I'm in such pain

[NeverGotMyPuppy]

I just dont know what to do.
DH and I have been married for 10 years. All mostly happy. We have a 16 month old DS.
DH has always been argumentative - I often feel I have to replay conversations to 'prove' my point. I've often said I could do with CCTV and feel like I'm often on trial. He gets obsessed over the minutiae of arguments and i feel like we have an argument within an argument within an argument IYSWIM.

He has got worse recently. He is utterly defensive and sees so much as criticism - it blinds him to everything else. I'm finding myself utterly exhausted living with him. Today as an example:

DH gets DS ready for childminder. I say - perfectly nicely 'r those the trousers he was wearing yesterday? If so they r dirty'. DH asks 'really - where?' I tell him. He repeats the question in 2 other ways, disbelieving that they are dirty. I say 'honestly, I had to brush the food off them to get him in the carseat last night'. DH asks me to show him. DS isnt fond of staying still. DH says a little bit of a mark isnt important so he wont change him.
So I go and change him. I show DH the old leggings 'oh, I didn't see that'.

The day before he spent 20 minutes arguing why DS's toyboy was a perfectly sensible place to leave his toothbrush - 'it's a flat surface' when I pointed out that it makes my life quite difficult when he doesnt put it back in the bathroom as I have to search around to clean DS's teeth.

I know it sounds like a tiny thing. But this is most days of my life. I'm utterly exhausted by it.

What do I do. Im so sad and i feel so alone. Am I going mad? Am i in the wrong here?

ok fair enough - the word bully was too strong, i apologise for that.

my point was that if she's picking on everything he does he is bound to get upset by it. We see this behaviour, this over critical approach a lot in abusive / dysfunctional relationships and it doesn't help anyone.

my point was that they need to have an ope. discussion and be honest, do they want to work at things? can they help each other?

As you will see I have tried many, many open discussuons. He sees the problems, yet the same things just happen over and over again.

@1moreRep sorry don’t buy that at all - not bullying nope. If it was making a fuss about the toothbrush or leggings then ok that’s not worth dying in a ditch for. But then there are the health & safety things - OP’s husband has got bleach on the child, let the cat scratch him, had an incident with the tea. Bringing that up is not bullying, it’s irresponsible.

I do dumb stuff all the time too but don’t feel the need to argue black is white when I screwed up. Sounds massively defensive about normal parental screwups.

Is he insecure in other ways? Does he argue the toss with everyone or just you? I could imagine that a barrister persona in domestic life could be pretty awful (“I put it to you” indeed).

Counselling sounds about right to me. This will kill your couple if you can’t figure out a way to sort this.

No one else, just me.

I'm sure people think my reaction yesterday was mental - crying on a colleagues shoulder at work - but I just cant hack it anymore. I'm so tired of living with Jeckyl and Hyde

@Happityhap The question wouldn't need to be asked as OP had already explained that the leggings were dirty and she wanted to change them. So no, it wouldn't lead to another argument, more a situation that we had a different opinion on, has now been resolved, and neither of us needs the other to admit that they were wrong and we were right. Obviously I don't know how the conversation would go in OP's house but I'm trying to make the point that needing your OH to acknowledge that they were wrong and you were right on very minor issues may create a tricky dynamic is a relationship.
Sorry I don't now how to quote on the app!

Who left a toilet brush holder full if bleach within grabbing distance of a toddler?

Who left the bottle of oilatum out so that the baby could grab it? In that instance it sounds like DH was firefighting - he saw child had oilatum so quickly put his tea down to stop him causing harm with oilatum only for child to stick his hand in the tea.

I know what it's like to constantly be criticised. Nothing you do is right and you basically become hyper alert, do desperate not to do the wrong thing that you end up mucking up even more. This was my mum though, not a partner. She would moan that we never did anything but then if we did it wasn't right, wasn't good enough had to make a dramatic gesture of correcting the huge mistake like refolding the washing or pegging socks up the other way or something.

The reason you are getting different views is because we are coming at this from different sides - those of us who have been on the receiving end of constant criticism are feeling more sympathetic towards your DH. Those who have experienced gaslighting or controlling behaviour are siding with you.

It's impossible for any of us to know the truth of your relationship. We're only getting your side, which may be entirely balanced and unbiased or it might be more biased towards you.

sigh

As I said, I put the toilet brush and holder out of reach. DH knocked it on to DS.

He left him in a car while he went shopping.

He voluntarily put a hot cup of tea in front of him.

He watched the cat scratch him.

How on earth is he firefighting anything? How is this comparable to pegging socks the wrong way?

But the thing is i could cope with all this. If he realised what the problem was. But he doesnt. I have to watch DS like a hawk and do the post mortem with DH arguing white is black until he sees that what happened was dangerous.

And I see I have just got blamed my another poster or not putting the leggings in the laundry. DH out DS to bed the night before. He didnt check them and put them on again the next morning.

I've also been really reying hard not to apportion blame- 'who left x out' because mistakes happen, we r all human. Its DH's responses that are the issue.

He voluntarily put a hot cup of tea in front of him.

But you said that your son had a bottle of oilatum, your DH put his cup down to try and grab the oilatum off of him but he then put his hand in the tea - I can see how in the rush to take a bottle off of the DC your DH didn't think about his tea. He just put it down to stop your son from pouring oilatum everywhere, or sticking it in his mouth, etc. That's what I meant by firefighting. He reacted instinctively in that incident.

The bleach in the toilet brush holder - I don't know, sounds like that wasn't safe to begin with if it got knocked over onto a child.

I'm not saying these things are the same as pegging out socks. I'm saying that constant criticism, even over things that don't matter, causes parts of your brain to close down so that you operate in constant fight or flight mode and then you make silly mistakes. Is that what's happening here?

Out of the things you've mentioned I would have made a huge fuss about the leaving the DC in the car, said something about the bleach on the top and then the other things not so much. I would ignore the toothbrush and the leggings.

I don't know, just going by your posts it seems like the really important is getting list amongst the not so important and the completely unimportant.

Have you looked at transactional analysis? Basically communication falls into adult, parent and child modes. If you talk to someone using the parent mode then they are likely to react in the child mode. Ideal communication between adults is as adult to adult rather than parent to child. Might be worth reading up.on it and looking at both of your communication styles within the relationship.

I feel for you,
In my case I felt that my P did it deliberately so that I would take over & he could get off with being relaxed from duty.

I would often say, this is not a battle field, there is no prize, no chalking up points. We are supposed to be a team.
I suggest you say this to him. & then.
^"You waste so much precious time trying to prove you are are right.
I am not trying to be number one, I am trying to get the job don't/be safe/avoid wasting time
If you can't get on board with being a family I am out of here.
This is a learning curve, & if you can't just take my word that leggings are dirty, then its a losing battle^

Good Luck !

I’ve had a thread on here explaining I think my partner has low scale autism.
I think the OP partner’s behaviour is very similar.
Hence why I explained the tea towel incident.
If you almost burn the house down by constantly putting a tea towel on the cooker without thinking, despite being spoken to about it numerous times, what is that behaviour called? He neither apologised nor took responsibility and originally denied it was him. Then he says ... it’s fine. We’re not dead.

Three times now, this has happened. He’s an adult. A caring one but this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Like bleach on a child. Hot tea on a floor, child v cat. Not seeing the dangers.

He’s not reacting how a ‘normal’ person should.

In other words, how would you feel OP if you left your child with yr husband for a whole day? Would you be able to relax... I know I wouldn’t!

Thank you Mix.
May I ask what became of your relationship?

If I had known what I know now, I would have left.... In fact I didn't.
(kids survived, but look at their father with disdain)

Oh that's sad. I'm sorry.

OP, my ex-husband was like this. It ground me down until I thought I was going insane and it wasn’t good for my mental health. So glad to be shot of him, do you really need someone like this in your life?

@SuperMeerkat thanks. I know that feeling. Problem is I'm not clear who the problem is, as PPs have demonstrated.

OP, he is using words to run rings around you and mess with your head. I am not a barrister but I know the personality type as I work in a law firm. He uses words as a weapon and knows how to confuse you as if you were in a witness box. He does that because he is incompetent in childcare and his way to even the score is to make you feel as little as he does with words.

We can try and split hairs on this thread as to who is to blame but the fact is you have tried so hard with him and you still feel alone, going mad, bursting into tears at work, Jekyll & Hyde, GroundHog Day, happens over and over again.

Go for counselling if it gives you closure but I feel it is now time for you to give this relationship a break and go for a trial separation. If anything, it will give your dh a shock to his system. You can then see whether he is truly willing to change to save the relationship.

Either way, there is no reason why you are shaking and crying but he is not similarly affected. On some level, he must know what he is doing to you but he does not stop. You will have to make it stop for yourself and ds.

Never

I think I get what you are saying. I’m in my 50’s and my husband is a bit like yours I think (not a barrister but a profession with in built conflict and arguing). I took him to task the other week because I said I feel like I have to justify everything I say and do and have a rationale/argument ready. Banal example: I changed the shower head on our showers as the old one wasn’t working properly. As soon as I said it I knew I was going to be questioned about why I’d done it. It’s definitely not from a monetary perspective he just seems to like to understand things at a detailed level which I wouldn’t bother about. It seems to be his default position. It sounds petty when you write it down but when it’s every day it does become very wearing.

So I couldn’t just say I replaced it because it’s not working. I have to explain exactly why it’s not working and then he Counters with “ well it should do this and that” as if it didn’t need changing and my decision is questioned. Told you it was banal!

Yeah as banal as my leggings. But it doesnt matter. It's the conversation afterwards that does it.

I cant imagine my life without him. I dont know whether that's cowardice or because splitting would be wrong.

I feel quite down tonight. I've managed to put on an act for a long time- I think that's why I just completely broke down at work.

It’s really hard. My husband did take my feedback on board and acknowledged it is something he has a tendency to do because of work.

Did it alter your interactions?

Yes it’s got better. I just say “you are doing that questioning thing again, just take my word for it that this is what needs doing, this is what time we are leaving etc.”....but we are older and as a second marriage do not have the care of young children to worry about. I think in life you do not have time, energy or patience for your every statement or request to be questioned.

Honestly you do very much have my sympathy but I know that probably doesn’t help much in terms of the way forward for you. It doesn’t sound like you really want to separate? Maybe counselling in the short term to talk to a neutral third party - sorry if you’ve already tried that.

Thank you. That's really helpful.

Ignore some of the posters on here that seem determined for this to be your fault. Even the ones other people are calling trivial are not trivial, I wouldn't send a child to the childminder's in yesterday's dirty clothes!

The mistakes he is making would drive me around the bend in the first place, apart from the minor irritants you must never be able to relax because he seems unable to keep your child safe. The fact he can't stop making these mistakes and instead keeps arguing about them would make me feel the marriage was unworkable. I think the fact he's a barrister is key here. He is using his work skills to cover up his fuckwittery at home, it's not on, you are not a witness to be cross examined when he fucks up.