Friday strains on newly recovering relationship

[MumoftheBoulevard]

Hi just posting for opinions/advice etc. Quick background - my partner and I of 11 years split up for 2 years and have been back together for around 8 months. He has done a lot of corrective work including anger management and behaviour counselling, conflict management etc. He has also really tried to tackle his depression. In his absence I struck up a weekly arrangement with a single mum friend of mine with children of the same sex and age and we would meet up most Fridays at either home for the kids to play and so we two could chat and drink wine if we wanted to :D

Anyway since we have gotten back together DP has been fine about this arrangement continuing but made reference to the fact that if I was going to my friends house on a Friday night he wouldn't bother coming home from work (has his own business) but would stay at work until I came home. This is beginning to grate on me: its as if he cant come home unless he has my 100% attention. Surely he could come home and see the kids/animals etc instead of treating the home and kids as my domain on a Friday and staying at work tinkering with his car and computers and drinking beer with his colleagues/friends etc (there is a pub next door and they take turns to go round for trays of beer its like bloody Cheers). He says Im being controlling and that if I am spending time with my friend even if its in the home he shouldn't be expected to be there.

Any opinions? Am I being mardy and unreasonable?

To me, it sounds like a mutually convenient time to socialise with own friends. Unless I'm missing something.

Yep I agree although my DP will insist he is "working" which makes it sound as though he is glumly filling the time until I deign to come home, when the reality is very different!

I don't understand your comment about being with the kids?
Your Friday thing is a regular playdate for them to. So why would he interrupt that?
Seems like the perfect time for him to do his own thing, surely?

Tbh, I don't like the sound of anger management because I think leopards rarely change their spots.

But if this is the only issue, I don't understand why it is even an issue. Which is why I wonder if there's more to it? Like perhaps, he doesn't bother enough with the kids at any time, and you've just picked a bad example?

I definitely wouldn't expect him to rush home to look after animals that he didn't even live with for 2 years!

Why can't he see his mates when you're not at home? It does sound controlling on face value

anger management and behaviour counselling, conflict management etc.

He was a dick, by the sounds of things, and he's still being a dick, he's just learnt to hide it better. It's fine for him to stay out - you're both busy with other things, that's totally normal - but he's trying to manipulate you into believing that he's staying at work because you're having fun without him. It's a horrid form of control.

Be careful that you're not settling for the devil you know.

Anchor that's my feeling. I have noted that in the few months we have been back together my social outings have dwindled to almost nil without him. Not through direct confrontation but because I fear any reprisals and the inevitable atmosphere that will remain like a bad smell through the couple of days after my evening out.

This Friday meet with my friend is the one thing Ive managed to keep going, probably it doesn't cause too much of a problem because the children are with me. Its his insistence that he must remain at work/out of the house while I am not there. Its a quiet demand to come home and start the weekend together. I accept on the surface it looks as though I am the controlling one. I also accept that he may just not like being in the house on his own. I love it! But we are all different.

He has been an absolute dick and I do fear the mask is slipping again. To the poster who said she would expect him to look after animals he didn't live with for two years - two of the three animals we have have been acquired since he came back to live with us - as a mutual decision. Thanks!

This relationship doesn't sound much better than it used to be

my social outings have dwindled to almost nil
And you've let this happen?
Dear god. He's still controlling and you are losing out massively because of his moodiness.
Why oh why are you still with him?
Please get shot for good this time.

While he was off learning to be a more subtle abuser having anger management and behaviour therapy, were you also working on your own boundaries and assertiveness? I think doing the Freedom Programme could be a really good eye-opener for you.

I think the mask is slipping and you've realised that. I know it's horrible to contemplate leaving again. But it's going to slip further. Was he violent with you before?

Pocket - while he was away doing his thing I was living independently paying my mortgage, looking after the emotional welfare of the children and actually living a pretty good life. He came back with a world of promises and a very different attitude which is slowly eroding now his feet are under the table.

Why do I always feel Im in the wrong? I stand on my own two feet, Im not being fair by not giving him another go. I take him back Im controlling and unreasonable for expecting the level of effort/agreeableness he demonstrated when we first got back together. I feel Ive been conned in some way.

And yes he was violent in the end when I resisted taking him back. He then "sought help" which has involved quite a lot of outside agencies

You are most definitely not in the wrong but the fact that you feel like you are, that's what prompted me to say about working on your boundaries and doing the Freedom Programme.

When you were growing up, did you learn from someone that it's your/a wife's role to fix the relationship, and she MUST keep trying no matter the abuse she is given?

Sadly yes. My mum had a very abusive marriage (not to my dad). Shes dead now. She was always trying trying trying.