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?

OP, if your wife uses mumsnet I think you should find somewhere else to get advice. A while back I thought my husband posted a thread about us. Turns out I was mistaken. But in between I felt horrible. It felt like a violation of my space. He knew i was a regular poster. Mumsnet can be a lifeline in the early days, especially if at home with small children like your wife has been. I think your posting is possibly manipulative but definitely insensitive. I post about our personal lives because I do not for one second expect DH to be on MN (obviously ideally I wouldn't post personal stuff at all, I relate to the desperation). But you are posting knowing your wife may well read it.

I can't believe how some of the answers on this thread are swayed by the fact the OP is a man. I get that being stressed and exhausted is no fun but it's no excuse for her nasty behaviour. I can't believe anyone on MN would ever excuse a man who was stressed with work or whatever if he behaved so awfully.

Final post from me. I think a lot of the comments on identifiable information are very correct. To be honest, I had not expected this thread to garner much in the way of a response, so the notion of it trending had not even occurred to me.

I would dispute the notion that I have betrayed my wife by posting on here. I think that is unfair - I was in a pretty desperate frame of mind yesterday morning when I started the thread, and my only intention was to garner advice from people removed from the situation that might help me improve matters. Thankfully I have had a lot of great advice. I don't view any of that as a betrayal.

I have requested that the thread be locked, at which point it will slip away down the forum.

Thanks again for all those who took the time to offer advice / constructive criticism - it has helped me (and I hope my wife) a lot.

You haven't betrayed her, don't worry OP.

You have just as much right to post here as your wife would.

The idea that you are betraying her by posting here is as incorrect as a woman being told she is betraying her husband by reporting abuse.

I hope you manage to have a helpful discussion tonight.

Haven't read the whole thread yet, but from page 4:
"Presumably you didn't marry a bitch so how she's behaving isn't how she used to be. "
This happened to my wife and I posted on here about it.
She started being nasty and aggressive to me, the children, her parents.
It culminated in an emotional, possibly physical affair.
I got the "it must be something you have done" replies and the "you can't be perfect" replies, which women wouldn't get.
If a woman posted on here about her husband, she rarely gets the excuses - maybe he's stressed at work, etc.
However, stress is the cause, believe me. Not an excuse, in my opinion.
We have a very difficult (ASD) child, and while we were both very stressed, her reaction was to lash out to her nearest and dearest with nastiness.
In the end, she started taking antidepressants. At first this made things worse - the affair - as they made her so she didn't really care about anything or anyone.
But eventually they have had the desired effect and she rarely flies off the handle these days, at me or the children.
A lot of people would have quit with the unreasonable behaviour, or the affair, but it's up to you how you deal with it.

I don't think anyone said you betrayed her, but that she might feel betrayed if she read this. If I read this from my husband I'd be upset.

I disagree about sulking not being emotion abuse. My mother was a terrible sulker and it is awful. My mother grew up in a family were they not allowed to express anger, so this was the only way she could.

ILikeUranus, would you tell a woman who felt emotionally abused by her husband that her husband might feel betrayed if he read her posts here?

JamesTiberiusKirk,

I have to admire your propensity to articulate your thoughts well.

However, personally, if I was going through an emotional meltdown - I can see how your very logical way of perceiving things could miss the nail head completely.

Your wife seems overwhelmed (and you seem upset about this), but you might need to take a first step towards acknowledging & understanding the extent of her emotional labour (research shows that women experience this at the hands of societal ideals and providing emotionally for others at the expense of their own emotional reserves. There is a definite power imbalance thanks to emotional expectations and demands being qualitatively and quantitatively unequal for wives), before you can expect her to acknowledge how upset you are at her behaviour/responses.

Just to refer back to one of your earlier posts, you said that affection has dwindled - you had the opportunity to state whether she was cold even after your attempts to be affectionate towards her; though because you didn't state this it gives the impression that you have an expectation for her to be affectionate regardless. Please correct me if I'm wrong?

Being so logical and yet unaware of the subliminal can seem patronising to the person feeling the overwhelmed and create a power-play when really there should be none (and I'm sorry but from your detailed OP your DW does come across like 'evil-personified' - and you as totally rational).

You say that household chores and decisions etc are equal and fair, but there are things that are out of your control eg you can't divide her hormonal fluctuations and nor could you have shared ownership of pregnancy/body-changes (to mention just a couple of taxings on emotional reserves).

The very fact that you're on here - and considering a change in your marital status at one of the most toughest times in family life conveys that you're not really connected to what she has been & is experiencing.

Tensions in a marriage can arise from incongruent expectations (especially emotional expectations ie she expects you to 'sense' her feelings [the way she's 'supposed' to sense everyone elses], or show thoughfulness eg offer of a spa session, and you expect her to be more rational in stressful situations/times etc.). Perhaps you both could do with a relationship counsellor?

There are other ways to get help eg self-help books, a mutual friend-mediation.

*feeling overwhelmed

Atenco however if you're in a relationship like your mother's upbringing at that point, you are being abused iyswim? My abusive ex presented himself as an angelic victim 24-7. As a result I knew I could never say a word or argue back and became an angry, sulky person.
Because of the way society praises "gentle" men he was lauded and I bet if he'd posted to mumsnet I'd be branded the abuser. In actual fact he utterly smothered and brainwashed me ... with occasional outbursts, which of course he then used to guilt me more.

Nina I could agree with you if this had never happened before and only happened this once with all these apparent stresses combining to cause meltdown. Except the OP has said this treatment has been meted out to him when there have been NO pressures or stress whatsoever.

If this is the case, it is absolutely nothing to do with his wife going back to work, the parents visiting, or coping with a small child and being overwhelmed.

... and as Nina points out, the OP just seems too perfect somehow. He says he's no angel and she's not evil - but he gives no examples of his faults ever and he doesn't want to brand her evil but says she's an abuser and gives no good aide to her.
My ex constantly told me I was abusive (eg insisting on wearing my own clothes not his choices was a big one. Spoilt princess ungrateful for the modesty sacks he'd bought to cover me... but to a 3rd person he'd sound wonderful).

Still No pressures or none the OP noticed?

I know I'm bringing my own experience to the table but the whole tone left me feeling sick. It's so familiar. Thank goodness my ex was pre Internet.

leelu If a woman posted on a forum where she knew her husband posted, a forum predominantly used by fathers, if she included a lot of personal information, I'd be suspicious of motives.

OP all the detail makes your wife look bad, and your faults are mentioned seemingly to show how self aware and fair you are. Nothing in your opening post shows doubt about your present choices. Nothing suggests your wife has made you feel bad about yourself. The tone to me is I'm a rather splendid husband with an unreasonable wife.

I think you need to try and understand what's going on with your wife.

Pablo exactly.

If the roles were reversed I'd say the same. Of course there is the issue of women being seen as cruel if they get angry in the same way as men, whereas if a man doesn't behave angrily he is almost always read by (predominantly women) as fair, bit that's a huge kettle of fish.

...and some women on here are frankly mugs. Either blessed enough not to have experienced non-aggressive unpleasantness or deep in denial.

You can see both parties are messed up from a mile off. Not just her. Both.

OP your wife sounds overwhelmed and extremely stressed out, as though she is trying to achieve perfection (weight loss, birthday cake, etc) and feels like a failure when it goes wrong.

She's wrong to blame you, of course, but the fact it that you are there so some of her frustration will hit you, unfortunately.

I've been like this in the past. DCs birthdays always a very stressful time for me (and those I come into contact with!)

Maybe see if the two of you can talk about ways to simplify life if that might help her to de-stress. But say it in a way that you are thinking of it for both of your benefit, not just here, or she might take it as criticism/offer of help or you offering to fix things. None of that is bad, but it sounds like she would take it badly, as undermine her abilities, etc.

Something like 'wow that was a crazy weekend! We're both shattered! What can we do to make the next couple of weekends stress-free to give us all a bit of a rest?'

OP "the angry shouting and general nastiness thrown my way immediately afterwards. Perhaps I should have thicker skin and just let it was over me, but I just get stressed out by that kind of behavior."

no, of course you don't need a thicker skin. No should put up with that. If you burst into tears - which my mum did with my dad during a bad patch - I wonder how she'd react? It's horrible horrible behaviour.

I am also really sorry about the response you've had here, which has mostly been shite. Very sad. I hope it won't put you off asking for advice again - I am honestly surprised that most posters haven't seen it as a pattern when you clearly said it was.

there's been men posting about wives being rotten to them and I've never seen it garner such a crappy response before.

Describing himself as significantly overweight and short tempered, and buying chocolates for a wife on a diet does not come across to me as the OP trying to make himself sound like a "rather splendid husband"! There is no excuse for throwing hand mixers in dustbins and getting at other for being too slow, imo: I am quite sure there would be no tolerance of that if it came from a man and was directed at a woman's house cleaning abilities!

And overwhelmed or not, the wife's behaviour is nasty. She needs to acknowledge that her behaviour was inappropriate, not justify it like an abuser would in terms of her dh having provoked her to be vile!

pablothepenguin:

OP all the detail makes your wife look bad, and your faults are mentioned seemingly to show how self aware and fair you are. Nothing in your opening post shows doubt about your present choices. Nothing suggests your wife has made you feel bad about yourself.

I am not sure how admitting that I can get frustrated and lose my temper more than I am happy with, whilst being overweight, is designed to portray me in a fair and positive light. I don't need a lot of self awareness to see these faults. Do I need to list all my problems and flaws before I am allowed to raise issues with other people?

The reason I am here is I am struggling to deal with how bad my wife made me feel.

squizita:

You can see both parties are messed up from a mile off. Not just her. Both.

You speak with a certainty that I don't think is even close to justified by what I have said on this thread. I think says more about your preconceptions than anything I have written.

but he gives no examples of his faults ever and he doesn't want to brand her evil but says she's an abuser and gives no good aide to her.

I gave plenty of examples of my flaws. I could list plenty more if that would help?!

In terms of giving no good aide, the key purpose of coming on here was to get perspectives and advice that I might not have thought off, in an attempt to improve this situation.

You know, I'm gobsmacked by some of the replies on here. If a woman were posting these things about her DH, she'd be told by many that her DH's behaviour was unacceptable, that any stress he was under was no excuse, and to get rid of him immediately.

I do think this situation might be very salvageable, if both OP and his DW want it to be...but I do wish that, although much of the advice given here is excellent, some posters had a little more tolerance in how they treat requests for help from men.

I agree with Pablo and squizita.

Leelu66 No, but I certainly would if she posted on dadsnet knowing he regularly went there and wrote in the same manner.

My DW uses Mumsnet, but does not frequent the relationships forum, as she finds it depressing. I am well aware of the irony

Regardless of anything else coming onto a forum that is used by your wife, posting a character assassination and courting responses that are very specific in their support of you is a deeply unpleasant thing to do.

Relationships has become a worse place recently