Fed up of constant power struggle and bickering?

[mummyrocks1]

How do DH and I solve this? We seen to never see eye to eye on anything and I feel very worn down by it all. I find him petty, immature and lazy.

Our arguments are so petty its ridiculous but he can't seem to stop or help himself. Egs we have a rare night out. I drive and he needs to give a running commentary on my driving, I am too close, watch out, shouldn't have changed lane etc. why did I park there, I should park there, too far away etc. I admit I argue back all it becomes a petty argument. But I have asked him a million times to just shut up about it. He might not agree with my driving but just keep quiet. He can't so in the end I get angry and ask him if that was worth it ruining our night out over it? By the time we are there I feel any time we spend together we argue and don't want to spend time with him.

Today I thought I must try and be more chilled and not answer back. So over dinner I say to dc we need to look online for some simmer shorts for a 4 week holiday we have coming up. I don't think the 3/4 pairs is enough. DH interrupted saying he does think it's enough. I didn't answer trying to not retaliate. He raises his voice looking at me and says yes! I gently disagree. He shouts that he's got enough shorts, his opinion doesn't count etc. I say is this really worth arguing about in front of the dcs? I sort everything to do with the dcs and think he's wrong. He continues to argue.

This is the kind of arguments we have everyday. I am tired of it and don't want this for the next 40 years, we are early 40s. I know it's ultimately not about the shorts it's because he feels I take over all decisions, I don't follow what he wants. I don't think this is the case. The trouble is when you disagree on so much down to how many bloody pairs of shorts dc has then someone's point of view has to be followed. It's so exhausting. I don't see how we can solve this but I ve had enough.

@mummyrocks1

I feel like I married an immature, selfish and petty man. He puts himself first. I should have seen the signs and that won't change.

Then very quietly and discreetly start putting steps in place (get your ducks in a row) for the time when you decide nothing, including couples counselling, works any more.

Get clarity on your finances (his and yours, including pensions), shared assets, your own individual bank accounts (current and savings) that he has no access to. Plus an email account he doesn't have access/passwords to. Ensure your passwords are strong. Know where your financial and important documents (passport, marriage/birth certificates etc) are and secure them outside the home if necessary. If necessary see what benefits you might be entitled to if you did leave the relationship (www.entitledto.co.uk).

If he is the person you describe above he may turn quite nasty if he gets wind of your preparations or even thinking of splitting - so take care. In the past there've been threads on here where a partner/husband clears the bank accounts, for example.

You may decide, in the end, you don't need any of this - just know your situation in case there comes a point when you do. Good luck OP. 🌹

Curious OP, does he drive? Next time he criticises stop the car, tell him to drive, if you driving is so sub optimal. Or refuse to pull away until he shuts up, every time. With regard to the shorts type issue, ask for reasons. 3 pairs are ok for 4 weeks?!! How does he see that working? Who will have to deal with the consequences of insufficient shorts? You or him? He gets to say if he is the one dealing with the consequences. But really there is more wrong if you are getting into a major row over a pair of shorts. Sounds like a sulky man child.

Sorry you picked trash to have kids with, it’s not fair on them to continue to expose them to your shitty abusive husband. If you divorced the prick he would have to parent his offspring and could argue with himself all he likes.
why not make him Not Your Problem, and enjoy your life?

Neither of you are entitled to inflict this toxic farce on your kids. You (plural) do not fight, gaslight, or walk on eggshells. Your kids need to not be exposed to this shit. The bloke is shit, unfortunately that’s something they’re burdened with,
inflicting him on them for less time will be beneficial to them.

Life with your DH sounds exhausting.
The book ‘How to win friends and influence people’ by Dale Carnegie is great for strategies in dealing with difficult people. (It’s free online, published in 1937)

Does he have a point? I've been in your DH's shoes. My opinion only really mattered when it was about things my ex had no interest in. i.e things about me. Otherwise, everything had to be his way because he knows better (in his opinion). Interestingly, he does have ASD and is very black and white about things and can not accept that two different opinions does not mean one person is wrong. He is never the wrong one either (in his opinion). He falls out with a lot of people. So, for me, everything was a discussion, but for him everything was an argument. In the end I just got tired of wanting to be heard.

If your kids are being dragged into this then it’s time to call it a day.

This is who he is, he doesn’t want to change or compromise, he wants to win.

Stop swimming upstream and start planning a future where his presence in the every day is reduced I.e LTB!

I want to ask something but I mean it nicely and I don't want anything I say to be taken as an attack. Do you think you contribute to the arguments in any way? Because reading through your posts it reads like you are always reasonable and he is always unreasonable. Even your one bad trait of being bossy is his fault.
You say couples therapy won't work because he always thinks he's right. But it does sound that actually you always think that you're right too. And if you've decided therapy won't help, then it probably won't.
If you're not compatible, you're not compatible and therapy isn't going to change that. It sounds like you both might be happier apart. But if your children are standing up for him against you, maybe the situation isn't all as one sided as you think.

Well, he doesn't like you or love you.
That is clear.
Divorce and bin this piece of shit.

ime children in abusive families quickly learn to appease the abusive parent. So siding with the abusive H means he won’t turn on them and they won’t be the target of his ire.

also DC in abusive marriages tend to mirror the abuser and start treating the abused parent with similar anger and disdain. Because that’s the way they’ve learned to treat their mum.

I remember after I left abusive ex that my family told me how concerned they were that my eldest child (aged 5 at the time), was constantly angry with me and would scream and shout at me and would treat me with anger telling me off constantly. I didn’t see it till my family pointed it out.

It took years to get her to stop and even now when she’s a young adult she still gets very angry with me and tries to be manipulative towards me altho she’s sweetness and light with everybody else. When she’s calm she will admit she has no idea why she behaves the way she does with me, my DH & other DC have noticed too so it’s not in my head.

Yes you are right I probably do contribute to them too. I think we both like the last word. I will answer back to things when I should ignore. We are both quite argumentative. This is a problem. Like with the car park argument I should have just ignored what he was saying.

We are both quite quick to blame. I want to get out of that and I am trying to. If something goes wrong it quickly becomes who's fault it is. I am trying to be less like that.

He says I lack empathy, but he really does too. He's right I probably do. I didn't grow up in an emphatic environment. So arguments occur because I haven't been understanding. I can be very black and white. I am trying to be more empathetic and see the other side of things.

As I said I have always struggled with friendships, seemed a annoy people and have had lots of conflict with people. I am aware that I am the common denominator in these things. This is why it's so confusing. Maybe it's just me. It has been in the past.

This does stand out to me. I do have elements of this yes. Trouble is I think he does too. Perhaps I should have just married someone more laid back who's willing to go with the flow. I have friends who are strong characters, but you can't have two strong characters in a marriage. They married people who are more laid back.

I think I definitely have the someone's right/wrong element to me.

We both definitely keep bringing up the past. More him though. Eg- if I say I am stressed or tired and don't have room for anything else in my head as I have a lot on at the moment. He will immediately bring up the x number of years he was stressed and felt like that and how I wasn't supportive and still wanted him to do things.

If he says he has no time to do x, I will say it's because he's laid in bed and not got up early enough. He leaves everything to the last minute that's why he's disorganised. Not because he doesn't have time but because he doesn't make good use of it. And so the argument continues. We are trapped in a cycle of these types of arguments.

The trouble is we argue over so much and I feel like I can compromise but it seems he never can. Ultimately someone has to back down or compromise when you disagree otherwise how is the problem solved? So it's constant. He thinks it's always him. I don't. It used to be just big stuff but now we can't even seem to have a car journey or a meal without falling out.

We differ so much on things. If he had his way we would always be in, the dcs would do no homework, we would never be on time. We wouldn't go on holiday. We would have no savings.

😂😂😂
Me and dp are in this mode ATM. Ongoing for a couple of months.
She even tells me when to indicate, turn right in a minute etc, etc. Interferes when I'm doing a task etc.
Tbh you both sound as bad as each other. You've both lost respect for one another.
Why not just buy the shorts instead of asking?
For some reason you've fallen into a pattern of communication, the resentment is real.
Counselling with real listening, accountability and honesty will help......

He's an only child. I think that's why he lacks the ability to compromise. It's hard to know as we have only really heard one side but his dad left everything to his mum. She was the main earner etc. It sounds like he was very unsupportive, distance and had no empathy. She had a medical condition and was on lots of meds which I think made her very passive and she had a very quiet life, never really going anywhere or doing anything as his dad didn't want to. Her mum was her best friend. He was very set in his ways. When DH left home they immediately split up. His mum is very practical, just gets on with things. She's very frugal. We have never heard his side though.

My childhood was complicated. I grew up with two siblings. One was the golden child, I felt they were prettier, cleverer, better at sport, popular. All the things I was not. I compared myself a lot to them and really lacked confidence. I struggled with a lot of things. Nothing came easy. My relationship with my dad was strained, work came first, he was never there. Is frustrating or stress at work was taken out on me and I was labelled as difficult- I thought I was anyway. I didn't feel loved by him. I was told I could try the patience of a saint, could cause and argument in an empty room etc I don't feel I was given support on how to deal with friendships, social situations, arguments. I never seemed to get the cues.

Apparently his dad said to him quite early in our marriage with dcs that it is just something you have to get through. Nice.

DH is very poor me. Life is harder for him than anyone else. He does not just get on with things. His friends who he went travelling with acknowledged to me years ago he's probably difficult to be married to. He can be sulky, needs someone else to organise him and they did things without him as he didn't want to do them.

Your poor kids are stuck in the middle of this mess, and you should have left him ages ago. They are growing up to believe that this kind of toxic dynamic is normal, and it's anything but. You and your husband are unsuited for each other, and no amount of counseling is going to change a damn thing. You're just throwing money away that could be used for a solicitor.

Why you've stayed so long in this misery is beyond me.

Stop the therapy, see a solicitor immediately, and put an end to this.

Cut your losses now.
There is very little point analyzing this, hoping for change.
He wants to be Alpha male, he wants to be boss, he wants you to be submissive.
You know he is disorganized & lazy.
The chalking up points thing, as if there has to be a winner. where every thing you say is going to have a tit for tat, like a game of ping pong.
The driving, (my H is an appalling driver, but he has to comment, & tell me to slow down, go another way, HE makes to brake suddenly & shout as if I'm going to crash.., (I'm not)

I have lived a life like this, How I wish I had left 25 years ago

He’s an asshole sorry OP. It’s not you! He id trying to piss you off.

(though I’d say 4 pairs of shorts is plenty. Get him to help with laundry!)

Agreed, his dickheadedness aside, you just don't seem a good match which is exacerbated by him being overly confrontational.

The more you post, the worse he sounds.
My advice is to get therapy for yourself to help you clarify your thoughts.
Your childhood has affected your self esteem and your perception of what's normal and acceptable, so you may need to reflect on it in order to see your current situation more clearly.
I strongly recommend "Toxic Parents" by Susan Forward - even if the word "toxic" seems too much to describe your parents, there is certainly some dysfunction from what you've told us, so the book will be helpful.

We do bring out the worse in each other. He can't let me be. I can be a bit of a recluse I can go into my world. I need time on my own, I like my own company. He's happy for that if it suits him and there's football on or something but when he wants a conversation and I haven't got room for that in my mind for that he gets angry. I have no time for him etc. It's true, I probably don't. This is heightened by the situation at the moment. I am studying full time and working part so 45 hours plus. In fairness he has stepped up with the chores, dc etc. But only when I wasn't coping. He doesn't let me be me, everyone wants something from me. I am down everyone's priority list.

But I think would say the same too. We just don't rub along well. We don't know how to productively deal with each other's faults. We don't seem to understand what the other needs.

Getting angry with you when you want time to yourself (perfectly reasonable) is another big red flag.

He seems to think you only exist to serve his needs and agree with him?!

Please have a read of this and see if any of it rings true
www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/2268977-The-Abuser-Profiles

Christ. I am feeling scared. I have just had my first 1-1 with the therapist after a joint session. She herself used the words gaslighting and that his behaviour is abusive. But then kind of contradicts herself by saying she's not saying he's abusive.

I ended up crying at the end and just let it all out how am feeling which was embarrassing. But she's not heard his side. Maybe her views will completely change once she does. But she did say you often have one person who is in control and she's not getting that from me.

Shit. I ve started down this road now. It's all unravelling. I don't know if I want to continue as it could make me see the marriage in a different way, change everything. Just the fact she's used those words.

I am scared now I kind of don't want to know if that's the case. Can people work through things like this? Can people change from counselling? Once we go down this road and what if each week confirms he is abusive , is the only way to end it?

No you can’t work through abuse, and no therapist should see an abuser with their victim, you don’t need confirmation of the abuse, you don’t get a certificate. Who is prioritising your kids in the farce?

Thanks for that. I am hiding in a bathroom shaking right now. Your response is so supportive.

Me- I am prioritising my children. They are my number 1.

She said that too though. That my children are witnessing it. Shit. I didn't think there was anything to witness.