Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

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

An update on my 'To top off my crap year...' thread

999 replies

October · 17/04/2007 14:40

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
October · 30/04/2007 09:55

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
Tanee58 · 30/04/2007 13:40

Hi October - and everyone else.

Having a really tiring day at work - a bit hungover after a dinner party last night and sitting up late after our friends left, talking with dp. He's convinced he's going to die of his op tomorrow!

October, I don't get the impression you're childish - but you and your h do seem to live in totally different worlds - his is one set back in the 19th century somewhere - he out earning the dosh, whether he likes his job or not - you at home (in his dreams) bringing up his children and attending to all his needs. He obviously feels insecure in himself and can only feel valid by having you as the Angel of the House submitting to his will! Time he realised that women no longer want to live like that (well, not so many of us). You're perfectly right to want a job, child, friends, hobbies AND a partner who is happy for you to have them. He should rejoice that you are so multi-talented and happy in yourself. If he doesn't it really does imply that the problem lies with him. I've said before that it seems he's at his best with you, only when you're unhappy - and really, really, that's not normal, mature, balanced, supportive partnering. He needs to address this at your next Relate sessions. If you do eventually split up, he's going to do this to some other poor woman. Do you know if he was in previous relationships where he felt the need to control in this way?

And what's wrong with takeaways? God, if I had ever had a partner who expected home cooked meals all the time when I'm working as well, he'd have starved to death!

Sobernow · 30/04/2007 16:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

October · 30/04/2007 17:48

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
October · 30/04/2007 17:49

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
October · 30/04/2007 18:02

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
Sobernow · 30/04/2007 19:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Fubsy · 30/04/2007 20:40

I cant help thinking that if men of all ages were better able to "discuss things and support (their partners)" there would be a lot fewer women in this forum who are unhappy with their relationships.

Im fully aware of the male difficulty in expressing emotions, but sometimes life requires a discussion, not a mime.

October · 30/04/2007 21:41

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
October · 30/04/2007 21:42

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
Fubsy · 30/04/2007 22:06

Dunno where that came from!

Dior · 30/04/2007 22:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Cashncarry · 30/04/2007 22:19

Hi October! I've not posted on your thread for a while but am now fully updated and raring to go!

Oh my God! He said WHAT?! Can't believe that blow-up he had at you re: your job - what an arse Apologise if you're over it now but I am just steaming on your behalf. Now I can fully understand why you're just so down on yourself all the time and why G was such an attractive proposition! At the end of the day, he wants a wife from the 1950s! Does he expect you to have his pipe and slippers ready for him when he gets home too?

I must say that there is some advantage to coming to this issue as late as I have. Having had the opportunity to read this thread back, I can see the path you've beaten for yourself through your despair. I am SO glad that you're finally angry! Anger's what you need my dear to get through all this crap you're having to go through - believe me, I'm the expert!!

Sod him honestly! You continue to try your hardest and your job and do well in your chosen career. You sound like a highly intelligent woman who's sacrificed her own intellectual needs for the sake of her family. Now is YOUR time. If your rship is going to make it, it will have to be on the basis if you being equals, not you being the subservient little housewife! If it doesn't work out between you, you will have created a new life for yourself that's not dependent on his job and his income.

It's great to see you using your old name btw - what brought that on?

October · 30/04/2007 22:25

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
Cashncarry · 30/04/2007 22:39

Wow Dior - that's pretty heavy stuff How sad that his reaction is to ignore you. Are you still going to Relate?

Cashncarry · 30/04/2007 22:44

Have to go to bed now - am thoroughly knackered but do feel free to email/CAT me xx

October · 01/05/2007 18:54

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
Fubsy · 01/05/2007 20:40

God I hate that feeling of having to tiptoe round each other.

Why did he have to go out when you were about to give him his meal?

October · 02/05/2007 16:05

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
Cashncarry · 02/05/2007 16:27

Hi October! Glad things have improved slightly. I might be way off the mark but is it really such a bad thing when you're only in contact by email? I only say that because he's obviously behaving badly and why should he be congratulated for that?

There's a little support thread that IOHW is running which gives great advice on "distancing" yourself from your OH in the case of bad behaviour (whatever kind) in order to (a) preserve your own sanity and (b) "teach" them the consequences of their actions.

It might sound a bit naff but it's worked for me! It's obviously just a short-stop while you work out whether or not you want to be together long-term but it's helped me loads whenever there's a possibility I might fall into a deep hole of despair at the fact that DH isn't the loving, caring partner I want in life...

It sounds like you're doing it already so feel free to ignore me if necessary

October · 02/05/2007 18:34

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
Tanee58 · 03/05/2007 11:18

October, sorry, have been away from the computer 2 days as dp had his op and I was busy playing doctors and nurses (wish I still had the nurse apron my mummy made me .

Really, your h does sound very immature - you said you met when you were doing your A-levels. Is he the same age as you? Had he had many - or any previous long-standing relationships? Had you? I ask this, as it made me think back to my first real boyfriend (I was 23!!!) He was 25, had had a few girlfriends but very strange ideas about the power base in a relationship - and as I'd very little experience, and had grown up with a mother who said that marriage is all about compromise, I thought that was what I could expect. Boy, when we finally split and I started seeing other men, I realised that it was possible to meet men who didn't expect me to be subservient. I just wonder whether that's something you haven't been able to discover, because you were so young when you met.

What I'm trying to say is, if this marriage doesn't work out, it's not for want of you trying - and if he wants to stay with you, it may be that he'll want to do it on his terms.If he does, and you decide to make the break, it may help to know that not all men are like this, and you CAN find a supportive man out there who'll love you and treat you as an equal.

Sorry can't write more - overstressed and overworked today!

October · 03/05/2007 14:40

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
Tanee58 · 03/05/2007 15:39

I'm glad G was a bit friendlier today - but it sounds like you have him sussed now - so enjoy the remains of your crush - whilst knowing there's no future in it. You're being honest with yourself in realising that you wouldn't enjoy an affair without a relationship - I'm the same and I suspect the majority of women are. Maybe it's socialisation, or maybe it's the way we're wired, but it's hard to do the physical thing without actually liking/loving the guy's mind - unless you're very, very, very drunk .

What you've said about you being h's first partner etc chimes exactly with what I'd begun to wonder about your situation the last couple of weeks (I've been thinking about you even though I haven't been online much). Your h is obviously afraid of losing you, but he himself isn't secure or psychologically mature enough to realise that the only way to keep a lover is to let them be free (the old cliche, but it works!) The trouble is, he may never learn that within your marriage as it's a pattern he's been in all his 'adult' life. And you, you can have SO much more. There's a world of men out there and you have your work and ds and hobbies and friends as well!(The advice I give my DD, now that she's 15 and may fall in love any day now, is never to settle for the first man she dates - or even, maybe, the second, unless they are mature enough and man enough to let her be herself and support her in following her own 'bliss' - it's rather the opposite of what my mother advised me, but then she came from a pre-war generation plus being brought up in an Asian country where even though her own family didn't do arranged marriages, they still tended to marry the first respectable middle-class person who asked!)

Does your H have many friends or other interests outside work and home? I would have thought that if he did, he'd notice that other men don't necessarily expect a home-cooked meal on the table every night, even when their wives are SAHs, nor is a clean and tidy house the be-all and end-all of existence (children develop better immunity with a little dirt . I say this as a woman with a major cat hair problem on her carpets, and yesterday's leftovers ready to warm up for tonight, but at least dp seems happy with it (and when the cat hair gets too much, he knows where the Miele is!)

Sorry, I'm rambling on again - but I do think that ok you suffer from depression and all, but I really think the problems stem from your H's inability to realise how to run a modern shared relationship in the 21st century. However, you do !

October · 03/05/2007 19:31

Message withdrawn

OP posts: