What happened here? Dh and a cup of tea..

[CucinaBreakfast]

Dh and i have a 4yo dd and i'm 30w pregnant with much wanted ivf second baby. In the situation I'm describing, I had an awful cold and really painful hips (i get this most nights and in the morning), which dh knew about.

Dh had kindly given me a lie in and taken dd downstairs. He came up to wake me at 8.30 (which is fine) and said "im going to make us breakfast and a cup of tea" and left me with dd. All fine. We played for a bit upstairs and i expected to be called down when breakfast was ready (pretty usual for the person cooking), time went on and i ended up coming down 40 minutes later. Dh was clearly pissed off, looked at me with a scowl and proceeded to only start cooking the eggs when he saw me. I guess he was waiting for me to put them on but i didn't know that.

I looked over and he'd set up a french press with coffee, not poured yet. Dh doesn't drink tea or coffee, so it was obviously for me and i said "is this coffee for me? I'd actually rather tea thanks" and got a new cup out (the one he'd got had milk in already) and tea bag to do it myself. Dh got really annoyed with me, first for not having what he'd made, then for getting out another cup, then for not understanding why i couldn't put a tea bag into a cup of cold milk (which i said wasn't how to make tea), so i said I'd use a teapot if he's so insistent on not using a new cup, which he then said not to do (he was standing where the tea pots were). At this point i got really confused and frustrated and couldn't understand why he cared so much about my cup of tea, so i said i had to get out of the room and i don't want his breakfast and to leave me alone. I felt like i couldn't make a cup of tea for myself and it was beyond crazy.

We continued the day as normal as i didn't want to fight in front of dd, then raised it that night once dd was in bed. He told me he was annoyed because I'd taken so long to come down, and i should have just had what he'd made, and i was being ungrateful. And that i hadn't said anything nice to him when i came downstairs.

I said I wasn't expecting him to make me the cup of tea, i wasn't disrupting his cooking, and i felt awful given the cold and pain I'm in. And that i didn't know he was waiting for me as he didn't tell me that. I said i didn't understand why he cared so much about how i made my tea, why he was so cross with me, and that it felt a bit controlling as he just wouldn't let me do it in peace. I was crying at this point, and he laughed saying it's only a cup of tea, which made me so upset and angry i left the room. I get it's only a bloody cup of tea, i just wanted to make it and drink it in peace!

It all sounds so petty, but it made me feel trapped and not in control of what i was doing, and i just wanted him to back off. He wasn't violent or aggressive at the time (or ever, i should add) but was looking at me with such disdain and anger it was really awful.

We've booked some relationship counselling sessions as there seems to be a problem in communicating but:

• Should i just have had what he'd made me?
• was it ungrateful for me to make a cup of tea instead?

I feel so confused like i don't know what's right anymore. It also feels like I'm expected to know things that are in his head, so he gets annoyed when I'm not on the same page (i.e. i ask what his plans are) even if he's not said anything about it to me.

Help?

*loving

He didn't make coffee though. OP has said he'd just put the ground coffee in the caffetiere, and milk in a cup. So it could quite easily have been saved for later.

Also, if OP had wanted coffee, she'd have said, when he said he was going to make breakfast and tea.

Hmm. My first thought when I read that he'd said he'd make you breakfast and you messed around upstairs for 40 minutes then went down, said you didn't want his coffee then started pissing round with cups is that you sound like a complete pain in the arse. But then again if I was your DH I would have shouted up to you way before the 40 minutes. Sounds like communication between the two of you is really poor.

Op, this thread is almost like watching the consent video that uses tea as a metaphor for sex. Here, the tea is a metaphor for bigger problems in your marriage.

Firstly, he didn't make the breakfast. What was he doing instead? Not that he has to make you breakfast, but seems strange to get annoyed you didn't go down. It's not like he called up to you and you ignored him.

Secondly, why was he annoyed you wanted tea? He hadn't even made a coffee fgs!!

Thirdly, you're pregnant and in pain!! Where's the compassion in him for you?

He just seems quite irritable and controlling. My ex started this way. As do a lot of abusive men. Your instincts are trying to tell you something.

Cohle the whole point about him making breakfast (ostensibly anyway) was to allow the OP to have a lie in.

If she was supposed to get up ten minutes after he went downstairs for her tea, toast and scrambled egg, when was the lie in supposed to happen?

If he expected her lie in to end when he woke her at 8.30 then he should have said 'Let's go down and get breakfast', not 'I'll make you breakfast and a cup of tea,' leaving the 4yo with her so he could get on with it.

Weird that he would ask you to look after DD so he could make breakfast and then... not make breakfast.

In a normal household/relationship/family the person making a meal indicates to the rest of the family that it is ready. Though that depends on them actually having made the meal.

Saying all that I would have probably just drunk the coffee as it would have been easier.

@cccameron

Spot on - for goodness sake speak to each other!

Cohle the whole point about him making breakfast (ostensibly anyway) was to allow the OP to have a lie in.

No it wasn't. She had a lie in, he came to wake her up, gave her their DD and said he was making breakfast. The lie in was over (and the OP said she was fine about that).

"Dh had kindly given me a lie in and taken dd downstairs. He came up to wake me at 8.30 (which is fine) and said "im going to make us breakfast and a cup of tea" and left me with dd."

Sorry for disappearing, i'm in Australia so it's just morning here.

Couple of questions came up. I wasn't lying around in bed for 40 minutes, i was playing with a very excitable 4yo and didn't keep track of the time. I did think that given i had dd, he was cooking in peace, and would just call up when it was ready. I don't expect breakfast in bed!

What else. Thanks for the post hiding, it really resonated. The communications stuff is really at the core i think. He grew up in a not very expressive household, and mil operates mainly on assumptions and leaping to conclusions so it's not a stretch to think this is a pattern. Dh has a problem with not fully engaging a lot, I'll start talking and he won't look up until i'm finished and then say "sorry?" so repeating myself is a bug bear, which we've talked about, and i think it's kind of rude not to start listening when someone speaks or at the very least stop them if you're busy to say "hold that thought, im just finishing this thing". So his communication style is pretty poor.. it's worse with work/life stress, as i think his mind is distracted.

We had our first session last night. It went ok, mainly info gathering and setting out the context and some key issues, including communication and how his work is taking up too much home life. He raised the work stuff which was good, but i equally don't want this to be all about him, i know i need to change in sharing my expectations or ideal communication with him. We'll go back in a few weeks after some reading and more chats.

I didn't raise the moodiness last night, given we were covering the issues above and i don't want him to feel under attack. But i will in future sessions. I'm also thinking of having a session on my own to deal with some of my own stuff.

Gabsalot because it already had milk in, and i don't put a teabag in cold milk then the hot water in. Do people do that? I'm a stew in hot water, tea bag out, milk in, kind of woman.. i was going to use the milk from the cup but i didn't get that far!

Also, honestly he'd mentioned tea, and i bloody love the feeling of a hot cup of tea first thing so was craving that. And was prepared to make it without a fuss.

It feels so silly to talk so much about a hot drink. We definitely need to learn to talk to each other and come from a place of kindness in the way we do that.

Ignore all the posters wilfully misinterpreting your original post. HE said HE was going to make breakfast and tea, and disappeared, so why are people saying he was waiting 40 minutes for you and you were just lazy lying in bed. He hadn't even started the breakfast, so what was he waiting for? Answer: OP to come downstairs. In which case it wasn't a case of him making breakfast and OP getting a lie in, it was a case of get up, come downstairs and watch me make breakfast! Surely any normal person would get on with cooking it and call up and say, breakfast's ready! I do most of the cooking in this house - I call people when it's ready - I don't expect them convene in the kitchen to observe me cooking.

I know it seems petty to fixate on this incident, but it is a good illustration of (at least, some of) the problem. Worth using it.

@Sunshineandflipflops

"That's lovely @Italiangreyhound it really is. I am a single parent, which is where my comment came from about lo Wong someone to make me a drink in bed and even when I wasn't, I would rarely get a drink in bed. I would still have been grateful if I did though, as I would expect it the other way round."

It's completely fine for you to be grateful for someone to bring you a drink, of course. Any drink.

But IMHO the OP's partner is treating her badly, and IMHO expecting her to be grateful while he treats her badly, confuses her while she is ill and pregnant and ill due to the pregnancy is not fair.

I'm sorry if my comment was unfair to you, I do get that you might love a drink in the morning and I hope you will get that.

But I think the OP's partner is not treating her well, she's confused, not sure if she should be grategul for this treatment.

And I don't think she should.

Not because of the drink but because of the way her partner is making her feel.

OP it sounds like the first session with counsellor went well. Good.

I can’t work out why he’d bring your daughter up to you, to then wait for you to come down with her before doing what he said he’d do. That doesn’t make sense.

We have Mis understandings where we get incredibly pissed off (e.g yesterday I walked up a hill for a mile to meet dh, to find he’d gone in the opposite direction, so I had to go half a mile back- I was bloody fuming!), but it’s over with once we’ve thought about it and realised it’s no ones fault and no one meant to do it. Carrying it on all day is the issue, it’s completely unnecessary.

He does nice things in a nasty way to make her unhappy in ways she cannot protest without (I have little doubt) being called an ungrateful bitch. This will drive her slowly mad. As her sanity breaks, she will react more and more strongly to his intentional slights - which will also escalate in severity. Over time, he will position her "behaviour" as a sign that she is mentally unwell and he will claim victimhood. He may tell people stories of their home life which make him seem caring and her seem ungrateful and unhinged. He will eventually use his manipulations to gain attempt to gain advantage in any divorce/custody case and also to have those around them - family, friends, neighbours, school parents etc - side with him and against her.

It's intentional crazy making behaviour, he enjoys it and there's a long game. There is a type and I'm afraid he's one of them - they are very dangerous individuals.

What PicsInRed said. ^

His side of the story will be, that he made her coffee, and she went mad, trying to make a cup of tea, while having a go at him. He's got no idea what set her off, but to be honest, it was quite scary. He's been a bit worried about her mental health lately, because she's started acting strangely. Maybe it's the pregnancy hormones?

These men would be able to convince the Pope that they're the victims of these mad women, and all over a cup of tea.

Ignore all the clueless posters who don't seem to understand men who deliberately use passive aggressive techniques to wrong foot you.

Ignore anyone that referred to you as Pissing about or lazing about upstairs, but forget to mention that DH must have also been pissing about or lazing about downstairs.....more so than you, as dd was with you.

He sounds a bit like my ex. I termed it 'spagetti head'. So many twists and turns in your head, from all the confusion that you can't think straight.

Please read lundy ( my ex was mr right) and also read up on passive aggression.

Thanks guys. Spaghetti brain really does resonate!

Assuming he's not doing it on purpose (not a given but where i am at the moment), to improve communications should i continue picking up on when things aren't clear, so i don't go down the rabbit hole of confusion, and i make it clear I deserve/expect more?

Cohle
Dh had kindly given me a lie in and taken dd downstairs. He came up to wake me at 8.30 (which is fine) and said "im going to make us breakfast and a cup of tea" and left me with dd

If he had wanted DD potentially under his feet while he made breakfast he would have kept her downstairs. Leaving her with the OP while he got on with cooking/preparing/brewing tea meant there was an implicit message that she should keep DD with her until he was ready.

Cucina he is doing it on purpose, and trying to improve communication is a recipe for you losing your mind.

The only thing you can do is tell him you are sorry he feels that way when an incident has happened and he is ready to suck you in to engagement in a circular argument like the one you had over the tea, where you end up feeling bruised and confused.

No more arguments, no more requests for clarification, no more attempts to pierce the fog he is deliberately causing. Proceed on the basis that he is trying to get you engaged in debates and arguments and conversations where his aim is to 'win'. He wants to 'win' in interactions with you. Relationships are power games to individuals like this. Conversations are traps he sets. Breakfast offers are set pieces.

Just stop his game in its tracks. Indifference is the one thing he won't be able to deal with.

Dh has a problem with not fully engaging a lot, I'll start talking and he won't look up until i'm finished and then say "sorry?" so repeating myself is a bug bear, which we've talked about, and i think it's kind of rude not to start listening when someone speaks or at the very least stop them if you're busy to say "hold that thought, im just finishing this thing". So his communication style is pretty poor.. it's worse with work/life stress, as i think his mind is distracted.

Well that's you put in your place, isn't it?

This man is actually communicating extremely well.

He is telling you that you are beneath him, and he does that by indicating that your thoughts, questions and observations are of absolutely no interest or consequence to him, that they are not high on his list of claims on his attention.

Eventually you will start to feel self conscious about speaking to him because it feels uncomfortable to have to repeat what you have said. You will give him a shorter version in an emotionally neutral tone. You will watch carefully to find an opening so that the great mind is all yours. When silences on your part get longer, and the content of your speech gets shorter, he will accuse you of distancing yourself from him, not sharing with him any more. Or if you repeat what you said with a little edge of annoyance or frustration in your voice you will be accused of bad temper.

This is a power play on his part.

When five year old children are being rude and feeling mean, they put their hands over their ears and shout, 'I can't hear you!' leaving their erstwhile little friend furious on the playground. Your H is doing exactly the same thing to you, only he waits until you stop speaking to tell you he has basically had his hands over his ears shouting 'I can't hear you!' which is worse in a way.

When you find yourself baffled by lack of basic civility, and wondering how to start explaining kind, civil behaviour to a partner, it's a sign that you are dealing with someone who is not interested in kind or civil behaviour and in fact is in the relationship because it offers the chance to beat their OH into the ground through emotional and psychological abuse.

I feel like a bit of an emotional punching bag, like he gets in these moods because of something that's happened (hungry, work stuff, late train etc.) and projects it on me by getting cross or just skulking around looking pissed off. Ive asked him to not take it out on me and i'm happy to listen but not if he's going to be nasty, but it hasn't made a difference

This, for me, is the biggest red flag in what you have written.

The breakfast incident could be a communication mix up about what 'I'll make breakfast' means. Or, it could be him being fed up of looking after your daughter while you lie in bed, then getting the resentment out at you by ( subconsciously) making up secret rules that you have to follow to be grateful (take back the childcare without complaint, get up straight away, finish making the breakfast when you get downstairs) and then manufacturing a row where he is the victim of your selfishness.

Glad the counseling went well. Be careful and trust your instincts. You don't need to have the same counselor for independent sessions and it might be better not to.

This sounds very much like a relationship I was in during my late 20s.

In the hindsight of 20 years I can see that he was a passive aggressive, sexually coercive (as in, "if you don't let me have sex on you I will sulk for days") arse.

I can also see that he was modelling his parents' relationship.

This might be worth saving, if you're both committed to accepting the need for change, and making it. And as you've signed up for counselling, that seems a good chance.

But if he's not prepared to stop being a sulky mardy arse then you need to get out before your dc start thinking this is normal.