I’m so f’ing angry

[Clydethecaterpillar]

That I’m so f’ing angry all the time at DH, yes there are certain triggers but a lot of the time I just can’t pin point the why, it’s like seething resentment or anger just bubbling under the surface.

we have two dc and he is the higher earner so life without him would be harder. I’m finishing my mat leave and day in day out with kids and whining because they’ve been ill (I’m not angry at them or anything obviously it’s not their fault) but I feel like I’ve reached my max. Lunch and dinner are always prepared by me, in a scrap with both of them having to sit at the kitchen table and then they start moaning and kicking off. I’ve begged and begged DH to cook 2 meals a week (that’s it) and it’s happened once and one of those was just frozen food in the oven. I asked him to sort lunch the other day and he’s giving it the biggun that he’s cooked and he made food for the 3 of them and nothing for me, then broke my le creuset skillet by dropping it, taking a massive chunk out of the unit and tile on the way down. Feels like weaponised incompetence. Other ‘meals’ include him defrosting left overs ive frozen.

he has to be told how to do everything, no house proudness and then says to me that he’s working I’m just sitting around so I should be cleaning and keeping it spotless. But when I did work prior to mat leave, guess who did majority of the cooking and cleaning… oh yeah me. I’ve Tried getting organised and prepping everything the night before, but it’s me cooking until 10pm.

obviously there is no sex life, because why would there be, and even when there was I got very little out of it. I’m just done

i honestly feel like a ball of angry energy just bouncing around waiting to explode.

purpose of this is just me getting it off my chest

FFS OP You need to leave this useless POS apology for a husband and father. What sort of example is he setting your children?
If your daughter was married to a man like him, what would you say to her? Get divorced?

Then get divorced yourself. You'll feel much happier. I wouldn't be able to live with a man who denigrated everything I did and who also did fuck all around the house.

Who does he think he is, eating the meals you cook and not cooking anything himself? He's got a cheek. Maybe it's time to really get rid of him for good.

You know what you need to do so make t your New year resolution.

No fault divorce? No blame.
Back years ago the 'flung in face' belittling comments about money, lack of sex, lack of equality in the marriage and him going out 6 nights a week was named in my 'irreconcilable differences'(sp) when I divorced exh.
Never regretted it for 1 hour even at it's grimmest. One positive was his more involvement with dc.
Give yourself a Christmas gift. Find that lawyers number.

He sounds like an arse.

If he earns that much then get a cleaner when you go back to work. If he doesn’t like cooking then can he at least do something he can do right to help out like maybe the washing?

if he’s a higher earner does he in all seriousness actually have to put in more hours than you? If so he might have a point but at the end of the day this isn’t working so I think you either need to reduce your hours and be more of a stay at home mum or go back and get a cleaner and get him to do something around the house.

If he refuses then stop cleaning much, housework shouldn’t take priority over your sanity, if he doesn’t like it then he can step up and do some. Also you could stop making his meals if he’s blatantly being a lazy arse. Do the kids and your own and leave him to do all his own chores.

So he was just like this after the first DC, therefore I don't get the logic of having another, or how sex was not 'off the table' then? Would of been easier to leave with 1 DC, but better late than never.
He sounds like a man who has a clear idea in his head of what he sees as 'women's work' - makes my blood boil. Does he want a SAHM rather than a working parent as he is? If he's going to stick with old fashioned ideas, he should be prepared to be sole provider like in the old days, he can't have it both ways.
Having said all that, you'll have more free time and less housework to do without him, he's made himself obsolete in your life.

And his mother would point out places in the house I needed to clean more!
Bloody cheek! Send him to live with his mother, she’s presumably happy to be his servant as that’s what she’s brought him up to expect.

What is his cultural background out of curiosity?

You sound run off your feet.
Divorce. Childten 50% of the time OR hmore money in child maintenance. Win win.

Please don't cry poverty though, it's thoughtless for others sruggling.

This is so true. anger is a signal that there is something in your life that is not acceptable. But you have to ACT on it.

I became a shell of a person before I finally finally finally left my x and of course, regretted only the fact that I hadn't left sooner.

Plenty of English men carry on like this. My X went to a fairly well-known public school and he had this notion that socially he outranked me. Maybe he did in some way, there were streets in India named after his ancestors but my family always tried to do what was right. He plundered me like I was a resource for nearly a decade and then called me a gold digger when I left. England's finest! (not!). I know. It was only my own low self-esteem that made him seem like a 'partner' of any description.

Oh he laughs....

He laughs at your valid feelings?

That says it all.

No wonder you resent him, the trouble with resentment is that it almost always turns to hate and can show up in covert ways.

I feel your pain

Who has cried poverty? I’m/ we’re not poor nor struggling, don’t get me wrong less disposable income than previously which sucks, obviously, but no one has cried poverty.

just because I can’t afford a cleaner to clean a few times a week doesn’t mean I think I’m poor

Where did you learn to minimise your feelings, OP? Where did you have the first experience that if you felt something, it didn't matter, and it could be ignored?

Addict parent? Abusive parent? Disrespectful parent? Demanding sibling(s)? Ill sibling? Arguing parents? All of these can cause us distress as kids, and cause us to have feelings that are not prioritised.

You've been doing this for a long time, and not just in this relationship, but the part of you that screams has whispered to you, talked to you, shouted at you, and now she's screaming and you're still trying to shut her up. All he's doing is joining in, by laughing at your 'moaning'.

If you listen to the anger, what's the sentiment behind it? What would it yell, in words? 'LEAVE ME ALONE!!!', 'LISTEN TO ME!!!', 'HELP ME!!!' etc... it is trying to tell you what you need; what do you need? What would reassure and calm the angry part of you? What would he say/do, if he suddenly turned into your dream man?

Try to get in touch with your feelings a bit. Then you can work out what to do, to make things feel better for yourself.

I can feel your anger resentment boredom tiredness. Where do you come into the picture? Where do you get to be happy and content? Don’t ignore this feeling and don’t give up on your career. Plan and get out.

Although I sympathise with you, "weaponised incompetence" isn't real. It's a new fangled term used by the spouse (normally the woman) who does a task more often that implies the less skilled spouse (normally the man) is incompetent on purpose.

If the boot was on the other foot, someone getting angry about how a task was being performed and then blaming the performer and accusing them of abuse would be abuse itself.

So yes, it's a shame he doesn't step up. But your anger and accusations against a spouse whose primary role is funding the family unit and who gets a lot less opportunity to perform those tasks skirts dangerously close to being abusive.

A more healthy way to look at this is to ask if this breadwinner, housekeeper set up is really working for your family. Clearly it is not and if you carry on like this then in the end you'll end up divorced like me because you never reconcile this issue and end up resenting one another.

You need to sit down together and consider whether you should go back to work part time and whether he should reduce hours and become more practiced at home. The direction your relationship is heading right now, you'll end up divorced and having to work full time anyway.

I absolutely get how your feel as had a 'very busy' DH in a 'very demanding' job. Hmmm, yeah right. He also loved it and had no time for me or DCs.

But why is the meals such a problem. Baked potoato, beans on toast. (these are not the meals I served up, of course, being what I though I should be, a dutiful and hard working good mother) but now looking back there were a lot of things that I could have changed - whilst ignoring any comments from DH - basically I should have been more' selfish' - or to rephrase it thought of myself . Get a cleaner - an hour (15 quid here) by a cleaner dedicated to cleaning the house does 10x more than you can rushing between other stuff with the DCs around. Have cheese on toast for evening meal.

I think what is the most galling is that you have a very exhausting, very stressful life whilst he continues as if he is a single man with no responsibilities. Can you go out in the evening and leave him in charge.

I will be shouted down by the LTB brigade but the thought of the stress of a divorce and finding new home for one of you and sorting finances when you have a new baby would put me off at this point.

But that’s not his role, he’s not the primary funder of the family, we jointly provide for the family, my maternity pay worked out at 10 months full pay. He was not then nor never has been the sole provider. The only reason I was off work was maternity leave. I now work full time, and actually more hours than him.

I'm on your side OP, ignore previous poster.

You have had enough of this sexist, man child BS and need to take back control to save yourself!

Do it. You are totally worth it and will be glad you did for you and your children.

Much love and validation xx

@Clydethecaterpillar Fair enough, he sounds like he could do with a kick up the bum then.

I still don't believe in "weaponised incompetence" though I'm afraid. It's the kind of thing my ex-wife would have accused me of when in reality I just took longer to do certain tasks or did them in a different way because she did them every day and I only did them at weekends because I had to commute to London five days a week. I remember feeling humiliated by her belittling me and mocking my efforts when I just wanted to be left alone to figure things out.

To me, "weaponised incompetence" is used as an excuse to bully and humiliate. If it happened in the workplace and men started complaining that women returning to work after a few years as a SAHM were "weaponising their incompetence" because they weren't as fast in the first few weeks or because they could only work part time, HR would have none of it and quite rightly so.

In my new relationship, where both of us have come out of marriages with bullies, we have a rule that the chores are split fairly and we cannot advise or criticise one another or seek praise just for doing housework.

I see this is an old thread, resurrected. How are things now, OP?

I just stopped doing things :)

It was a dead thread and then the poster saying ‘weaponised incompetence’ was a bullying term, irritated me so greatly that I felt the need to quip back

Well, I wish you well. I felt your pain as I read through. It does get easier as the kids get older. Hopefully you can afford a cleaner/help now. Or if not, are saving up enough for an escape fund xx

Has he (your DH) reacted? Did it help you feel less resentful?