We used to be so happy

[Ineedachange]

OH and I have just passed our 12th anniversary. We have DD 10 and DS 8. We've been so happy. We're proud of our children, we have good jobs, great friends, a lovely community.
I have always accepted everything OH has said to me. He's an intelligent, logical, even-tempered, intellectual man, whereas I wear my heart on my sleeve, I cry and laugh easily, I'm hugely temperamental, a bit ditsy and grossly indecisive on small matters. But for the last couple of years I have found myself questionning a few of his long-standing ideas about our future and how he saw us living our lives.

Last summer I wanted to move but it proved it was going to be prohibitively expensive and with the children attending a good local school I was persuaded that it wasn't the right time. Next year, he said. (It was always next year....For 12 years he has been saying "next year".) In fact, every single move we have made during our marriage has been initiated by me. It has always been a row but once the move has been made we have gotten over it and carried on, be it a decision about a holiday, changing a car, and the single time we have moved house.

This year I felt it so, so strongly that we had to move out of our little home of 8 years, the children were getting bigger and we needed more space. OH moved to a flexible working situation where he worked primarily at home and despite the obvious factor that we had an absolutely shocking internet connection, I still couldn't persuade him that we needed to move.
Eventually, in a fit of desperation I said I would go back to work full-time to pay the extra rent, although maybe this time we could think about buying a house. But OH won't even consider buying a house, even with all the incentives for FTB now.
Now we rent a bigger house with better broadband, the kids are happy now we have room to invite their friends around and we're not all fighting over the toilet. OH works at home, commutes to London once a week and I've taken up a new full-time position. OH keeps saying it's what I need to make me feel fulfilled. He says he wants his wife back.

But I can't help feeling resentful. I have found myself withdrawing from him. He gets to enjoy this lovely new home that I have had to fight for. The move itself was so stressful, but OH felt he couldn't take the day off and he went into work. He's returning to his excessive drinking behaviour, when he promised earlier this year he would cut down. I'm convinced he's a high-funtioning alcoholic.
And increasingly annoying is I'm finding myself withdrawing more and more from spending time with him, and he's DOING NOTHING to address it!

I used to be all over him, ocassionally e-mailing him "I love you's" which he never responded to but we always cuddled at night. Now that we barely touch. I know it's me holding back and I know I'm trying to punish him, I know I'm angry. I know I don't want to leave him. I know I could never do it for the children's sake.
But what I don't know is...what to do about it

You sound so frustrated. I have no solutions to offer but do understand the alcohol and broken promises issue. Are you able to talk? Could you arrange a quiet time and tell him your concerns and frustrations?

So what are you angry with him about? You moved house, even though it took some persuasion. Is that that he won't buy a house with you?

You're angry at him so are becoming more distant and withdrawn and you're angry that he's not doing anything about it? Seems a bit self fullfilling.

Why do you think he's an alcoholic and how does it affect things?

I think you're describing two slow-burn problems. One being the heavy drinking behaviour and the other being the lack of support (or different visions of the future). If you're describing the drinking as 'high functioning alcoholism' and he can hold down a job I would suspect that any resentment you feel started as a low-level 'I can cope with this' niggle but, like all irritating habits in partners, has now become a much bigger point of difference. The lack of support may be coincidental or it may be connected. Having once been married to an alcohol abuser, I recognise the pattern of someone with big ideas that they don't follow through, and also that feeling of them not really having your back. When you say you take all the initiatives, it sounds as though you are the 'grown up' in the relationship whereas he has stagnated. How old were you when you met?

He gets to enjoy this lovely new home that I have had to fight for. The move itself was so stressful, but OH felt he couldn't take the day off and he went into work

I would find working from home pretty lonely rather than enjoying the home, but I understand you being angry about doing the move, but surely it's behind you now.

Does being at home all day make it easier for him to drink?
Do you resent having to work full time?

Thank you for your replies.
I realise now that my original post was a "brain burp" and hardly makes sense.
I have been been slowly becoming increasingly frustrated and angry, I had not shared with with anybody before, so I was having trouble putting into words how I was feeling. I had not talked to dh, my friends, anybody, because I have been hoping it would go away. As I result, for the past few months I have been festering away, withdrawing. The house was only part of it to be honest. I changed jobs, we moved to a different county, the children have changed schools, we starting from scratch in a new area ...

Last evening I spoke to my sister on the pohone, and I told her everything, loads of stuff that I haven't gone into here and, I know now, it was the best thing. She has been brilliant, really really brilliant. Which goes to show.. you do need to talk things through to get a different perspective.

"He says he wants his wife back"

Do you perhaps feel that his idea of a "wife" is someone who is there to fit in with and service his needs, and that he pays little heed to what your needs and wants might be? That you have to battle and make compromises in order to achieve the smallest improvement in your life, because he is not willing to work with you to achieve a life that suits you both?

Or maybe he wants the wife back who is loving. I think you both need to sit and talk. He sounds like the easy going happy to stay as we are type and you seem to be tge one who wants to make things happen etc. But now you are fed up of this role? Talk before its too late for both of you .

Who doesn't want a wife? I think all women could do with a wife too.

If he doesn't earn enough to fund a house of relevant size for your needs, and you have to work FT to pay for it - he has to suck it up, unless he wants to get a higher paying job to enable you to go back to 'wife' role. I suspect you don't.

Personally I don't have patience with alcohol problems and would be really irritated if he wasn't doing AA and everything he could go conquer it, so I understand why you're angry about that.

I also don't have patience with people who prefer to throw money away on rent rather than a mortgage. In 20 years you will have fa to show for it. With a repayment mortgage the house could be yours in that time and you'd have a nest egg for retirement.

Thistledew - exactly! That is exactly how I feel.
MillyDots - Which what my sister said too. But now I am fed up of that role, very much so. I want him to be with me, not to have to drag him along to everything.

I realise now it's usually me talking...all the time. I give him a running stream of commentary of what's going on in my heart. This new withdrawn, angry version is a new one of me, one perhaps he doesn't know how to deal with. He's not changed at all, in fact he hates change. He's also very, very cautious. I had to tell him that I couldn't stay living like we were. I eventually told him that I would leave him even though I still loved him. It still hurts, even though I "got what I wanted" as he puts it. It's almost as if something broke then and I don't know how to mend it.
My sister has offered to take the children for a weekend to give us an opportunity to talk.

I also don't have patience with people who prefer to throw money away on rent rather than a mortgage. In 20 years you will have fa to show for it. With a repayment mortgage the house could be yours in that time and you'd have a nest egg for retirement.

This is a really, really sore point these days. We don't have a deposit that is close to being enough in the area in which we live. We're renting a house that is far more spacious than we could afford and the locations is great for the children. Essentially, we're spending a lot of money in rent as many, many people are now. We have had this discussion often with friends and family who share your view Twinklestein.

On the contrary I think it's possible he's very much picking up on your distancing and simultaneous guilt about blanking him and using it as leverage to avoid addressing his drinking.

He knows that for a supposedly ditsy woman who wears her heart on her sleeve, you are a power house. If you have low expectations he will meet them and do no more. That's lazy thinking.

He took a long time to be persuaded about moving and once you'd come up with the idea of working longer hours he knew fresh input from him wasn't required. In his head that said "Job done". He abdicated any practical involvement knowing you'd pick up the slack. That's lazy or calculated thinking.

Never openly affectionate or indulging you in playful romantic gestures, he takes it for granted you are satisfied. He hates change - bully for him. There's more than one individual in a family. He probably pats himself on the back for being so accommodating and easy going whereas you want him to take some initiative and not be a passenger.

He wants his wife back. Would it surprise him to hear you say" Who are you and what did you do with my husband?"

Take up your sister's offer let the DCs stay over and get talking to him.

I totally understand how hard it is to raise deposits in the current mad property market and economic conditions.

What annoys me in this situation is that if he had been on board you could have been saving for a deposit for the last 10 years. You yourself can't raise a deposit single-handedly when you're also raising children. So he has stuffed up a fundamentally important financial investment in your life, by what you call 'caution' but what I suspect is fear + inertia. You say he's intelligent and logical, but his insistence on renting is not an intelligent or logical choice, nor is his drinking.

You are becoming the rock in this relationship and you're dragging him along with you.

Crap mixed metaphor, rocks can't drag... Unless there's a landslide...