I don't like who I am - how can we change?

[YesAnastasia]

My DC prefer my 'D'H and I can see why. I'm angry, resentful and paranoid. This is all directed at him but it's while the children are there and it's 50% of the time.

I'm stressed all the time and even small things he does make me really mad. We argue/bicker almost constantly. He rarely gets angry so it's me who gets upset, shouty & generally horrid. To the children it looks like I'm always shouty (which I am) to daddy & he's done nothing wrong.

He's started a new job where he's away a lot and the children really miss him. When he's back, I'm the nanny, cook, maid & night nurse but no one cares about me. I miss him too & when he's not here I like him again.

I would like to not be this way. I'd like to be jokey & laid back. Not badger H over everything he does wrong (or doesn't do) and not let him get me so angry. I have started anti depressants and upped my dosage but this is still happening. What else can I do? It's breaking my heart.

Ok. It's going to be tough watching what I say all the time.

In fact I could ask him not to do the stuff that upsets me before he does it. Unless that sounds like I'm having a go before he's even done something wrong. Urgh.

My DS1 has Asperger's and I spend a lot of time explaining communication and socialising - seems I have much to learn myself.

Flippinada - Thread hijack warning OP :) - my DP does all those things you mentioned on a regular basis. I know it's emotional abuse but he does none of it consciously. It's simply the way he has learned to behave in a relationship. It's bloody hard and I want to separate but...

I was just about to start a thread about decluttering but it's a thread about sabotage that I need - any decluttering I do he will undo rapidly. He's constantly buying stuff we don't need and slowly expanding his space in the house with it. I tidy up a mantelpiece or an ornament shelf, he plonks something on it. I clear the floor, he puts something on it (which makes it hard to clearn). He puts stuff in front of cupboard so I can't open them. I now have my own cupboard and my own desk and have a couple of shelves to call my own, the rest is his empire of Tat.

It's as though these men want to put you in a state of constant confusion and self-doubt. They can't let you function without having a negative influence and the last thing they want is for you to thrive and achieve independence and happiness. For people like us it's hard to believe that anyone would want do that and that's precisely how they trap us - their language of behaviour is polar opposite to ours but suits what is almost a parasitic relationship where one partner emotionally feeds off the unhappiness and dysfunction of the other. If we thrive they wither away.

Sorry to hijack your thread OP but what Flippinada said there is quite important in your case too I think.

Ha, the hijack is fine unreal what kind of stuff does he buy? Ornaments?

He says himself it's special deals or things from charity shops. A bargain item that is usually useless which is why it's a bargain in the first place! He actually said himself that they are 'trophies' - it's a kind of quest he's out on. A man as hunter kind of thing. I don't think he buys items to annoy me, just a thing he does for himself. I guess the reason he feels a need to place them around the house is key here.

unreal sorry to hear that - the reason I mentioned it is because my XP used to do those things to me, part of a pattern of abusive behaviours designed to keep me in my place,.

The reason I mentioned this is because the behaviour described sounded depressingly familiar.

He either ignores me or mumbles so I have to ask him to repeat himself all the time. He says it's my hearing or I'm not listening. I know it isn't because it's only him I can't hear. He sets me up so I'm in the wrong all the time.

OP this sounds so familiar to me. I'm probably a few years down the line from you and I learned to never expect anything back from him in order to have some sense of sanity for myself. As soon as I expect something, he lets me down in one way or another. So asking a question and expecting an answer - even that perfectly normal expectation - is sabotaged by mumbling, or misinterpreting, or snapping, and I am disappointed. It's hard to accept that's why they do it - in order to keep you disappointed and pursuing them, but I fear that is the bald truth of it.

In fact I have got so used to this that I have started self-sabotaging. I only recognised this a couple of weeks ago and although it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing (don't know whether I sabotage our relationship as a means of self-sabotage), I think it stems from spending over two decades with someone who doesn't want an equal partner relationship. I am simply someone who meets his needs. Success leads to disappointment, so I disappoint myself first. I hope that makes sense, it really is awful when I read it back.

Does he walk out of the room in the middle of a conversation?

No, I think I might do that. But he often doesn't look up from his bloody phone.

We both do the mumbling (like a stroppy teen), and the walking out the room, I do sarcasm and piss taking, she does anger and taking the argument off at tangents.

No couple get on alll the time and if it's gone too far for you then only you will know as you set the limits. Some would have walked before, some would stay.

I think it depends how much stress you can afford in your life. Life could be far more pleasant and effective if you simply communicated like adults, preferably with a smile on your faces. Call me old fashioned, but that's what I would like to have.

OP, you really are not the ogre you think you are, I think you are dealing with a person who is closed off, won't engage and puts the buck firmly at your doorstep for anything that goes wrong.

Unless you are void of a brain then of course you are going to react.

Now, I don't see any of this changing, sounds like you are two completely different people trying to get along and failing miserably.