Anyone else feel like marriage is one long compromise?

[RelaxHaveADrinkWithMe]

I do have a lovely DH - he is kind and funny and handsome, clever and works hard. He has a close and loving relationship with the kids and is generally my best mate.

That said, I can't help but feel frustrated and sad that I feel like I'm compromising on a lot of parts of my life. DH is both a strong personality (I'm a hopeless people pleaser) and the main earner, and I am finding that combination quite tough.

I'd like to live by the sea. I'd actually like to move house, and have done for a long time. DH doesn't really want to move house and so realistically, I know it's never ever going to happen. My life will reach an end and I won't have lived at the seaside.

I'd like my own car, but DH doesn't think we need one, so we don't have one.

I'd like to smarten up our house and garden a bit (since we won't be moving) but DH has no vision and isn't particularly interested, so anything I suggest, even a new rug or replacing the sofa, is met with negativity.

Things cost money and although I do earn money we share our household cash (of which there is plenty) and I can't just unilaterally buy a car or even a rug. If I did, DH would be annoyed and I'd feel terrible.

As a result of all this I just feel like things are not really 'mine' or my decision. If any decisions are eventually made, it's a joint decision. And by joint decision, I mean DH picks something and I go along with it.

I can't really see a way for this to change, and I'm making it sound much worse than it is. I appreciate marriage is a shared life of joint decisions but for once I'd just like a few of my ideas to be acted upon... Am I being daft here? Can anyone relate?

OP, is this the relationship you would want for your child?

You are putting yourself ahead of your children by modeling such a deeply unhealthy relationship.

They are growing up the children of an angry controlling bully and a mother who quietly obeys for fear of annoying him.

Call Womens aid for a chat.

He is financially abusive and that is a crime now.

You need to wake up to the situation you are in, for yourself, for your children.

I was in a relationship like that. He was so lovely, just as long as he got his way. If I dared to be less than absolutely thrilled about whatever he had chosen, there was days of sulking and silent treatment. Anybody acting like that will get their nice partner badge taken away.

Compromise means both sides meeting in the middle. Does he compromise, or does he just always get his own way?

I partly want my own car so that we can get fish and chips and eat them inside the car overlooking the sea and squirt the tomato ketchup everywhere and just shrug

And I can bet your kids would love that and they would feel a lot more relaxed than being in a car with him.

Thing is OP - most people are going to be a mixed bag of good & bad. We mainly see the bad on here. No matter how fab her is in other ways, I just think that he's too dominant in this relationship, or at the every least, you're both just incompatible and it's not good for your autonomy.