I really enjoy seeing friends, going to events and talks and socialising with other families who have kids. I love hosting and cooking and I enjoy other people having a great time, and I find that I have a really happy kind of exhausted once people have come to stay and then they leave and there’s washing up to do and bedsheets to be washed, because I feel like I have really connected with people I like and made them happy.
DH hates my energy going towards this and I feel like I have to pay in blood every time I have this kind of enjoyment.
Eg last weekend we had a couple of DH’s friends and one of mine to stay. We hadn’t seen them for about a year and a half. He knew we were due to see them as he’d been part of the email exchange with them and made it clear to me he wanted to see them at some point. But when I reminded him we’d agreed in the email exchange they were coming this weekend, he became grumpy and said that we had better things to do than see friends and wanted me to cancel. I refused to cancel and said that I would take care of everything, thinking he was angry about the work it involved (which he has been in the past,) and I did.
I shopped and made all meals, I made up all beds, stripped and washed them afterwards, did all washing up and all the while looking after two toddlers and 30 weeks pregnant. I was tired at the end but I was happy tired.
While they were here DH sat in the bedroom on his computer and only came down for meals and to say hello and goodbye. He had a few chats with his friends and I heard him laughing a lot at a few points and felt relieved that he was having a good time.
He didn’t lift a finger though. And I thought, fine, it’s because he doesn’t really want this, so i’m going to make it as easy as possible for him. So I was bathing DC while pouring drinks for friends and reading them stories and putting them to bed while cranking up the barbeque in the garden.
Little did I know that the moment we closed the door to the last person and waved them off, I would be in for a tirade about how unreasonable, disrespectful and wrong I was to have people round when I knew he didn’t like socialising, and that I “have to change.”
In the past he has said that he doesn’t like it because he “always gets left with the work,” which has never actually been true. It is often that he doesn’t feel his food or drinks have been praised highly enough, or something small went wrong like he didn’t have a specific ingredient and he can never get over it.
Nevertheless I tried to change that and so I have done all the work the last few times, so he can’t say that anymore. But still he is unhappy.
So I can see perhaps that so far you might think he is just an anti social introvert and just likes being alone or with his family and therefore he and I are a bit incompatible but that’s not really true.
There are plenty of times where he is extremely social and the life of the party. Usually they are things which I have not organised and often am not even present at. I seem to miss the events where he is out till 5am or the times he laughs until he cries, or the times where all the “in jokes” get established, or he does stupid dancing or gets plastered, or the bonding moments he has with his/our friends (but tells me about.)
Which makes me think that the common denominator is me. That he does not actually like me enjoying myself. Or he doesn’t like me getting attention. I don’t really know what it is. But I feel like I can guarantee that the more enjoy something, the more he will irrationally hate it. And the more absent I am from something, the more it will be the “best time on earth.”
I couldn’t feel more shocked today that this weekend - where I really was in my element - he has described as disrespectful and disruptive to our family life and he wants me to apologise for frittering away money on entertainment of our friends and for not checking enough if he was okay all weekend. He says “it’s like you don’t want to be alone with me.” But of course that’s Not true.
Why is he doing this?