DH is not who I thought I married. Has anyone stuck it out and been ok?

[Lostinacloud]

My head is all over the place at the moment and I don’t feel I can talk to anyone in real life so I am hoping someone here has some experience and can offer some advice.

When DH and I met about 17 years ago, we lived far apart from each other the whole time but we made it work for 5 years before we got married and finally moved in together.
Before we got married I only saw him for weekends and holidays and we had brilliant fun. He was energetic, exciting, really sociable, up for going on lots of days out and a genuinely fun and loving guy.
However, over the years (we have now been married for over 10 years and have 3DC) I have realised that I only saw the “weekend and holidays” DH and not who he actually is 90% of the time. When we have friends over or go to see family, pre marriage DH returns and he is relaxed, sociable, funny and helpful but when we are alone then he is really quite boring, always tired, always stressed, very focused on his own life and he rarely wants to do anything at weekends and almost gets annoyed when I bring up holiday ideas - although does usually have fun once on holiday.
Saying that, I have occasionally started taking the DC for days out without him because I feel we have more fun. When he comes, he almost seems to look for a way to spoil the mood and starts yelling at them to mind the roads or that they were not looking where they were going. His mum is the same if we go out with her so I assume that was his example growing up. It certainly wasn’t mine though so is alien to me and I hate how it ruins the mood and the DC’s excitement visibly lowers.

He also angers easily and if we have an argument he quickly decides that I am being unreasonable and attacking him and gets very defensive or dismissive. He is never violent to me or the kids but in the earlier days more than now, he did used to get stupidly angry and occasionally damage a toy or a door. Now he tends to just go out alone to calm down so is trying to address his temper.

I know the above makes him sound awful and anyone reading will quickly decide that I would be better off without him but it’s nothing like that simple.

He adores me and he lives for our DC. I know to my core that everything he does and works so hard to achieve is actually completely for all of us and we do have a comfortable home and have experienced some great opportunities because of his job and how hard he has worked to raise through the ranks.

However, I find myself increasingly wondering if life would be more enjoyable if I had married someone a bit less ambitious and so more relaxed and fun and without such an incessant striving for improvement. As the DC get older and he has more influence on them I also start to worry that his almost obsessive determination that things can always be improved will have a negative impact on them as they never feel good enough. My oldest DC is 12 and yesterday at dinner I winced inside as he proudly told DH that he had been given a start of term assessment grade of just one under the top mark and so had started great and still had room to make the top by the end of the year and DH basically said that surely he should be top already. DH didn’t seem to notice that our DC immediately withdrew from the conversation and that it had a negative effect on his confidence. In fact I find myself constantly mopping up after DH’s confidence attacks and in doing so I almost have to paint my DC’s own father as wrong and with unrealistic expectations. How long do I let this go on for and is this actually healthy for them? To have two parents who aren’t unified?
My DH also has, to me, what seems like a completely crazy idea that nobody can ever make a mistake and that if you do then you should berate yourself for at least the rest of the day. This will apply to making a wrong turn in a new area of town, forgetting to bring something along on a trip and so I now find myself being asked by my DC “not to tell daddy” that their water bottle has gone missing or they’ve left their coat at school. Is this ok? On one hand at least they can tell me and I feel I act more reasonably and we focus more on ways to look for the items rather than focus on the fact they’ve been lost but on the other hand I am now keeping secrets from my husband so we all have an easier life and he doesn’t end up going on at them for 20 minutes about how they don’t care about their stuff and if they did then it wouldn’t be lost or forgotten. I have actually tried to talk to DH about this point but he absolutely 100% cannot see it from any other perspective and thinks he is totally right and that mistakes or things forgotten are always deliberate and mean you are not good enough. As a strong woman, anytime he has tried to imply the same to anything I have forgotten, I can just tell him to shut up but the DC can’t do that so is it ok to leave them in this environment?

Despite all the above, the DC do love DH and would be absolutely devastated if we were to split up. It would certainly not be an easy road for all of us and I know it would also devastate DH as he does live for our DC and at times is bloody excellent with them and in honestly is much better at playing with them for hours than I am.

Has anyone had similar experience where their DH is not horrific and does work hard for their family and yet they have left and found they were happier, or conversely not happier?
Or has anyone had a similar experience and decided to truck on at least until the DC are older and then see where they’re at?

I’m not saying I’m unhappy all of the time and like any marriage ours has its ups and downs and ours has been ups for the majority of the years. I am also very sociable and can build quite a busy life for myself that brings me happiness but on down days I wonder if that is healthy as I end up organising so much time to not include him?

Sorry this is long but I needed to paint the whole picture and hope someone might have had similar experiences and not necessarily decided to leave.

He adores me and he lives for our DC. I know to my core that everything he does and works so hard to achieve is actually completely for all of us and we do have a comfortable home and have experienced some great opportunities because of his job and how hard he has worked to raise through the ranks.

So he's a workaholic who chooses to spend little time with his DCs?

I think he has mental health issues. I wouldn't leave him either but the perfectionism is a bit weird. Maybe he can be persuaded to talk to someone else about what's appropriate for him versus what he applies to others.

Like PPs my childhood was like this - my mother had me tiptoeing around my father from an early age. I was terrified of him and grew up feeling like I wasn't enough. I married a man who was similar. I'm divorced now and have had years of counselling to try and repair my fear of confrontation and low self esteem. I don't love my father (my mother died) - he killed it.

Please do something for your children's sake.

You also mention that he can behave properly when in the company of others. So it’s just his partner and children that he chooses to treat like dirt then, is it? He’s in control of his behaviour, OP, and he’s choosing to treat you like this.

DH wasn’t the oldest but was the only boy and although quite laid back now, I understand his own DF was quite stand offish and he actually had an affair and left the family when DH was just 10. I’m certain this has had a massive impact on DH who then only saw his DF if he had made the sports team or was picking up a prize for example - hence his desperation to be the best and always perform. It’s all understandable but I agree with some previous posters that it doesn’t make it excusable. In some ways DH’s childhood experiences have made him very keen to be a better father to his own children so I do have something to work with.

Whilst I am willing to give him the chance to think about how his behaviour is starting to have an impact on our children, having read the posts from children of similar fathers, I now feel that I won’t hesitate to take more drastic action if he doesn’t make the effort to listen and address the issues raised.

Thanks also for all the book recommendations, i will take some time to have a look through.

@neversayalways

"I don't understand people you have to leave as he is damaging the children. They say that as if leaving will remove his influence from their life. As if they will never see him again.

Leaving won't stop him being an influence or him damaging them. He will still be their Dad. They will still see him, with a presumption of 50% contact."

Totally agree with this - separation won't necessarily mean the children will see less of the father. There is also an assumption that OP would get custody - whilst this may have historically be the norm, more and more I wouldn't be surprised if (in the new world of increased equality) custody went with the father or was split 50/50.

Every time he opens his mouth, he's telling the children that they aren't good enough.

What part of that correlates with him being a fantastic father?

For custody to be awarded to any party the issue needs to go to court. Full-time working fathers are almost never ever awarded 100% child residence when there is another competent parent who is the main carer. Unless there are serious concerns about the other parent's parenting or mental health. Just doesnt happen in a situation like the OPs.

50/50 yes, if both parents can manage it practically. But this chap works till Kingdom come and travels IIRC.

And the starting point for child arrangements is the interests of the children, and the involvement of both parents. Not 50/50 as such...

I'm not shy about advising people to LTB (anyone who recognises my username will know that ) but I don't think it applies here. I think there is hope if he is willing to do counselling - and engage with it properly to improve his attitude and behaviour. We can only go on what we read on here, but based on that, I don't think he's a terrible person, he doesn't sound abusive - I think he has some unresolved issues from his childhood, some low level mental health issues (negativity, perfectionism, critical of himself and others) and probably needs to work on his issues to improve his own mental health and stop or at least reduce the negative impact on his family. This is a generalisation but I think a lot of men don't tend to prioritise emotional intelligence and wellbeing, they are not necessarily self-aware enough to recognise the issues, and they can just get moody, angry etc. Of course if the anger is not managed appropriately then it does become abusive. I don't think we need to talk about abuse but I think he does need to understand the negative impact of his behaviour on the rest of the family. Hopefully, OP, you can persuade him to work on his issues for everyone's sake including his own. I would advise both individual counselling for him and couple's counselling for both of you.

If he isn't open to any of it then it does become possible LTB territory, I think if he is making everyone else miserable and isn't prepared to change anything, I would not be willing to live like that.

Good luck.

In some ways DH’s childhood experiences have made him very keen to be a better father to his own children so I do have something to work with

Yes you do. That's how I persuaded my kids' Dad to seek and accept support. I told him that I knew he loved his kids and wanted to be a good dad, but I could see him repeating with the kids the behaviours that destroyed our relationship. Perhaps he would be open to a similar conversation - that you can see him repeating a similar pattern to the one he found so painful with his Dad?