At breaking point with my wife

[JamesTiberiusKirk]

This weekend was a culmination of fractures that have left me feeling that my marriage is in serious danger.

Firstly, it was our daughter’s birthday weekend, with a children’s party on Saturday, and a family gathering at our house on the Sunday. For the Sunday, my wife had promised my daughter a multi-tiered rainbow cake, not an easy endeavor to bake, and unfortunately it went wrong. I tried to reassure her that we could get a nice replacement (which I went out and bought) and that it was fine – baking something ambitious for the first time is always open to trouble, and I tried to make her feel better. The cake and hand mixer were violently dumped in the bin, and she proceeded to treat me like crap for the rest of the day – accusing me of not tidying / cleaning fast enough (I cleaned and tidied the entire house before our guests arrived.) and generally being really vile.

Secondly, it was, of course, mothering Sunday. I had bought cards over a week ago, and had planned to go into town on the Saturday afternoon to pick up some gifts. The plan changed slightly so I could go to Cribbs Causeway in Bristol. This was to get sandwich platters from the Marks and Spencer’s there, as well as to give me a better selection of shops to get her something from. She raised no objections to any of this on the Saturday. I got her a box of Chocolates from Hotel Chocolat, a bunch of blood-orange roses and a voucher to a beauty store that she likes a lot. I felt that was a nice package for her. I took the kids downstairs early on Sunday morning, so she could have a 3 hour lie-in. We all came up as a family to give her the gifts later on while she was in bed, and she seemed happy with everything. It was only later in the evening that she complained about what I had done. She said that the whole thing had been an afterthought, and then, most painfully, said that she felt I was buying her chocolates to sabotage her weight-loss efforts (she recently started dieting in advance of her friend’s wedding later this year). Suffice to say, that was not on my mind when I bought the chocolates.

This is not new behavior, having happened a number of time previously. The point of friction leads to days of silent treatment punctured by mono-syllabic responses. I find it all incredibly stressful and I end up just feeling very lonely. My wife struggles to talk about emotional issues like this, and it usually veers between silence or outbursts. We have talked about how unhappy I am with this before and either she promises to change, or she minimizes the issue, which makes me look unreasonable. I don’t want to be having the same conversation for the rest of my life. I feel like a punching bag and I am sick of it.

I am, of course, a long way from perfect. I have found the increased demands of two children hard to handle at times, and I get frustrated a lot and can be short-tempered. I am also significantly over-weight, as is my wife, and I think this is a major drag-factor on our general happiness. All that said, I don’t think (and have never been accused) of allowing this to devolve into cruel or abusive (emotionally) behavior, and this is where I feel we are now. When these kind of situations arise she behaves like a bully.

There is no pull-factor at play here, no other person I have an eye on. It is a non-factor here.

Am I being massively unreasonable here in my expectations of how a couple should work and communicate together? Are these Mother’s Day presents unacceptable?

I would say this is a symptom of a bigger underlying problem and yes, a long talk is necessary.
My initial thought is maybe something has irritated or annoyed her or something is on her mind and she is taking it out on you.
Could be PMS or Post natal depression.
Book a night off (get your parents to babysit while they are here?) and try and talk to her without accusing her or making it her fault.
I got chocs and I'm on a diet too but I thought f* it and ate them all with a big glass of prosecco!!

It doesn't sound happy. I don't think the chocolates are a big deal. I'm always maintaining a weight but if somebody buys me chocolates, I just think, I'll share them out. Throwing the food mixer in the bin shows an incredibly deep level of anger I think. It's the kind of thing my x would have done and it was to send me the message ''family life is making me crack up so don't you dare put one single solitary extra demand on me''. So I never did. I was so unhappy with him. I'm not going to say ''leave her''. But it sounds like your weekends are stressful and maybe you could try having a weekend where you cancel everything that you 'have' to do. Just go for a long walk somewhere (baby in a sling!)

I agree with asking her WHY she is so unhappy. I tried to ask my x that. It turned out that shouting at me was an excellent coping mechanism for a man with a low self-esteem and a big ego. Obviously I couldn't live with that forever.

Something is not right if your wife is throwing expensive kitchen gadgets in the bin so dramatically just because a cake went wrong. Lesson there, simpler cake!! Cooking should be fun.

Thank you for all the comments - I am really grateful to get other people's (particularly female) perspectives on this.

I don't want to portray my wife as some kind of irredeemably horrible person. She is far from that. I love her I want our marriage to work. However, I won't spend the rest of my life, and more importantly our children's formative years being bullied and emotionally abused. When things are tough a good marriage works together as a team - it doesn't lash out at the other partner.

I will give it until the weekend so that we have a bit more space and time, but this is a conversation that needs to happen. I am not going to let it drift away until the next time it happens.

Sorry the chocs are thoughtless - you aren't listening to what she wants!

She's back at work - 2 parties to organise your parents staying... It's enough to drive anyone over the edge .

She's on a diet - she wants your support - she has a house to clean and prepare for - but you slope off shopping -

It doesn't seem you have discussed the expectations for the weekend at all -

It sounds to me that she feels inadequate very frequently, and that when this happens, she vents it at you. The baking fail, eating all the chocolates - both seem to be triggers for outbursts that displace her anger and frustration at herself onto others. Rather than being spoiled and ungenerous, I would suggest the possibility that she's actually feeling terrible about herself.

That doesn't make her behaviour to you OK in the slightest. But it does suggest that she might benefit from, say, talking therapy about her self-esteem.

As Cabrinha says, don't fear the talk. Fear not having the talk.

I feared the talk and so my x got in to habit of treating me so badly and because I basically did nothing (other than get upset) he lost all respect for me, so then there was no going back, even when he finally finally understood that actually I wasn't just going to put up with it forever.

LTB

shovetheholly probably right. My x's self-esteem was in the gutter, he was all ego. He'd never have acknowledged that though. But I wonder would OP's wife throw things in the bin at work?! Would she behave that dramatically in front of her friends? Probably not. So she has control. When she wants to rein in her temper she can.

Your dw threw the handmixer in the bin because a cake didn't go according to plan? .

Flowers and chocolates have become traditional mother's day gifts and I very much doubt that your dw would have appreciated their absence.

I get the feeling that if you hadn't bought chocolates you'd have been accused of not doing so because she's overweight. If you hadn't bought roses you'd be accused of not valuing her sufficiently to gift her with flowers. And if you hadn't given her a voucher for beauty products you'd have been accused of not buying her anything that she could use exclusively for herself.

Notwithstanding the fact that she's a busy dw and dm to 2 small dc I'm sorry to say she sounds as unreasonable as she is ungrateful and, given her attitude, I'm not surprised you're feeling that your marriage is in serious danger. I wouldn't be able to tolerate tantrums and silences in a partner/spouse - at best it's childish and at worst it's emotionally abusive and intended to keep you dancing on eggshells attendance on them.

Fwiw, making a multi-tiered 'rainbow' cake is no more difficult than turning out a Victoria sponge, or any tiered cake that requires sandwiching together, and I fail to see why anyone would lose the plot simply because their culinary efforts resulted in disaster rather than triumph and, more especially, when there was ample time to buy a substitute.

Have a talk, a proper "we need to talk" talk.

Your wife sounds low, not getting the cake right and the weight loss all leads me to think she's unhappy and taking to out on you.

Additionally she may see the gifts as a reflection of how much you care and think of her, she may have found them thoughtless and considering how I suspect she feels about herself she probably thinks you don't think much of her.

You sound like a caring man, talk to your wife. x

(I also don't think your marriage is danger, 0-5years of any of my dCs lives were the most difficult for my marriage, youngest is now 7 and we're blissfully happy again when he gets me the right gifts )

Sallhasleftthebuilding has expressed it perfectly.

Loyalty comes to mind.

Sally - OP said he did the cleaning and preparation.
It's hard - just back at work after maternity leave, and PIL's staying to boot would make me really crabby. But she treated you like crap too.
I'm trying to lose weight for holidays, and got chocolates yesterday: I said 'thanks guys' and offered them around. Because, manners.

You sound like a lovely, thoughtful, hands-on dad and husband - her behaviour is not cool at all, and it does sound like she's beating up on you to deal with subterranean unacknowledged stuff going on at her end.

We've all lashed out because of stuff going on in our head, but this has to be the much-apologised-for exception - not the rule.

I think you should clear the decks - as make sure kids are asleep, or out of the way, to sit her down and have a discussion about how her behaviour is affecting you and your marriage.

I watched my mother bully my dad and then get bullied herself by someone meaner than she was - it's a horrific, ugly thing for a child to witness, and your wife's feelings don't justify her behaviour, no matter what she will tell herself...

Sallyhasleftthebuilding:

I cleaned and tidied the house, while my wife handled the food prep, including the cake. I didn't duck my housework, but thanks for the implication...

Crumbs, I would have been delighted with those gifts.
It seems that you can't do anything right for doing wrong, doesn't it? I suspect she's very unhappy and is using you as a punchbag, because that's the only outlet she has.
Please do broach having a talk (if you feel that's doomed to failure then possibly put it in writing?), it will be the only way to attempt to resolve this.
Good luck.

I would also say those years with two tinies were the worst, and I may have had the odd temper tantrum, which was completely unjustified. If she's been not sleeping well due to 9 month old, went back to work this week, the weekend sounds too much, far too much, and she has just had a meltdown probably because of her own expectations of everything.

Not ok to lash out at you, and you are completely justified in saying this, and saying you don't expect this ingratitude. But this is a tough time, and saying you'll collapse the marriage because your wife had a paddy (she didn't throw the mixer at you, she had a paddy and threw it in the bin) is probably a bit extreme unless you are looking for a way out. You say you are short-tempered, and get frustrated easily, perhaps she has a whole list of stories of when your short-temper gets her down.

To sum up, this is an incredibly difficult time as a family. I would be honest about how hurt you feel that she lashed out and ask her what she is hoping to achieve. I would also reflect on my own behaviour, and see if I was handling it all well, and how the overall emotional tone in the house could be reduced, it sounds stressful for everyone but it doesn't mean it is fatally flawed.

OP as your parents are staying to help, would they be willing to babysit for a few hours so the two of you could pop out for a chat and time alone?

I'd be quite happy with what you got her. Even if they are standard gifts, they are a little something to mark the day which really is all you need IMO. Really they should be gifts from the kids anyway, she isn't your mother, and it's nice you do that on their behalf whilst they are still young.

Of course the gifts were great. What kind of princess moans about the quality of gifts anyway? They were bought with love and that's all you need to know. As a single parent I took my children out to the shops myself and gave them ten pounds of my own money to buy me a mothers' day present - they bought me some chocolates and then ate them . It's fine - I'm a grown up, not a spoilt baby.

And yy to the notion that if you hadn't bought her chocolates she would have deemed that to have been an implicit comment on her need to lose weight. I don't think her behaviour is acceptable - she may well be overwhelmed (I know I am) but she needs to tackle her reactions which are disproportionate and unsustainable in a decent relationship.

But I agree that life is tough with young children. OP, I hope you have a decent talk. I wouldn't have it in mind atm that this relationship is over - as others have intimated, life with young children just is really tough. But you need to pull together. Perhaps your wife needs to know that you are both on the same side. But if she doesn't think she has any work to do on herself and her behaviour as well, then I think perhaps you do have a bigger problem.

She sounds like she may have Post-Natal Depression. Also if this is her first week back at work it's no wonder she's feeling sensitive, she probably feels really shit having to leave her 9 month old baby, I did (I had PND too). Throwing the cake and mixer in the bin, she must have been really upset - Remembering how I was with PND, I'd have been thinking I can't even make a cake for my kid's birthday, I promised, she'll be upset, and I'm not even here most of the time and when I'm here I'm useless, etc etc. It all blows up into more than it is. But it feels so bad when you have it.

You seem to be taking the diet sabotage thing a bit seriously. Either you're protesting too much because there's something in that, or you need to let it go as a stupid comment when she was wound up about other stuff. It's not 'disturbing', don't be ridiculous. Both of you letting your minds run away with the worst case scenario of how bad everything is is not going to help.

She should see a GP about PND, there are medications which can really help. She might need more time off work. How is she feeling about work? Can she reduce her hours or stay off for longer?

Sallhasleftthebuilding has expressed it perfectly

Sallhasleftthebuilding hasn't read the OP. He did all the cleaning and tidying - he didn't 'slope off shopping' while she did it

I think posie has got it. This is far more about her than you, and she is lashing out at you because you are closest and an easy target. You need to talk and find out what is driving the frustrations and anger

Sallhasleftthebuilding:

What has loyalty got to do with any of this? I don't understand - you think me being on this forum talking about this issues is disloyal?

I think her mentioning diet sabotage is quite serious Uranus. If you've got to the point where you think someone who should really love you is secretly but deliberately trying to make you unhappy and damage your health then there is a serious breakdown in trust going on. Either that or she has no control over her words and is throwing around accusations willy nilly. Neither is good.

Just noticed about your parents staying! If there's one thing to put pressure on when you're feeling sensitive anyway it's to have the fucking in-laws staying (especially when everything seems to be going wrong in front of them)!

I grew up with a mother who emotionally abused my father and later me, and particularly the mixer-in-bin thing and silent treatment (never OK btw) sound very like her, but there is the possibility that what is happening now, OP, could be due to the current particular set of pressures going on. You do indicate that this is a bit of a pattern, though? If it is, your kids won't thank you in the long run for putting up with it - take it from one who knows.

Am with talllikejerryhall - big talk time once your parents are gone.