How to stop arguments with husband

[ravenmum]

Excuse the long, negative first post but didn't fancy posting where people might know me.

My husband and I have been together over 20 years and generally got on well. Over the last couple of years, though, I felt that he was showing less interest in me or family life, and little enthusiasm in anything apart from work. He works until 8 pm most days and is away completely about seven days a month.

A year ago his mother died and since then he's more distant. He says that he is not depressed, just "normally" sad. As the months went by he started spending a lot of time on his own. Stopped initiating sex and responded unwillingly. Kept his phone in front of his face when together.

I asked him about the change in his behaviour and eventually he admitted that he does not know if he loves me any more. This is a big change as he was aways more romantic than me. He hopes his feelings will return, he says, as we have been together a long time and he doesn't want it to be this way. But for now he sleeps on the settee.

Now for the last few months we can hardly have a conversation. He smiles and talks normally to neighbours, etc. but with me his face drops and he snaps at me. If I say that he is snapping at me he complains that I am nagging. Then it just turns into a conversation about who is snapping at who.

When we met he said you have to work on a relationship for it to be successful. He says that he is still willing to work on our relationship now. But we can't do it, as we've got in this rut of not being able to talk. He'd be willing to do couples counselling, but they don't offer that after 8 pm when he comes home from work.

There's a lot I appreciate about my husband; he is / was a thoughtful, gentle, intelligent man and attractive with it. We liked the same activities. I thought I'd made a good catch. I don't want to split up with him when a lot of his behaviour must be down to the death of his mother. But I don't know what to do to improve things. Has anyone else got out of an impasse like this?

Excuse the long post, again, but I have literally no-one to discuss this with.

If he's not willing to do anything actively to 'get the feelings back', then I would look in to some way to live apart at least for a short while to drive some kind of change.

It may seem daunting but in my experience you have to force your hand sometimes and be absolutely prepared to risk your marriage ending.

I've thought of that but am reluctant as the kids are 14 and 16, delicate age. Obviously this situation isn't any good for them either, but I imagine they would see it as a lot worse if I actually moved out. And they'd be left alone a lot as a result.

That must be so depressing to live with. Do you know what it is at work that causes him to stay until 8pm every evening? If he is prepared to go to couples counselling, then he needs to fix his working hours so that he can make time for it.

You say that your DC are at a delicate age for any potential split in a marriage, and that they would be by themselves a lot if that happened. But, to be honest, they're already living with just one parent if your husband doesn't come home until gone 8pm every evening. How is he with them? Does he engage at all with them when he is there?

If your husband is indeed grieving for his mother, then he sounds as though he needs to see a grief counsellor, as his response to his mother's death has gone on for over 12 months. It sounds as though he might need help processing it. If he won't make time for couples counselling, would he make time for grief counselling?

And finally, why does he keep his mobile in front of his face, when together with you? Apart from being rude, I don't see the connection with grieving and needing the phone next to him. I do see a possible something else though, particularly if he's away 7 days a month. If you ever get the opportunity to look at his phone, at messages and recent calls, I think you should take it.

Well, he says he is willing to work on the relationship but his actions (face dropping when he sees you, snapping at you, accusing you of nagging) do not seem to support this.

Do you know he's at work until 8pm?

Where does he go for the 7 days away, and where does he stay while there?

What do you get out of this relationship now?.

Do you think at heart that all of this is due to his mother's passing?. It may not be.

It could be that your H has met someone else. Where has he been spending a lot of time on his own?. I do not see the connection either between his mother's death and his behaviour with the phone (which makes me think there is someone else female whom he is talking to).

I do not also like his behaviour with regards to his carping at you and being plausible to those in the outside world, this is also what abusive men do to their victims.

Also your children are aware that their Dad sleeps on the sofa and that things between you and he are not great at home. What do you want to teach them about relationships, what do you think they are learning about relationships from the two of you.

I would be asking him to leave whilst you decide where this relationship is ultimately going.

I don't think you need to mention the marital situation overtly to the DC. Could you not just ask him to find somewhere locally and tell them DF needs some time alone to think about things, process losing his mother and that he will see them regularly. Of course they are old enough to ask if you're splitting up - but I think even then you can emphasise the fact that in relationships, each person is still an individual with their own needs and that both of you really want to stay together and make things better.

You really have to find out what's going on in his head.

Book the counselling and tell him if he cares enough to try and mend things, then he could make the arrangements to attend with you. It is going to be once a week, possibly only for a few weeks, it isn't asking much.

He goes to other countries as an educational advisor showing people how to set up schools and stuff. Has the luggage tags and photos to prove it! He's also on the board of the company he works for and has to go to other cities to discuss company policy. As he's gone through such a major character change I feel like an affair wouldn't surprise me as much as it might have in the past, though I still doubt it.

He has now signed up to see a psychologist but hasn't had a first meeting yet. I imagine it will be a slow process. I'm thinking about going along to counselling on my own but am still dithering about, not wanting to take the first step. Can someone give me a kick, please?!

I think this phone-in-front-of-face thing is partly so as to stay in his own little bubble and not to have to get in an argument. And partly as he gets work emails at the weekend too (yes I've seen them!), and says that he can't just not answer them; he has trouble delegating and, like the rest of his family, has a well-developed sense of responsibility when it comes to work.

On a related note, his family has paid half the mortgage, so I'd feel guilty about throwing him out of "his" house. This may be as I grew up in the house of someone kind but unrelated to me so would kind of see it as being overly reliant on others' good will.

It is already helping just to have some other thoughts on the subject, anyway. I've been stuck in my own head too long.

If it's not an affair it sounds like he is suffering with stress and/or depression and possibly doesn't feel able to cope with any more conflict on top of his mother's death and work and whatever else is going on. This might explain his withdrawal from you.

My DH finds any kind of argument very stressful and difficult to cope with. I have to be very non-confrontational if I want to discuss something with him and he has to be in the right frame of mind, otherwise he just can't cope. It helps to spend time together regularly e.g. go out for a meal, chat on a car journey, cook together at home, watch a film together. I also try to accept that his response is because he's finding the situation overwhelming, and not because he doesn't love me or doesn't care about my feelings.

Does he take anyone else on these trips?

He's signed up to see a psychologist alone, I take it. Is that for grief counselling? Odd that he can find time for individual but not couples' counselling.

TBH it sounds like he is mentally checking out of the marriage and creating distance between you (whether for an OW or some other reason). The way you describe it, he starts arguments with you, shuts you out, and says he's willing to "work at it" and go to couples' counselling but doesn't actually lift a finger to make that happen. He may already want to leave, but doesn't want to be the bad guy who breaks up the marriage, so he has to lay down a period of "trying to make it work" in the most pathetic way possible.

I think some counselling on your own is an excellent idea, to explore your own opinions about all this and aims for the future. Your first post basically tells us all the things YOU are doing/thinking/suggesting to resolve this problem, while he sits there inert using you for free housekeeping and cooking services.

Don't worry just yet about finances and assets - all those questions are resolveable. You don't need to do all this at once. The first stage is really to get over this limbo he's selfishly pitched you into.

Sounds like an affair to me. All the signs are there, plus he's got the opportunities.

Apparently losing a parent is a risky time for affairs to start.

And for some people, getting sexually involved with one person causes them to completely go off the partner at home, even if before the affair started things were good between them. This happens to romantic types more than people who don't view sex as something that's particularly sacred. The term for it is "monogamous infidels". You might want to look it up.

I'd try to uncover that before deciding what to do next.

I will give you a "kick" ravenmum - get yourself along to a counsellor and start working out who you are and what you want! The way you are being treated right now by your 'life partner' is unacceptable. At the very least, it is emotionally abusive to be treated as though you are unimportant and don't exist. But I see it as though he is mentally checking out of your marriage - and creating issues when there are none. Calling you nagging, for example.

It is not unreasonable to be deeply upset when your parent dies, but it sounds as though the changes in your DH's behaviour began before that. Do you really want to live like this - with a DH who ignores you, doesn't want to be intimate with you, and prefers to sleep on the sofa? Your DC have noticed. They may not want to say anything, but they will know that all is not well.

You don't have to live like this. You really don't. And counselling may give you the ability to work out how you will deal with your DH, his behaviour, and your marriage.

Definitely an affair. He has followed the script exactly. The only way to push this forward is to force his hand. Tell him you know he's seeing someone else and he can either admit to it and talk it through or just leave.

Can you come up with some pretext to ask to use his phone? Not to snoop as such, just to see how he reacts.

There's nothing definite about it. An affair is a possibility, but only that, and if it isn't going in with accusations will hardly help. I agree with ChinUp OP - get some counselling for yourself and your needs. You sound a bit ground down by it all, and if you are trying to support everyone else you can be left out of the equation.

Gosh I wouldn't go in with accusations. Damned fool strategy that, since no-one ever says "Yes you're quite right. I've been cheating on you for 2 years"

I'd be doing some work behind the scenes, based on the fact that an affair is the most likely reason for what's going down.

Seems this could now be merged with much of canttype's "Afraid and alone, cant stop crying", as he has explained in great, varying detail how he stopped loving me because I did not love him well enough, much rewriting of history. Yes, apparently I have known things were going wrong for years, as proven by the fact that I kept asking him to spend more time with his family over the past few years, and made him sleep on the settee after he said he didn't love me.

Then dd happened to pick up his phone before the lock went and saw a text he had sent to an unattached, attractive younger work colleague whose information is readily available on Facebook, saying "sometimes I wonder what would happen if we got together" followed by some cute little love hearts. Excuse me if I sound bitter; it's because I am bitter.

At first this was supposedly a joke I did not understand as I did not know the context, now it is him being forced to beg for attention from other women because of my cold, nasty ways.

He is refusing to leave (I am being "hurtful" to ask him very calmly and politely to leave after all this) and does not want me to leave because if I do that, then I want to hurt the children. His father phoned me up, told me that I should work harder at our relationship (!) and also said that I need to put the children first and not me.

He has been saying that he has "nearly made a decision" but did not want to tell me what it was as he did not want to hurt me ... how can he be that dense? What kind of a decision could that be, I wonder, a good one for me or a bad one?! I can't guess!

Last night I pushed him to tell me whether or not he wanted to divorce me. He says he doesn't want him to divorce me; he wants us to make the choice together! Then for a brief moment he agreed that yes, he wanted to divorce me, but a minute later started again saying he hasn't made up his mind.

I feel that if I change the locks or leave, I have lost the emotional games he is playing as it would be "proof" I want to hurt him and the children. His family would certainly think that, and put pressure on me. I feel as if he is trying to push me into making the choice so that he can again be the victim. I don't want to give him that pleasure.

Did not sleep last night; seeing a therapist this lunchtime. A neighbour from down the road commented on my husband's weight loss and jokingly asked if he had a girlfriend. I said yes, a woman from work, He asked me if I really meant it, then bent forwards and whispered in my ear "Kick him in the balls!" This is the most supportive thing I have yet heard.

So sorry. :(

I'd be seeking legal advice right now, as well as financial.

There's not much point in you leaving or having these conversations about who wants to divorce who, and who's to blame.
He should be doing a lot of grovelling and working hard to reestablish the relationship, not blaming you. That is not a good sign.

I'd cut through it and initiate divorce proceedings with a solicitor. If you are a SAHM, or work much less hours, you could probably stay in the house with the children until they grow up.
At best he'll be shocked into action, at worst you'll get rid of the cheating twat much sooner.

Sorry this is happening. Book an appointment with a solicitor. Take copies today of mortgage statement, payslips, p60, business accounts, savings accounts, shares, pensions (yours and his) from all jobs. Endowment policies, share saves, premium bonds, current accounts.

Put your documents in a coherent order, to maximise your time with a solicitor. Make a list of assets in fact.

Do this to know your rights. He may be biding his time for many reasons. What he cannot do is force you to remain with him, he seems puzzled by that.

As for the 'work on your marriage' bullshit and put your children first. His father will possibly have been given a watered down version. Your husband has neither worked on your marriage nor put the children first. Do not be emotionally suckered into believing this rubbish. This is to make you forgive him.

The children saw the text message, what do they think? Tell father in law you are putting the kids first, ensuring you get a good financial settlement, ensuring your daughter does not think cheating on your wife is acceptable, and that letting your kids know such behaviour is totally unacceptable even if that means a big life change.

Finally he doesn't get to decide about the divorce, you do. You are in control now. Keep posting for moral support.

Take care and please collate your information, very very important.

Please don't tie yourself up in knots trying to choose a course of action which doesn't let him 'play the victim', or make his family think you're in the wrong. You can see that you have tried (or tried to try - it takes 2 to tango), he hasn't been interested, you as a couple have reached the end of the road, one of you has to acknowledge it and start the divorce ball rolling, and it's clearly not going to be him.

I am still finding it hard to accept that this has happened without my realising what was going on, or being offered a chance to work on anything. I feel very small now, have low self-esteem anyway and am now being told I am the horrible person I secretly fear I am, by the main person I trusted. I think it will take a while to summon the courage to do anything at all.

You are not horrible at all. You suggested couples counselling ages ago.

go for counselling and work on self esteem. Focus on you and your kids self esteem.
if he tells you that you are horrible it further indicates he is rewrting history. Does he know you worry about being horrible? If so he is using this to make you stay.

what do you want to happen?

No, he didn't realise. I'm only starting to realise now myself that I was afraid of becoming my mother :-S

Sorry this has happened, and sending lots of hugs to you. You now have to do what is right for you and your children. You sound like you have given him lots of support, so don't let him make you feel guilty.

I feel very small now, have low self-esteem anyway

It's amazing how insignificant you can feel when you've been let down by the one person you thought you could always rely on. It's such a hard place to start from, but you'll only feel smaller if you let him keep control over what's happening.

Start taking steps now to move things in the direction you choose, it'll make you feel more confident with each tiny step - it'll be progress towards a solution which will work for you. Your children will start to see a mother who can be strong and resolute - that's a very powerful place to be.