Don’t know what to do about my husband’s lack of confidence and general grumpiness

[Spinzy]

My husband is a lovely person who has changed quite a lot over the past few years. When we first got together we were fairly young - I was a single parent suffering quite badly with depression and he really helped reintroduce me to normal life, taking me out to meet new people etc. He’s a fairly quiet person but we always got on well. I realised that he finds talking about his feelings very difficult and avoided anything he found uncomfortable. His communication skills were bloody awful and still are to some extent, but there was improvement.

His mum died a few years ago. As expected, it hit him very hard. But he has completely changed. On the surface, he got over her death as much as you would expect and gets on with his day to day life. But he is just so.... grumpy, miserable, bleh. He is just coasting through life and at times I feel like I’m married to a teenage boy. He had a group of friends from high school who were still his closest friends but they all turned out to be horrible racists and he stopped seeing them. He’s stuck in a minimum wage, dead end job. He is very unhappy in it and hates it but does nothing about it. Every now and then he will apply for some jobs and I have to deal with the atmosphere this creates in the house because he gets so down about it. I’ve suggested retraining for something - he doesn’t know what, he wouldn’t be able to do it etc. So he now has no friends at all and the only place he ever goes is to work. I am the only person he speaks to other than whichever work colleague he is working with that day, but he’s not particularly close with any of them.

I’ve recently started suggesting that he get a hobby, there’s something in particular that he had been interested in for a while. But every time I mention it there’s an excuse. He can’t because of his job. I say ask about having a set day off every week, which they have allowed in the past. Then it’s that he’s too old. Then it’s too expensive.

He’s never been hugely chatty, but certainly managed to chat to me in the past. I think I spend more time talking to the back of his head than his face. He doesn’t ever really have thoughts he wants to convey to me, apparently. If I ask him outright his opinion on something I’ll usually get a ‘dunno’. He is extremely stubborn and has become extremely grumpy and it’s just fucking horrible to live with. I’m 30 and this isn’t how I want to live. Just bringing up the discussion with him about getting a hobby was so exhausting, I have to force him to respond to me, then try to get some eye contact, often I end up having to try to paraphrase what he might be thinking so he can just say yes or no. It’s exhausting. If I’d stopped talking mid discussion and walked off he would happily brush it under the carpet and never speak to me about it again. I tried to be upbeat about the idea of a hobby and he just kept pulling a ‘dunno’ kind of face at me. I said wouldn’t you like to have friends again and he said “no, I hate people”. It sounds like it might be some kind of silly humour but it’s not and it’s so miserable to live with somebody with that attitude. He started to cry when I pointed out that he never used to be this way and told me that he could pinpoint exactly when his personality changed. It is very unusual for him to get upset. Then he wanted to discuss it no further and has acted like it didn’t happen ever since.

I just don’t know what to do. I am equal parts worried about him and fed up for myself. When I am struggling I can’t really rely on him. He doesn’t give me any emotional support. I had some extreme anxiety a few weeks back and spoke to my family and a friend about it. He mostly will try to make a joke about it to cheer me up or something. But I’m so fed up of having to talk him through how I would like him to support me or how I would like him to communicate in general. I feel like I carry the entire burden. It’s a really unattractive quality. He has become less confident in general, whereas I have blossomed as I’ve got a bit older. But I did that for myself, I put myself out of my comfort zone and dragged myself out of the mental place I was in. When we go out he practically hides behind me and I do all the talking. Even when talking to a cashier or something he seems to look to me for confirmation. I find it really unappealing but I feel guilty for feeling like that because I’m sure he doesn’t choose to behave like it. But it doesn’t feel like a partnership or someone I could rely on if I needed to. I remember being heavily pregnant and really trying to stress to him that I needed him to advocate for me in the hospital, and he just looked like a scared child and I knew I wouldn’t be able to rely on him to do that.

We’re supposed to be having a meal out next weekend and it’ll be the first time we’ve been without the kids for ages. I just know I’m going to be sitting there ‘making conversation’ again because he rarely has anything to add and being in that setting really highlights it. I think he’d just sit there in mostly silence if I didn’t talk. I feel so shitty and sad about it. I definitely don’t want to leave him, before anybody suggests that! But I’m fed up and not sure what I’m asking or what advice I want. I feel like getting s new hobby and potentially meeting a new group of people who share his hobby and he could socialise with could really boost him and give him the push he needs to realise he can bloody take charge of his life and change things. But getting him to that stage feels like dealing with a child and I hate it. He used to be so popular and outgoing - lots of different groups of friends he introduced me to, always social plans on the go. I’ve tried pointing out how happy he was then and it’d be lovely to get some of that feeling back but he doesn’t respond.

I saw him chatting to people when he was a bit tipsy at a wedding last year and it was like the old him again - he was fun and sweet and really sort of revitalised by having a laugh with people and got his spark back. Mentioned having a bbq with them. So he clearly does enjoy socialising. I know people will point out depression and therapy and I know he will point blank refuse. So what do I do?

God, sorry it’s so long. I wanted to keep it short but didn’t manage it.

Well, until halfway through I thought maybe you could separate but stay friends, but then you said that he doesn't give you any emotional support. That's so unfair of him.

I'm with you - I would hate to live like that. I would feel guilty leaving him but I'd still go. It's as though he's got a crutch in you and totally relies on you while completely not appreciating you.

For your own mental health I think you should go.

What was the turning point for the change in his personality? Did he tell you? Or did he drop the subject at that point?

Seeing as you wont leave him & he is unlikely to change then probably best to stop moaning & put up with it.

Hi Spinzy

My first question to you is what do you get out of this relationship now?. You're getting something out of this still otherwise why would you be with him?. What emotional needs of yours are being met still here. Are you really staying now because of the children?. You are still young at 30. Where do you see yourself in five years time, still with this man?.

re your comment:-
"I definitely don’t want to leave him, before anybody suggests that!"

Why did you write this?. It does make you appear very defensive. What is preventing you in your head from doing that very thing?. What are you so afraid of here?. You get no emotional support and you cannot rely on him either. Look at how he was when you were pregnant and you wanted him to act as an advocate for you; he looked at you like a frightened child. He seems in his own way to be quite happy as he is and does not want your help or support. I wonder if he sees you as his therapist, you seem to have become this to him.

What did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?.
Do you feel responsible for him or perhaps otherwise think you still "owe" him because he helped you at the time with your depression?. It could be argued the following were all red flags re him too:-

"I realised that he finds talking about his feelings very difficult and avoided anything he found uncomfortable. His communication skills were bloody awful and still are to some extent, but there was improvement".

He can be nice and more sociable when he wants to be so like at this wedding you attended with him. But he chooses not to be like this with you and he is not for changing nor can you make him change or otherwise "fix" him. You will destroy your own self in attempting to further do so. He also shut you down by crying so the matter was no longer discussed.

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?. Would you want them to have a relationship like this - no you would not. Its not a good enough relationship for you either.

Are you a rescuer and did you yourself come from a family that had a lot of turmoil in it?. Were you made to feel responsible for other people and caretake them too?. Do not sacrifice your own needs here whilst being overtly preoccupied with the needs of others like him.

Sorry, didn’t realise it wasn’t clear - he completely changed when his mum died. So he got over it as far as most people are concerned and gets on with daily life, but he is just not the same anymore. He was never super confident but was really friendly, enjoyed socialising and had lots of friends. His crying wasn’t to shut me down, it was because he is still very upset by thinking about his mum. He brushes things under the carpet and pushes them to the back of his mind so he doesn’t have to deal with them. His whole family are like that to some extent. He surprised me because I didn’t realise that he had even made the connection between his mum dying and him changing like this or realised that he knew he had changed so much. He often isn’t very emotionally aware. He hugged me and cried a little and it was very, very unlike him. Usually if he is upset, he goes into himself. I thought it might mean he’d like to discuss it further but he didn’t. He has no relationship with his dad so I think his mum dying has made him feel completely alone - other than me obviously.

What I get out of it is that he is generally lovely, sweet, funny and a good person. He’s a good dad, equally as responsible for the children as I am even though I’m a SAHM and does loads around the house without it being ‘my job’. We share the same kind of values. He has supported me through a qualification I wanted to get, he arranges his life around our family and the kids, I’m now having driving lessons all to support me in the next stage of my life (and really the wider benefit of our family). So he is practically and financially very supportive of me. I just think he doesn’t know what to say when I need emotional support and that makes me very sad. The extreme anxiety I mentioned recently was quite sudden and severe. He just doesn’t know what to say to me. I know that I want him to reassure me and make me feel safe but he just can’t do that. That makes me feel like he doesn’t care. I realised after about a week that he had stopped eating because he was so worried about me, but that never came across in how he was talking to me at all. He didn’t really acknowledge it to me or have any in depth discussions with me about it. He isn’t articulate at all.

He does still chat to me about things, I know I’ve made it sound like we live in a house of complete silence, but it’s just nothing important. He completely closes down if we need to have a serious chat. During that conversation I tried to come at it from a place of concern about him, but it wasn’t really working so I pointed out how much it affects me living with him and he did apologise and give me a hug. I often have to give him a few days to consider the things I’ve raised and he’ll tell me he’s realised I was right, He has in the past taken on board my comments about the lack of communication. I remember coming across a method for improving conversation in couples, some sort of daily technique and I told him how unhappy I was with the communication and he was open to it. But then I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it. And it always still comes from me but I’m not the one with the problem...

I just feel really frustrated. I know for sure how much better he would feel if he started making some positive changes to his life but he just won’t. He initially got a bit funny with me when I said that he was quite miserable to live with and pointed out how I’d been when my anxiety was really bad... but the difference is I acknowledged it, tried to find ways to help myself, talked to people about how much I was struggling and very quickly sought professional help. So I did something about it. His job has been ‘unsafe’ for years and years so there’s always some reason we can’t carry on fixing up the house, we still have windows that need replacing, we still need a new car and it’s like we’re just waiting to start living our lives but he won’t actually make any decisions. I’ve sat him down and gone through all of our options - me starting work now, him looking for a new job, what our childcare options might then be... but there’s very little input from him. It’s all me. And I am working to improve things for us, I am currently studying from home when I get the chance and looking at what volunteering or work experience type stuff I can do in the meantime to improve my prospects. But he’s just so stuck in a rut I don’t think he can see a way out. His brother got him an interview at his place of work a year or two ago and he completely freaked out. Was miserable and crying in the evenings running up to it, didn’t think he was capable, then on the morning told me that he wasn’t going to the interview and he was too stupid anyway and would throw himself in front of a train if I forced him. I was so worried and terrified. He went in the end and did badly after that start and it reinforced his idea that he is bad at interviews and too stupid to ever get a better job. He is perfectly capable of doing that job, but intimidated by the language on the job description. No matter what I said, he wouldn’t accept that in reality it was just a normal office job done by normal people, many of whom he already knows, and not some super intellectual job.

He did tell me he would think about what sort of hobby group he would like to join at the end of our discussion but I don’t know how much I believe him. I don’t want to bring it up again so soon but I’m also kind of dreading asking him and finding that he has thought no more about it since we finished talking about it.

I had a normal upbringing, certainly don’t think I’m a rescuer or anything, just way better at analysing these situations than he is and worried about it all. The communication issues at the start... he would be quite passive aggressive with me for aaages over something that could be resolved if he would just tell me what was bothering him. He’s not perfect, he does have flaws and it was obviously one I was willing to accept. He accepted that it was a ridiculous way to behave when a conversation with me would sort it out and drastically cut down on that sort of behaviour, but I think a bit of stroppiness is always going to be a little bit in his personality. I mostly leave him to it and he realises he’s been an idiot and is sheepish when I bring it up afterwards.