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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:
cookingonwine · 31/05/2019 18:07

He is a dick and jealous!

BuckingFrolics · 31/05/2019 18:10

He is no life partner for you imo. He isn't wanting the best for you. God knows what he'll be like when your Dc grow up. I'd 100% leave

Deathgrip · 31/05/2019 18:10

He’s a misogynist. He’s always been a misogynist. Don’t spend your life apologising for being a woman, or indeed a successful woman. There are plenty of men who wouldn’t be threatened by you (okay, not plenty, but some Grin)

Get out now - or rather, kick the twat out of the house you’ve worked your arse off to pay for. You deserve more.

RedSheep73 · 31/05/2019 18:13

Sounds like more than enough reasons to me!

Florentyna · 31/05/2019 18:24

Thanks all for your kind replies.

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

No, same culture.

OP posts:
glitterbiscuits · 31/05/2019 18:25

Over reacting? When he's such a charmer! Such a great role model!

Come on woman! Wake up. Do you really need strangers to tell you he's an utter arse.
What sort of example is he to your children?

CodenameVillanelle · 31/05/2019 18:27

Are you serious? Is this enough reason for divorce?! He's absolutely fucking vile. Don't stay married to him for a minute longer than you have to!

QueenofPain · 31/05/2019 18:29

Just divorce this dickhead as soon as fucking possible and don’t look back. How you haven’t strangled him well before now and proven him right, i’ve absolutely no idea.

AbandonedBirdHouse · 31/05/2019 18:29

Unnecessarily harsh, glitterbiscuits. Abusers don't reveal themselves all at once, they slowly expose their nastiness over time, making it hard to see the forest for the trees.

Aquamarine1029 · 31/05/2019 18:31

You have a PhD. You should be smart enough to know that your husband is an absolute piece of shit and you should have divorced him years ago. How can you possibly be questioning if you should leave him? I'm baffled, quite honestly.

LizzieSiddal · 31/05/2019 18:35

You shouldn’t need to ask because deep down you must know.

He’s a bully, jealous of you and your achievements and says vile things about women. He is not a loving partner.

Please leave him and start being happy.

Myoldtable · 31/05/2019 18:43

Definitely leave. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain

HollowTalk · 31/05/2019 18:43

I agree - he's jealous of you, threatened by you and though he has a nice life with you (part time work and the gym, ffs) he wants to make you unhappy so that he feels better about himself.

Get yourself a great lawyer and dump his arse.

rightsideofherstory · 31/05/2019 18:46

Run for the hills. He's jealous and sounds a little dangerous. Be proud of your accomplishments...I am!!

Mother87 · 31/05/2019 18:53

What a charmer...Confused

lifebegins50 · 31/05/2019 18:53

If he holds those views he probably has contempt for you, which will seep into every area of your life together.

How does he relate to his mum or sisters?

Bluerussian · 31/05/2019 18:58

I doubt he really means some of the things he said but you are obviously very incompatible and would be better apart.

Bluntness100 · 31/05/2019 18:58

Well without being rude for a seemingly intelligent woman how do you not know that being unhappily married is enough reason to leave?

That's it. Everything else is noise. It's irrelevant. If you're unhappy and can't see it resolving end it.

The reason why is irrelevant.

OldAndWornOut · 31/05/2019 19:02

He sounds absolutely eaten up with jealousy at all the things you've accomplished.

Is there any area of your life he will grudgingly admit to being proud or happy about?

Horrible, miserable little man.

Dljlr · 31/05/2019 19:03

Your reasons don't have to be 'good enough' to anyone else, just good enough for you. Are they? If you met him now would you date him? Sleep with him? Marry him? Have his kids? If he was a prospective son in law would you congratulate your daughter or try to dissuade her? Does he contribute to your contentment and wellbeing?

He sounds like an utter cunt, btw.

Absolutepowercorrupts · 31/05/2019 19:14

BlueRussian
Do you know the OP's husband? Do you have inside personal knowledge of their relationship? How can you state that he doesn't really mean some of the things he's said.
Op, unfortunately you are married to a very unpleasant man, he won't change and it's possible he'll get worse. Leave and start living your life outside of his control.
You have no need to find one reason, all the things you have listed are enough. You don't need anyone's permission to leave such a shitty excuse for a husband.

firesong · 31/05/2019 19:25

Those reasons to divorce are good enough. But seriously, you know you don't need a reason, other than not being happy together.

His attacks on your sexuality and who you are (your friends wouldn't really like you if they knew the real you) are gross. He sounds like an insecure misogynistic knob, tbh.

Sorry you've dealt with him all these years!

snowbear66 · 31/05/2019 19:25

It's not going to get any better.

Thequaffle · 31/05/2019 19:26

OP this sounds like a horrible situation. You deserve someone who supports you and actually has the same values. It sounds like his idea of a “wife” is someone who worships the ground he walks on and does as she’s told. I’m sorry but he might have once been right for you but you have grown as a person and you two are no longer compatible. I wouldn’t sacrifice another second of my life being unhappy - he won’t change.

SuziQ10 · 31/05/2019 19:32

How could it be an overreaction.
You are unhappy in your marriage. You share very different values. You don't like each other.

Separate. You'll be fine independently.