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