DH and I together for ten years. He has a daughter from a previous marriage. His ex decided to get a job with very unsociable and unpredictable hours and expected DH to pick up a lot of her slack with DSD, which DH then passed on to me because he was busy with his own work and I was freelance. It caused a lot of arguments and resentment. I felt that having to provide ad hoc childcare for him and his ex was holding my own career progression back. If I ever complained I was accused of not wanting DSD around and being annoyed because it meant she was at ours more often. He refused to acknowledge the imbalance or unfairness. It’s still a very sore point. Even more so because of the reason for this post.
About five years ago I was working for a company on a six month contract. DSD was with her mum for her half of the week and DH was working as normal. DH’s ex suddenly had a job on which meant she couldn’t attend a school event of DSD’s. DH guilted me into going to the event so that DSD would have someone there in the audience - against my better judgement I went, even though I was supposed to be working too. While I was waiting for the event to start I had to do a client call. I tried to find somewhere quiet to do the call but even so, it was obvious from the background noise that I wasn’t in the office when I was supposed to have been. The client complained to the company I was working for. I stayed until the end of my contract but they didn’t renew it and they never asked me back. I was annoyed at the time but DH just brushed it off as ‘oh they’re wankwrs, if they can’t deal with you working flexibly then fuck them’ kind of attitude. A standard which, hypocritically, he didn’t hold his ex’s or his own employers to.
Anyway, it’s happened again. I’ve got in trouble at work because I had to leave early at very short notice to go and sort out another DH domestic fuck up. This time he’d returned from a long haul business trip abroad and didn’t have his deadlock key. So I had to do an hour’s round trip to go and let him in. Again, someone complained about it. There haven’t been any further consequences but still, professionally, it makes me look really shit.
I was thinking back and asking myself why, both times, I didn’t just put my foot down and say an unequivocal ‘no’. And to my horror I realised that it was because I was scared of his reaction. He is a stonewaller. He never raises his voice and is not generally confrontational but his weapon of choice is a three-day stony silence and sulk.
I realise now that the reason I sabotaged my own work both times was because I was trying to avoid an unbearable atmosphere at home. The first time because he would’ve interpreted my not going to DSD’s event as ‘resenting DSD’. And the second time because technically I should have remembered he left for his trip without his deadlock key so I shouldn’t have deadlocked the door.
When I think of it like that, and when I see it written down, he sounds like an emotional abuser. But I am really struggling to square that with how he is the rest of the time. If you met him, he’s that classic sort of person who you’d say was a really nice bloke. He’s humble, he’s friendly, he’s generous, he’s kind - but he’s also stubborn and can be selfish and is prone to a sulk. But I don’t feel ‘afraid’ of him I do also recognise that I put myself at a disadvantage just because I couldn’t be arsed with a three day stand off.
What’s going on? Can anyone help me unpick it? He was genuinely remorseful when I told him about the recent complaint at work and I didn’t hold back in giving him both barrels. He’s sucking up and trying to be the perfect DH at the moment but I am the level of angry where I actually feel icy numbness. I’m scared at how detached I feel. I’m livid that this has happened twice now. And yet he will bend over backwards and move mountains to make sure his ex can work when she need to, because ‘it means extra time with DSD’.
I honestly don’t know what I need to do, or what he needs to do, or what needs to happen next to move past it. I don’t want to feel like this, it’s horrible. I want to get over it and forgive him but I don’t feel able.