Thinking of ending the relationship, very young children

[Blueseptember]

I’m not sure if there is a solution here. I don’t want to leave and I would welcome any suggestions.

My DP and I have a 10 month old baby together. We’ve been through the lockdowns and it’s fair to say they have changed the dynamics of DPs work to the point where I have to admit he isn’t the man I first met. He’s gone from travelling all over the country and beyond on business to rarely venturing out of the dining room.

I’ve tried to talk to him many times about how it impedes on me but I don’t get very far. Sometimes I feel like I hate him. I don’t but it does feel like that.

I feel very unwelcome at home and don’t enjoy being here any more.

Leaving is a huge step and I don’t want to do it but it feels as if it’s my happiness or my child’s at the moment.

I’m sorry but I really don’t understand. What comments are so awful? I don’t know what other threads you may or may not have. Even if I did then I don’t know why that would matter so much.

You do sound really depressed and I’m sorry if you have been struggling a lot. Does your DH know you are feeling so low? It sounds like you had a shit birthday, that sounds rubbish, did your DH not make any effort to do anything special for you? If so that is a much more understandable example of why you feel like the relationship isn’t worth working on. I think more posters would have been able to understand your issues if you’d said “my DH worked all night on my birthday”.

Why couldn’t you breathe for ten months? Do you mean while you were on Mat leave? Is he controlling or not allow you to do certain things at home? Does he criticise you a lot? You do come across as very defensive but also just quite defeated. People on here are just trying to help you but you have to allow them to be honest. I’m really not sure which comments are so awful.

Also you said he has taken over the dining room as an office but what about the rest of the house? Can’t you use that at all?

Please stop telling me what an awful person I come across as. I know. I will try to be a better and nicer person. Let’s leave it now please.

No one has said you're an awful person. You sound desperately unhappy and your husband sounds like he's become a bit of an old man overnight.

Does he not have any hobbies or friends? Do you never go out as a family?

It sounds a terrible way to live to me.

Yes we do go out as a family but never outside of this.

I have realised last night / this morning that he just doesn’t enjoy us being around and so that’s going to be difficult to work with.

No one has said ‘awful person’ but comments about being unclear (have a think) and defensive give the same impression. I think that the thread is best left.

So I think what you are saying is he has turned from a confident, outgoing, busy and interesting husband to a man whose life has become confined to your house with no life. You feel you never get a break because regardless of you going to work, he is always at home so you can never have time at home by yourself. Am I even close?

You have my sympathies and I would suggest counselling. With a new baby, lockdowns etc, life has been under tremendous strain. Maybe he misses the man he was too.

He needs to move his workplace to a room upstairs, not be hanging around the dining room working.
Of course you can't relax at home, when there is someone there man-spreading in the living spaces.
You need to be able to come home from work and relax at home, without someone changing the atmosphere by working right beside you.

We don’t have an upstairs. So he can’t. He wouldn’t even if we did.

And yes, you also need time at home alone. It's awful to feel you never get alone time.

Ok, is there any option to create an annex/garden room, so his workspace isn't the center of the home?

Or can he work from a bedroom, so he's more out of the way?

I work from home, and would never commandeer the living spaces. I work from my bedroom.

OP in what ways do you feel suffocated/smothered/hardly able to breathe at home? Is it specific things your husband is saying or doing?

Ultimately while everyone likes their own space, I think most couples consider a home to be a shared space - ie not "his" or "mine" - and are able to navigate a balance between not smothering the other person all the time, but also actually enjoying having them around.

To me the root of your problem seems to be that you don't enjoy being around him.

I have no idea to what extent this is because of things he's doing or whether it's because you only ever liked him when he was away from home a lot. I also don't know whether the changes in his behaviour are the normal things that most people accept in their partners as they go through life, or whether it's more dramatic than that.

Most new parents don't travel as often as they did when they were responsibility-free, most people get a bit more boring and set in their ways as they become older, people's jobs/roles change quite naturally... that's just all part of life. Fundamentally couples stick together because through all of that they still enjoy each other, respect each other and remember why they fell in love. All of that seems lacking from your relationship.

@Blueseptember

I really don’t think I should have to spell out why physical violence is the only reason proudly outing a posters NC - on relationships - is particularly clever or funny.

Some of these comments are just awful.

I have tried really hard but the reality of life is really getting to me now. I’ve spent ten months unable to BREATHE hardly and now I’m back at work my dp sees the house as his. I spent my birthday evening walking around a supermarket because I couldn’t stand to be in the same room as a workplace.

Anyway it doesn’t matter. I’m really low. Out all my threads, go on.

Op it sounds very much like you're depressed. I recognise those feelings.

I feel like that a lot. I haven't had any space to myself for 2 years either, as a single parent, I've had teens home with in various guises since the start of the pandemic. They don't really see their dad any more and I crave space.

But I suffer with long term depression and those feeling you described are very similar.

Have you seen a gp, or spoken to anyone else's lit how you feel? If not you probably should.

No one has outed you. Your threads are not private and people can and do recognise posters from other threads. It's not a threat.

You do sound in a bad place and I really think talking to someone might help. I think this is about more than just your husband.

It's also worrying that you don't think you can bring your issues up with him (or you seem to have convinced yourself it'd be pointless).

"The pandemic has made your chat dull," "you're stuck in a mental/physical rut," "we need to get out and Do Something" - DP and I have said versions of these things to each other in a semi-joking way throughout the past year, we've said them to ourselves as well. It's been very easy to accept a smaller world and very useful to have a partner to snap you out of it. But again it is not a big deal to say or hear this.

I’m sorry you’re feeling low. I really don’t think people on relationships, or this thread, are on the attack or trying to be clever/funny by asking questions, wondering if you’re the same poster as we’ve attempted to help previously, suggesting that your communication style may be an issue in your marriage, etc. This isn’t AIBU, where the default is “attack the OP”. Most people on this board want to help, often because they’ve been in, and extricated themselves from, difficult relationships.

I think your precious threads are relevant; I’m sorry if you feel outed by that. I think maybe you were hoping for different answers by name changing and framing the problem a little differently? You won’t get different answers, I’m afraid. And it may be you don’t want help, but to periodically come here to vent? Which is fine! But you’ve framed it as wanting solutions, not a vent, and people are responding to that.

As you’ve said: you can’t make him understand or change. So either you can live with things as they are (and be desperately unhappy), you can try to change things through counselling and date nights (with no guarantee of success), or you can leave. Only you can make that choice, but people here would happily help and advice on practicalities of the third choice.

*previous not precious! FFS, that was autocorrect, not me trying to be clever or snide

OP, you really don’t need to keep justifying why you want to leave. When you’ve got kids there are always always going to be people who think you didn’t try hard enough to stay with your kid’s dad. I get that ALL THE TIME- and mine cheated! And still I get people questioning whether I did enough to try and keep us together.

Try and think of the practical side now. Who’s house is it? Do you have family to support you? Do you earn enough to manage on your own or do you need to look into benefits?

Don’t let what other people think tie you in knots.

People keep twisting it.

I can’t enjoy my own birthday chocolate without him making stupid comments and pulling stupid faces at me.

He doesn’t like us being there. Constant comments about stuff.

People keep insisting that if he just moves into the non existent upstairs bedrooms or outside to the garden it’s fine. It’s not. Because it’s his office. So because he lives at work and work lives with him nothing else is important. Living like that is awful.

I don’t want to leave for my child. I would be out tomorrow if it was just me as I’ve never agreed to living in an office but it’s not just me.

I think there have been some deliberate misunderstandings welcome to mumsnet, it happens on so many threads. The nitpickers arrive and you may as well give up as anything you say now will be misrepresented/twisted.

Your posts are not confusing in any way. I've recently witnessed what you're experiencing with a friend's husband. The difference is he took early retirement from a high powered job (inc briefing ministers on a national issue). He's now the most anal, fussy and petty man. I don't know how my friend stands it.

I do think couples counselling, if he agrees, is worth a shot. Hopefully he'll take the step to return to the office and might see what he's missing being holed up at home. I also think he needs to move his work space out of your shared space at home.

I think many people here have tried to understand your situation and offered some advice or asked genuine questions. I have read the whole thread and can't see anyone being nasty but it has been quite difficult to understand your situation. I have no idea whereabouts you live but maybe the work from home restrictions will be lifted soon and your partner will be expected to return to the office again (and be enforced more). However, many offices just aren't going to re open again though and WFH may be a permanent way of life now. The pandemic has affected so many lives and changed so many people - it truly has been awful. Sounds like he is enjoying having the house to himself and may dread it when his 'orderly', quiet life gets shattered when you and your DC return. Start looking at rental properties and see what would be available on your salary and how much deposit you would need/references etc. Knowledge is power. Once you know what your options are then perhaps you can see more clearly the next step in your life. Does sound like the pandemic wrecked your partners life and confidence and he has become very introverted and comfortable in his own little world inside his own four walls. Breaking that cycle for him will be very difficult now as many of us have become more fearful of facing the outside world again.

OP, I understand exactly what you mean.

When he is busy with travel and going out, he exudes confidence and gets excited about life. You're attracted to that side of him, when he is loving life.

Now, he just sits at home and doesn't make an effort to make himself feel good... He has become dull and unattractive to you.

He isn't the man you fell for, the man who had a vibrant energy.

He will never be back to the office but this is about so much more than that but that’s done now. Look, let’s just stop posting. It isn’t going to be a helpful thread and I really should know better. I just feel so alone I reach out.

I don’t want to leave for my child. I would be out tomorrow if it was just me as I’ve never agreed to living in an office but it’s not just me.
Your child is so young, you have the opportunity to leave now before they form memories and understanding of their home life – they could grow up in a happy home with you, where work and life is separate and you feel fulfilled and joyful, and your child regularly sees their father. Or they could grow up in a home office with a father you say doesn’t want them there much, and a defeated, unhappy mother. I know it’s not easy, but I also know which choice I would make.

Your child will be better off with two happy parents, separated or not. Staying for the kids doesn’t work most of the time. Wanting to be happy is not selfish.

My son is happy, and he has separated parents. In a way I’m glad, because we were bound to split sooner or later- and this way he doesn’t remember it, because he was so young.

I'm not going to bother connecting the OP with her other posts - she's asked a question and I'll see if I can help with THAT question.

Some people become interesting because of their circumstances. In an interesting job your husband was possibly more interesting. You also only saw him in dribs and dabs if he was travelling widely, he had other things to focus his attention on. But now work isn't the same, he has "colonised" part of the house for himself, regardless of the fact that it is a family home and shared space. I suspect he is the same person, deep down, you just couldn't see it because you weren't exposed to these elements of him. He was "diluted".

At the end of the day though, you're not happy with him. And you're right, he will be even more like this when he retires. He will not fill up his time with activities that make him more interesting such as community events, or volunteering, meeting with friends, drinks at the pub, etc, but will likely go further "inward" into himself and into his space.