Differences with DH widening

[Disillusionedsusan]

Just pondering today how the differences between us, which were once just a shy/outgoing thing, have absolutely widened to a big gaping chasm since DC and with the passing of time.. I love discussing things, trying to better myself, health, exercise etc but he doesn't have any interest and when he has a problem, say sleeplessness, he is completely down in the dumps but will do nothing to help himself. I suffered this for years myself but turned it around but he just nods and says yes I probably should do something.

With the dc he is just quite generally joyless. When he came into the playroom this morning, having had a lie in, he saw the youngest dc's colours on the floor where he'd been designing a shoe box and he kind of tapped his foot and sighed.. He'd tidied the room yesterday. When the other dc was complaining about a sort of welt on his wrist from his fitbit, he said 'What's wrong with you?' so impatiently. This is not who I am, how did this happen? When we were pre dc he was kind and content.. It's as if the very normal things that happen with dc are completely irritating to him. I'm sad, I'm disillusioned, this is going on years, I've spoken to him about mood and how he reacts so impatiently and crossly so quickly but I can't change him.. Turns out his own df was similar, sweetness and light now at 70 odd but living a carefree life without annoying dc might do that.. Just wanted to let it out and see if anyone felt similar..

You're right it is his responsibility he chooses to evade it. There's nothing you can do apart from self preservation.

He wouldn't even consider going to a dentist, this is the whole thing! I told him he needs to prioritise his sleep whatever he needs to do, since it's been really bad, 4m or so, I have been the first up every morning with the dc, including holidays and weekends as that's all I can do.
Totally agree teenage years, I am still learning and growing and making plans for life..

Agree with the first part of your post @TheTeenageYears.

Since lockdown I’ve been doing everything for the DCs and working while DP has all day locked away from them to work. He literally can’t concentrate on more than one thing at a time. It’s not even worth the argument, as he’d just get worked up and tell me he’s the only one doing the garden and other stuff that really doesn’t equate keeping the household running and everyone alive - yet somehow gives him even more time to himself!

I’m too tired to argue. It’s not worth the hassle. But I do wonder where we’ll be when DCs are older.

This is a bit off topic, but reading these comments has reinforced my idea that there seems to be an ocean of women out there with husbands that can be described as the following (some of these words are based on posters here) -

Grumpy ('grumpy old man' is common)
Frowny
Irritable
Sulky
Stern, disapproving father type
Treating their wives & children as if they were a nuissance
Distant & disengaged

What usually happens is that were little elements of these things before children, and they escalate after having children because the father finds it stressful, maybe more so than the average man.

I don't believe all these men were pressured by women to have children. More likely that they had children thinking it was going to be a picnic. Perhaps they grew up in homes where the mother did most of the work in the home and it was totally unacknowledged or invisible. Then when they grew up, these men had children thinking that everything would naturally be perfect in their own homes (thinking that these women would naturally love to take on all the work because they never had an honest, in depth conversation with their mums). I really sympathise that children can be stressful and energy draining for anyone, but it sounds like a lot of men behave like sulky children when they realise their 1950s family vision is not matching their own reality.

Either that, or a lot of the time these men don't want to seriously sit down, look at their own limits before having children and think 'Hmmm....can I offer what a child needs? Am I prepared to sacrifice my own free / hobby time to make them happy, and be occasionally joyful about it instead of looking like I don't want to be there? How much does noise bother me? How much does mess bother me? How am I going to cope with less time for myself? Less time to think? Should I really have children and am I really prepared for it?'

There is a sort of blazé, casual, unthinking entitlement about the expectation mother will compensate for all of that, not thinking how this will affect her and how much extra strain it will be for her. Much of it it unspoken, and I don't think a lot of men are honest about their own retrograde attitudes about how the family is going to run, especially these days. At least in the 50s, women knew what they were getting into.

Don't want to spend time putting the kids to bed? No problem - just offer to do something hobby-like with the child and then claim it's of equal value to doing the hard, boring bits of parenting. Don't want to organise their mess or be around when their friends come over? No problem - just disappear out cycling with your mates for the afternoon.

It sounds like he's finding fatherhood hard, as many people find parenting.

Sorry - I meant to include that last sentence in this post -

Considering that he is expressing his annoyance in front of the children, you need to consider the effects on you and them in the long term. No child likes to approach an adult who if huffy, frowny and impatient, so they will naturally gravitate to playing with you, showing you things, talking to you more which will then put twice as much pressure on you and your time. It's almost like being manoovered into being a single parent, on the emotional side anyway. By allowing the children to see he's annoyed, what he's doing (deliberate or not), is telling the children 'I find you annoying, I don't enjoy being around you, so don't bother me'. It's natural for people to find parenting overwhelming and stressful, and it doesn't mean that the best thing for the children is to split up, but a part of me thiks he should grow the fuck up. It's hard for me to say that as I'm very, very sympathetic as to why people find parenting stressful and I don't think people should be shamed into denying that, but what I mean by growing the fuck up is realising his own weaknesses, the willingness and ability to examine his own personality traits, and work on a solution so that they don't negitavely affect the kids in the long term. If he wants to indulge himself by being down in the dumps and not being proactive, then I feel sorry for you. I knew of someone who had an ASP Dad and she said she could understand why her mum needed to split for him, or at least needed to live separately.

If you think you can co parent well, that you can work as a team, his own space is what he might need. As drastic as it sounds, moving out into his own place might give him the psychological space he needs to be a better parent. He'll get to have his place all to himself for half the week, and the kids for the other. The predictability and routine in doing that might help him too. Obviously that's a decision for you both to make.

What you need to prepare yourself for is that this might not make things better. It could be that once he lives by himself he'll become more intolerant to the mess & noise of children and will view their visits and an invasion of his quiet, controlled sanctuary. Your children will be less & less keen to go over there. They might have more arguments with him because then they will feel like they're in 'his space' and will be able to feel his annoyance even more. I hope that I'm wrong, but over time it might cause a real rift in the family and you will end up single parenting your children much more than you expected.

I have continued to be allergic to actually discussing this in practical terms..