I’m so angry with DH and I need to get past it.

[AIBUtopickanyoldname]

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.

Why has she differentiated his attitude to one child and not included complaints about his lack of childcare about the other children too. She should be complaining about him generally.

Well because the issue of childcare for DSD is intrinsically linked to the support he gives to his ex to pursue her career at the expense of my career. Which is the main source of resentment.

There have been occasions when I needed him to help with school runs for our two and he hasn’t been able to because he’s already picking up DSD for his ex, for example. She has her mum, him and by extension me, on tap for free childcare and I have no one. DH is my only support so when she monopolised that for her own benefit, it left me with no options other than leave work early or take a day off.

So you see the distinction?

Hope he has some sterling qualities because someone who threatens to leave his pregnant wife because she won't put herself massively out for his dd so he doesn't have to ... well not looking great

Your husband is not kind. He is selfish and manipulative. His DD is his responsibility and you are right to feel angry

second what pallisers and Brazenhussy0 said. OP I think you need to consider carefully with a cool head whether he is actually a good person. This is the main question you need to answer. You are muddled here - with emotion, overanalyzing/overthinking various issues, things such as the behavior of his ex should not even be your concern. It is his problem and he made it yours by making you feel guilty.

You sound like someone who is kind, wants to do the right thing sort of person, how about him? do you think he is also that sort of person? do you know the real him?

I don't know him but I am with pallisers that someone who threatens to leave his pregnant wife cannot be a good person, no matter how generous, kind, charming he appears to be to the outside world. Imagine if you were in his shoes, would you ever do what he does? - stonewalling, sulking, making your partner feel unimportant. If the answer is "never!" then you have your answer.

Exactly what pallisers says. And I would recommend what you say you have already done - say I’m not doing this running for dsd anymore. However I would take it a step further and specify x areas where you aren’t doing it for your own dc either- it’s not about dsd it’s about HIM and his ability to parent.
I can’t possibly support you in help to get over it as it would be a total dealbreaker for me in my marriage with our own children, no step children. I am not at all sure re joint counselling , definitely only if you’re doing individual counselling to help you start seeing this. If expecting him to parent means he resents you then what kind of relationship was it anyway?

Put your foot down. Don't get drawn into the (silly, offensive) argument with him about you resenting DSD and who does the most work and all that jazz. Just tell him it's a no, you can't do it, and until he stops speaking the same old boring lying nonsense he'd better not speak to you at all. He's insulting your intelligence and your 10 years of step-mothering to DSD by trotting out that old guff to guilt trip you just because it makes his or his ex's life easier.

Abusers are not always abusive. Far from it. Look at the Freedom Programme.

Ah so do you feel a bit threatened by his ex? Or like he somehow values his ex more than you?

Redsky, is it really so difficult to accept that the OP is angry at her husband for his behaviour without trying to make it about her resenting his child (she doesn't) or feeling threatened by his ex (my guess is she doesn't give a shit about her).

Do you really find it that hard to accept that a woman can be justifiably angry at a man's behaviour without it involving some convoluted emotional thing with his child or another woman? What would a man have to do for you to say "I can see why that would make you angry" instead of looking for reasons the woman being angry really has a beef with his ex or his child or his mother or whoever. The OP"s issue is with her husband.

pallisers but redskys didn't say OP should sacrifice her career. Neither did I. We pointed to a difference in her attitude to her DSD whilst saying OP had to have better boundaries and had to prioritise her career in the same way her DH and his ex are.

So your oh wants to have more time with his dd which is fair enough. But by the sounds of it he isn't willing to disrupt his work for her but has a strop if you say you can't do it because of your work. Doesn't seem very fair to me.

Pall - I think you are simplifying the op’s specific issue into one of a general narrative

I AGREE her oh needs to pull his socks up and op needs to put some boundaries in place with him

But as ever life is complicated and it isn’t just that he’s entirely wrong and the op is a lovely, has never been wrong woman.

It does come across that she resented and competed with her dsd when she first got with her oh. Perhaps because she didn’t have children then and didn’t understand that they always come first. It can be difficult to understand how much they take over your life until you’ve had your own.

I also get the feeling that op has low self esteem and had to competed for affection growing up. So a dynamic where she’s ‘competing’ in some way with the ex is particularly triggering for her. Perhaps a sibling always got treated better or a parent themselves had a new partner or interest.

I’m suggesting that in having the conversation with oh about what he can do to shape up she also address that she might not have been treating dsd like one of her own and that she’d try to do so more in future. But in return he needs to support her career the way she asks him to

I see why you are resentful. This is another of those men who have the new wife or partner doing a large amount of childcare for their children from the Ex.

He's taking advantage. If you left, he'd soon find another woman to look after your 2 kids when they're with him.

On another thread recently the OPs partner took a new job with shifts and she was lumbered with school runs for his three DC.

I have to say that a stepchild will never be the same as your own child. Pp need to be realistic about that.

Congratulations, by marrying this entitled knob, you’ve played yourself.

Practice saying no and when he inevitably accuses you of x and y, tell him his lies and manipulation no longer work.

The seething resentment is your fiend. It will be the catalyst that drives the change in your behaviour and the prioritisation of your time and needs. He will push back but stand firm and let his behaviour play out to its logical conclusion.

Your current relationship dynamic cannot continue to be the relationship role model for your children.

of course she is going to have a different attitude to her dsd than her own children. What do people think - she should be a third parent with an equal voice? Of course not. If I were the ex wife I certainly wouldn't want that. The dsd has 2 parents and a step mother who does a lot of care. lucky her.

And she DID complain about his lack of input into her children's care - in her second post.

I agree this is about her boundaries and I am so glad she is going to therapy. But it is also about her husbands flaming sense of entitlement to have a woman run around managing his emotional life for him. And let's face it. That man made it quite clear he would leave her, despite her being pregnant, if she didn't do what he wanted.

What it isn't about is a neglected cinderella stepdaughter - reading that into this post is deeply deeply unfair on the OP. And feeding into the line her dh has given her in order to keep her doing what he wants.

If I was engaged to a new man and they didn’t want my child in their life and resented spending time with them I think I would threaten to leave too. It’s not like he was threatening to leave because she wasnt doing the dishes it was because he wanted his child to have a secure place in their lives.

Both the op and the oh have allowed the dsd to become a red herring for the actual issues in their relationship which is things need to be more equal and op needs to enforce that more

If I was engaged to a new man and they didn’t want my child in their life and resented spending time with them I think I would threaten to leave too.

but that isn't what happened.

I think there is nothing that will persuade you that the imaginary resentful girlfriend/exclusionary stepmother narrative you have attributed to the OP didn't actually happen. It is particularly damaging as that is the imaginary narrative the dh is also giving the OP to manipulate her to do as he wishes. But no point in trying to persuade you so I'll stop.

If I was engaged to a new man and they didn’t want my child in their life and resented spending time with them I think I would threaten to leave too.

And by the way if that happens, you shouldn't threaten to leave. You should leave.

OMG @Redskyandrainbows67
Stop.

You seem to want to create your own personal narrative here. The OP doesn't come across in the way you've outlined. I'd suggest you're projecting your OWN insecurities into this scenario. It's quite bizarre how you are utterly determined to stick to your own opinions in spite of very considered words from the OP to the contrary.

Stay angry and learn to say no.

Eh doctor? The op’s situation is nothing like my personal experiences. I am only commenting after having read her posts very carefully.

This is a man who doesn't accept that women are people. In his head, women exist to prop up Their Man's ego and make his very important life better. I bet his ex binned him because he did no domestic work or childcare, despite probably making a lot of noise about what a 'male feminist' he was - and now he's 'showing her' that he can be Father of the Year, because he's got another woman to do all the actual work.

However you read it wasn’t carefully red. The op talks about rather than feeling threatened from the early days, she respected it and took too much of a backseat in the relationship out of respect to the relationship.

*dad- sdd relationship I mean

I don’t think you have the relationship younthink you do. And I don’t think your DH is the man you think he is.

Do not go to counselling with this man. Go alone.

Search ‘covert narcissist’ and read.

Then make your plans. Quietly.