Hi ladies, I really need some advice. My OH is a very selfish person and I just don’t know how much longer I can take it.
He runs his own business and works pretty much round the clock Monday-Friday and sometimes on weekends and even when we go on holiday (!). Our lives are consumed by it, but I remain patient because he is trying to grow it and be successful.
I am a full time student plus work part time, but do all the cooking, cleaning, washing, looking after the dog etc. He goes to work, comes home and does whatever he wants e.g goes to the pub. As I say, I am patient about work and respect everyone needs a social life, but I am sick of never getting any help and never being listened to.
Every day he will ask how my day has been, I will tell him and then he will continue to talk about his day for half an hour to an hour, in detail. His eyes glaze over when I speak about anything important and I get frustrated. He openly admits he struggles to pay attention when I speak and that he doesn’t hear me when I talk to him and that’s why he can never remember anything I’ve said and this really hurts me :(.
When I mention helping round the house or cooking he simply replies that he’s working and what do I want him to do? He’s got to work to earn money.
On Friday I had an awful migraine that made me vomit for hours before I eventually fell back to sleep, when it wore off slightly. He text me to ask how I was feeling so I said a bit better, stopped vomiting etc. I was off uni as I couldn’t drive in or bare to stare at a screen. He then called me to ask me to do some admin for his business as one of his customers needed something sending over!!!! And when he got home he went on and on about his day and didn’t even ask me how I felt.
Every night for the past few weeks he has been glued to his phone until bed time and barely spoken to me other than to ask what’s for tea and tell me how his day went.
Am I wrong for feeling like he doesn’t care? I feel like I am there to be almost like his second mother and do things he doesn’t want to do such as chores. He isn’t loving with me anymore, and he couldn’t care less about my degree and my achievements. He regularly talks about my future earning prospects as poor e.g. that I’ll only ever earn around £20k tops, and has told me that a PhD ‘wouldn’t suit our lifestyle’. I feel like our lives revolve around him and his business and I can’t take it anymore. I am much brighter and more academic than he is, and I was the one who suggested many of the ideas to help grow the business (he wanted to do it but didn’t have a clue how to do it). Sometimes I feel like he may be threatened by my career prospects and that I may potentially be more ‘successful’ than him or earn more, and so tries to undermine me. I think this stems from having to be centre of attention (he is very loud and VERY opinionated and cuts me off when I speak which my family hate). He has traditional views about women cleaning, cooking (he says men don’t cook) and believes that when we have children I will need to be present to look after them as he will be too busy with his business; I am expected to get a job with good flexible benefits for when we have children.
Please help me, I’m only 22 and I feel so trapped.