What is this behaviour from husband?

[TiredMumma23]

I am not sure if I am being over sensitive, but have noticed DH always seems to want to have a say in things I do around house etc.

For example, yesterday DS and I were playing with a water table in the garden having fun splashing around etc. DH comes out sighing and says "can you not go and play over there instead?" and points to a different part of the garden. DS got his clothes wet (bear in mind it was 29° yesterday) and DH sighed and said he is going to catch a cold. He says things to DS sometimes rather than me even though it's obviously intended for me.

Another example is some grapes fell out of the fridge and DH shouted "for gods sake we need to put fruit in a tub please". I apologised and said we didn't have any tubs big enough and that normally they're fine because grapes come as a bunch so won't go all over floor etc. He sighed and stormed off outside.

I just feel like whatever I do is wrong and if DS chucks food or spills something etc, I just clean it up and accept that's what toddlers do but it seems to irritate DH. I just don't understand it as it's not as if he has high cleanliness standards or anything, and his own room has clothes all over the floor, empty coke cans on side etc (sleeping in separate rooms due to me cosleeping with breastfed DS).

I do as much cleaning and tidying as I can around DS' naps etc but I have a chronic illness that causes me pain and fatigue, on top of sleep deprivation as DS sleeps quite badly. I am just not sure if I'm being too sensitive. I do sometimes wonder if DH is emotionally abusive, or emotionally immature anyway, but I am just finding it hard feeling like I am treading on eggshells with things I do around the house. Am I just being a bit petty? Sorry if garbled am very tired.

It sounds like you've replaced your neglectful parents with a neglectful and abusive husband, now a father.

Get out before he starts doing the same to your son. It's one thing having preferences about how the house is run, another to treat you with scorn and contempt.

And I'd ignore carvoeiro, if the advice is 'snuggle or he'll terrorise you' it's not exactly a recipe for true tenderness, is it?

What BusterGonad wrote. We learn about relationships first and foremost from our parents, what did yours teach you?.

This is who he is and I dare say your own neglectful parents remain the same too.

How can you be helped into leaving this man?.

It's hard because I have times where I think it's not so bad and he's a good dad. Like just now I was making breakfast and popped my head around the front room door and DH has DS cuddled up on his lap watching TV. DS is really fond of him and I am torn between splitting up and then DS being alone with him up to 50% of the time, or me being there to protect him 100% of the time.

All his family and friends think he's a wonderful doting dad and husband. When we were at a family gathering the other day he was running around with DS chucking him in the air making him laugh etc and his family commented what a good dad he is. He didn't correct them when they said he must be tired as DS doesn't sleep well.

I just feel like he has lost all respect for me. For example just now I asked if he could take DS downstairs so I could grab a shower (it's his day off today) and he said no he wanted a coffee first and he'd get him after. I have been awake for two hours and have had a bit of cold tea. He will leave the table when he's done eating to go and have a cigarette, even if DS is playing up at dinner etc. He lies in bed playing on his phone for 20 minutes when he gets up in morning whereas I am up straight away with DS. I know these probably seem like minor things but it just feels like he does whatever he likes. And if I try and question anything he just doesn't like it.

I have tried speaking to Women's Aid a couple of times but have not been able to get through either on phone or their live chat thing. Ironically I worked in family law for years before giving up career temporarily to be a SAHM.

Gawd. Leave. He's a shit. but sounds as if he would have family around to help with DS if you separated so DS would probably be fine.

It's the making a show of being a good dad in public which get s me as that proves they KNOW how they should be behaving but prefer not to to get at their DW.

Abusers are not nasty all the time because if they were, no-one would want to be with them. What he is showing you is the nice/nasty cycle of abuse and that is a continuous one.

Re your comment:-
"All his family and friends think he's a wonderful doting dad and husband."

I'm sure they do, abusers can appear to be quite plausible to those in the outside world. He presents to them a family man image, image is all important to abusers. Unlike these people, you live with him and you know what he is really like behind closed doors.

Women in poor relationships also often write the good dad comment when they can think of nothing else positive to write about their man. He is NOT a good dad to his children if he can and does treat you (and in turn them) as their mother like this.

Keep trying with Womens Aid here. If you can go into Boots many of their stores now have consultation areas where domestic abuse services can be accessed. You just need to ask for Ani.

Are you able to return to work? You need to have the option to leave.
He sounds like he doesn't like you. You can't go through life walking on eggshells

You can't carry on like this. Think how he might be to your son as he gets older.

He just puts a show on in front of people because he knows bloody well how he treats you.

He is a nasty bully.

You need to get back to work.

You need to go to Boots and ask for help.

He is a horrible man and will never improve.

Stop thinking about him and start planning to get away.

If there's one thing I've learnt on MN it's that abusers come across as wonderful people outside of the home, they put on a show, the same show that probably made you fall for him. He sounds so horrible. I'm also guessing that he knew all about your past and played the hero... Until you were safely in his clutches then the true him appeared.
Please keep trying to get help. You sound like a lovely person.

He didn't correct them when they said he must be tired as DS doesn't sleep well.

And interestingly you didn't say, "yeah right he never gets up with him". Was that loyalty, fear, resignation, putting in a brave face? Because it's important. He doesn't help and he's taking credit. When someone congratulates DH for something I've done, I'll chime in. But you don't.

Please think about leaving. He may not want 50/50 if he doesn't cook, wake up, or parent.

Thanks for all of your replies.

Yesterday I did manage to speak to Women's Aid via their live chat facility. It was good to finally reach out and they did say it sounds like coercive control, although they just advised me to keep a record and to get legal advice.

After that, DH was horrid yesterday afternoon. When I was cooking lunch and DH was "watching" DS (sat playing on his phone while DS was watching TV), DS got hold of the TV remote and somehow paid £5 for some one off TV package thing. DH went mad saying DS was rinsing his bank account and he felt like smashing the TV up. Then he got up and ripped the Now TV stick out of the TV and chucked that and the remote in the bin. I asked him not to and to calm down but that seemed to enrage him more as he was saying I should have had empathy for him about DS costing him a fiver.

I am really struggling with this perception everyone else has of him being this wonderful family man and that no one will believe me, because he really is so different around others. I feel so trapped and low this morning. I don't have many friends and am not very close with family and my self esteem feels like its on the floor. I will dust myself off and try and get some legal advice.

Please do OP.

He is a terrorist.

It's no wsy to live.

You poor woman.

Do seek legal advice and as soon as you are able.

Abusers can appear to be quite plausible to those in the outside world. He presents to them a family man image, image is all important to abusers. Unlike these people, you live with him and you know what he is really like behind closed doors.

He sounds like a bully.

Yeah, like all the others have said, he's a miserable bastard at best and a mean bully at worst.

You don't have to live like this. In fact, I'd wager that your life would be significantly better without him in it.

What a wanker.

He needs to calm down. A fiver. Really. That’s what the relationship is worth? A huge row over a fiver?? Bin him.

An ex once started a row over a packet of crisps with me, some crisps! He became an ex that day- no time for school yard antics in my life.

He's awful @TiredMumma23 . He's really shown this in a cut and dried way with the throwing the remote away etc- whether he's awful is not a question now, if it ever was.

I had one of these but it is only in retrospect that I can see that it was just pick, pick, pick
I moved the paddling pool,, there was a problem ... not that he ever really involved himself in anything to do with house 🏡 r kids .
If I came up with an idea , he would give three alternative ideas and explain how they are so much better , yet never did anything to improve the situation .
He always had ' great ideas ' about how to improve a situation but never actually did anything yet complained when kids did anything like eat food in the sitting room or a towel in the floor .
Useless useless nit picking critical fucker

Your h is a cunt. A lazy, bullying, negging, belittling, critical cunt.

He is NOT a good dad. He's a selfish arsehole. Watching tv with his own child is not enough. Raise your standards!!

Lave him, do the Freedom Programme. Be happy.

To add , he used the excuse to leave me ( forgot to mention the affair) when among friends , we were ribbing each other and our friend was slagging off her husband for having the luxury of walking out to work in their img
Without a care in the world . We were all laughing until I also chimed on that my husband literally gets up shorts and walks out the door .
That was the rock I perished on . He lost his mind roaring and shouting when we got home as I had showed him up .the truth that he wasn't this perfect involved parent and husband that he liked to portray himself as ... his
Cover was blown.
Oh how I paid for that !
Well rid .

In his eyes you are staff.
..

I can tell you from experience that he won't change. He may temporarily change but then go back to this mode for years and years.

It will make you ill, OP. You are going to have to do something about this (leave him?) if that's possible?

He is a very poor father and you do not want you DS to have that learned behaviour from him.

It is called being a coercive, controlling cock.