I feel sick posting this.
I have been with my partner for nearly 20 years, since we were teenagers. We have two DC.
Things can be good, they can be great. He has many good qualities which have allowed us to make a home and a life together which works well in many ways. He is supportive. We share the same values. We enjoy many of the same things. We both have freedom to pursue our own interests and dreams. He is, or can be, a great father. He is affectionate and we have a good sex life. He most definitely does his fair share in the house (more on that later).
However, his selfishness (as I see it) is driving me away from him. This takes the form of:
- Being totally single-minded about what he wants to do. Eg a building project in the house/re-doing the garden. He will often prioritise these projects over spending the time with the family at the weekend, which upsets me, but in his mind he 'needs' to do them. He seems anxious if he is not 'getting on with' something (this comes directly from his crappy dad). It's true that we can't afford to pay people to do these house/garden jobs, but in my view we could scale back the projects. However my view doesn't seem to hold much sway. The kids enjoy pottering around him while he does these jobs. He teaches them to do things like sawing wood, and he cooks with them a lot. But I want him to down tools and do something with them, which is about THEM.
- He can be a very connected, engaged partner and dad. We spend some lovely times as a family. But when he feels irritated or grumpy, he just indulges it. Being snappy and impatient with the kids, letting his annoyance show at their annoying kid habits (e.g. whistling incessantly, dangling off their chair at the dinner table- I find these things annoying too but as a parent you have to reign in it sometimes and choose your battles!). Having an air of tension about him that makes it unpleasant to be around him. He goes through long spells of not being grumpy, and then periods of being grumpy. In the not-grumpy times I love being with him; the other times, frankly I want to leave. To be clear, he has never been verbally abusive. It's plain and simple grumpy arseness. He is aware of this and does try, but he needs to try harder.
- We live, basically, the way he wants to live (I hate typing that). He's into local shops, growing-your-own, not wasting anything, making jam, cooking everything from scratch and all that stuff. As am I, to a certain extent. I am more easygoing, and many of the things he likes, I like too, so we've just fallen into living what is essentially 'his' lifestyle. Left to my own devices (which sometimes feels entirely tempting), I would do an online shop, I would have a tumble dryer, I would buy a bloody £10 M&S meal on a Friday night.
It's so hard to explain. It's not that he would dictate that we COULDN'T do those things, but it would genuinely unsettle him. It would make him very tense for things not to be the way he likes them, and I don't want to live in a tense environment. So I've never asserted myself and said 'actually why don't we do things this way?'. It isn't that he has told me we can't, it's that I go with the flow- with everything apart from stuff to do with the kids.
In short, I don't think he's quite 'normal', whatever that is, and if I'm honest, I feel envious of women whose partners are 'lazy' and just loll about at the weekends and don't do the shopping, or get involved in the house and kitchen etc. My partner is the opposite and it's exhausting.
I don't know if I can see myself staying forever . But I feel absolutely devastated at the idea of breaking up our family. In particular, I can't bear the thought of him being a grumpy sod with the kids without me there to smooth things over, remind him to back off etc. But I am tired, so tired of playing that role. I feel I've lost myself, and while we can live a happy family life which ticks along, it seems to come at the expense of my needs, and myself, too often.
I don't know what advice I am looking for here. I've just kept it absolutely inside and not spoken to anyone for so long. Any thoughts or shared experiences would be appreciated.
