How do I respond to this email from DH?

[catgirl1976]

DH and I have some problems. I think a few people on here might remember some of them and some of MN have the strong opinion that DH is not good for me.

However, I do love him. But I am exhausted and unhappy.

I tried to talk to him last night and this morning found the email below in my inbox.

I just don't know how to reply, or what I want. Well I do. I want things back the way they were and I want a partner.

Does anyone have any advice on how I should respond?

Hello Cat,

It guts me to see you so unhappy. It really wasn't the intention. You see there was a time when we had fun and I thought it rocked. So much so I didn't want anything to interrupt that. But you wanted a baby and reluctantly I acquiesced. Thank the stars I did. Look at DS! He is incredible and amazing.

That doesn't help you though. (Actually it should but lets move on from that).

You are right, I have changed. I have grown older, and also commercially very cynical. My entire life I have been looking for happiness, I have actually found it in our DS. I never expected this and certainly didn't ask for it, but he has had a profound effect on my outlook on life.

Its a crime that you were forced (in part by me I guess) back to work so early. I do agree you have drawn the shitty end of a long stick. The answer is simple, that being get a new job. However I fear you will be unhappy wherever you are. Certainly XX despite its shortcomings is far better than any company I have had the grace to work for. I also admit that's not saying much.

You are 100% Correct in that I could do more around the house. I hope you acknowledge the increased effort I have been putting into this. An example would be tidying up even though I have DS. Yes I could do more, but I am sure you can relate to the amount of demands he makes on one and given that its easy to procrastinate. However that said I will increase my productivity and I hope it makes life easier for you.

For me though the nub is that I feel as out of place as you do. I have said repeatedly that I would love to do your job, hell I have even advised you on it (Not that you really need it, you are more than competent, I was just trying to help). The fact of the matter is that at the ripe old age of forty I have no other trade than selling. Between you, me and the gatepost, I cannot and will not return to the environment that I used to inhabit. I cant. Call it burnt out, mid life crisis, or laziness. I simply cannot do that anymore. As I have stated, i would rather clean toilets.

Maybe I should clean toilets. It would be fairer of course to contribute financially. However the one thing that does bring me a modicum of prestige is DS. I have worked so hard (and enjoyed it, a luxury you don't have in your vocation) to help and develop him. I think I am just in being proud of my Son, regardless of bias.

You are right, I do need friends and interests outside this house. However in my experience the Muppets I worked with tended to be the opposite of my outlook in every way. A notable exception would be XX. That said I don't expect to find many “XX's” in any job I stand a snowballs chance of getting.

I can see how hard you are working and pushing yourself. Its obvious that the gas tank it empty and its not sustainable. I will do whatever I can to help, with recourse to the above. I cannot fix your career.

I cannot be the the dude you fell in love with either. I'm older, slower (still quick) and jaded. But the two aspects of my life where I raise a smile are (in order) TDS and you. You are exhausted, mentally, physically and emotionally. Its not surprising give the amount of responsibility on your shoulders. It means everything to me to be able to help, but DS means everything to me too, and I want to have a real, fundamental impact on him and be the father I never had. In a nutshell that means forsaking everything for him.

I don't want to forsake you though. However if we are at the point where you simply don't see why you married me, or that dude that looked you up (and down) in halls then I get it. I am not a parasite and will bow out with as much honour as I can muster.

I love you and always will, but I cant stand seeing you this unhappy. I do believe we can grow from this position, however I respect your feelings too and If that isn't a decision you subscribe to I understand.

I Love you, and pray that is enough.

x

I haven't seen any of your previous posts OP so my comments are purely based on this thread.

He sounds like an absolute arsehole. A lazy, selfish arsehole.

I'd have left him a long time ago!!!

good email in response OP but I would be keen to see what his reply is.

i find reading all the other replies tends to bias my response so i will dive straight in with my answer and read the whole thread afterwards, so apologies if I repeat what anyone else has said.
He sounds like a lazy arse who doesnt really love you and has an over reliance on lazy cliches to communicate. If he wants to sit around playing all day, not working inside or outside the house, then he should do it somewhere else tbh.

I would cut out the last two bits about how great he is and send it. If this turns into a divorce/custody battle it may be helpful to have set out your side of it in response to his.

And if your answer to "why stay?" is "because I love him" then you really need to do some serious work on finding out why you love someone who treats you like dirt on hsi shoe. Why you feel the need (because it must be a deep seated need) to allow yourself to be treated like this.

Christ don't send your email. That man is not a fantastic father. Get legal advice, get emotional support, find your sense of self. He is crippling you:(

Get this guy to fuck, seriously. He can't write for a start, his email is a total cringe fest. But that's nothing compared to his laziness and open unwillingness to change or try harder.

I'm sure he is lovely with your son, let him be lovely for full weekends at a time while you relax at home and catch up. Single parenthood would be so much better than this.

Is this the guy who complains about being given cheap food and wine btw? I can't remember. Even if it isn't, get the hell out while you have some of your sanity left.

Ok, amazing father definitely overstates it but I liked how you went on to explain that he needed to be a whole person and a role model as well. Maybe instead of amazing and fantastic say 'very loving' and then explain how that isn't enough on its own.

Yes to taking out the last two paragraphs, he doesn't deserve them.

I think that email is written with two intentions. Making you feel guilty and providing evidence that he is the main carer for a future custody dispute. Your reply needs to make clear exactly what he does do, that your son is unnecessarily in child care three days a week, that you do as much child care as him and get far less leisure time.

Sorry - I am at work now and someone has come in my office

Will come back and update as soon as I can

The language he uses is complete rubbish its not loving and kind, it's very high handed and superior he seems to be an immature entitled prat who wants to blame you for everything

Why would stay with someone who treats you literally like a servant

You are a human being and you deserve love and support

I would not bother.

BUT; if you must, I would include more of what you do on the days ds is in the nursery, and let it become clear that you are in fact working full time out of the home, doing 90% of the domestic chores, and he has 3 days leisure plus the weekend when you share care, and only 2 days sole care out of 7. And who brings the child to and from nursery?

The only purpose your email have is to provide a record for the court/lawyers about the state of your relationship and as a statement that he is really not the primary carer.

I also think that your next step would be to get a weekly cleaner, and to have your son in some sort of childcare every day, to ensure you marginalize your dh even further. If you have a cleaner and your son is in full time child care, dh is hardly likely to be getting sole care?

But do you think he wants that? What would you like? 50-50, or every other weekend?

For what reason does Dh not work?
Is he actively seeking employment?....is he unable to work?

absolutely what solomandaisy said btw - reiterate in your reply exactly who looks after your son on each of the seven days.

Hi cat

Reading that email I find no empathy or passion for your position or how you feel. I read it as him being outside of the situation almost 3rd person looking dispassionately at you and telling you he has faith in you finding a way to cope.

None of what he says offers any kind of a solution involving any kind of commitment on his part, the most I get is he is telling you who he is and apologising that it's not good enough but too bad, the worse bit might be he turns your son in to a mini him

Someone said on here a while back when someone tells you who they are you should listen, your not listening lovey so that bit I'm afraid is on you, the rest of your future is a well.

catgirl1976 He's got blinkers on. To an extent, you've enabled him as you can't bear living in a dirty house and so you've picked up the slack. Have you done counselling, either jointly or by yourself?

I've drafted an alternative penultimate paragraph:

"I'm glad that you're enjoying fatherhood, given that you had not really wanted to be a Dad. So it's great that you've come this far. But what you are doing right now is not enough. I need you to do ALL the other jobs around the house. You are indulging yourself by only having sole care of him for 2 days a week, and it's coming at enormous personal cost to me. That's not right, and you need to fix this. Just because you are now in your forties it doesn't mean that you are brain dead and unable to learn a new job. I need you to start thinking about a part time job, so that you get out of the house, out of your pyjamas and get back a sense of who you are in society. If you really love DS, you'll become the kind of role model that he can look up to. At the moment all he sees is a Dad who looks after him part time and lets his Mum get worn down. Fix it, DH."

His email is full of self-serving smug shit and I do not know how on EARTH your can translate everything he does not do for your child into him being a 'fantastic father'.

He is NOT.

He might well be the reason your son grows up to become a lazy entitled lump, following the sterling example set by his dad, staring at a screen instead of doing homework, having friends and a social life and interacting like an adult, thinking it's the job of SlaveMum to clean, cook and wash for him.

If that's not what you want for your son, to say nothing of what you might want for yourself - ie to have a life instead of wasting precious years being a doormat for this manipulative lazy git - then LEAVE.

Here's my answer to that email:

• No, the fact that you'd like me to be distracted from your shittiness as a partner and father by how 'amazing and wonderful' DS is not good. No, it doesn't 'help me' get over your laziness. I'm sure you'd love it if it did though. Stop telling me how wonderful my son is - I know, I'm the one who appreciates it enough to put him first. You don't.

• It's a shame that the 'profound effect' having DS has had on your outlook doesn't include you ever stepping up to the plate and behaving like a parent. See below to find out what that actually entails, because you haven't a clue.

• Yes, it has been your fault I had to go back to work so early and the main person to suffer for that has been DS. Think of that the next time you puff up with 'pride'.

• That you have decided that you 'can't' face going back to your job - and indeed have made no effort to find one over the last few years - means that you put yourself before your son's welfare, and certainly 100% before my welfare. I'll say that again: you put yourself first. Every time. Dress it up all you like with cod psychology: I go out every day and do a job that kills me, I come home and do practically every job around the house, I get up with DS in the morning and I put him to bed. That's being a parent: putting him first even though I'd love to be able to decide that I 'simply cannot do it any more' - I won't. That's being a parent. Unlike you.

• Yes you should clean toilets. You won't, though, will you?

• No I don't think I do appreciate your efforts really. Am I supposed to cheer that I'm only now doing 85% of everything rather than 100%? Really, what do you think? Because being the stay at home partner with a fair division of labour doesn’t mean spending 3 days a week sitting in your dressing gown playing computer games and spending a quick hour tidying, washing up and running the hoover round. If you did a pie chart of the leisure time you get compared to what I get there would be an enormous inequity. And this isn’t fair, it isn’t ok and it is making me ill. I am ill.

• Yes, we're at the point where I don't see why I married you. I want us to separate so that I don't have to parent you as well as DS and run both our lives. I want us to separate so that every other weekend you can learn to be a better father in your own time, with DS, which actually means that I would genuinely not have responsibility for both you, him and everything in our lives for several days a month. I don't think now that any less than that will allow me to not end up despising you for the father you think you are, but aren't.

Also, if he did actually commit to change, he is not going to be able to go from drifting aimlessly with no structure to his days to efficiently running a household by making a wishy washy statement about hoping to 'improve his productivity'. He will need routine and discipline and organisational skills. Does he even know how to clean effectively or has he never bothered to learn because it doesn't give him enough 'prestige'?

What does he do with ds on his two days? Does he take him swimming, to the park, to toddler groups? Because if he just sits at home 'playing' there is a really good chance that what actually happens is he gets out some toys, switches on the tv and sits back with his phone/computer.

How much time has he actually had to work on your son's development compared to you? If he does two full days (and he hasn't always done that, has he?) but you do all evenings and weekends, I'm not sure why he is giving himself all the credit for your son"s development?

However the one thing that does bring me a modicum of prestige is DS

This is just so, so wrong. And to me encapsulates what a prick this guy is. My disabled husband does a shit load more than than your DH as a SAHP - and he lives in severe, chronic pain.

You've put your sons name in the email, you might want to take that out on here.

The thing is, he has pretty much acknowledged that you are exhausted and unhappy but told you that he isn't going to change.
The email reads to me like he is giving you 2 options, put up with it or he will leave.

I can't see where you could go from there, tbh. Pouring your heart out to him in an email is irelevant because he knows all of this, he has said so. But he isn't prepared to do anything about it. And once again, the responsibility is on you to make the decision. It's not fair.

But I think you need to accept it for what it is. He isn't going to change, he doesn't want to. Even though he knows what you are going through.

Hi Cat

I don't think you should bother replying; he has made his position very,very,clear. I don't see love or concern for you. I would read and retread his email because to me it is a classic example of emotional abuse.

Try to shift your focus and energy away for changing him and his ways onto yourself and your child because you will just exhaust yourself. You cannot change him but you can change your reaction to him.

Has he really given up on working? And he doesn't even look after your ds I don't understand why these 2 issues are not the central focus!

Now I know a couple of middle aged men who have dropped out of the workforce completely (im unaware if they have had any health/ mental health issues, I suspect there may well be) and their dws are the breadwinners BUT they have certainly taken up the slack with regards to the house/childcare. And they continue to be reasonable/good partners.

This is not the case with your family, he is not pulling his weight at home, so the very least he should be doing is bringing in some money, even if it is a basic minimum wage job. I don't understand how he has absolved himself of this responsibility!

He's very manipulative, isn't he?

I hope you can read through his email and see what is actually being said and done to you through it.