Husband walks in from work... what does he do? How do you feel?

[Seenyouontele]

I'll kick off...
My husband walks in from work, he kisses the kids, walks into the kitchen before hovering around me and following me around telling me about his day as I prepare dinner. I keep asking him to not stand infront of particular cupboards as I'm in and out of them. He's oblivious.

The kids are going "mum, mum, mum" but DH continues, in a world of his own... I feel tense and stressed. I feel overloaded by my senses and switch some bright lights off to counterbalance the noise. I feel angry, frustrated, heavy, so heavy. I snap.

He then stops and apologises for "going on," scoops up the children and listens to them for 10 minutes before going for a 20 minute shit.

Meal time arrives and he comes just in time to set the table. The children begin bickering for our attention, DH hasn't noticed as he eats his meal like some sort of ravenous animal, staring out of the window. I suggest DCs take it in turns to speak to us, this goes well. DH is still staring out of the window. I eat my meal without even noticing, I'm eating far too quickly, I feel tense and nauseated as I'm tryingto pay attention to DCs and eat my meal but all I really want is peace. I turn off the lights, switch on the lamp, softer lighting my be what's needed here.

After DCs have finished talking, I breathe a sigh of relief and start to enjoy the first 2 seconds of silence, before DH snaps out of his trance and says loudly, "you'll never guess what X said today? Let me tell you!"

I feel like a sponge.
Everyone offloads on to me.
Who do I offload on to?
I finally begin speaking about my day after dinner and DH starts playing on his phone. I feel used and unheard, unimportant, taken for granted. I tell him, he says "sorry, what were you saying again?" And slides his phone back in his pocket, but I can see his eyes are looking straight past me, he's noticed a parcel with his name on on the work top.

I get angry later on when we're tidying up when he puts something in the wrong place, I overreact, calling him "useless." He calls me "mental" and I start thinking I am too, but deep down, I know the tension in my stomach all started from the moment he walked through that door.

Once every couple of weeks, I get a genuine migraine right after school run, he has to take over for the evening as soon as he walks in and I go to bed for the whole evening. It's like my body just has to rest from the stress of meal times and DH.

I'm not looking for advice on my situation particularly, but I would like to compare my experience of DHs arrival from work with others. My DCs are 7 and 3 for context. I work school hours 3 days a week from home, so I'm always lumbered with this post-school, post-work drain of an evening.

They would run in, look at my cup and run back out if if wasnt empty.

I bet it was tempting to have a teapot and keep filling up your cup

@imaginetoday I am an INFP personality type.

OP I can totally understand the zoning out over meals being annoying - my dh does that.

Do you think you may have some low level depression OP. The scensary light thing could be investigated too, maybe?

Good luck. thanks

Sorry that should not be thanks it should be

Genuinely curious .. do people’s husbands actually come home from work and do the dinner ? Are you guys working full time too ? I would not be impressed if my dh expected me to make dinner when he’s stay at home one , after a full day at work . Understandable , if both work full time etc I guess some might say sahm is a full time job but I’d see that as also making dinner ( as part of that role ) . Definitely on weekends etc I do dinner and I serve up dessert / tea etc at night - but if I walked in and was expected to do dinner and kids after work - erm no

Well maybe your life is different from other peoples’ lives?

Yes, my DH cooks dinner pretty much every night. No, I don’t work full time. My days currently are spent caring for our disabled twins, which is fucking exhausting, and I have ME and endometriosis so I’m often exhausted anyway and in pain. DH works from home, does a sedentary job, is not exhausted after work or in pain. I’ve already cooked dinner for the twins. Once he finishes work we all spend an hour together then he puts them to bed and reads them a story and then cooks our dinner while I collapse in a heap to get whatever rest I can before the night time screaming begins.

When they are at school (only recently started, and now home isolating) I work part time, those hours of work are like a spa break compared to my days when they are at home.

Every family has to find their own ways of working depending on the circumstances. Stop being so sodding judgemental.

OP, I think the issue here is the fact that you get nothing positive from your relationship, all you get is more being taken from you and nothing given back.

Oh and OP I am extrovert feeler type and my dh is introvert thinker type so we have found ways to compromise on this. Maybe worth looking into Myers Briggs as it is often the opposites attract!

OP - what would DH say?

He comes in from work to tell you about a stressful day and you turn the lights off, tell him to move in front of cupboards....

Doesn't sound good at all.

The 'mother' continues to put her needs aside more and more, therefore the DH is unaware of her needs as only his needs are attended to. She makes less and less demands on anyone else, and her tendency to be self-reliant gets stronger.
Thus, isolation results.

Wow, that is a great post. In my previous relationship I tried talking to dp about how he spoke at me, rather than to me. I told him he didn't leave a space for me to get a word in and that when I did attempt to speak, he would interupt and speak over me. I tried to talk to him about it a few times, but he didn't change. I remember making a conscious decision to give up trying. I'd go for days without speaking to anyone but my dd. And yes... isolation. It was horrible. I didn't realise this was common.

I remember that constant tension in my stomach, I remember that my partner seemed at his most content when sat reading at the kitchen table while I bustled around getting the meal ready
we no longer live together, he has to do all his own 'bustling' and I am way more relaxed

But, as soon as the kids are asleep, he shuts himself in the spare room where he will do his online hobby or watch action films.

Yep, I'd also seriously despise and dislike a complacent user who acted like that, and I'd feel like killing him at the assumption I cared about his big man day out of the house too.

Yes you are used, really.

Interesting that you felt better when you put a stop to at least some of the taking for granted, even if you were still actually doing the shitwork (eg you were still at table with kids, he got to eat his dunner made by mummy upstairs). You at least made your point.

@Nousernameforme
I would get that thing like a pre panic attack when everything would seem brighter and my anxiety would kick off.

This in spades! This is exactly how it feels.

I completely understand what you are saying. My DH was like this. I felt like the kids were going ' MUm, Mum MUM' nad he was going, ' Surely, Surely, Surely!' And it was just everyone demanding of me and utterly overwhelming.

I have only read first page but disagree with those saying, your DH doesnt' sound that bad. He is not interested in you, just using you to be interested in him. I think he sounds pretty selfish and self-absorbed. I completely understand why you are unhappy. Especially as he isn't interested enough in you to hear you when you say the marriage is failing. He takes you for granted and sounds bloody awful.

I feel the same way sometimes. I've got dinner on, the toddler is running around like a lunatic demanding attention and my DH starts talking AT me, offloading everything he thinks I need/would like to know.
I often have to point out I can only do so many things at once. Can he do x & y so I can finish z. He can then have my full attention once toddler is in bed and we're eating.
I think their heart is in the right place, they just lack the observational skills to know that we're overloaded, so need a gentle reminder x

My first thought even before reading about his 'me me me' focus was what is his job, and why is he not working from home at least part of the week during the pandemic? Not in the NHS I expect, nor police, nor retail judging by the time he comes in the house. Not teaching either.

Unreasonable behaviour regardless.

@sadie9 this saddens me, but it's probably true.

The problem now, is that when I try to assert my own time and space, it isn't given, or DH wants me to move my time to another time that is more convenient for him to achieve his time and space.

And trying to be more assertive is draining me. I think we will probably eventually need to separate and I'll have to start over again to rectify the role I've assumed in my relationships up to this point

I kinda get where you're coming from. With both DH and I working from home he's driving me nuts. My desk is the kitchen table and he'll think nothing of coming in telling me stuff and then gets huffy when I point out that Im try to work and can't always drop everything to be his listening ear. Similarly to you I feel like he doesn't always listen when I talk. I get passive aggressive and say thinks like 'and since you asked, my day was like...' That's probably nottthe best way to deal with it, but I don't know what else to do.

@peak2021

My first thought even before reading about his 'me me me' focus was what is his job, and why is he not working from home at least part of the week during the pandemic? Not in the NHS I expect, nor police, nor retail judging by the time he comes in the house. Not teaching either.

Unreasonable behaviour regardless.

Eh?

How do you work out he isn't in the NHS or emergency services or teaching?

Comes home around 7-7.30, gives kids kiss and me, takes work clothes off changes into loungewear, wash hands & face, comes down to reheat his dinner.

Kids have milk and toast whilst he eats and chats to them, I take kids up about 8ish for bed, he has washes dishes. Comes up around 8.30 to read with eldest while I settle youngest.

Sounds good but in reality it's alway stressful and I totally get the "overload" feeling, also hate bright light in the evenings, it makes me feel on edge.

Can you have 15 break when your husband comes home?

I have sensory issues, OP, particularly to do with noise, lighting and crowded places. I am autistic. I've learned the hard way over many years that there are things I can cope with and things I can't, and that if I try to push the envelope with the things I can't cope with, everything falls apart. I can't multitask and when I try, I fail. Failing usually involves anger - at myself or anyone else who's around, and particularly anyone who was pressuring me. I can't listen to more than one person at once. I need a certain amount of quiet and a certain amount of solitude in any given day. Over the years, I've learned to put rules in place and now that everyone knows and respects them, things are fine. Like you, I do most of the cooking, and that's a time of day when I put music on and don't appreciate being interrupted. Everyone knows that now. Anyone intending to brain dump on me needs to signpost what they're doing and what they want from it (advice? sympathy? me to be amazed and amused?). The kids can't talk across each other or try to distract me unless it's some kind of emergency - or if they do I just won't be able to take in what anyone's saying, so they won't get the attention they want anyway. These are just a few examples.

Maybe this is relevant to you, maybe not. I didn't know I was autistic until I started to look at things like this, so maybe it's more relevant than you think at first. Based on my experience, I feel your DH is not particularly the problem here, so much as that you're not paying enough attention to your needs and not communicating them either. Once you do, he will need to respect them though.

We both wfh so it's a different set-up from yours, but I hope some of this might be helpful.

@peak2021 he is currently working from home due to the pandemic, but I don't see him until the end of his working day really as he's working in the summer house. So he's basically "at work" until his regular time anyway.

Yes. It's crap behaviour.

When you're alone together, and not tired, you need to tell him some things to help you. Not that you should need to do this, but bite the bullet. He can decompress on his way home from work (music? headphones?). What is it that's worst when he gets in? Ask him to stop doing that. Explain the need to decompress - he might not even realise what he is doing - and that you both need to do it.

When you're all round the table, slow the pace of eating RIGHT down. Ask everyone to talk about their day. What was the thing that made you smile the most today? What did you see that was funny today? Did anything make you sad today? And you ALL answer the same question in turn. It's a great way for you all to slow down and all connect with each other. YY to PPs, after tea, he cleans up while you have a shower / whatever then you put the kids to bed together. Also explain that his disappearing to do his hobby is annoying and try also not so much to put boundaries on this, but to engage him in alternative things to do together e.g. new series on Netflix.

I think you just don't like him

Does it every occur to those telling the OP she doesn't like her husband, that maybe there are things he does that makes him unlikeable? Like talking at her whilst she services him and the kids?

@ConquestEmpireHungerPlague how did you discover that you are autistic? I have had some sensory issues since childhood and had concluded that I was just highly sensitive.

@Seenyouontele
Your post made me laugh.. it is surely happening just as you describe, up and down the land.

Mirrored a thousand times.

The humungous 20 minute poo - with his phone? Is a classic.

It’s life as many of us know it.

Unless they are divorced.. But that has its own classic scenarios.

I love peace, so stopped at one DC.

Couldn’t bear the bickering of two.

Genuinely curious .. do people’s husbands actually come home from work and do the dinner ? Are you guys working full time too ? I would not be impressed if my dh expected me to make dinner when he’s stay at home one , after a full day at work . Understandable , if both work full time etc I guess some might say sahm is a full time job but I’d see that as also making dinner ( as part of that role ) . Definitely on weekends etc I do dinner and I serve up dessert / tea etc at night - but if I walked in and was expected to do dinner and kids after work - erm no

DH comes home every day and cooks dinner, yes. I’m a SAHM currently (usually work freelance from home but there is currently no work due to covid). This isn’t because he’s expected to, but because he enjoys cooking and does it to wind down.
What do you know, all families are different!
I do the vast majority of the cleaning, all the washing/ironing, most of the admin and most of the childcare. Also most of the decorating and DIY. Currently all of the homeschooling. I don’t think he’s hard done by because he cooks (which he enjoys).

Anyway OP... when DH walks in I feel relief (an extra pair of hands) and happiness (I’ve missed him). He doesn’t offload on me like your DH does. He listens when I tell him about my day.
It sounds like you desperately need a bit of alone time.