How to fix me...

[WaitWhatOh]

I don't know where to start, except I know I need to say something or go crazy overthinking. I am struggling massively and pretending it's all fine. I feel so very very unimportant and somewhere around priority 257 on everyone's list. I know -how fucking needy I sound/am. DH is very busy. Works hard, always on the phone even on evenings/days off. Very stressed very important. Kind of pat me on the head attitude towards me. He's far too busy to do much with me, he is home only to work from home or sleep or eat. so I threw myself into activities and hobbies. Trying to keep busy but feeling desperately lonely underneath. Occasionally I attempt to say how I feel and get caught up in some row that always ends up being my fault and me apologising. That man can seriously sulk!! Today he gave me the lecture about being so needy, insecure and 'fucking mental' I needed to hear it apparently. :(
Despite thinking he's an arse for speaking to me quite like that I know he has a point. I am lonely I do want to spend more time with him and I do wish I was fabulously important to him and top of his list some days. What a shallow needy creature I am. What do I do... How do I feel better? how do I fix me?

Honey, I've been there.

This is going to take some time to sink in. Be kind and gentle with yourself.

And remember, you can't MAKE anyone feel anything. People choose how to feel and respond.

The most empowering thing I learned was that these people project.....a lot. Everything he accuses you of, is him, who HE is, what HE's doing, feeling etc etc. He cannot stand those things in himself, and he projects them onto you. They are not yours, they are his, it is easier for him to pretend that it is you than face that.

It is quite possible that this is why he is pathologically busy, as an avoidance strategy...but again, that is HIS issue, not yours.

You are not a skip for his rubbish.

Your issue is to get yourself some support in real life and to keep posting here.

What's really terrible is I like those moments he decides to be nice. I like the gifts I like the effort. I even KNOW it won't last and I still like it. I've become very materialistic in some areas

What he probably needs is a confident woman who has her shit together. She could support him and yet not take any crap.
I am absolutely devastated that's not me.

WWO: seriously, sweetheart, stop trying to make yourself the problem here.
I think you're just looking for an explanation for his behaviour, and you somehow find it easier to shoulder the responsibility: at least it's an explanation.

Except it's not an explanation that holds any water.

He is the only person in control of his own words and actions. Not you.

You cannot blame his behaviour on you.

What he needs is a kick up the arse and a reality check.

His behaviour is having an intolerable impact on you.

What he needs is a good shrink!

These men often have mother issues seeping out of every pore.

Tell us more about your parents, his parents, there may be insight there....if you feel comfy doing so.

At the risk of sounding wet lettuce like I can't believe you are encouraging me to keep posting. I thought you'd be telling me to stop whinging by now.
Logically it has to be partly me. If DH is not like this with anyone else it is the combination of him and I.

He has made his mother cry and drives his brother crazy with being adamant all the time but with me I seem to either bring him down or annoy him beyond normal. If I take away some of his behaviour as his personality that still leaves a large chunk that only happens with me. Like adding something flammable to a fire.
I am trying to read the women's aid website as I sit in starbucks today. I feel abit of a fraud, there are people on there hiding from partners who threaten to kill them. Who rape and punch them.

Queen -
Uh
My parents are divorced. My Dad was violent at the end of their marriage.
His parents are rock solid pillars of society. He has a large family and they are tight knit -I'm still an outsider.

He mentions this. That my family are divorced and his aren't. That I have no idea of normal relationships.

His family label me 'sensitive' and arty. They say it Like arty is bad. He gives me a lot of grief for not joining in every big family meal etc. I do try but fuck it's hard. I have a sad trait of wanting to be liked and find it hard to just breeze along if I feel any uncomfy vibes coming off people.

He makes his mother cry and drives his brother crazy....so it ain't just you!

Think about the idea of him projecting....does he appear to know what "normal" relationships are?

Most people find it hard when there are bad vibes coming their way. That is normal!! That's why we can sense vibes, it keeps us safe. Listen to them. :)

Projection sounds true. I often think no wait that's YOU when he rants at me about something. I wish I'd never told him I feel lonely, I said it on Sunday morning. I knew he'd throw it at me next row.
There's one line he used that took away a lot of his credibility. I wonder if that's why he's gone sheepish, surely he knows he fucked up.

OP, just want to chime in to say don't think you have to stop posting. You sound so interesting, with all the ways you've helped yourself blossom.

It strikes me that with your kids make you feel good, your business makes you feel good and your activities make you feel good. Yet your DH makes you feel lousy and you ask how you can better put up with it.

I expect my DH to make me feel good. Its what I signed up for.

Its what you signed up for too.

WWO your posts have made me so sad. You keep apologising to us and looking for the fault in yourself. It's like you think you have no right to feel your feelings, to express your own needs and wants.

I suspect that your H has spent a lot of time gradually making his control of you tighter and your life more unpleasant.

Please don't compare yourself to women who are being physically abused and say "My H doesn't do that so I have no right to complain." The fact that some people are in a worse situation than you doesn't make your situation any better or mean that you can't demand better treatment (or ask for help to leave.) Unhappiness is not a zero sum game, it's not a race to find "who's got it worst".

If he makes his mother cry, I wonder if his father also makes his mother cry, what cost behind closed doors is paid by her to be such "pillars of society"?

Im sure he will have told you that you are lucky to have such a perfect life and that you have nothing to complain about - has anyone here told you that? Anyone said "wow, I wish I had your life?" no? That might be something to think about next time he tells you that. Next time he says "you dont need me to be able to have a good day", maybe think about whether you need him at all then? Because what is a relationship if not someone that makes your life better when they are around?

Womens Aid is probably a really good place for you to have a chat about some of these things, they have a LOT of experience with all kinds of relationship patterns and dynamics and may be able to give you some really helpful advice or questions to ask yourself to help avoid him being able to turn things around into you being "crazy" quite so easily.

Finally - you are a person and you have needs and thats ok. And in a relationship you have more right than ever to be able to say what those needs are and look to have them met.

Yes. I can recall at least three people saying they wish they had my life. One after DH took me shopping for new skirts, one after Finding out I don't have to work and one particularly sad time when I told him I was lonely and a bit sad. He gave me some money and told me to go shopping. I text a friend and said I'm stood in town all by myself still lonely :( she text back wish someone gave me money to go shopping!

Then your friends are insensitive.

If you are not happy, then you are not happy. If you prefer companionship to money for shopping, then you prefer companionship over money for shopping.

There is NOTHING wrong with you.

Your marriage is wrong for you, though.

I relate to you feeling a fraud. My beautifully groomed, immaculately mannered, husband with his beautiful mind never once laid a finger on me. He was too clever for that.

So I hung around domestic abuse sites and info for a long time, all the while thinking I was a fraud, too embarrassed to come out and tell people what was going on in my marriage. Too embarrassed to come out the closet.

But once I did come out, ALL the women I met who had been hit said they preferred being hit any day to the mindbending and excruciating emotional, psychological, financial etc abuse. It took me a long time to realise my situation was as bad as theirs.

Wait, try Freedom Programme . It is a fantastic course and free (click on 'find a course' to find a course near you - lots in the UK). Confidentiality is paramount (you don't even have to give your name) and you will be surprised at the women you meet, all normal women, all struggling to make sense of abusive relationships. It is a very safe place, the facilitators are sensitive and highly trained, the course material is wonderful. xx

oh yeah, I remember the Fortnum & Mason shopping trips for clothes, the sweet dresses he chose and bought for me. Cotton, flowery. People also thought we had the perfect marriage and were deeply shocked when I left him. There was practically a queue around the block to take my place.

Sorry for disappearing OP.

I think my last post shocked you, and made you feel .

This isn't happening because you are stupid. It happened to me too, and I am highly educated, I have a job working in a highly academic and competitive environment, I am organised, forthright and I have a reputation for giving good advice. I have lots of friends and am well respected (I think!). But, like I suspect you are, I am a "people-pleaser", and I like to be liked. I spent years worrying about how my actions affected my ex, trying to please him, and only realised several years in that I could NEVER please him. Nothing I could do would ever be good enough.

Do you find yourself wondering how he'll be when he comes home? I did. When he came home in a good mood, smiling and laughing with the kids, touching my shoulder, giving me a hug, I felt so grateful, and relieved. Again, this should be normal, not special. We shouldn't be grateful because our partner hasn't come home grumpy and looking to punish us for simply existing.

It is so sad that his response to you feeling lonely was to give you some money to "go and buy yourself something nice". What you really wanted was to have some investment in YOU, some time spent with YOU. This is totally normal.

I hope you can get through to your GP and can organise some counselling. That's what did it for me - in our first session the counsellor asked me who I had for support in my life. This was just a general question in the "getting to know you" session. I listed off a load of people, but not my partner. She then commented that it was interesting that I didn't list him as part of my support network. That single moment was when the journey towards leaving him started. It was like a lightbulb going off in my head. I realised not only was he not in my support network, but that my support network of friends was actually vital to me because I needed support in order to be able to survive living with him. I left him within 8 weeks of that moment, and have not looked back.

Yes, he knows he's fucked up. Now he'll be all nice, until he's got you back where he wants you, and the cycle can begin all over again. If you google "cycle of abuse", there's lots of information on the net about this, which may ring true for you. Have a look at the "retribution phase" - this is perhaps where you are now...

outofthefog.net/CommonBehaviors/AbusiveCycle.html

Big hugs OP

This melts my brain.
The cycle of abuse you linked too
Is that not how ALL arguments go??

No.

No? Then how do arguments go??!