Is a marriage help a bad Christmas gift?

[onoanon]

For some context:
DH and I have been having a rough time the last 2 months. To spare all the details, we are at a point where we’re having a hard time forgiving eachother for things, but also know we want to still try to work it out. I’m the one that’s having the hardest time, and for good reasons, but I have been working on it.

Anyways, I noticed last night in the Christmas stocking stuffer pile, there was a book with a bow and my name on it.
“9 steps to heal your resentment and heal your marriage”.

It should have had a giant card on it too that said “merry Christmas, here’s a book to fix your problem”, that would have really drove the point home. 🙄
I immediately got so angry, but then just felt like crying.
I got him some gifts centered around us, like a fun conversation game, and a box of date night ideas. I thought this was more appropriate. But a book like that?
This isn’t even about being ungrateful (we never do anything big for eachother on Christmas, it’s for the kids, I know everything else he’s gotten me already and vice versa), it’s the THOUGHT behind it. To me, there’s nothing sweet about it, he’s going to give me a book where he’s basically telling me I’m too resentful and here’s how to fix it (how about don’t lie about things and I won’t be?).
I just feel like there could have been gentler ways to get the point across, like the way I put thought into the things I got.
Am I being too knit picky?
I think I just wanted one day to not remind us of the shit going on..

Rather than continue the cycle of resentment let this be the catalyst for realising that ‘we’ll try harder’ isn’t working and commit to getting professional help.

I don’t know if your marriage can be fixed but clearly whatever you are both doing isn’t working, it’s time to stop being half hearted and start being serious, even if it does mean that you should split.

I understand some pp but a gift like that makes it appear OP is the issue.

@AgentJohnson he’s refusing professional help, hence the book. I’m getting IC, but he refuses.

@KatherineJaneway it’s both of us. We’re working through some stuff, or trying to at least. I’m not without fault, but he’s done some things over the past few years that came to light and I’m having a hard time with it. I’ve asked to go to marriage counseling but he seems to think we can work through it on our own. His biggest issue is me not getting over it to put it bluntly.

The fact he won't go to counselling and he bought you the book seems to me he doesn't want to have his own behaviour to be examined. Good luck

I find myself in a similar situation and I would feel that the book was directing the blame on me and wouldn’t be impressed to be honest.
I am looking at start individual counselling in the new year - husband said we could go to relationship counselling together if it would help me get better. Defeating the object really as we are both to blame really…..

Working through things, that depends on what he did.

@RantyAunty It’s what we both did. I made a post on it about a month or two ago, looking for advice. We’re still here, trying to stick it out, but I’m having a hard time letting go of the resentment I’ve held on to for so long.
When I was pregnant, I found out he was sneaking off to masturbate in the middle of the night, which is all good and fine, but I found a collection of dildos and that wasn’t something I knew about him. We had been married for 2 years and been together for 9 at that point. When I confronted him, all he said was he enjoyed it and it was something him and an ex used to do and my pregnant hormonal brain twisted that all sorts of ways to Sunday and it really affected me in a way it wish it hadn’t. He never spoke on it again, never talked about, even though he admits now that he knew it was a turning point in our relationship, but he was too embarrassed. Then Covid hit, I had a newborn, and he was working 10 hour days and we weren’t communicating the way we should have been, and that went on for a year.
I felt alone, and he wasn’t being very supportive so I reached out elsewhere this past March to fill that void, and it was stupid of me. I had an EA, it’s ended now, no contact. Since he found out about it, I’ve found things out too. Like, him bringing home mock work schedules that showed him as working but he was really booking hotels, multiple times after our pregnancy and right through Covid, two-three days at a time. He never stayed out all night, just went there instead of work. All things I had to find out on my own, he admitted to lying about going to work but I found out about the hotels on my own and he still tried lying about how often when I already knew. He swears he was buy himself, that he felt like he couldn’t use his toys at home because i’d judge him (was never even given a conversation about it), and I really want to trust him on that, but it still hurts. Especially knowing that during Covid when I was home all day with our son, struggling, he was doing that and then complaining that his work schedule was too much.
I’ve done everything I can. I’m going to counseling, asked him to go on his own, or to counseling with me and he just won’t. He thinks we can move past this on our own. I’m the one who did something wrong here and I think he feels liberated that I know about his little secret and doesn’t see it as a big deal. Maybe it isn’t, I don’t even know anymore.

Gently OP I would use the individual counseling to prepare myself to leave the marriage, to learn what I needed to do to be happy by myself and what led me to be in the relationship based on lies.

Less gently I would tell him to stick the book where he shoves his dildo. I would also be questioning if he was alone in those hotel rooms. Do you have family to support you through this? The fact he refuses counseling tells me how committed he is to healing the marriage.

@Dontbeme no, I don’t have any family to help support me. That’s unfortunately a big reason that’s factored into me deciding to stay, and the kids too. We have a house together, my names on it too, but he pays for it- I wouldn’t be able to on my own. Or anywhere else really.

He seems to be committed to healing it, he’s just incredibly against professional help. A previous commenter had said by not going he’s refusing to examine his problems. I think that’s a lot to do with it, as well as just being embarrassed to talk about this with someone else.

He thinks we can move past this on our own.
More to the point, he thinks you can move past this on your own - or at least without input from him.

At least it's a good opportunity to practice your marriage communication and say "whilst I'm sure you meant well, the title of this book makes me feel that you think only I need to work on repairing our marriage." and see what he says.

I'm not sure why you are so confident he wants to work things out; he certainly wants the issues to be swept under the carpet, but that's not the same thing. Is he actually doing anything constructive to repair the marriage?

I have to agree with @Dontbeme, I would question if he was alone in those hotel rooms.

Has he admitted to the hotels?

I remember your previous thread and feel so sad that this bloke is still making you feel so shit.

It's a passive aggressive AF thing to give you and after everything else it'd be the nail in the coffin for me I think.

So whilst you were struggling to care for a newborn alone without even the support network of family that most people have - and in the extreme of lockdown - he was off in hotels, lying about working and fabricating schedules to deceive you? Whilst complaining about what a hard time he was having at his fake work while you struggled alone?

Have I got that right?

And he has you convinced this is all your fault? Something you should be punishing yourself for?

I think you would struggle to find any human in the circumstances in which you found yourself who wouldn't have desperately sought out human connection and emotional support. We break when we are isolated.

Women coping with newborns in lockdown whose partners did not abandon them and deceive them, and who had family support, suffered mentally.

I have so much respect and admiration for you in having gone through what you did. It must have been very tough.

He seems to be committed to healing it, he’s just incredibly against professional help

How are you reconciling the first half of that sentence with the second half? Because they seem to fundamentally contradict each other from where I'm standing. I wouldn't class blaming you for everything and telling you to get over it as being "committed to healing it" .

If he was committed to healing it, why is he still blaming you for his behaviour and refusing to change anything that caused the situation you are in?

Resentment exists as an emotion to communicate something to you - that you are being treated unjustly. Our emotions serve a purpose. If he hadn't harmed you, you wouldn't feel the emotion. It's not a fault to be feeling it. If it's not going away it's because the cause is unresolved - not because you are "bad" .

@tribpot He wants to move past it. I’m having a tough time moving past it and it’s severely affecting us. He’s apologized for a lot of it, but when all this came to light (my EA) and everything that’s come after, it was a lot of blame shifting on his part. I think that’s why I’m having such a hard time with it because nothing was resolved, we’ve just stopped talking about it. I know he feels isolated because I can’t even manage to be warm with him right now. I’ve tried, and I was trying really hard at first, but because we weren’t being intimate, everything I WAS doing, and comfortable with doing wasn’t enough. He told me it made him sad that our marriage had been reduced to shoulder squeezes as I passed by and cuddling at night. He didn’t see it as progress. And that was coming out of us not even sleeping close to eachother for over a year.
One minute he would be understanding of everything, have these honest and open talks with me and say things like he doesn’t blame me for not wanting to be intimate, or that if he were me he’d be more mad than I am, and then the next he was back to being angry and frustrated and complaining that there was no intimatcy. He told me if this was high school and a girl cheated, she’d do everything she could to show the guy she wanted to be with him, but he’s gotten none of that from me.
It was like that for almost two months. This started back in October. Now, we’re just walking on eggshells with eachother, and he’s waiting for me to be more “warm.” Our last argument, he told me he feels like he didn’t have enough time to blame me for my EA, that all of this got turned around on him and now he’s the bad guy and he’s done being forgiving. But apologized the next morning saying he’s sorry he hasn’t found better ways to make this more positive.
@youvegottenminuteslynn he has admitted to them, after I confronted him. But he interrupted me when I brought it up and said he only did that once or twice, when I knew for a fact it was at least 6. He still stuck to that number even when he admitted to a few other times that I didn’t even know about.
@user15364596354862 I know it’s not resolved, and I don’t know how to resolve it at this point, I’ve held myself accountable for what I did, I started counseling, I was making an effort, and he just didn’t understand why I was still having a hard time getting back to what we used to be. And then I found out about the hotels, and his first reaction was to lie. He later admitted it was because he didn’t want to hurt me.
It’s not resolved because he put everything on me, and then just wants us to move past it. He blamed not telling me about the link from the beginning on me not being able to handle it, him booking the hotels on me bevause I would have judged him, he even blamed what kind of porn he was watching on me because I found a lot tranny/shemale porn in his history- because I “left him alone for 2 years”.
I never blamed my EA on him. I took responsibility for that and I knew exactly why I made that choice.
But he just wants to move past all this because he’s still the same person I married and he hasn’t changed, and he was willing to forgive me for what I did, so I should too. That’s how he sees it. And he’s not entirely wrong, I did make a vow, but there’s just been so many feelings around this for so long. I sat on that resentment of his kink for 2.5 years, I should have communicated that just the same as he should have, and now we’re just stuck.
The book really set me off, and I’m not sure how I’m going to react when I open it tomorrow morning. It kills me that he’s refusing to get professional help, but thinks the answer to all this is in a book, that’s directly calling out MY problem, is what’s going to be what helps.

I would suggest smiling sweetly and asking him what HE found most helpful about the book when he read it.

He is absolute scum, and you know it.

He is unwilling to go to counselling because he is too mortified for a third party to hear details of the absolute scum he is.

Your EA is NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING in comparison.

His book and blame shifting is a joke.

OP, you had better start looking at how you will find work.

Get on to Women's Aid for advice.

You are staying with this scum for accommodation, nothing else.

You need to reach out and make a plan.

Your relationship is over, of that you can be sure.

Woah. He booked hotels pretending he was working whilst you were struggling home with a newborn?? Actually even if you hadn't been struggling with a newborn, booking hotels pretending to work isn't acceptable. And I wouldn't believe he was on his own.

Basically you can't trust him and I don't blame you. And without trust there is no relationship imo.

I wouldn't believe he was on his own at the hotel neither. Nor when he used the toys at home.

What a twat.

If you are resentful, it's no fucking mystery why, is it?

Welp. He did give me the book wrapped, it was the last thing I opened, and he said it as “I know the title is a little harsh, but I was researching books and this one had a lot of good reviews”.
He also gifted himself a book about how to be happier in your life.

He also gifted himself a book about how to be happier in your life.

What a prick.

So your book is about how to make him happier.

And his book is about how to make him happier, too.

Spot the self centred arsehole. Ugh.

@onoanon

Don't waste another minute - leave him

@onoanon

Welp. He did give me the book wrapped, it was the last thing I opened, and he said it as “I know the title is a little harsh, but I was researching books and this one had a lot of good reviews”. He also gifted himself a book about how to be happier in your life.

Does he know your mumsnet username? Because that 'explanation' was mooted upthread.

Having read your detailed post last night, I feel angry for you.

Everything he does is all about him blaming you and punishing you and absolutely fuck all about him taking any kind of responsibility for his behaviour - past behaviour and present behaviour. His behaviour is a huge part of the problem.

I mean, this:

He told me if this was high school and a girl cheated, she’d do everything she could to show the guy she wanted to be with him, but he’s gotten none of that from me.

It's just fucking unbelievable. I don't even know how to respond to such a fucked up comment. What the fuck has he done to make amends for any of his horrific behaviour?

Misogynistic narcissistic prick. And I pretty much never call people narcissists. But just wow.

Good grief, put the book and the man in the dustbin where they belong. You deserve so much better than how he treats you. It's not bloody normal.

Ok wait, I remember your previous thread now. From him, no that book is not an acceptable gift and he needs to agree to joint counselling. Don’t waste your time and energy on him. I’m not sure why you might have thought he’d get you something more thoughtful! He’s very self absorbed and does not have your best interests at heart.

@onoanon

Welp. He did give me the book wrapped, it was the last thing I opened, and he said it as “I know the title is a little harsh, but I was researching books and this one had a lot of good reviews”. He also gifted himself a book about how to be happier in your life.

I'd say you couldn't make it up, except that men who do things like this crop up in fiction all the time, and not as characters with whom the reader is expected to sympathise. I hope you find a way of easing yourself out of this horrible situation.

He was booking hotels to go and masturbate in? [sceptical] Takes ‘posh wank’ to a whole new level!