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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Husband has patriarchal ideals...

81 replies

LucyBucy · 27/04/2014 12:35

We've been together for 12 years and his patriarchal ideals have always grated but in the last 6 months I've been wondering if I can stand much more of it. He has a "do as I say, not as I do" approach to me and my daughters, gets angry if his approach is questioned, hates the girls or me having the last word on a decision and stomps off muttering to himself about how I always get my own way - which just isn't true.
He wants the girls to do what he wants with no questions. Yesterday he got angry because they didnt want to go to judo (his choice of class) and called them useless fucks (though when they were out of ear shot). Today he got angry with me and our 5 year old because I let her off getting dressed because she's been under the weather lately. I hate his behaviour and it seems to mirror his own upbringing - powerlessness as a child with an abusive father who will still tell his kids theyre useless even now.
Am feeling quite tearful and dont know how to get through to him without having a shouty argument that his behaviour doesnt fit in our family :-(.

OP posts:

HermioneWeasley · 27/04/2014 12:36

He sounds like a total bastard. Why would you want your girls exposed to the idea that this is normal?

MmeMorrible · 27/04/2014 12:38

No way would I allow my DD to live in such a toxic environment.

rabbitseverywhere · 27/04/2014 12:41

My current partner grew up in an similar environment, thankfully he does't have the same attitude, but has zero self esteem due to his parents telling him he was useless. I can see other problems it's caused him too. You have a decision to make, either seriously address the issue and stand up to him or consider removing your girls from the situ.

waterlego6064 · 27/04/2014 12:41

Oh goodness, this sounds awful. Your poor thing, and your poor children.

Perhaps he has indeed been damaged by his own childhood, but that doesn't mean that you have to accept this kind of parenting for your own children; nor this kind of marriage for yourself.

I couldn't live like this. I need kindness and respect- and you do too. We all do.

Please think carefully about how long you are prepared to put with up with this for. I hope you'll decide the answer is 'not a day longer'. Very good luck to you.

lollerskates · 27/04/2014 12:43

Am feeling quite tearful and dont know how to get through to him

The problem is not that you haven't figured out how to communicate with him. The problem is that he is a cunt. There's no code to crack here. There's no magic combination of words that you could come up with that would make him see the light and start treating you all as autonomous human beings worthy of respect. He's behaving this way because he thinks he's in the right.

OxfordBags · 27/04/2014 12:50

Replace the word patriarchal with 'abusive'. Of course, his abusiveness comes from a patriarchal society that normalises abuse, and is filtered through patriarchal ways, but this is abuse, however you choose to look st it.

You stop worrying about getting him to see the light and start focusing on how to alleviate the damage you know full well his behaviour has caused your DDs, and make sure it stops happening. He acts like this because he believes it is his right, he doesn't see you or your girls as real, full human beings like he sees himself, and this behaviour works for him. Time to start thinking about you and the girls and get rid of him.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 27/04/2014 12:51

It's not 'patriarchal ideals' it's plain old-fashioned bullying. When women say that they can't get through to a man for fear of it ending up as a shouting match what they're really saying is that they've been intimidated into silence by a bully. That's also known as emotional abuse and it's appalling behaviour

I suggest, for the sake of your DDs as well as yourself, that you demonstrate to them that women do not have to tolerate some bully of a man but can be very happily and very successfully independent.

Do you have friends or family that would support you and the DCs if you threw him out?

TheDoctrineOfSnatch · 27/04/2014 12:53

Ask him why he thinks his opinion is more important than those of others in the family, who are all people too.

Vivacia · 27/04/2014 12:54

I grew up with a father like this. We have zero relationship now.

knowledgeispower · 27/04/2014 12:57

Cog has hit the nail on the head.

wyrdyBird · 27/04/2014 12:57

The appropriate words here are indeed abusive, and dictatorial.
A man who calls your daughters useless f*cks should not be around your daughters.

meditrina · 27/04/2014 12:59

This is massive selfishness and sense of entitlement, which has begun to tip into abuse.

If you cannot get through to him in normal discussion (unless you cannot get through to anyone) then the issue is with him, not you. Improving communication skills is a good thing in a healthy enough relationship, or one where both parties are committed to making it work for both of you. It's unlikely to get you very far if one person is simply so self-centred that they will not consider the wishes of others.

Has there ever been a time when he actually listened to you?

KissesBreakingWave · 27/04/2014 13:10

If he wants to be patriarchal, he needs to be responsible, dutiful, first to work and last to stop, leading by example, attentive to advice and the needs of those he leads, generous, even-handed and always mindful of the weight of the obligation of having the buck stop with him.

What it sounds like you've got there is not a patriarch but a pillock.

Hissy · 27/04/2014 13:19

Are you really going to stay with a bloke who thinks (and worse verbalises) that his dds are useless fucks?

How long do you think it'll be until he says in in their earshot?

Next week? The week after... not long, that's for sure.

Get this horrible man out of their home today.

No unsupervised contact either unless he goes on an abuser course AND goes into counselling for a proper amount of time. He has to research it and find it too.

AttilaTheMeerkat · 27/04/2014 13:25

Living with the Dominator is no picnic at all. This is all about power and control, that is what lies at the heart of abuse.

What do you get out of this relationship now?. What has kept you still together?.

And what do you yourself think you are teaching your children about relationships here?. On some level you are currently showing them this treatment of you (and by turn them) is acceptable to you. Would you want them to think that this version of a relationship is at all "normal" and for them to emulate themselves?.

You cannot even begin to try and reason with someone like this; the only way forward for you and your children here is to leave this man.

UtterFool · 27/04/2014 13:28

The problem is that he is a cunt.

Not how I would have worded it but sounds pretty much spot on.

How on earth have you lasted 12 years OP?

perfectstorm · 27/04/2014 13:29

Your girls are learning that men can behave this way and women should take it. That's a dangerous lesson to be teaching them. Please, consider what sort of patterns may be repeated for them, just as it is for their father. Because they wouldn't be on his side of the equation, either.

And then ask yourself: if the thought of your girls being treated this way makes your blood run cold... why is the thought of your being treated this way somehow endurable? And why is their being treated this way by their father in childhood, when (unlike adulthood) they have no option whatsoever to leave, anything but worse?

Please consider some individual counselling, so you can feel a bit empowered against this abuse. And I'd call Women's Aid to ask for a recommended counsellor, too.

This is the only life you're going to get - and the only childhood your daughters will live, too. Please think abou what sort of life you and they deserve.

clam · 27/04/2014 13:45

Well, I suppose you could call him patriarchal.

Or you could call him an abusive cunt.

You decide.

Original poster

LucyBucy · 27/04/2014 15:01

I would be honest that we don't have much of a relationship these days, we've slipped into a 'concentrate all our energy onto girls' so there's not much left for us. We've just had a talk and there was a lot of crying on both sides. He was non-plussed about how bad our relationship is (I've just realised that we are about as distant as his parents so no wonder he thinks we're doing ok with them as a blue print) and was equally non-plussed about how abusive and controlling he is. I hope I have opened his eyes to an alternative way of life. We'll see. I told him if I heard him say what he said about the girls again then I will be out the door. I want him to be enlightened about how his behaviour affects others. I want to give him a chance in the hope of saving our family rather than just throwing in the towel immediately. I can also see that we are not setting a good example of a healthy relationship to our daughters, I just hope that he can work on his behaviour.

OP posts:

ProminentSnoz · 27/04/2014 15:03

He isn't 'patriarchal'

He is a horrible cunt that you are exposing your daughters to. You want them to end up like you?

Divorce is your friend.

Original poster

LucyBucy · 27/04/2014 15:06

Well, hopefully I've given him a wake up call. He didn't have a clue. I hope he will change or we are doomed.

OP posts:

ProminentSnoz · 27/04/2014 15:09

A lot of 'hope' in those posts op.

Have you truly relinquished all self respect and power over your own life?

You aren't all doomed at all. You have control of this situation. It's you that is enabling him to keep treating you and his daughters that way.

Hissy · 27/04/2014 15:13

How exactly can anyone say they're 'concentrating all our energy on to the girls' and call them 'useless' or 'fucks' or worse, 'useless fucks'

Why was he crying?

What, out of interest would he do if he heard someone call his children 'useless fucks'?

Unless he changes radically, and today, and forever, you need to tell HIM to go. He needs to know that.

If the girls don't want to do judo, cancel the classes. He has no right to make them do things they don't want to.

Start challenging everything that doesn't sit well with you. He's in the wrong here, not you.

He needs therapy to work out his issues from his abusive childhood. You need to protect your children from having an abusive childhood.

Original poster

LucyBucy · 27/04/2014 15:13

I only have 'hope' left! I feel I do have control of it - if he doesn't change then he'll have to go. I didn't mean to say I am doomed, I meant our relationship.

OP posts:

Hissy · 27/04/2014 15:14

Anyone who called my son useless would be doomed.

Calling them a fuck of any variety would mean they'd never have contact with me or them again. Regardless of anything.

Contact is for the exclusive benefit of the child. Someone who has that level of contempt for them is not beneficial to them.

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