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

"I can't imagine they wake up one day & start being lazy, abusive, manipulative... there must be warning signs in the early days..?"

Sadly, it's a fact that men with selfish, bullying or abusive tendencies only reveal themselves fully with the arrival of the first child. Up to that point the relationship is more equal, the woman has choices, maybe financially independent etc. Pregnancy/birth introduces a vulnerability that didn't previously exist, creates dependency, and an abusive man will simply take advantage to dominate.

As for warning signs, there will have been many although they may have been subtle. Sadly selfish people can be very charming and don't have 'I'm an arse' tattooed helpfully on their forehead! However, if someone is very eager to please and has a skewed idea of what is loving behaviour, they either won't see the warning signs or they'll choose to ignore them or make excuses.

stickysausages - men like this are very very charming and engaging when you are the new shiny thing that they want.

Later on, when the sad realisation dawns on them that you too are a flawed individual who doesn't really understand them, it gets more tricky.

Then the cycle of trying to 'fix' you starts, and you tie yourself in knots trying to get back to the mythical early magic when you were the one thing that could make everything right for them. It's a futile and exhausting way of trying to live.

Yes, I speak from experience, thankfully over now

I think it is rather Bonsoirs lifestyle as a "upper class" French sahm who fully buys into the "behave like a mistress unless you want your man to look for one" philosophy, than her master in economics (with the exception maybe of the commercial aspects of supply and demand )

I bet my bottom dollar that in a few months time he will admit to starting an affair OP and tell you he told you he was unhappy, but you did nothing about it. Please don't wait till then.

You can tell who is the OW on this thread.

Unless he has already in the early days of the affair, he is currently in the Permission stage, perhaps?

I'm not remotely detached from the real world. On the contrary, I think that real life includes using your brain to work out your problems rather than walking away from them.

He did that when he cheated on his previous wife, but i guess that would be her too.

Once a cheater . . . A leopard doesn't chage its spots, OP.

" 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."

This is him telling you what he will do. He is already thinking about it. or instigating it. He is telling you where he is headed.

I honestly think you need to see a solicitor just to know where you stand.

Are you currently on maternity leave? Do you have a job to return to?

Sadly it's a fact that men with selfish bullying or abusive tendencies only reveal themselves fully with the arrival of the first child

So so true, and what the Bonsoirs of this world don't get that you can spend years trying to please these men and changing yourself into what they say they want and then they leave you anyway.

Bonsoir,

It must be horrible, horrible to be able to understand the husband attitude here. You certainly live in a very sad 'market'. I would be opening a cider bottle at 9 am every morning to go through the day if I was expected to behave as you think it is necessary to keep my 'hard-working' husband.

Dreamy, I think you are doing the right thing, trying to sort out how you feel, using counselling and probably waiting for kids to be a big older. Living with someone, sharing day to day life with kids as young as yours is draining and leads to conflicts. It is also magic for many people and normal that your partner understand better than anybody else the amount of work and love that goes into every hour of every day if you are at home.

Try to put his comments in the box yourself. Use some more of this counselling and reconsider the relationship as an observer. Try to find something, anything that gives you some space and a new network (a course/gym/a hobby).

Give yourself shorter deadlines to evaluate how it is going and whether you are advancing towards whatever place you want to be in 2 years more.

Good luck

I would talk to your counsellor about your husbands demands, explore what he is saying and how you're feeling. You'll find they're linked.

Bonsoir who on Earth would be happy to stay in a marriage that is like living hell? I mean anyone coming on here saying that would be told to LTB. So why is he staying?
If life with the OP is that hard, then the answer is either to leave or to stay but be polite with anyone living in those incl the OP which isn't the case.
That's what is making a 'bad guy'

And why why should the OP needs and feelings should be put on the back burner just because she is a SAHM? I mean respect should always be there and caring for your partner. When the OP's DH doing that?

I agree that you should work on a relationship. As long as BOTH partners work on it and make some efforts. Because on most cases both partners could do better and change. However this guy has given up and us putting all the responsibility on the OP setting her to fail. And that isn't right.

Remember Jerry Hall? -Her mum's advice to her was ‘To keep a man, you must be a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom.’

Fat lot of good it did her. Who's Mick with now?

Yep. This man is going to leave at some point and there's not a blessed thing you can do about it. He marries a nice woman, in a little while they have children, having children is not all about fun times but sometimes involves hard slog, he's out of there. Finds another nice woman, has children... nope, slog still there. Dammit, when will he find the perfect woman who puts the children to bed with a wave of her magic wand so that she has infinite energy to carry on looking after him? They will persist in being human beings, not functioning well after no sleep etc. It's all so wrong. So he's at the start of the trail to look for the next Ms Potentially Perfect. Maybe one day he'll grow up, but he's nowhere near that point yet so it won't be in time to save this marriage. Maybe the one after next. My prediction is that the marriage he will eventually settle into for life will not involve children, however much he thinks he wants them.

Not that it's really an issue, but if watching the programme was so important that he couldn't miss a minute of it, could he perhaps have asked his wife if she would be so kind as to bring his dinner to him while he watched it? And thanked her profusely if she did so, or been understanding if she didn't, because really it's a favour that no-one has a right to expect. He didn't ask, but had a go afterwards for failing to anticipate his whim (when his mate was no longer there to hear him being an entitled slob).

OK, he's working out of the home for most of the day. Meanwhile his wife is working IN the home for most of the day. Only men who bring in so much bacon that they can supply domestic support have the right to expect wifey to be all things to them when they get home. (Note: I used to be the WOHP and sole earner so I do know how this transaction works.)

You can't change his behavior, but you can change yours.

I know it was way back, but I fully agree with this statement.

Change your stance in this and tell him to fuck off and stop blaming you.

TBH, I'd be checking if he's not already having an affair .

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.

This leaps out, I wonder if he gave his ex-W the same kind of "I'm soooooo unhappy" speech before ditching her and the DCs.

OP, Would you be up for telling him:

Your last marriage failed because you refused to face up to the reality that our needs as adults are lower priority than our children's needs.
Do you want your second marriage to fail for the same reason, or are you prepared to look for happiness and fulfilment in a different way.

You have changed, and your attitude to your relationship with your DP has changed because your circumstances have changed. He needs to make changes too.

Every time he flings: you don't understand me, you don't show love to me, ask him right back: how do you show understanding to my life now, with sleep deprivation and two more people to put before you and before me on the list of priorities? How do you show love and appreciation to me?

Don't back down and don't make them rhetorical questions. Get him to answer them.

It's very sad, OP, that you seem so committed to your marriage, you are trying hard to make it work, and yet it is being thrown back in your face. That in itself is a sad situation, but the bitter irony that the reason given for failing to meet his standards is that you "don't know how to please a man" is all the more tragic.

OK, this is a one-sided account, as all threads are, but it sounds like you could have a great life and marriage with someone who wasn't a shitstain.

Sex is important. Knowing how to please him, and helping him to please you will help.

Sex is important...but being a good mother to two babies is more important, being a supportive partner is more important, finding ways to communicate that dont make your 'beloved' feel like shit is more important, frankly.

Does he want a geisha girl, or an equal partner?

OP - PLEASE use your initiative. Stop analysing your DH unless you are a trained professional. You'll just tie yourself up in knots. As someone up thread has said, we are all responsible for our own happiness.

Tell your DH how lonely you are being married to someone who only thinks about themselves, and how they feel
Tell him that with two children under 2, you haven't had a good night's sleep in over 2.5 yrs (incl late preg).
Tell him it is all you can do at the moment to keep your shit together to keep the kids alive, get dressed in the morning and the house in some semblance of order.
Tell him that you can't remember feeling anything other than exhausted.
Tell him that you can't remember a time when he got in from work, cooked you dinner/ran you a bath/gave you a cuddle or a shoulder rub or in fact was in any way physically demonstrative in a manner that didn't indicate an immediate desire for sex.
Tell him that it doesn't even occur to you anymore to make a pass at him and that for many people this is normal at this stage with small children. Not everyone is dishing out blowjobs from the delivery suite at the hospital.

You are breastfeeding. Assuming you don't plan to do this for years to come, then this is just a phase. A year from now, you will start to feel like a separate human being again and not simply an appendage of your children. Nothing to do with bfing - simply that at this age, they are so dependent on you that it is all encompassing, and emotionally draining.
Your DH needs to understand that if he wants to reawaken his relationship with you, that he needs to give you some headspace. One way to do that is to develop a relationship with his children that allows you some time to yourself away from the house and home, confident in his abilty to cope and enjoy the time with his kids. He needs to be physically affectionate in a way that makes it clear he doesn't expect a shag on the kitchen floor at every opportunity.
Your DH needs to figure out how to improve where he is right now and not place this burden on you. If he can't make any attempt to do that, he'll just have to continue in his living hell in front of the telly with home made fish pie for supper.

I am not going to get into the dispute above, but want to share with the OP the things that helped me when I was in exactly the same situation:

1. Finding sources of external support - in my case these were chocolate baked goods (seriously, it reallly did help to have a little treat each day!) and meeting with a supportive friend once a week. Eventually this became individual counselling sessions.

2. Setting a deadline in my mind for how long I would give it before things got better

3. Going to see a solicitor to find out where I stood. Knowledge is power.

4. Calling his bluff and agreeing to seperate if that is what he wanted.

What I probably also should have done was go away myself for a little while, right now, while things are at their peak. Is this an option for you?

If we follow Bonsoir's logic and economics, then it comes down to investment V return, or benefits v cost.

Op- you are investing a huge amount...what are you getting in return?
If an investment doesn't pay, you withdraw your investment and put it elsewhere.