Am I a boiled frog?

[TiredBrokeFrustrated]

Long-time poster, regular namechanger, first time I’ve started my own thread. Please be gentle - I think I’m about to turn my life upside down.

I’ve been with DP 20 years. Outwardly it looks like a very successful relationship and I’m proud of that. We’ve had our challenges. We got together in haste and had a baby very quickly. We now have 3 teenage DCs. In fairness to DP, he’s been a good dad in practical terms. He liked babies and put the hours in, in terms of nappies, bottles, school stuff, etc. Everyone thinks he’s wonderful, partly in comparison with some less than stellar dadly performances in our circle of friends, and partly because DP is Mr Nice Guy, gets on with everyone, sidesteps conflict.

Over 20 years we’ve had two main areas of conflict. One is our sex life, which was never very thrilling and has dwindled to nothing. I’ve asked myself the usual questions (medical? affair? porn? gay?) but I don’t think so. I think he is quite asexual and also the importance of sex to me is something he sees as a bit sleazy (I’m actually quite vanilla, just not dead from the neck down!) and is something he can use to control me. The other is housework/wifework. He thinks he pulls his weight in the house, and admittedly is better than some, but is fantastically messy and our lifestyle is one of domestic chaos, both physical (dirty house, overgrown garden) and symbolic (unpaid bills, unopened letters). We both work full-time, for context. He earns more than me but that’s because my work hours are very curtailed by the amount of shitwork that gets piled on me. We’re both self-employed and partners in each other’s businesses. He does the books for both and deals with HMRC for both of us (I know, I know). Last year, he didn’t file the tax return for my business. The first I knew about it was when we each got a £2K fine for late filing (there had been warning letters but he hadn’t opened them). I went ballistic, I felt it was a complete betrayal. He apologised a lot but eventually got pissed off at how furious I was. He apologises constantly about anything and everything, but nothing ever changes.

Lately, I’ve had a stressful time with work and I’ve lost my elasticity for this stuff. I started to think about separation a couple of months ago. The trigger was a domestic task he’d said he would do and didn’t (trivial in itself but this happens several times a day: cue all the sorry-sorry stuff). I started reading about the mental load and emotional labour and realised that I do absolutely all of it. He takes no initiative, ‘doesn’t see’ household mess or tasks, has to be asked/told to ‘help’, yet rushes to the scene like a boy scout the minute I begin doing anything. He also piles his emotional load on to me. He doesn’t cope well with stress and tends to pass it on. I sometimes feel like a repository for all the problems in the house.

For a long time, I thought I was stressy and controlling, constantly finding fault, feeling dissatisfied, imposing solutions, but lately I’ve come to feel that it’s him who is controlling me. Not hearing, not noticing, forgetting, procrastinating are all classic passive-aggressive personality traits, I now realise. He doesn’t do direct conflict - we almost never argue properly and healthily - but it seems clear now that he’s been waging a 20-year campaign of passive aggression against me. I don’t know why, or if it’s even me it’s directed at. He may not know himself.

I am really fed up of being in charge of everything all the time. I’m also fed up with the lack of intimacy but at this point don’t want to be intimate with him anyway - his behaviour has really done damage to the feelings between us. There are 3 DCs to think of and not a lot of money in the pot (plus a lot of debt, but that’s a whole other thread). I’m thinking I want to start again on my own (plus DCs). I dream of a less stressful life where I can control my own finances, take proper charge of the grown-up stuff and just not have to do battle very, very indirectly all the time. I feel really tired. My health isn’t great and I wonder if all those problems would clear up if I just cut him out of the picture.

I’m scared of chucking away 20 years with a man who isn’t all bad, by a long chalk. But then I think of that £4K tax fine and think that that probably ought to have been a dealbreaker right there. I’ve been so worried in the past about all the ‘forgetting’ to do things, that I actually urged him to get his hearing checked (perfect) and see the doctor about early-onset dementia (not the problem either). This is quite extreme, isn’t it? When I write it like that I start to feel he's really done a bit of a number on me. Have I just got so used to his uselessness that I can’t see the wood for the trees? Should I run for the hills before I have a complete nervous breakdown? What do you guys think? What would you do?

OP, have a search on MN threads for the "Mr Nice Passive-Aggressive" threads. The OP was in a similar situation, with an on-the-surface "nice" partner. Through her threads, she was able to see that he was subtly attacking her through passive aggression. It was a real eye-opener to control through inaction (rather than coercive control etc).

I think you know what you need to do here. I don't think I would do joint counselling with him, just concentrate on yourself & your DC.

If it's any consolation, I've gradually seen the light with my "D"P & am planning to leave. He is very good at putting on a Mr Nice Guy front, but has depression . I can't face a life of financial instability, job insecurity, moods, laziness & disengagement. I've given up banging my head against a wall & checked out.

The resentment of having to manage him round the house (he will do nothing unless asked & even then it's hit or miss), lack of contribution to family/home life , shit sex life, & stress of carrying the load has eroded my feelings for him. I'm trying to get out, but it's taking longer than I'd like to put things in place.

I really really get this OP. Had it for 20 years with my ex husband and quite honestly at the end I didn't like the person I had become.
There was no sex at all as I couldn't bear to touch him because all I could think about was how bloody tired I was having to do everything.
What man lets his disabled wife work full time and do all the gardening and heavy work because he simply cannot be arsed to do anything properly.
Three years apart now and divorced last year and by God the relief.
No more rage boiling over, house is tidy 24/7, bills all paid on time, no debt. It's like I've really started living again.
Yes I'm sure he has good points but you know when it's the end because the scales dip towards the bad and you don't feel the good any more.
Sounds like his time is up.

He sounds like he's got severe ADHD or can't be arsed only you know the truth. I'd hire an administrative assistant to do the shit he can't manage and a cleaner

Meet your sister. It's a bitch. Last year I was leaving and we got counselling which helped. But whaddayknow a leopard doesn't change his spots. Really pissed off at the moment . Not planning to leave but feeling soooo disengaged. 3 DS, paying all bills mortgage the works, he is self employed works long hours no income.

Work stress for me was the trigger for our issues last year. I think as time goes on it gets harder and you are less willing to put up with the crap. Apologies for coarse language.

Try counselling I guess?
Separate out your finances as best you can.

I'm angry as hell. Why should I be the workhorse?
I think realisation comes at a certain stage. Then you have to decide what to do. I'm glad we haven't split but God knows it isn't easy. Good luck. Try to focus on yourself /your needs.

We've talked about ADD actually. It seems incredible, because his work involves a lot of attention to detail but I did some googling once and found there's a kind of HF version that did sound a lot like him. I was quite nervous broaching it with him but in fact he was very receptive to the idea. He is certainly very distractable. If I say to him, 'Do you know what the weather's going to be like tomorrow?' he won't say no, sorry, or yes, rain all day, he'll immediately stop what he's doing and go and look it up, even if I'm at my computer and could find out myself in 2 seconds.

It did help me for a long while after that to think in terms of his behaviour being a disability, and I still remind myself of it sometimes while I'm counting to 10 and biting my tongue. My feeling is that his behaviour is more than that though. That there's a complex psychological payoff for him in not complying with my expectations - which I suppose is why I feel it's important to be sure my expectations are reasonable. Important to me in terms of feeling I've tried my best to do the right thing, I mean. I realise I can leave for any reason at all, good or bad. I just don't want to end up feeling like a shitheel.

My DH has ADHD and recognises it. But you know I think there's a lot of selfishness/entitlement there too and not wanting to admit to himself how unfair he's being. Tells me I am lucky to have a stable job if you don't mind!

Give counselling a go. It helped us.Certainly avoided separation.Be that a good or bad thing.Probably good.

Trying to understand complex psychological payoff. Maybe he's just had it too good for too long?

Please don’t think of leaving your husband as ‘throwing 20 years away’. People change and move on. What once made you happy (presumably, to a certain extent) doesn’t anymore. It doesn’t mean the last 20 years were worthless. What would really be a waste is throwing away the next 20 years in a relationship that doesn’t make you happy.

Thanks to those who asked if he had any good points to balance all the crap out btw. That can get lost in this kind of thread.

He's a really smart guy, reads widely and thinks a lot. We share interests and tastes, and talk a lot about current affairs, culture, things we've read, people we know. He's witty and makes me laugh. We're very agreed about politics and religion, and co-parent well in terms of values and expectations (or lack of). He is devoted to the DCs, and to me actually in many ways. He told me a couple of weeks ago that he was proud of something I accomplished work-wise, and it meant a lot because I've been through hell with my work this year, and actually I had done well, and being self-employed can be very lonely with no feedback etc. He's kind, and a very caring person to have around if you're ill (cups of tea, hot water bottles etc). He was fantastic with the kids when they were small - night feeds, nappy explosions, vomity bedsheets, nothing was too much bother. I hated that stuff. He was also very patient and forbearing with my mother (since departed), who was a piece of work by anyone's standards. We come from a similar background and share the same (negative) view of that background's values, which is a rare combination.

We are very well suited in lots of ways and have been a good match except in these unresolvable problem areas. I wish now I had seen earlier how dysfunctional he is as an individual (in as much as I think his conflict style is a childhood legacy) and insisted on some proper therapy. Then we might not be where we are now. I have really loved him over the years and I still care about him a lot. I hate what it will do to him if I leave. But I think he has really killed off the good stuff between us.

BuckingFrolics I read your post with interest and think it was very perceptive of you to say I'm closer to the edge than I realise. I really take on board your advice. I will think about it carefully. Actually, I'll read all the advice again later on. It's a lot to take in, especially when there's also my reaction to each piece to think about as well.

Trying to understand complex psychological payoff.

It seems to me that he feels unable to voice disagreement in a normal way. Perhaps because of how his parents' disagreements spiralled wildly out of control. I can be a bit shouty (though I'm nowhere on the plate-throwing scale). He backs down the minute we disagree. I try to encourage healthy argument but he just doesn't bite. But it must be there, right? Very occasionally, he can be reflexively spiteful, and then he immediately backs down and apologises. I think his forgetfulness/procrastination/strategic uselessness is a form of passive resistence. He wins one over on me when he 'forgets', for the squillionth time, to make a phonecall that needs making or to replace the milk he finished up this morning. I can understand his behaviour in that way, anyway, but I think it's a bit pathetic.

It's not just me. He won't stand up to anyone. He brushes people off with vague undertakings and promises, but then just does what he was going to do anyway. Again, it's a strategy he learned from dealing with his parents, who can be very demanding. It's his crazy variation on assertiveness, I think.

A quick question for anyone who’s still persevering with this me me me fest.

A couple of people have mentioned seeing a solicitor. Does this hold true given that we aren't married? In as much as we're both a partner in both businesses, both own the house and both have parental responsibility, that puts us on an equal footing, but divorce law wouldn''t apply. Could a family solicitor still have something useful to offer me?

Yes you should absolutely see a solicitor, especially as you have more debt in your own name than he does and you've said that the house sale will only clear the debts without any equity left over.

I would say this puts you in a worse position financially as you are not married.

My Only caution would be to not assume you get the kids

It’s find to end a relationship , but if he is a committed dad he will likely want 50:50 parenting

If you can live with that and feel clear on your head then proceed , and try to end it kindly - easy to say

Yes you definitely need a Soliciter as you have financial links
And I believe children’s law applies regardless whether you are married or not

Unless you pay for a mediator

Special thanks to @MoreProseccoNow for referencing the Mr Nice Guy threads, which I’ve just worked my way through, together with various spin-off threads. So much resonance. Like the fact that none of this is even about me but is almost certainly about unresolved anger towards his parents, especially his mother who was always threatening to leave. The dodging of responsibility. The way he makes me feel all his negative emotions for him. The roles he’s forced me into. The sexual avoidance. In fact, avoidance generally. I was thinking of that famous Princess Diana quote the other day, about her marriage being a bit overcrowded because there were three of them in it. For us, the third wheel is DP’s laptop, which accompanies us everywhere and comes out the moment he sits down. It makes him look like a workaholic but his productivity levels are woeful. I think its sole purpose is to literally act as a barrier between us at all times.

It’s been difficult realising what a classic case he is, and depressing how common this seems to be. All the posters on the old threads have got divorced after the provocations became too difficult to bear.

Yes, the Incompetent Husband threads were an eye-opener for me. I had a look for them recently & the many of the OP's posts have been deleted for privacy, but she was amazing!

You asked earlier about seeing a lawyer; I did last year, as part of the process of working out where I stood & how I could go forward in a split. I'm not married either & found it helpful.

I also saw an IFA. And have started making plans based on their advice.

Knowledge is power!

Can someone link to the mr nice guy threads?

If he is being passive aggressive or Mr useless deliberately to what end? What is he hoping to accomplish? Is the passive aggressive behaviour actually designed so that you trigger a split? Does he actually want to split but wants you to be the bad guy? Would there be any value in your saying something like. - you behaviour suggests to me that you are not happy in the relationship and feels like you are communicating via action that you want us to split.

Seems to me you like this man even though his behaviour is making you miserable. The financial issues seem a big part of it. All that resonates. I think see a solicitor definitely to get a sense of where you stand with house/debts etc. Agree knowledge is power and at the moment you have no real sense of what a split would mean for future living arrangements etc.

Whether you separate or not ,getting advice would be worthwhile.

Counselling together or just for yourself.

I'm glad we worked things out even though I'm unhappy. I think quite a lot of my unhappiness is midlife angst.

TiredBrokeFrustrated: Jamkan29:
I agree with the points you have both raised, was with mine 30 yrs, took on all his problems and tried my best to raise our family including a man child, alone. Constant problems throughout our marriage from one drama to the next, every time we got straight it happened again, I did everything I could to keep our family together. I have never been good with money, but learned to do without, money, intimacy, real love even.
I have had depression for many yrs ( meds) and 2017 had a crisis myself...no support or love no respect, just being ‘a drama queen’ !
Then he had yet another crisis. ( the 10th in our relationship) I just couldn’t live that way anymore so I’m divorcing him.

I’m the one who has got the blame for everything!!
Not supporting HIM, spending HIS money, being rude to HIS mother blah, blah, blah.
I would like to mention when we met I had 3 jobs, a fully furnished house, a car and had a holiday every year. He had nothing as was still living with his mum!
My point is this: you only have one life. Walk away if you have the strength, it will be hard, lonely and still stressful. But you will only have to do what’s right for YOU. build a life for YOU,

Good luck ladies

jewel

No, I think he'll be devastated if I leave him.

Combining what I've seen and felt with all the reading I've been doing, I feel that the underlying point here is his insecurity. His parents have reached some kind of accommodation in old age, but I think it was a very volatile relationship when he was a child. His father is difficult, though it takes a while to realise that because of a veneer of bonhomie. His mother used to scream and shout and plate-throw. Commonly, rows would end in her throwing things in a suitcase and walking out, while DP and his sister would cry and hold on to her legs trying to stop her leaving. It all sounds appalling. My own childhood was volatile and there was plenty of rowing, but at least it was just plain old-fashioned hurling insults. None of this manipulative crap.

I think he learned early on that women can't be relied on to stick around, so he's learned to keep them at arm's length. His relationship history before me was underwhelming to say the least - nothing had lasted to the point where you could call it serious, even though he was in his 30s. He was reticent about getting involved. I remember being mystified about the mixed messages - he seemed interested and yet it was me who had to make all the running. Anyway, then we had a contraception failure, and he was thrilled about the idea of having a family. He's been a really good dad, but a very crap partner.

I think the constant fuck ups and let downs are a kind of pre-emptive strike, against the day when I inevitably (in his head) let him down by leaving him. Ironically, he is making that more likely not less. I don't think he is really aware of any of this.

Seems to me you like this man even though his behaviour is making you miserable.

I do like him. He's my best friend. There are so many frustrations in our relationship. I feel lonely and exasperated and at my wits' end, but if we separate I will really miss him in lots of ways. BuckingFrolics post gives me hope that we might salvage the friendship eventually, whereas if I stay with him I suspect I will end up hating him. His behaviour has trashed a lot of the love.

@smashamasha The thread is here. This is actually a subseqent thread - the OP had posted previously, earlier in the relationship. There's a link to that thread in this one.

I will sort out some legal advice after the weekend. It sounds like it's more relevant than I realised.

Not getting married was my choice - I just didn't want to take my place in a tradition that historically had been all about women being used as currency to seal deals between men. I thought we had been belt and braces about the details. The older kids were born before parental responsibility was automatic for fathers on birth certificates, so we filed the court paperwork to give him it. Well, I did, now I think about it. Our life insurances are held in trust for each other so IHT isn't payable. We are both partners in the businesses and own the house jointly.

The debt differential isn't that huge, but I forgot to mention that I also have big student debt in my name. I tried to retrain in something professional (not accountancy, hahaha ) after the kids started school, because I had become so deskilled. But I had to drop out as he sabotaged me something rotten. There was always a huge fuck up or catastrophe the night before an exam or presentation. This was also about the time the sexual unavailability became so bad. He would stay up massively late to avoid going to bed with me. He claimed he was working late but he earned so little in those years that I qualified for Adult Dependents Allowance. Anyway, because he stayed up so late he often overslept in the morning. I had early starts so he was meant to do the school run but I would often come home to find the kids at home because he'd overslept and covered by ringing them in sick. It just got too much and I had to call a halt to it all for their sake. I don't regret that decision, but I do resent the student debt, which has a ridiculous rate of interest and won't get written off til I'm about 102.

I feel a bit stupid after recalling all of that. I think I'm probably a very well done frog tbh.

In my case, I had instigated a lot of conversations about our relationship and what iso badly needed to change. He used to call these his Saturday telling off. He'd listen and umm and ah and say he was sorry and I'd own my stuff and he'd say none of that mattered and it would seem like profess has been made. But nothing changed. And then we'd have a row (is "be on his case" in his words) and he'd say viscious things about me, which would be in direct contradiction to the "oh you're lovely" stuff he'd claim when calm. I started to distrust his words - he'd do and say anything to please the person in front of him at that moment.

So this appeasement by him of me went on and on and I think he simply did not believe I would ever actually leave.

It's taken a year, but he now says that while he misses me, and we can both be very emotional (nostalgic and aware of the losses) about the past, it is better for him and he feels peaceful about it. It seems to me that we were both trying to bend the other into a shape that was simply not possible. That hurts both people terribly.

Now, we accept each other more, voice our love for one another, and talk about how strong those feelings of being family/ally/partner in parenting are and how enormously they matter.

So it's becoming pretty clear what I need to do, it's just the detail I need to think about.

If you all could bear another request for advice...?

We had always said we would do a civil partnership when the law changes, which will probably be at the end of this year ('when parliamentary time allows' lol).

Given that splitting up is now only a matter of time, should I go ahead with that, in order to get better legal protections about the debts etc? He asked again after the recent Commons vote passed, and my heart sank, as I knew I didn't want to be tethered to him anymore, after all these years of waiting, ironically. I know the debt is an issue, but not being connected legally does have the virtue of massively simplifying the walking away process. I won't have to nag him to sign the paperwork, for starters!

I realise I might get left high and dry with my debt, but as things stand I'm not responsible for his. If we legally join the debt and he flakes out on dealing with it, I could be even worse off, right? And is student debt treated the same way? It's specifically mine. Can it ever be joint, even if we were married/civil partners?

I obviously need professional advice, but if anyone has experience of this, I'd be grateful for thoughts.

I'm not sure I could cope with the duplicity of a civil partnership, feeling like I do, so it may be academic anyway.

Thank you BuckingFrolics.

I really relate to nostalgic and aware of the losses. I feel this already.