Changing who I am to fit with DH

[Bonsa]

I found it hard to title this thread as I’m not sure what I’m getting at or what my solution is. They say a single woman is happier than a married one and this has been playing on my mind a bit. I guess I feel a bit subsumed by my DH. We’ve been happily married for nearly ten years but I feel like it’s only recently I’ve started to think about this.

It’s only silly, tiny things, like:

We go to bed on his schedule, not mine.

I would be happy to have beans on toast for dinner, but he wouldn’t, so we don’t, and I can’t lose weight.

I feel like I have to ‘look after’ him a lot - when he moans about work etc.

I just feel like who I am has changed a lot. I enjoyed my independence and me-time in my 20s and now I don’t get any of that as we are both WFH for the past year!

Anyone else??

What happens if you go to bed when you want, or make beans on toast for yourself?

They say a single woman is happier than a married one and this has been playing on my mind a bit

I don't think there's any truth in that statement.

Can't he go to bed when he chooses and you go when you want?

You should be able to just tell him your tired off to bed/not tired will be along after watching or reading... Make your lunch and let him make his own etc have you spoken to him about if this? Have your lives just fallen into this routine or always been like this?

Is he force feeding you? Is he making you stay up late or go to bed too early? If so, he is controlling and abusive. If not, be a grown up and have some agency.

Compromise is a big part of a, relationship, but it's supposed to go both ways. It sounds like you're doing a lot of the compromising or are there things your DH also compromises on?

Bring a couple don't mean you have to do everything together, either. Eat what you want!

Have you spoken to him about these things?

What would he do if you went to bed at a different time? Whinge? Tease you?

You support him - does he not support you too, when you are stressed?

Unless he forces you into these things, you have free will.

You need to consider whether he coerced you into eating thebsame as him or whether you passively accept his choices.

He might want a proper meal in the evenings. That's great. He can make one and you can make means on toast for yourself. You don't have to eat together all the time. Same with bedtimes. Go to bed when you're tired, not when youre told. You're a grown up now.

There is an element of compromise in any relationship, but if it is all you changing things to be the way he wants that is not good. As PP have said, what happens if you just say to him, I fancy beans on toast for tea tonight, and have it, or go to bed when you want to?

Can he not cook his own food?
Why not just go to bed when you feel like it?
Does he kick off when you act otherwise to his ideal?

Take back your independence and do as you please! I would say grow a spine as well but you don't provide enough info to deduce whether or not he is abusing you so that wouldn't be fair.

It really comes down to why you do all these things. Why can't you just have a different dinners sometimes. Why do you have to go to bed at the same time? DH and I rarely go to bed at the same time.

I go to bed at a different time to husband and we have seperate bedrooms. I also have no problem in making meals for myself if I don't fancy what husband's eating.

My question to you is why do you fall in with what he wants?

My XH considered things like beans on toast as only suitable for weekend lunch but never dinner - not a meal for a working man, apparently, as if he were some sort of lumberjack

You could make yourself beans on toast & let him sort himself out - what would happen if you did this? Are you worried about his reaction?

As for bedtime - you each ought to go when you want. To do otherwise is just daft - we all need different amounts of sleep.

Nobody has told me when to go to bed since I was at school.

That's not normal, OP.

That doesn't happen in healthy marriages AT ALL.

It's come up here from time to time. A thread from someone so upset that they "have" to go to bed when their DH does or he sulks. It's always fucked up. They don't know how it happened. At first they were happy to because it was cute. But then somehow it stopped being cute and was then sitting there bored out of their skull in a darkened bedroom whilst he snores and farts beside them.

It's always indicative of subtle or overt controls in the wider relationship.

I think the statement "A single woman is always happier than a married one" is not always true! Also we always go to bed at the same time and I think this is nice for us .However would your DH say anything if you went up later /Earlier? I personally would not like beans on toast for Supper but if you do ,cant you make some for yourself and he has a ready meal or something? Looking back at your 20s is often with rosy glasses .As far as looking after him .Just explain that you understand ,talk about it ,but then the matter is closed .Does he do the same for you?

I think the statement "A single woman is always happier than a married one" is not always true

Of course not, but the point is that it's been playing on the mind of this particular married woman. So what does that tell us about how she's feeling about her marriage?

Just go to bed at the time you want and the same with the beans on toast.
My DH and I had a similar issue, he loved us to go to bed together at a set time where as I’m a bit more of a different time person and I do really enjoy drifting off to sleep in my own . So I put my foot down and said sometimes I’m going to bed at 11 ish , other times it may be 9.45 so there you go. We had a bit of sulking but now it’s our normal.

I used to have the different dinner thing with my DH but I just said to him I was gaining weight because I was cooking and eating food that I made for him to enjoy (lots of meat, very buttery mash, pasta with ragu etc). If I eat that every day I will get fat.

He was really surprised I didn’t just make something else for myself. TBH he is never going to want a light dinner anyway. So now I batch cook for him at the weekends and have soups or mackerel pate on toast or prosciutto plates or whatever for myself and he gets what he wants. It annoyed me for AGES and it really didn’t need to. My own dinner is so low maintenance that the batch cooking is no effort.

Bedtimes is usually the same but sometimes I go and have a bath and read before he comes up and he watches something he knows I wouldn’t necessarily watch like South Park or something violent. When something happens sometimes it’s not unchangeable.

Pottedcrab that's great but would he ever cook his own dinner and cook a separate dinner for you to your taste?

What would you do if you chose to go to bed before/after him? Or if you made yourself beans on toast and asked him to sort his own dinner out?

You should just do what you want to do, and explain why when he asks. I think it'd be fair enough for him to question it if it's so different to what you're used to doing, but then when told your reasons he should accept it.

You need to be more assertive! It's easy to fall into patterns of behaviour, but if they don't suit you, they need changing.

Oh dear.... I didn’t think I’d get all these replies. Thank you.

I appear to have got myself into a really unhealthy rut. I need to become more assertive. I need to find myself again!

I couldn’t even guess what he’d say if I suggested different meals or bedtimes.

I just feel like I’m existing rather than living. Which of course isn’t helped by Covid and lockdown. I just feel as though I’ve lost who I really am.

Essentially you’ve surrendered a lot of your power to your H and have realised the path of least resistance isn’t paved in gold.

I suspect your ‘happy’ marriage has been predicated on you doing exactly what he wants.

The balls in your court OP. I suggest you use it?

Ancientruins yes he would if I asked him to but he works much longer hours. I like cooking and he isn’t very good except for a few things but he will put my mackerel pate on my toast if I can’t peel myself off the sofa. He would also eat the lighter dinners just 4 times as much and I know he likes a hot “real” evening meal.

Really the main point was that I got annoyed about the fact I was gaining weight or unable to lose it because I was “trying to be a good wife” and it turned out to be a non issue. I just built it up in my head.

I kind of know what you mean. If I did something different etc DH would make a “comment”. Which I took personally.

Now, I just do what I like - obviously within reason and will compromise etc but don’t want to follow his way all the time.

Why don’t you say : tonight I fancy beans on toast for dinner.
If he says, I want (for example) lamb curry.
You say, I don’t. I want beans on toast, and that’s what I’m having. You feel free to crack on with your lamb curry though.