Has a partner ever tried to subtly sabotage your life or happiness?

[Inamusical]

I think DH competes with me in an extremely unhealthy way. I don't think he wants me to be happy or successful in a professional or social sense.
On the face of it, he can be very well-meaning, but deep down I sense contempt. He gets offended when others do well for themselves and is a bit of a gossip when it comes to other people, it only dawned on me recently that he's doing the same with me.
If I try to manage my life to make it easier, less chaotic, he will always find a sneaky way to hinder me or to sabotage things, even if it's just me having an early night. Or if we plan for him to cook the family meal so that I can do something else for once, he will get caught up doing something outside so that I have to juggle doing 2 things at once.
If I'm chatting to a friend or family member, he will constantly pull me up infront of them for being "wrong."
If I'm jolly and energetic, he seems miserable and wants to stand in the way of any plans despite saying "yes ok we'll do that" he will become all slow and slovenly and make us late.
I've concluded that deep down, he hates me and is showing his feelings passive-aggressively.
If I do well at work, I'll tell him and although hes saying the right things, the look on his face is often different, he looks annoyed, I sense it.
I genuinely don't think he wants me to do well at all or be happy. He's spent much of his life sabotaging his own happiness and wellbeing (doesn't manage his workload well, over-eats but refuses to take the kids swimming due to his size, stays up until the early hours and is snappy, tired and miserable Monday- Friday) and I've come to realise, I think he wants to sabotage mine.
Has anyone come across subtle behaviour like this before in a relationship? What sort of things did they do?

@rosabug the article you shared is incredibly apt. Thank you.
So many of you have just awful experiences of this sort of behaviour. My DH is much more subtle than a lot of the examples here. I'm sorry for the horrible experiences others have had, they sound truly awful.

It sounds absolutely awful, are you going to try some of the strategies suggested in the article or what? Presumably life can’t go on this way - it would be awful for you and the children. These stories are just dreadful, so glad most of them are now exes! Good luck!

Have you called him out on any of his behaviours OP? Does he try to turn things back on you if you have?

I'm sorry, but it must be exhausting living like this.

Yes mine did this, but all under the cover of wanting me to be safe.

If I was off for a weekend with my friends, just as I was about to leave he'd find something that needed fixing in the car (he was a mechanic), it was always a safety 'something' so had to be fixed before I could drive it. He'd move my car on the morning I was going and would accidentally leave my lights on, so I had a flat battery. All by accident of course. So I just started telling him a time I needed to leave by, and put a couple of hours on it, so I could afford to be late.

He'd also find a reason to not be happy, or sit around with a face like a slapped arse, but tell me he was ok when we did something that I wanted to do.

It was exhausting tbh

Hi OP - my ex was incredibly subtle. I wouldn't say however his behaviour was deliberate - it was just the way he was psychologically made. He was as trapped by it as I was (actually more so). He was conflicted about being a relationship with me (or anyone - thanks to his mother and upbringing) and because he could not take control of his own life in any effective way, he sabotaged 'ours' from the inside particularly in terms of buying a property (details are too complex to go into here). I eventually managed to buy my own at age 57 after we split and when I told him, he actually had the nerve to say "now why couldn't you have done that when we were together" (classic PA response).

I actually don't think your partners behaviour is that subtle at all. I guess what it isn't is overtly abusive. But it's certainly destructive.

And exhausting and depressing. There's no way I could have lived with that. Sounds like a life sucking slug. You need to put yourself and your kids first. TBH I wonder if the best thing you could do to help him (is you still feel that's your 'duty"), is to separate. Even If is this is temporary so you can both think. If he can't find a way, on the back of that, to understand himself better there is no future for you except one of miserable compromise.

After circa 23 years with my ex, I wish I had got out sooner. I'm not a big one for trying to save relationships with major flaws. It's something women seem to think they should do. You can waste a lifetime.

Our experiences are very similar @rosabug
Mine isn't doing it deliberately either, it's how he's wired too.

I've spent a long time trying to psycho-analyse him, bought books for him to "help" him time manage better etc.
Complete waste of time.
Since I've started focusing more on myself he's definitely sat up a little. The stories about sulking during any birthday meals resonate completely here. Always feeling "knackered" during any special occasions and oozes a resentful mood. Thought I was imagining it for a long time, until he fell into a sulk with my mother one weekend and she observed him as a "miserable black cloud" and a "complete zombie" that's when I realised it wasn't in my head.
I'm bobbing along for another 12 months when I will be financially independent again, then I can leave.

Urgh my exh was like this and unfortunately still is. It's like he feels he has to compete with me over everything. If anything good happened for me he'd punish me. So for example, if I'd got a bonus at work he'd spend money for bills on shit so I couldn't use the bonus money for something we could get use out of or for a holiday. If on a rare occasion i went out with friends he would start to guilt trip me for a week beforehand. He would say "oh mummy is leaving us she doesn't want to spend time with us". Or again he would go on spending sprees so there would be no spare money for me to go out with. He couldn't stand it if I got more attention than him from friends and family. He would physically move me out of the way and talk over me.
When we split several years ago, various family members and friends had told me they had noticed his jealousy. I thought I was just imagining it so it was nice to know I wasnt mental.

Yep. Once I got a job ex would refuse to take DD to school and pick her up, leave all the cleaning to me and would never let me get a good night's sleep.

he won't change.
i'd just detach from him as much as you can emotionally and mentally.
Ignore his games but get assertive and firm with your own plans - and start putting other childcare etc plans into practice now, so when you leave you've already got a support system in place.

@luckystarmaking mine does this. Expects me to go to work (I do but part-time) but expects me to be able to collect the DCs from school still whilst expecting me to earn more money whilst expecting me to do all the cleaning at the weekends whilst expecting me to facilitate his hobby and single-handedly parent the children.

But I am of course "entitled to as much down time and hobby time as you please" in his words! 😆

I have one of these types OP. I’d go if I didn’t have my severely disabled DD.
Ive just read a really good book recommended by my counsellor called “In Sheep’s Clothing” which has given me plenty to work on

I honestly think the behaviour is deliberate, my exH didn't behave that way with anyone else.

I didn't write the endless list of subtler behaviours but all of them were exhausting and ground me down.

You can point out calm as you like, till you're blue in the face what behaviours he's exhibiting, try and help him change them etc but the reality is he won't change because he doesn't want to and he dislikes you immensely.

Counselling didn't help us as a couple but it helped me individually.

The boomerang article was one of the ones I read that was a penny dropper.

[quote Inamusical]@luckystarmaking mine does this. Expects me to go to work (I do but part-time) but expects me to be able to collect the DCs from school still whilst expecting me to earn more money whilst expecting me to do all the cleaning at the weekends whilst expecting me to facilitate his hobby and single-handedly parent the children.

But I am of course "entitled to as much down time and hobby time as you please" in his words! 😆[/quote]
This reminds me of the money issue I had, all my wages went on joint bills and living expenses. He, the higher earner always had spare cash and bought himself expensive toys all the time.

We had discussed getting a dog as something we both really wanted to do but in the end he said I could buy the dog if I wanted after a lot of sabotage and arbitrary goal post moving on his part.
I told him it was meant to be a joint thing between us and that with all my money going on the stuff above, that I had no spare cash to put towards a dog.

This prompted a discussion about funds the conclusion of which was "buy the dog yourself" rendering the whole lot of discussion completely pointless as we were back to the start again.

Circular arguments were a regular joy sucker, we'd go round and round with me thinking that we were making progress. Then he'd bring it back to the start again and eventually I'd just give up trying to talk to him about it.

This is all sounding so familiar!

OP, mine was exactly the same; I was expected to facilitate him by working part time & looking after DC plus all the housework, shopping, cooking & mental load.

The only thing he would do was to cut the grass & do the garden in the summer - which he enjoyed as a hobby. And of course golf, which he'd want to play weekly.

I had no time for myself, but he'd say "oh but you could have Sunday off", which meant we had no family time.

Passive-aggression is so hard to manage, as there is never an honest conversation. You never move forward because of this.

It's a horrible dynamic.

Yes, my first serious, live-in boyfriend.

Whenever I got too happy, positive, confident, successful, he’d sabotage me or put me down/humiliate me in public.

I left.

Ten years later he went into therapy and as a result, asked to meet to apologise and explain. Apparently, he felt so bad about himself that he feared losing me if I became too successful/confident/happy etc..

So in his case it was the fact that he was deeply unhappy but unable to deal with it. Sounds like you have a similar issue.

In the early years with my ex if he was pissed off with me he used to drive away from our home and refuse to answer phone sometimes all night and then send crappy messages like 'you will not have to deal with me again. Goodbye'.
He moved in with me into a house I had just bought and from then on, if i said 'I love our home' he would say 'It's not my home'
So many instances... including telling my then 3 year old son when i walked away from an argument that 'mummy was leaving because she doesnt love us anymore'....lying in court...turning up at my house just before court to make me more nervous...filing court docs so it would spoil my xmases two years in a row...stealing my car keys and putting all my windows down on my car during a storm whilst I was on holiday.
He is a total dementor and sucks any joy from you, needless to say he is a vindictive ex husband and i have no contact aside from minimum for kids.

@Inamusical his behaviour is deliberate. It’s abusive.

I’m glad that you are getting your ducks in a row, just keep up with the counselling as you’ll come to the realisation of how awful he is.