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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

How bad is it? And what can I do?

149 replies

GizzyTiedToATree · 31/05/2017 08:22

Posting from work as I suspect DH to have installed a keylogger at home. It means that I don't know when I will be able to come back.

I have been with DH for 13 years, married for 9, 3DCs aged 10, 7 and 4.

DH is sulking. Again. This time, it is because on Sunday, when he was lecturing DS about his Minecraft use, he said "you have a problem, just like Mum has a problem - she goes directly from a computer screen to a book". I asked him if I wasn't allowed to read books now. He hasn't spoken to me since.
He sulks, sometimes for weeks at a time. Here are a few examples of things that have set him off in the past and that I find myself avoiding :

  • going on Mumsnet
  • going on the internet in general
  • wearing a knee-length skirt at work
  • wearing lipstick
  • being in the staff room at work (I am a teacher)
  • watching a film with Richard Armitage
  • saying hello to a male acquaintance
  • coming back from work at 12:35 instead of 12:30

He constantly slags me off to the DC ("you never finish things, like your mother" / "you never admit you're wrong, like your mother"), tells them I don't do anything around the house (I do about 90% of housework, childcare and cooking), that I spend all the family's money, that I am selfish, that he wishes he had not married me. He even made references to my "mileage" in front of them (he resents the fact that I was not a virgin when we met. I was 23 and I had had sex three times).

I find it hard to convey how ground down I feel. I try to talk to him, but either he stonewalls me like now, or he tells me that everything is my fault.
I would like to hear that he can change, but I am starting to realise that I cannot make him change.
Apart from LTB, is there anything I can do on a day-to-day basis?

OP posts:
Nevergrowingold · 31/05/2017 17:35

That comment about you not working is vile. Really contemptuous. How embarrassing that your mother had to point it out to you.

I think you need to start making a plan for how to end it, especially if he is tracking you. Make sure you are safe.

GizzyTiedToATree · 31/05/2017 17:40

Nevergrowingold it is a variation on one of his favourite phrases, "you don't do the laundry, the washing machine does".

OP posts:
Fluffypinkpyjamas · 31/05/2017 17:44

Posting from work as I suspect DH to have installed a keylogger at home. It means that I don't know when I will be able to come back

I had already decided when i got that far and the rest confirmed it for me.

He is a cnut and you need to LTB. Like has been said, life is far too short.

ptumbi · 31/05/2017 17:44

If I say I am considering divorce, he is going to say that he was right all the way, that I never loved him, that he has wasted over 10 years of his life on me. - OK, so he will say that. What, then, is the alternative? You stay with him so that he can't say that?

And that is 10 years of your life wasted too. Don't waste another one.

FFS. Get out now. Be happy. Then you will not care what he says, or what he thinks.

ClopySow · 31/05/2017 18:05

The keylogger was enough, the rest of it is hellish.

Seriously, start getting things sorted then leave the bastard.

ImperialBlether · 31/05/2017 18:42

Aren't you using your phone? He can't have a keylogger on that. And do you know that other place?

ItsNachoCheese · 31/05/2017 18:43

Run and do not look back!

AufderAutobahn · 31/05/2017 18:53

Let the abusive shithead say what he wants. It doesn't matter. He won't change and you deserve far better than him. Do whatever it takes to LTB.

AhNowTed · 31/05/2017 19:18

OP I've seen some horror stories on here and yours is one of them.

He will never change, and is an abusive controlling shit who doesn't give two figs for your welfare.

Don't waste another day on this farce of a marriage.

Flowers
ohfourfoxache · 31/05/2017 19:37

Please please get rid of this obnoxious fuckwit.

Listen to your mum. She wouldn't say anything if she wasn't concerned- most of us keep quiet if there are just minor niggles in an otherwise happy relationship.

But more than anything else, leave for the sake of your dc. They don't deserve to grow up thinking this is acceptable.

Zaphodsotherhead · 31/05/2017 20:43

I'm with melons. Just agree with everything he says. If he tells you you've ruined his life then you can tell him that it's best that you divorce as soon as possible then, not to ruin any more of it, but everything else...give it a 'yes, dear'.

He's a twat. And you can tell him I said so.

Squirmy65ghyg · 31/05/2017 21:12

Who cares what he says. It literally does not matter. You can be free of him and his abuse forever.

Squirmy65ghyg · 31/05/2017 21:13

Believe you me your kids will thank you for it.

GizzyTiedToATree · 01/06/2017 07:32

When he came back from work yesterday, he asked me about my day. Except that he doesn't ask me about my day : he questions me about my day in a way he probably thinks is very subtle. Usually he asks me 4 or 5 times in a slightly different way, hoping that I am going to contradict myself.

This morning he called me just as I was arriving at work. I was a little out of breath because I was climbing the stairs, so he asked me if I had had time to put my knickers back on. Then he started questioning me again because he felt I had taken too long to go to work.

He seems to think I am going through life looking for opportunities to pounce on the nearest penis.

OP posts:
mummytime · 01/06/2017 07:37

Don't answer.
Just get out.

AlternativeTentacle · 01/06/2017 07:37

Just tell him fuck off. Christ this is no way to live is it?

ohfourfoxache · 01/06/2017 07:38

You need to get away from him. Please. He actually sounds potentially dangerous- be careful

NameNotANumber · 01/06/2017 07:46

YY to get out and don't look back.

A happier life awaits you and your DC

Nevergrowingold · 01/06/2017 07:47

Weird, creepy and insulting.

Sidge · 01/06/2017 07:48

He doesn't respect you. He doesn't value you. He doesn't care for you. He just sees you as his possession, someone there to facilitate his life and for his benefit. He is not your keeper and life is too short to live like that, sweetheart.

Leave him. I don't say that lightly - I'm divorced (different reasons) and it was the most painful experience of my life. I know starting again isn't easy but you need to do it. As much for your children as yourself - the poison he's dripping WILL infect them and you need to spare them that.

AnyFucker · 01/06/2017 07:49

Unhitch your wagon from this inadequate prick

I don't undestand why you are engaging with him.

rizlett · 01/06/2017 07:53

How bad is it?

Very. And damaging.

And what can I do?

When you reach a point where you've had enough - set yourself free.

gamerchick · 01/06/2017 07:57

If I say I am considering divorce, he is going to say that he was right all the way, that I never loved him, that he has wasted over 10 years of his life on me

So what?!

I didn't need to read past installed a key logger.

He's fucked in the head, he's abusing you through your kids at times and massively damaging them. Get them out of that before they're fucked up for life!

AttilaTheMeerkat · 01/06/2017 08:04

What did you learn about relationships when growing up?.

There is nothing you can do here but get your ducks in a row to leave this individual. Your children have seen nothing other than their dad abusing their mother their entire lives; this is not the legacy you want to be leaving them. My guess too is that he has been emotionally abusive since the early days of your relationship and simply ramped up the power and control antes over the years.

What do you think they are learning about relationships here?. He is abusing them too by constantly slagging you off to them. They could well go on to be abused or abusive controller types themselves as adults; they have seen an awful lot of damaging lessons on relationships to date.

CalmItKermitt · 01/06/2017 08:06

Oh op get out. This man is a bad man.

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