What is going on with him?

[LoveFall]

DH and I have been together since the early 80s. We raised sons and now have multiple grandchildren.

Sorry this is long.

He is very much a good father, grandfather and I have always said husband, but something is up right now and it is bothering me. I should say he is nearing 80 but looks, acts, and feels much younger. He is fit and well. He is following along with DGS's university calculus course so there is nothing wrong cognitively. I am 13 years younger.

We have basically been happy married, except for the usual wobbles. I have quite a serious chronic disease that first appeared about two years after we met. It was hard for DH to cope (never mind me). Treatment is better now but I still have issues with quite bad joint pain and fatigue. I have monthly infusions.

I had gyne surgery last year that led to a serious infection and hospital just before Christmas, and having to go to dressing changes for a couple of weeks. The surgery was for a tumour and I was very scared. It was found early in lockdown and I waited 10 months for surgery the whole time worrying about cancer and covid as I am CEV.

All of this took it out of me. I am not fit right now although I have been. Taking prednisone for many years has affected me a lot.

DH is very social. He has many friends he meets daily and they chose issues to talk about. I am retired now from a successful professional career. I can be social but since lockdown I seem to be less so.

So finally here is the issue. I feel I irritate him constantly. He has become very focused on our apartment being neat and uncluttered. I do crafting and painting and he constantly complains and gets quite cross about my office/studio. I try to keep it organized but mid-project there is stuff out. I can't seem to satisfy his standards.

He has always been tidy but frankly this is starting to really get to me.

The second main thing is meal planning and cooking. Every day if I suggest something for dinner it is not unusual for him to mutter oh shit under his breath, at which I say what do you want and he tells me what he was planning. Most of the meal planning is based on him.

He does almost all the grocery shopping now, after the pandemic, my vulnerability etc. He likes this as he says I take too long and go up and down the aisles.

My cooking/baking is the next thing. Two examples. Yesterday he asked me to make a certain soup, which I did. I also made a whole wheat bread to go with it. He complained like mad that I made the bread and said I was trying to make him fat. Um no.

Today he asked for pork roast, a few roast potatoes, broccoli and squash. I seized the opportunity just as he was going out to make a Yorkshire pudding batter.

His response was I don't want Yorkshires, I had bread for lunch, and it will mean I can't have as many roasties. Why can't we have simple meals? You are using cooking and baking to entertain yourself. You are making dishes. Don't get flour on the countertop it gets sticky and I have trouble getting it up. You don't notice it. I unloaded a lot of dishes this morning.

It is driving me crazy. Literally. I told him I wanted to make Yorkshires for the first time in over a year and carried on. He repeated that he wanted simple meals. So I childishly said ok, I will stop cooking and you can plan your simple meals.

His response to that was he can't say anything to me as I have a meltdown. I was irritated but it was far from a meltdown.

What the heck is this? I wonder if lockdown has made him irritable. He hates masks etc etc.

I don't want any "LTB" advice as I love him to bits but he is really getting tiring. I like cooking and baking. I like trying new recipes. I like experimenting. He is correct, it entertains me.

Is he just getting old, curmudgeonly, and stuck in his ways? Any ideas on how to get through this. I just want him to settle down and go with the flow.

Sorry, no advice, just sympathy.

To put it simply, the grumpy old man syndrome. Many jusr are (and women too). Otherwise some people become intolerant due to a depression, it could theoretically be dementia but not in this case going by howsociable he is and how sharp to spot detail.

I think he needs a swift and serious reminder that you have choices and if he carries on the way he is you will choose to live elsewhere.

@CatAndHisKit

You may be right about grumpy old man syndrome.

I honestly have thought about dementia but it just doesn't fit. He is very intelligent and with it. He mixes up the dog/grandkids/kids name but to me that is common.

He keeps track of the shopping and banking etc. And as I said he is doing calculus for heaven's sake. Who listens to math lectures at his age and then coaches his grandson?

Interestingly I am the target, no one else. I think he wants me to overcome my health issues by taking up marathon running. He keeps suggesting I take the dog on long walks.

I just want him to settle down and go with the flow

Yes, and that flow is yours, not his. You each want the other to be different from how they naturally are. He wants you to do things his way, and that pisses you off, because you want him to do things your way.

He's opting for passive aggressive, controlling behaviour to get you in line, you're opting to ask for ideas on a forum, but you both have the same problem; you're not compatible, and it's bothering you down to the minutiae of whether or not to have yorkshire puddings or not.

His identification of your meltdown wasn't about your actual behaviour or words, it was about the feeling, the 'You're driving me crazy!' feeling that you were feeling.

You don't want to hear LTB, but you can't make yorkshire puddings in peace if you feel like it.

Hi @LoveFall Might be the obvious question but have you sat down and spoke to him about any of this? It sounds like he has a little resentment towards you?

So what if you like to take your time shopping or your workshop is a little messy, aren't all artists?? And if he doesn't want to eat your yorkies then don't bloody eat them! I would by the way but it's clear that he is very big on health which isn't a bad thing but do you think he's projecting this frustration because perhaps he doesn't think you share that same view?

The Foundation, I appreciate your comments a lot but I have difficulty seeing how we can be incompatible after all these years. I suppose people change but it feels more like the external pressures of the pandemic, my health etc.

I know he thinks about the fact he is getting older and he doesn't like it.

I have difficulty seeing how we can be incompatible after all these years

Why? External pressures can make people incompatible. These things aren't mutually exclusive. Behaviour that's incompatible with you that's caused by pandemic/your health etc doesn't make it compatible with you.

Is the grumpiness new? I know you say you've ruled out dementia but my dad used to get cross about odd things long before he became forgetful. Dementia takes many forms.
I'd course, he might just be fed up and taking it out on you but I thought I'd mention it.I hope you manage to work it out.

I have seen this pattern of behaviour develop in the relationship of a family member now they are retired. It is as if the male puts all his effort into seeming cheery and interesting to his friends and wider family, and then has no positivity left for his wife. He treats her as an annoyance and is very cutting about everything she does.
I agree with HollowTalk in that you need to strongly point out how disrespectfully you are being treated and that you will not stand for it.
If you want Yorkshire Puds and he doesn't, just make them for you. Do not apologise, remain calm and highlight to him that his behaviour is not an acceptable way to treat his life partner.

He's back now, working away at making his famous roasties. He is completely fine and in a good mood, wanting to talk about the people he met at the grocery store etc.

Yes he is a bit passive aggressive. I think that triggers me. He grew up in immediate post WWII London with a Mum that I am sure was not too affectionate (she was raised in an orphanage, poor thing) and a Father that worked all the hours God sends.

He worked very hard at school and athletics. He came to Canada in the 70s and went to university, even doing a masters. Those opportunities were not there for him in England due to his family circumstances. He always felt inferior.

Intelligence does not mean he doesnt have some form of dementia like deterioration. Terry Pratchett for example had a form of Alzheimers that didnt stop him from creating novels but it did stop him writing them. He had to do it with voice recognition software and dictation. He also struggled with things like tying a tie for example.

My aunt is a little older than your husband and she started with her dementia symptons at 80. She became obsessed with certain things too, and it took a little while before it became obvious that there was more to it than just keeping organised. She hated any change at all, she felt safe when things where the way she needed them to be and it really made her bad tempered when they werent.

It sounds insufferable OP. Your home is the one place where you should be able to do as you wish.

My Dad is 82, lives alone and is so rigid/set in his routine. He has a million rules about food, obsesses over the sugar content of things but happily necks a bottle of wine with it without considering that He likes to have everything "to hand" meaning every surface is covered in clutter so you can't clean. He drives me mad and I only spend an afternoon a week with him.

Do you have a separate space where you can have your activities like crafting in? Lose a bedroom if you need to, and ban him from going in there. Or rent a small studio? Sometimes we all need some space from each other.

It could be the beginnings of dementia. I have had several relatives with dementia and the first signs can be a loss of empathy with others, and a loss of 'filter' so they say whatever is in their head no matter how rude and intolerant. Meanwhile they can still seemingly cope with life in general, although it is an increasing effort and that can make them lash out verbally because they sense this decline.

Or it could just be that being together constantly for the past two years has shown/caused cracks in your relationship. You were previously working, and previously healthier. Possibly he is just too intolerant and rigid to live happily with someone 24/7.

Whichever it is, it is hard on you, I'm sorry.

@LoveFall

The Foundation, I appreciate your comments a lot but I have difficulty seeing how we can be incompatible after all these years. I suppose people change but it feels more like the external pressures of the pandemic, my health etc.

I know he thinks about the fact he is getting older and he doesn't like it.

I think this is it.

He's worried about aging and his own health. He's frustrated with you because of your poor health. He looks at you, looks back at himself and can't disentangle you (as a signifier for poor health) from his own concerns for his own health. I can only imagine that your health has weighed heavily on him. It seems like his response to what is out of his control ie aging, is to try to gain control of everything else. He sees you as signifying lack of control, chaos, decline, ill health......I think he probably is suffering some anxiety. You need to talk to each other.

You enjoy cooking stuff he doesn't want to eat, and he has to clean the kitchen afterwards. I'd be pissed off too.

@awesomekilick

You enjoy cooking stuff he doesn't want to eat, and he has to clean the kitchen afterwards. I'd be pissed off too.

I would agree with you if that was actually the case, but it's not. I clean up my own cooking messes. He likes to unload the dishwasher when he first gets up in the morning. I have suggested I could do it, but he declines.

We clean up after dinner together and then sit down to relax, watch TV etc.

We do split the chores. I do pots and pans. I wipes the work tops as the last thing. He has always done this.

He did eat the yorkies in the end. We had the leftovers from our pork roast last night.

Men after 60 are awful which is why I live alone, they are so set in their ways, grumpy and nit picky and I like to do what I want, I am not prepared to put up with all that.
He also sounds very ignorant about health, I think I know what disease you have I was a nurse for many years. The solution of walking for miles and doing marathons is totally laughable.
I suggest you tell him to educate himself if he does that again. He sounds intelligent enough, he should be able to pick up a medical textbook. Its a shame when somebody intelligent makes such crass and stupid comments - I'd probably say that to him.
I wouldn't be able to stand up after one of your infusions and the effect on other organs of the body is drastic.
I'd suggest to him that the only way you're going to be able to live together peacefully is if he educates himself on your medical condition and treats your room like I treated my teenage son's bedroom - never goes in there and keeps the door shut at all times.
Compromising involves two people not one and goes both ways.

@MiniTheMinx

The more I analyse it in my mind the more I think you are right.

I slipped and fell a couple of weeks ago when we had snow, and bruised a rib. I have a huge bruise on my side and it has been painful. He is sympathetic but it is yet more problems. I try to be stoic but it's hard.

I have cared for him through a few significant health issues. He helps me by taking me to my infusions etc. But he is naturally athletic and I am not. We also joke that I am a good "nurse" but he isn't.

The best thing I could do is get fitter. Easier said than done.

He was on the phone yesterday with a friend who does have early dementia. He was helping her with a computer issue. I was once again amazed at his patience and persistence in helping her. Things like this are why I love him. He will help anyone and does.

People just like him and he thinks everyone is "really nice." Has since forever. I remember when he had a hip replacement and could not weight bear for weeks. Two neighbours were literally arguing over who would take him for a walk outside when I was at work. It was quite funny but they were serious! We had to make a rota.

I think also the comment about spending his energy with friends may have some merit.

Men after 60 are awful

What a ridiculous thing to say. Clearly you haven't met any decent ones, but that doesn't give you the right to generalise.