets her, poor lamb. I can't tell you the tortuous efforts I've made (used to make, to be precise) for her presents. All of them met with a disappointed face and the familiar bleat ' No-one understands me!'

At last I can finally say I understand her perfectly. But not before I tried harder and harder, like a horse in a race, whipped to go faster, faster; trying to reach the holy grail. All useless and pointless. It was never going to hit the mark. Because she is the queen of all she surveys and everyone must bow. That's about the sum of it.

I'm not sure I would take seriously his bleats that you care for the kids more than you care for him. Or the fish pie schmicrocosm. He is too wearisome to contemplate tbf.

Have you met his ex-wife? The one he cheated on.

I guess it's about the balance of being a wife and a mother. Sounds like you are a brilliant mum, but your husband also needs a wife and the attention that goes with it. They are just big kids too!

Join said it better than I could.

He said you take the initiative then

By that, does he mean that, now he's given you some hints about how to serve his liege you can start practising to be psychic ?

Tell him to stop demanding that you make him happy, but that he should start trying to maky you happy.
If he does, you might stand a chance.

You are to take the initiative, are you? Over to you, again. So it can be your fault if it fails.

And, yes, speaking to his ex-wife might be relevant and interesting for you.

I think you should take the initiative as he says... and tell him to fuck right off!
Did he actually come out with that microcosm pretentious shite? He'd have been wearing that fish pie if I were you!
You should chuck him for being insufferable on that alone.
You could move in with the ex and your kids' half sibs... bet you'd have a good old laugh with the ex about what a cock he is!!!
Seriously though... whatever the reasons for your marriage not being perfect, you have no chance of fixing it unless both people are committed. He isn't.
Are you going back to work in a few months? If not, do consider it. A job will be handy when you end this.
It is not on for him blame all this on you. I think he's laying the groundwork for it being your fault when he has an affair, sorry.
But honestly - you should be treated better than this :(

Oh and breast milk is just milk, you know? You don't transmit your thoughts through it to your baby, so enough with the thought-homeopathy!

You don't know how to take care of him? FFS, he's an adult. He doesn't know how to treat a person. The man's a PA/EA cunt who doesn't deserve the 4 children he has.

Gah, I'd make plans to divorce him before he fucks around on you, too, and blames it on you.

Adults are responsible for their own happiness.

Ahem,.. is there an OW on the horizon?

Because whatever you do, could do or will do, it's just not good enough.

Maybe not an OW yet, but a developed mindset / attraction to a different type of person than you are now.

:(