DH is so negative

[FricketyFrick]

I'm not sure how much I can stand. He is negative about everything - work, the children, family members, friends, the news etc etc. I've got to the point now where I avoid being in the same room as it brings me down so much.

I'm quite a cheerful, optimistic person (although I have suffered MH problems) but I can't remember the last time DH and I laughed about anything. He's always had a pessimistic streak but over the years it has got worse and worse. So judgemental about people - words from this week include incompetent, useless, untrustworthy, stupid etc. Is he depressed or just a really horrible person? (Or both!?)

Watching with interest. My dh can be like this - very glass half empty. It's tiring because I find myself being more positive than normal to counteract it. I tell him he's negative, but he just gets defensive...

My ex was like this. We'd go to a friends house for tea (for example) and have a lovely time and nice food and I'd leave smiling and then we'd get in a taxi and he'd start about x's ridiculous attitude to this or y's silly haircut or how z undermined him when he said whatever. Took the wind out of my sails with everything. On holiday it was always too hot or too cold or 'good but very expensive' etc etc.

Now that I have left him I feel a weight off, I happily bimble about myself in a cloud of optimism and joy about the world 🙂

Sorry op. Yes, I'm getting divorced too. Mine did other terrible things but there was nothing he liked more than pissing on a parade. Exhausting.

Glad it's not just me - it is exhausting isn't it. I feel like he must think all those things about me too. And yes to the getting defensive if anything is mentioned (or sulking)

Now that I have left him I feel a weight off, I happily bimble about myself in a cloud of optimism and joy about the world 🙂

Love this!

I think people like this often dont realise it so you have to be brutal. Keep a written record so when you do talk to him you can say “ LOOK - it is ALL the time”.

Possibly depressed. My DH was like this a lot - a lot better now on ADs and easier to call him out on it when he drifts into being negative and he isn't defensive about it anymore - seems to take it on board and try harder.

Would he be receptive at all about seeing someone about his mental health?

Ha ha I would love to live in a little cloud of optimism! We have had an awful couple of years with huge amounts of stress but we're through that now. Is there a good way of tackling this with him?

I don't think he would accept that he has MH issues. Wasn't particularly sympathetic about mine. I just want to have a nice conversation that doesn't involve slagging someone else off. He rains on every parade - there's always something that isn't good enough.

I will try gently pointing it out and see how I get on.

It is draining. I had a friend like this. She just couldn't speak nicely of anyone. Everyone was bad. When I went to a funeral she would say 'ah you went so that if you bumped into the family you wouldn't feel embarrassed'

No.. I went because I wanted to. She ruined my hen with her moaning.

I don't know op. I don't recommend leaving but you could talk to him and tell him it isn't going to last.

it might be worth a try. My DH had a breakdown before he got help. I didn't think about it at the time but his depressive episodes caused us a lot of marital issues over the years. I wasn't aware that he was depressed and ended up feeling to blame for a lot of things that really were never about me.

The ADs have saved our marriage really as I was at the end of my tether with it all.

Thank you - yes it is causing marital issues I can't bear to be in the same room as him as I don't know what he's going to start on about next and I feel like I have to protect my own MH if that makes sense. I will have a chat with him and see if he will talk to someone.

Really think it is going to cause a split if it carries on. Can't bear to think of living like this for another 40 years!

Not an attractive trait at all.
He's what I call a fun-sucker.
Could you write it down for him to read?
Something along the lines of your posts here.
Let him see it in black and white that this will cause your marriage to end as you just can't live with him dragging you down all the time.
Would he agree to counselling?
For himself and then maybe you joining him?

I also know someone like this and its hard work, she can find something negative in every situation. Like whitehorses, I find myself being extra positive and putting a different spin on it - feel like a bloody motivational speaker after a few hours with her!

I absolutely couldn't be in a relationship with someone like that - it would drag me down.

My DH actually asked to go to couple counselling and I said no. My reasoning was that it wasn't really about our marriage as such. Now that he is on the ADs we get on brilliantly. He decided to arbitrarily cut down his dose a couple of weeks ago as he was feeling really good and he's taken up an exercise programme etc. I ould tell straight away even though he hadn't told me and he started getting more obsessed about the excercise to the detrement of everything else. I've told him what I've noticed and he told me what he'd done and he's gone back to his dose again until he at least discusses it with the GP.

It all seems so obvious now that I'm annoyed we didn't do something sooner. We've been together over 20 years and like you, I'd got to the point where I wasn't looking forward to being alone together and the kids moving out etc. Much more positive about our future now.

My BF and I both have exes like this, and identify with the having to be ultra positive to counteract it thing. It's so wearing, and as you can tell, neither of us could stand it. It's nice now to be with someone generally optimistic - not relentlessly cheerful, even grumpy at times, but not an energy-sucking cloud of gloom.

I read somewhere, ages ago so I don't have a link, that some people are born genetically programmed to be negative. In which case, counselling to try and make him more aware of his thought processes might help. Or as wax says, it might be linked to depression or self-esteem.

However, I have a work colleague like this, she finds no joy in anything, and her OH is exactly the same. They appear to be content together so, sorry to say this, maybe you are just married to the wrong people and you need to find someone more optimistic and him someone less.

You are me. It's exhausting. Reading replies with interest.

Me too, I live with a guy who's mostly negative and moody and it's just so tiring. Its starting to make me properly anxious that I have to pretend to be shitting sunshine and rainbows just to counteract the inevitable moods and sniping. It means I never get to totally express myself because I'm always heading off a storm at the pass, if that makes sense.

My DS2 is a glass half empty person already at 16. I wonder if he is predisposed to depression.

My Dad is just like this. I don't know how my mum sticks it out. I resent her a little bit for not sorting him out a long time ago. I don't see them that often now as it's so depressing (for all concerned I think).

it must be a joyless existence living that way, always being so negative. Have you talked to him about it in the past? It's a deal breaker for me.

My OH is like this too and I'm so glad that others have said that they feel the need to be ultra-positive to counteract it, because I feel like bloody Pollyanna some days.

It's absolutely everything, even things that are proved wrong. Eg, my car has a broken window, so according to OH, I shouldn't take it anywhere because it will be broken into. For six months I've been driving it like that, and he's been saying the same, despite ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY.

I make myself sick I'm so sweetness and light. He's not depressed, just a miserable bugger, and I have no idea how to point out that no, it's not everyone, it's just him...although he does sometimes have a bit of a laugh about how miserable he is, it's the only reason I haven't killed him with a spoon.

From my experience, people who are seemingly inherently negative were raised by someone like this and it only gets worse with age. They are exhausting and literally suck the life right out of you. If they aren't willing to recognise it and make a HUGE, lasting commitment to change, they simply will not change.

I have reached an age now where I simply will not spend time with anyone like this, and there are a LOT of people like this. I can't even be bothered to read threads on here from people with this dirty stain on their outlook on life - truly, I can spot it a mile away! I think it is completely unhealthy to be around someone like this.

Personally I think it starts in childhood, that it not due to depression or mental health, but either something in their upbringing that has made them insecure and defensive like this, or else it is just inherent from birth. It is a blight on their whole life but although I have a measure of compassion for someone who is crippled in this way I am not prepared to be any part of it.

So yes, I would absolutely leave someone who is like this. I strongly suspect that it would/could not make their life any worse and it would make mine infinitely better.

My husband is like this and both his parents are too. It's absolutely exhausting.