The straw that broke the camel's back?

[smileygrapefruit]

Has anyone ever ended an otherwise very happy and loving marriage over something quite small because you just can't take it anymore and the same thing keeps happening despite promises that it won't happen again?

@Offred - wise words.

@smileygrapefruit nobody is denying you suffer with anxiety but this four nights out a year is not the evanescence of the issue. You do need to explore and resolve this further.
I can only tell how much I wish my ex had only had four nights out a year on the lash. As do many other posters on here.

Buster "it's a really late one I'll text my husband so he doesn't worry"

That is all I fucking wanted!!! He said he'd be Home between 11 and 12 and didn't get in til 3.30am and was uncontactable!

Honestly, I have read everything. I probably would be more willing to take on everything you've said Offred if you had started in the tone of your latest posts which come across as helpful, your first posts came across quite nasty and l stopped listening when you said you hoped my husband leaves me.

Fwiw I am aware I have a problem. I am seeking more help, I have an appointment next week at the gp to talk about medication (I came off while pregnant and breastfeeding). But seriously, the generalisation that my whole relationship is awful and my husband is some sort of downtrodden man couldn't be further from the truth.

@smileygrapefruit I hope things get better soon.

Yes OP, in response to your opening post, I do think you should leave him because your expectations/behaviour are really controlling and possibly abusive.

I think you need to work on yourself and your anxiety before you get into another relationship and hopefully you will be able to be less controlling in future.

And I say this as someone who suffers from anxiety to the extent of having to take daily medication.

It’s not all you wanted though. Buster means that as a courtesy she texts. Her h most likely hasn’t demanded she texts on pain of punishment.

If she doesn’t text because her battery dies or just because she forgets then her h likely wouldn’t be threatening/thinking about divorce. It’s a courtesy text not a mandatory requirement on which the whole relationship is dependent as it is in your case.

You keep clinging onto bits of what people say that confirm in your mind that you are reasonable and excluding everything that hints that you may have to change.

This is your anxiety, not your h, it is telling you that if you don’t have this crutch you will not be able to cope. It is not rational.

If you don’t change and start seeing how unpleasant the environment you are creating for him is and how abusive your demands/threats are then yes, I still hope he leaves because frankly he shouldn’t have to live like that and neither should your DC. Neither should you as it happens but you have some choice about how much your issue affects you and other people.

Your anxiety doesn’t entitle you to special kid gloves treatment from others re your abusive behaviour either. You need to stop thinking that it does. Your behaviour towards him is abusive. You are not entitled to have me or anyone else soften that view so that you will listen and IMO that is actually the opposite of what you need because it is, again, feeding this idea that you get let off your responsibility to others because of your MH which feeds into the anxiety by validating that it is rational.

The three things stopping you from admitting that fact are; 1. That you are afraid this means you will have to change your coping strategies, 2. You believe someone with anxiety shouldn’t have to hear difficult truths and 3. You have given in to the self involvement and entitlement people sometimes do give in to when they are mentally unwell.

Why shouldn’t people be angry at you for abusive behaviour? Why shouldn’t people be more concerned for your husband and challenge your narrative that he is in the wrong for failing to live up to your anxious demands?

You may well be aware you have a problem, but your DH and DC continue to be at risk if you continue to see your anxiety as entitling you to special treatment and as giving you a right to control his social life.

I also note that choosing to stop listening is another maladaptive coping mechanism. It is one you have chosen re your DH when he has tried to explain how all this makes him feel.

It is in a similar vein to threatening divorce when he doesn’t come home at the time you want.

Those two things are avoidance tactics. The first by refusing to hear information, the second is self soothing by thinking about taking yourself out of a situation that is causing you anxiety.

If you are going to get better you need to significantly reduce avoidance behaviours and build up actual coping mechanisms. Every time you avoid something it reinforces the anxiety.

Op, you started from a position saying that you were prepared to leave your marriage because he won't text you when you insist 4 times a year.

Now you seem to be saying, you can not be a demanding/controlling person because hey, it only happens 4 times a year.

Can you not see the contradiction there?

Controlling the world outside yourself is never going to improve your anxiety.

The journey to healthy functioning comes when you replace controlling others, controlling what you hear and see and feeling like anxiety controls you with applying all that effort to controlling the anxiety.

Anxiety is to a large extent habitual, the more you give into to pathological anxiety behaviours the more anxiety you have. The more you push yourself to cope with anxious feelings, being flexible, self aware and responsible re how you treat others as well as exposing yourself to, and coping with anxiety internally, without making demands on other people the better your anxiety will get.

And as an aside, you have some genuine concerns buried in there; namely that he is shutting down communication and that on occasion he has got worryingly drunk, but these are minor in comparison, in part his own maladaptive ways of coping with your demands and most importantly; they are and will continue to be totally obscured by and unable to be raised productively with him whilst you are in this mindset.

Yes but Op I do it through choice and I've not been told to do it, I only send the text so if he wakes up at (for example) 1am and I'm not home he can switch his phone on and see that I've gone to a nightclub. He will not have been waiting by his phone for me!
If someone kept asking what time I'll be home, I'd be pissed off and just give them a time regardless of if being true or not, when I'm having a drink I could either be home at 11pm or 3an. It's my time to enjoy.

Fwiw my husband never texts me when he's out, if he does it's because he wants a lift! If I started asking for him to keep me up to date of his whereabouts I think I'd be heading for a divorce. I am not his keeper, he is not my property. If he asked me to keep him up to date on my whereabouts I'd think it very odd, but slightly more acceptable (clutching at straws) being a woman, as women are more vulnerable when they've been drinking, in taxis alone etc.

Step back and take a good look at your relationship, you say it's great apart from about 4 nights per year. That's 4 out of 365 nights, so the 361 others are fine. that's a fabulous percentage of good times.

For those 4 nights, can you set a different set of expectations? Because the ones you have right now are not realistic. Basically you want him to let you know what he's doing and when he'll be home whereas he just wants a bit of laid back go with the flow time with his friends.

If he goes out on one of these nights, could you reasonably expect him to be home by say 7am the next morning without having any contact with you. According to your previous posts, he's managed that every time, in fact he's beaten your expectation every time.

Would that make you feel better?

I feel for you OP I think this thread has turned really negative. You have a lot of insight into your anxiety and have admitted you have been wrong in the past. This situation needs compromise. I too out if courtesy would expect my husband to text to say he is going to be later. That is all he needs to do. You need to work on feeling comfortable enough to be there without him. I hope your doctors appointment goes well and you and your dh sort this out.

No, sorry, 7am is not ok. It wouldn't be if I didn't give a shit because we have 3 children under 4, non of which sleep through. The thing is, honest to God, if it had been a big night out and he'd said it was going to be a late one I'd have bitten my tongue (yes, I know I shouldn't have to) and 3am would have been reasonable (I would have still been stressing which I know is still a problem). It was a Monday night down the pub and he had said he'd be Home between 11 and 12, I worried... I think most people would?!

Tomselleck, thank you for recognising that.

I don’t think knowing you have anxiety is the same as having insight into it and someone who doesn’t even know why they are anxious cannot possibly be described as having insight into it.

Having insight IMO looks like;

• knowing what triggers anxious thinking/behaviour

• understanding the differences between anxious fears/worries (and the difference between fears/worries) and things that are actually cause for concern

• knowing behaviour driven by anxious thinking/feelings is not positive or helpful

• understanding why you get anxious

• knowing that you are responsible for anxious thinking/feeling/behaviour

OP only really ticks knowing what things make her anxious.

Was he working the next day?

Staying out four times a year is quite normal behaviour. I can understand he needs to let his hair down without text updates to you

I think you need to work on your anxiety and how you can independently work through an evening with no text updates.

Basically having 3 DC under 4 isn’t necessarily a valid concern unless he was doing this all the time, he was going to work in a kitchen on no sleep and hungover/still drunk, he was going to need to drive the DC in the morning and was still drunk, you were going to work and he wasn’t safe to be responsible for the DC.

Offred, I can tick all those boxes. I know all those things in my head. Truly. And I know why this particular thing triggers me... because he got far too drunk in the past and acted like a drunken dick (no hunting for posts about that as it was before I joined mumsnet that this started). Yes, he was working the next day.

I made him walk to work. I guess that's me being controlling too.

I would have insisted he walk too. Loads if people loose their licence for being way over the limit on a morning.

If it’s simply that he was going to have a harder than necessary day (4 times a year) hungover and tired with three small children then it has nothing to do with you.

And TBH him losing one of his mornings with the DC to sleep every 3 months (if I could get up with DC) in exchange for a whole week of lie ins for me would seem like a great deal that I’d jump at.

Would he have been safe at work in a kitchen?

And no, making him walk to work is not controlling because him driving while over the limit is a genuine cause of concern (see the second point).

Acting like a drunken dick is also a genuine concern. Getting so severely anxious about him ever going out again is not a genuine concern (since there have been plenty of times he has gone out without acting like a drunken dick).

Non of this is really relevant. But it's not just a case of getting up in the morning with the kids. We take it in turns during the night as there is rarely a time when all 3 are asleep.