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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Please check my thinking?

68 replies

Florentyna · 31/05/2019 16:46

I am seriously considering divorce but before I do, I just need to check my thinking and check I’m not overreacting.

I’ve been with my husband for 10 years, we have two kids 8 and 10. To the outside world I’m pretty sure our marriage looks perfect but it really doesn’t feel it inside here.

Name changed for this, because it's outing. Sorry it's long, please bear with me.

Around the time I was doing my undergrad degree part time with OU (I was working full time too and so was he), he started to get very angry with me about studying and in his words ‘not concentrating on me and the kids’. We would argue about housework because he was doing most of it but angry that he should have to do it. He also pulled his weight with looking after the kids but he never let me forget it and often threw it at me in arguments that he was ‘the babysitter’.

I finished the degree and he ruined my graduation. On the day, he yelled at me and told me I thought I was so much more important than everyone else because I had a degree. He told me no one liked me and all my friends were fake. He told me he was the only one who stood by me and he was fuming that I had invited my family to my graduation because he said they didn’t support me like he did.

I was still working full time in management when I started a doctorate and for those years he never once let up about how I was a bad mum and bad wife for not doing enough housework and childcare. In truth, I was balancing a senior role, a doctorate, two kids, him and a bunch of other stuff. He tells everyone I’m never at home but I looked through my calendar for the year and on average I was away from home 6 days a month, the rest was working from home and I actually had the kids and all school runs myself.

As the doctorate progressed and my salary went up and I got promoted a few times, he got angry with me about money. He was angry I earned more than him. He was angry I was paying for holidays for us all. He was angry that I had savings. Every week almost he told me that he didn’t care I was doing a doctorate and he didn’t care about my job and I should be at home being a better mother and wife. He says he feels lonely and isolated.

(His life is actually nothing like that. He works part time in a high paid job and the rest of his time he spends in the gym, in a spa or with his mates whilst I work 60 hour weeks.)

When I finished the doctorate he was happy on the surface but I knew it was fake. Within a couple of days he was saying that I thought I was something special because I had a PhD. He says I’m selfish and self obsessed. Bad mum. Bad wife.

Which brings me to recently. I don’t know what has caused this but he seemed to have gone full MRA on me in the last few months and I just don’t even recognise him. I’m feminist and get involved in lots of campaigning and he has known this for years but always been a bit dismissive.

In the last few weeks he has said:

He thinks only sexy women in short skirts get raped so women and teen girls should cover their bodies

He thinks most women lie about being raped for revenge or attention

He thinks Shamima Begum should be killed or left to die for what she had ‘done’

He thinks women and girls are the biggest offenders of abuse and risks but no one discloses

He thinks men and boys are abused at the same rate as women and girls but men and boys just don’t report it

He tells me he hates my feminism and that I’m obsessed with women’s rights

He ummmd and ahhd over the god-damn abortion ban

He has recently told me he thinks gay lesbian and bi people are wrong and it shouldn’t be allowed and a man should always be with a woman (I’m bisexual and this has really rocked me to be with a homophobe all of a sudden)

He is angry that I earn more money than him and have more influence

He is angry that I work so much because he says I should be home more and do much more housework

He says that none of my friends care about me and no one knows the ‘real’ me and if they did they would all hate me anyway

He says me being bi disgusts him and makes him feel sick

He says feminism turned me bi Hmm

He is angry that I saved up our large mortgage deposit and says he could have done it on his own

He says men are discriminated against in society

He says women make up DV to get revenge on dads of their kids

All of these things. They point to MRA-type misogyny. These views, I have to deal with this shit all damn day at work. This is the type of horrible shit I am sent by trolls and MRAs and I don’t think I can live with him whilst he’s spouting this nonsense.

I've tried to educate him but he says he doesn’t believe my stats or research or global oppression and that ‘he’s entitled to his opinion’.

I want to leave. But am I overreacting? Is this a good enough reason for divorce? I’ve tried for months to get him to see how harmful he is being but as a woman, as a rape victim myself and as a bi woman with loads of bi and gay and lesbian friends - he’s just looking more and more ugly to me the more he speaks.

Help!

OP posts:
SoupDragon · 31/05/2019 16:47

He sounds like a dick.

SoupDragon · 31/05/2019 16:49

Is this a good enough reason for divorce?

Are you happy in your marriage? If the answer is no, then all the reasons you are not happy are sufficient reasons.

zen1 · 31/05/2019 16:51

I’m amazed you’ve stuck with it for this long. Are you going to leave?

Pearlfish · 31/05/2019 16:52

I could not stay married to a man like this. Please leave him, OP - you deserve so much more.

Modestandatinybitsexy · 31/05/2019 16:57

I know it doesn't work like this but I would be so tempted to leave him for a woman

In all honesty it sounds like you can fully support yourself. If he's not adding value in income, home balance, social life or the bedroom, then ask yourself why you would want to keep him around? It sounds like the negatives severely outweigh the positives.

Ellisandra · 31/05/2019 17:02

You have to ask?

You know that whether he believes all that shit or not, he’s saying it to get a rise from you, and because he’s angry that you earn more?

Please, divorce him before you earn even more and end up giving him more of your money in the divorce!

And don’t forget to twist the knife over his hypocrisy if he dares to suggest that your money is his during the divorce. It is, sadly - but feel free to tell him what a hypocrite he is when he goes after it. (if course, my better advice would be don’t argue over it and antagonise him needlessly, sadly).

Get rid.

And well done on ALL of your amazing achievements!

cranstonmanor · 31/05/2019 17:06

I think you would be much happier without him

RandomMess · 31/05/2019 17:10

Shock get yourself and your DC away from him, he is so nasty!!!!

GeorgiaGirl52 · 31/05/2019 17:10

You had good reason for divorce in paragraph #2. -- your two children. They should not be exposed to that kind of vitrolic and misogynistic attitudes. Would you want your son to grow up with the attitudes of his father? Would you want your daughter to believe that her first duty is to be a SAHM no matter what interests and abilities she might have?
It is your duty as a mother to rescue your children from this man NOW!

ThatCurlyGirl · 31/05/2019 17:11

If anything you're UNDERreacting my love, he sounds like an absolute dick.

Surely you want to spend your life with someone nicer than this?

How would he feel if a female relative was raped while wearing a skirt... he'd say they should have covered up? Fuck that, what a disgusting point of view.

Please don't try to "fix" him - he won't change, they are extreme and sound totally entrenched not throwaway comments.

Thanks
GreenTulips · 31/05/2019 17:20

What are you thinking? He’s a total nut job - I’ll get the shovel!

Morgan12 · 31/05/2019 17:21

Bloody hell do you even need to ask this! Leave and don't look back! And please let us know how he takes the news. I can imagine he is in for quite the shock.

AttilaTheMeerkat · 31/05/2019 17:22

You want to leave. That alone is a good enough reason to leave this man, let alone the rest of what you have written about him here.

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning from you two currently?. Surely not this model of one because its not fit for purpose.

Magenta82 · 31/05/2019 17:31

LTB! He sounds awful you deserve so much better!

Moondancer73 · 31/05/2019 17:31

The one thing that comes to mind really is how on Earth have you stuck it so long?! He sounds an absolute knob. Don't waste anymore time - leave!

OldUnit · 31/05/2019 17:38

He's right.

You ARE better than him.

Blanca87 · 31/05/2019 17:55

I will marry you, you sound fucking Awesome. Bin the waste of space off.

AbandonedBirdHouse · 31/05/2019 17:57

You are unhappy in your relationship. All the rest is window dressing, really. Shitty window dressing, to be sure. But you don't need a "big" reason to leave. Being unhappy is a big enough reason.

WhiteVixen · 31/05/2019 18:01

Another vote for you’re actually under-reacting. Why the hell you would want to stay with this absolute piece of shit is completely beyond me. He hates you, and isn’t afraid to tell you.

Honkycat · 31/05/2019 18:01

What a horrible man.

HollowTalk · 31/05/2019 18:04

Oh my god, he's awful. Why do you even need to ask? He really does hate you and it sounds as though he hates all women, too.

StarLine · 31/05/2019 18:04

So it sounds as though he has always resented your abilities and success and this has developed into a full-blown MRA misogynistic outlook.

From what you describe it sounds like the only way to have ever placated him was to shrink and be the 'little woman' (and he'd probably resent you and look down on you for that as well).

Try and take a step back - think about your values and your work and what's important to you - then consider his attitude towards you and women generally. Would you have accepted it if he had been this bad when you met him? It sounds as though it has crept up on you over the years.

it is absolutely bad enough for you to leave. This man wants to crush your spirit and resents you for being a woman, for your sexuality, for your work, your passion - for all these things you value and that make you a wonderful person. Don't let him keep trying to put out that spark - sounds like you've had to fight so hard to keep it going, despite his attempts to shut you off from it.

Imagine how happy you could be and how much more you could achieve on your own, and maybe eventually with someone who actually respects and values you.

HollowTalk · 31/05/2019 18:04

Just out of interest, is he from a different culture?

Singlenotsingle · 31/05/2019 18:05

He's jealous that you're better educated than him.
He feels threatened because you earn more than him.
He thinks a woman's place is in the home and he feels cheated because you're not there all the time.
He's not happy. You're not happy. What's the point?

pictish · 31/05/2019 18:05

The marriage will not survive with such opposing values and principles. You have nothing fundamental in common with each other so there is a complete disconnect.
He’s also a nasty bastard, so...

You’ll never regret leaving it where it lies.