DH has driven me to despair

[treacletree]

Hi everyone.

Long time lurker here. This morning I feel very bleak about my fairly new marriage and I desperately need someone to talk sense to me. Sorry because this is just word vomit and very long. I hop me it makes sense.

I guess I feel a bit like I’m going mad and I have no idea whether the problems are rooted in emotional issues I admit I have, or a fundamental incompatibility, or his issues, or all of those.. I guess I want to know if I am as much of a piece of shit as he makes me feel about 80% of the time. If so, then I want to change, I’m happy to change. The other 20% of our time is wonderful- affectionate, loving, full of jokes, adventures. But I just feel exhausted by the cycles we are in.

This morning he is being short with me over text (always a sure sign) and sat on the bed staring into space for about 45 mins while I rushed about getting my dd breakfast and ready for school, and showering and washing my hair. When I was out if the shower he stood there “checking me out”/trying to grope my bum as I got dressed and I said joking “dh I’m jsut trying to get ready here” (I feel very self conscious at the moment due to weight gain and skin flare up and i just wanted to get my clothes and makeup on without feeling looked at. Yes, I know maybe that’s weird- but jsut because he is dh doesn’t mean he gets to just leer when I’m not feeling it? Am I wrong? Anyway he accused me of being “nasty” and went off to sit on the bed. I then did all of dd breakfast, getting dressed, teeth and got myself ready, ended up rushing to work and being 5 mins late. Which has happened a lot lately- as I am there he tends to do very little now.

Extra Background: He used to be in charge of mornings but I changed my work hours to be there too- because regularly he would text or call me when I was already at work, saying dd (4.5) was being difficult and he “couldn’t” get her to get ready. Tactfully as possible I suggested that it would be nicer if we all went off together in the morning. In reality I changed my work hours (sacrificing an early finish) because it was incredibly stressful trying to do work in the morning knowing how incapable he was of getting him and dd out the door without getting cross and worked up. It caused a lot of fights so I now ensure everyone gets out the door in a better mood. With dd like a lot of things this amounts to strategies, praise, being firm but fair (she hates mornings.) He tends to just get cross and resort to threats of taking toys away, etc.

Anyway, he is now being off with me like I said. I apologised a couple of times, explained how I was feeling about myself and said I had never meant to be nasty. He just brushes this off like HE isn’t acting weird. I don’t really know what I’ve done so wrong. The only thing he has said to me today is that I need to split a hotel night with him for when me and dd came to visit him on his last work trip. I paid just under £300 for me and dd flights over, and he expensed that entire week except for the one hotel night (£100). I guess I thought that because I got the flights he would get the hotel night. Anyway, we are married. He also earns a third more than I do. It seems a little petty I suppose, and is definitely in the context of today’s “row”.

Anyway maybe that gives you a flavour of the type of situation we find ourselves in time and again. Generally it’s a misunderstanding that escalated into a full on row. Last week, when we were out as a family he made a comment about “when we move to the suburbs”. I turned around and (again trying to be jokey) was like “what? Since when are we moving to the suburbs?” He apparently thought I was pissed of and immediately accused me of spoiling the day. I was cross he would do this in front of dd (though he has before a lot) but explained that as he knows I never wanted to move to the suburbs of our city and I had jsut been surprised by what he said. He essentially got very angry and said I was trying to start an argument, it ended with him threatening to storm off and leave me and dd in this unfamiliar place. (He has also done this before, most memorably while we were on holiday in a foreign city I didnt know, when he had the keys to the hotel room.)

I try and try to talk to him about why we argue, why it escalates. It happens so much and I’m not playing down my role, it’s just that if I express a wish that he doesn’t like, or if I call him out on something, he gets really angry. Either I’m “nasty” or I’m “trying to start an argument as usual” or similar, and he goes to stonewalling. It makes me really upset. For a long time I imagined it was me being too emotional and I have been having weekly CBT counselling for the past 3 months (fitted around my busy job) to try and target emotional baggage I have. He previously said he would get counselling so he is better at emotional discussions, but he never has pursued this. I also try and send him articles on relationship conflict resolution if we have had a bad one and suggested we try and approach conflict better, but it’s always me initiating this.

Another thing that makes me uncomfortable recently is that he has accused me of being way too negative because I get “too angry” about issues that I care about which mainly revolve around child poverty and feminism. I do a bit of volunteering in these areas, read widely around them and sometimes I do get very passionate in saying my views. If I do, he will either not engage and will change the subject completely, or he will say he doesn’t think I should get too worked up because there’s nothing you can do. When that happens I feel lonely and wonder if I am actually an incredibly difficult person. We have always been quite different- I’m quite passionate and opinionated and he doesn’t take views on a lot of controversial topics, as in his family they never really talk about stuff like that. I never minded that he was this way, I guess I jsut now feel like it’s being used as a way to make me feel bad. Like I’m an angry, negative person. The other day I was talking about a rape case in the news and he just ignored all I said and when I asked what he thought he said he jsut didn’t see why I was getting so “angry”. But I wasn’t angry with anyone. I was just being me. I don’t know how not to be me, I’m in my thirties and I’ve never been made to feel wrong like this before.

Sometimes I feel like there’s no benefit to him being around. On a great day: he’s had enough sleep, had a good week at work, is excited about something coming up, maybe we had sex or something, DD is well behaved, I’ve made a plan for the day he is interested in. And then things are jsut so good. He’s engaged in the family, he’s joking and happy and doesn’t take things to heart, he’s lovely with dd. Our honeymoon was like this.
But then the reality is if most of these are not the case, he’s moody, unpredictable and easily irritated. I feel like the middle man trying to stop him and dd clashing. I begin to feel despondent then at some point I voice this and he gets quickly angry because I was “trying to start an argument again”. Jsut 2 weeks after our honeymoon a big row happened in this way.
On our worst days he has had me sobbing in public places while he refuses to forgive me or calm down from whatever it is. That hasn’t happened for a while. But it has happened more than once.

I know I am not perfect. I’ve had a string of failed relationships including dd’s Dad. I always put this down to me being difficult but through therapy I am a bit kinder to myself and can recognise I picked the wrong men since being a teenager shuttling between 2 EA households after a bad divorce. 2 of my 4 sex partners before dh sexually assaulted me and I never realised it for years after. When I met dh I had a young dd, had been a single mum and felt worthless. After about 6 months only he began to show unearned dominance around my house and my dd and it is a big regret that I didn’t shut him down. They do have a good relationship but to be honest I know their bond isn’t as strong as he thinks it is. Her bio dad has recently got back in contact and I have a feeling she will become more distant from dh if that relationship develops.

I also have a fear of having a child with dh. It makes me feel abnormal. When he is on a good day and being supportive he says all the right things- we will do what you want whenever you want, I’m here for you. But it’s not that I don’t want another child or that I think I couldnt even manage as a single mum, I know I can. It’s that I don’t want HIS child. I don’t know why. Ona very good day I think I do. But usually I just don’t.

Again though, is this just down to my emotional damage? I’m beginning to think that maybe I am not cut out for adult romantic relationships and I feel a strange sense of peace at that. I’ve never made them work. I’m married and I can’t make it work. I know he is not all bad but he can be a lot bad. So can I, but I don’t know if that means im all wrong. Maybe I’m just wrong with him. Or anyone.

If you got to the end, Thankyou. I have never voiced some of this stuff even to myself.

If you can share any wisdom or thoughts I would appreciate it a lot because I don’t think I can go on like this

Wow, OP, in some ways this remjnds me so much of my ex.

I used to feel so lonely because I knew I couldn't talk to him about stuff I'm passionate about, like Brexit fears, or the refugee crisis, and if a rape case came up he'd always stick up for the man.

But also, it was as if he was two people: lovely and affectionate when he was getting his own way, but if he was disappointed he'd just turn into a furious 7-year old boy and have absolutely no empathy. He could be really heartless. It was like trying to reason with the Hulk. Especially if he felt rejected in any way.

Absolutely nearlynermal. My 4yo can be more reasonable than him when she’s in a mood. It’s like trying to reason with a sulky teenager. He will refuse to engage, insistently say “drop it”, often in rows he will be like “don’t touch me!!” The phone will come out and he will ignore me. I find myself always trying to try new tacks to reopen the discussion and fix it, but with him it takes so much time to get to a point where he will talk or jsut go back to being kind. Often he will be very remorseful after the fight for how he acted but it’s always way too late.

You need to read Lundy Bancroft and do the Freedom Programme.
And LTB (obviously). For your DD's sake if not your own.
Don't let her grow up thinking that this is ok, or it could happen to her.

or I now don’t even know if I am nasty or not??
That is because he has messed with your head sooooo much you don’t what is up or what is down. THAT is abuse OP. He wants to keep you on the backfoot so you have no idea when you are ‘nasty’ so he can hurl it at you whenever he wants to. He will constantly move the goal posts. THAT is abuse OP.

He isn’t horrendous all the time
Of course not – how would abusers get anyone if they were horrible all the time? It’s the looking for the ‘good bit’ that keeps you hooked. It’s the nice / nasty cycle. THE CYCLE OF ABUSE – google it!
But just get away. Stop allowing your DD to see how you are being treated. Show her you don’t put up with shit like this, otherwise she will end up with someone just like him. Her bio dad is already crap. Don’t allow her to see this abuser as her next role model!

I don't want to slag off CBT. It is the most effective evidence based talking therapy we have for anxiety & depression. Anxiety/depression usually come with some level of irrational belief and CBT helps identify and challenge these.

However.

It sounds a bit like the CBT techniques may not be appropriate here. CBT encourages people to look for alternative perspectives on difficult ideas. It seemed like this is what was happening in this bit of your post:

I have no idea whether the problems are rooted in emotional issues I admit I have, or a fundamental incompatibility, or his issues, or all of those..

Finding lots of alternative explanations is masking the truth: I think the problems are rooted in the fact that he is horrible to you. It doesn't matter if you're incompatible or who has emotional difficulties, it doesn't excuse his behaviour. Doing the Freedom Programme is a good idea.

I don’t want HIS child. I don’t know why.

Because you know deep down that he is not a good husband, not a good step father, will not be a good father.

I guess in my head I’m like, did I drive him to feeling so irritated by my neediness/emotional issues/personality that he now can’t bear to hear me voice them? I know no one is perfect, a lot of people have irrational triggers and baggage to some extent (him included). But things like today- I dint want to be looked at right then, I voiced that, it meant i was nasty. The other day, I didn’t want to live in the suburbs, I voiced that, it meant I was nasty. Times when I have said “id like to you to do this instead” regarding how he is with dd, it meant I was critical and nasty.
I don’t like myself with him either. I feel like an extra exhausted, emotionally stressed, guiltier, resentful version of myself. I’m constantly shifting to try and improve things with us or with myself and yet the same old Shit occurs. If it had been like this when we were engaged I don’t think we would have got married but he managed to be more reasonable then. Now he treats me like his nagging, critical wife who is no fun anymore. Hardly surprising I suppose. I feel like I’ve been deceived and trapped.

What are the things that make it hard to leave? (Thinking of both practical and emotional things)

Money. I don’t know if I can afford to stay in my house, might have to move a little further away to be near my mum and change dd school plus lose a support network. That kind of ties into work.. it could affect my work.

Prospects? I hate how this sounds but a single parent and her dd are in a weak position I feel. (her bio dad basically has no money and I don’t think he ever will, he’s also a very messed up person). The chances dd has will in some ways be curtailed. I just am going on what I know from my family poverty when my dad left, and how that affected me growing up.

Emotional upset. I don’t trust myself not to convince myself it’s all me and try and get him back, I’ve done that with partners before who now I see were wrong. I can get depressed and anxious and being alone (whether short or long term) is a big trigger. I don’t want it to overcome me.

Thinking I will never meet someone else as my life is work + dd and my only recourse eventually would be online dating which in my experience is such a crap place, and equally I might never feel like I can be in a relationship again because I am not emotionally capable of it. Something I mentioned in my op.

I know these may be shit reasons but a lot of fear of the future is keeping me here.

I guess in my head I’m like, did I drive him to feeling so irritated by my neediness/emotional issues/personality that he now can’t bear to hear me voice them?

This is the exact purpose of his abuse, to make you feel it is your fault. That way you stay circling around him trying to find how to approach him, how not to anger him. That way you stay tiptoeing on eggshells trying to make his life perfect for him.

How did your whole life come to that, OP? You have entirely lost yourself, who you are, what you are and what you want from your life. You need to get out now before you are completely buried..

@Haffiana I guess that by my mid twenties I had had some terrible experiences with men (I mentioned the sexual assaults earlier- to me that was all very normal) as had LC with my parents then (this has slowly built back up) and was sort of adrift. Then I got pregnant with dd and had to give up my career I was training for, to do something lucrative enough to support us both when her dad refused to be involved. I’ve taken a path in an industry I inherently dislike and I’ve compromised my values and interests to provide what I see as a decent life for my dd. But like you say I have just lost me. I’m lonely, no close friends, I jsut go to work, come home and look after my dd. My dh doesn’t share my real core interests and we don’t really talk about anything important. It’s ctazy to me that after nearly 3.5 years together I am now seeing, should we even have got together in the first place? There were some red flags even on the first and second date. I completely forgot that til recently. Tbh I can’t really believe we got married. We don’t want the same things, we have totally different attitudes to money/goals/politics/interests etc. I find him quite boring even when he is not being sulky. I still feel that underneath there is a good loving guy but he’s like a spoilt brat. I feel like he doesn’t know what he has and he doesn’t “see” me or accept me totally. So now I accept him even less. It’s going so downhill.

Would you say that you jump into relationships because you are afraid of being alone?

Yes. I guess I’m afraid of what it means about me if I’m alone. All my life I’ve felt lonely and a bit abnormal and being alone would make that ever more apparent.
It’s like an emotional maze really

I second Lundy Bancroft and The Freedom Programme.
They have given me valuable insights and much strength.

Gosh this is all so familiar OP. My ex was very much like this. I left after a short marriage (he hit me too which partly prompted it though I initially forgave him). It was really hard to do and I didn't have a DC but he had screwed me financially and I was very isolated.

All I can say is once you've made the leap you don't look back. Imagine taking away all the emotional stress, all the fights, all the tears, all the trauma, walking on eggshells, self doubt, not knowing which way is up. Imagine how peaceful the days become, mentally, emotionally. It makes all the difficult practical stuff worth it, it really does.

Thanks to everyone. I have been thinking about this thread a lot. This morning unfortunately was yet more crap. I went in to sleep with dd when she woke up at 4am, he came in turning on the big bright overhead light at 7am to wake us up. Dd didn’t have breakfast club so I just said it was ok, let her sleep longer and turned off the light and came out with him. I was super groggy due to the disturbed night and started looking for my clothes and couldn’t find any clean underwear- he suddenly was like “come here, come here” and I was like”what’s up??” as I was busy finding my clothes and needed to jump in the shower, I came over and he said he just wanted a cuddle, I was bit confused and like “I’m just trying to find if I have any clean pants” (I also have an interview this afternoon so stressing I’ve got the right stuff to wear.) He immediately was like “alright! You don’t need to be so grumpy!” I went off to have my shower, felt much better after that and was just chatting to him as I got stuff ready, realised he wasn’t really responding. A couple of times I asked “what’s wrong?” And he either ignored me or said “nothing!!” So aggressively. I carried on, got dd up, got her clothes, still acting normal, he was jsut blanking me sitting there with his phone again. In the end I had to leave and was like “I gotta go now, what’s up, did I do something?” And he just told me I’d been “so grumpy and weird” since I woke up, he had been “looking forward to seeing me but now he wasn’t”, wouldn’t give me a kiss goodbye. Didn’t say anything about my interview this pm. In the end I was just like ok as I was going to be late and I got my stuff to go. He then came over and hugged me. I jsut was like wtf? Again, feel cross that some groggy first thing in the morning supposed slight had made me so cross he wouldn’t talk to me this morning. He knew it was irrational or he wouldn’t have come over to hug me before I went. It’s like dealing with my small child. Mood swings, refusal to engage.
Not how I needed to start the day! He then was texting me throughout my first meeting as he was meant to let the electric meter guy in and apparently couldn’t use his initiative despite us living in the same house and birth knowing where stuff is/I briefed him on everything like yesterday.
Not to mention that last night I was excited about a volunteer role I am starting soon and he was like “do you want me to come with you?” I was a bit confused (i basically treat it like another job) and was like oh no that’s fine and he was like”fine if you don’t want me to”. I was like what?!? How can you get annoyed about that? Would I come to work with him?
Feels like the scales are rapidly falling from my eyes.. the rate at which is really surprising to me. Normally I would try desperately to forget about this stuff or make excuses for it.

Your life will only start to improve when you stop obsessing about his behaviour and start detaching from him.

I find with my H that pretending he isn't sulking/stonewalling and just getting on with things is best.
No asking him what's wrong? No asking him what you've done wrong.
For example: "oh well, if you don't want to come with us, that's fine. Come on kids let's go! See you later!!!" Is very effective. Takes the power away from him.
And stops you from dwelling on his mood.

I think he can't handle any type of rejection (sex / offers to come to volunteer with you etc), and 'punishes' you for it.

When the two of you argue, do you always apologise? How often does he apologise to end an argument / sulk? (and I don't mean after you've already apologised, when he's trying to ingratiate himself again)

This morning I feel very bleak about my fairly new marriage

Well, now you have woken up to the fact that life is shit with him but at least you can get out, not stay with someone like that. Some women put up and shut up for decades because they think that is their lot in life. Do not put up with this!

Now he treats me like his nagging, critical wife who is no fun anymore. Hardly surprising I suppose. I feel like I’ve been deceived and trapped

Yep, very common for behaviour to ramp up after marriage or other commitment. You are now his wife and I think it leads to him having a greater feeling of entitlement. Does he behave worse if your daughter has taken your attention?

I understand why you would feel cautious about another relationship but fear for the future isn't a reason to tolerate bad behaviour, especially as you have a daughter. Are you in your 30s, if so you are definitely young enough to rebuild, financially & emotionally. The hard years of raising a baby/toddler are mostly behind you and being a single parent to a pre teen is probadly the easiest and most enjoyable stage imo.

How long ago was the marriage?

There is a post by @LetsSeeIfThisNameIsTaken, which seems similar.

@LannieDuck that’s a really good point. I generally always apologise or try to smooth it over (unless he really thinks he’s gone too far with the sulk).
I have seen this inability to take perceived rejection with him a lot before. He seems to have such a fragile ego. Tbh it’s not that I want to dwell on reasons for his behaviour but I think you’re right that that is a big feature in these episodes.

I'm a single parent and have been for 8 years. Yes I struggle for money and it would be nice have more but I would never, ever trade mine and my kids peace and happiness for a more comfortable lifestyle with a nasty prick like this.

He can't handle criticism because he's a narcissist. He won't change and this will get worse.

You sound rather vulnerable and naive, understandably with your past to be honest.

Please listen to the posters on here, I promise you they're right.

OP, I don't think looking at his behaviour is as important as how you feel when you're with him.

You are clearly emotionally articulate but aspects of your previous relationships have made you doubt your judgement. But your judgement is clear - you are unhappy with this man.

It is irrelevant whether he is or isn't abusive, whether your behaviour oes or doesn't 'cause issues'. You are deeply unhappy and you have the power to get you and your DD out of this situation. Show your DD what it's like to take responsibility for your own life, your own well-being and your own worth. Focus on you, not him.

There is nothing wrong with you. There is something wrong with your situation. You are not a problem in the relationship - this relationship has run its course and it's time to move on.

Oh god - sorry OP but it's so depressing to read yet another MN thread by a woman who sounds lovely and intelligent but is tying herself in knots as to how she can tweak her own (perfectly reasonable) behaviour in order to somehow prevent her partner from being the abusive arsehole that he is, or desperately searching for some deep reason that will somehow prove that it's not his fault really and that it's ok to stay with him. It is his fault, he is abusive, and no it's not ok to stay with him, especially with your daughter.