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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Working when married DH accusation

46 replies

tusername45 · 08/12/2022 15:06

During an argument DH accused me of not working (apart from a short period of time which he acknowledged me working) since our child started school (which was a long time ago now).
The reality is that I was WFH (self-employed) since DC was born. For the first few years it was only about 8 hours a week, then increased to 16 hours a week. On top of this, when DC had started secondary school, I also did full-time work out of the home for other people for 5 years as well as self-employed work.
DH obviously knew about all of this at the time.
To say I was shocked he threw this at me was an understatement. It took me two days to recover enough to remember my entire work history to argue my case back at him.
What's gone on here?

OP posts:

Rainbowshit · 09/12/2022 00:44

I've been here too. DH had made up a negative narrative about me that was so easily disproved with evidence that it would have been laughable if not so concerning.

Of course there was another woman in the picture.

All part of the script.

2catsandhappy · 09/12/2022 15:29

@DarkShade Oh I absolutely get your post. I was stood in a kitchen prepping dinner when drunk (now)ex came in and went to grab my hand. He was karate trained. God knows what he was thinking. The knife pricked his hand and he started screaming, 'she's stabbed me', over and over. I remember him squeezing his hand trying to get blood out, insisting I had stabbed him. Utter nonsense. Wow did that victim story get blown up and repeated. I heard a version that I had leapt over the table to attack him. I did not own a table! Glad you got an admission and a little backtrack. Trying to prove a negative/it did not happen is scary.

Geppili · 09/12/2022 15:42

He is nasty and it was an almost successful attempt at gaslighting you. That is why you ere shocked and scared and couldn't remember.

Original poster

tusername45 · 09/12/2022 15:42

I don't think many people can identify with this sort of scary feeling unless it has happened to them. I think it sent me into shock. It's not that I had to remember that I worked. I obviously could remember that I had worked. But I had to remember dates, times, pay, different employers and jobs over two decades. Not something I'd ever really envisaged doing - having to justify my working existence to my own husband.
If he's telling me something false about me to my face, who knows what he's said to other people. That's how it gets under your skin, I think, because you just don't know if he has said lies to others or not, and you don't know why he would lie if he has.
Your partner is supposed to be your support and your cheerleader.

OP posts:

Original poster

tusername45 · 09/12/2022 15:46

I read up about gaslighting and I think you're right @Geppili at least it had on me the same effect as gaslighting but I managed to keep my grip on reality but I feel damaged all the same. I have to work twice as hard to motivate myself to work now, I procrastinate much more. I don't doubt my ability, but I feel like I'm dragging a rock around after me, concentration is much harder. I'm going to seek counselling. The crazy thing is that we will very soon reach a situation where I will be the only one working and I'm wondering how I am going to react to that. Whether I will become resentful.

OP posts:

healthadvice123 · 09/12/2022 15:50

What context was it in as you said an argument was it him meaning you had a long time not being in full time work so he felt the burden was on
Him
As you said you did 8-16 hrs until your dc went to secondary
Whats he normally like etc

Original poster

tusername45 · 09/12/2022 15:53

healthadvice123 · 09/12/2022 15:50

The argument was completely unrelated to work or anything related to free time/hobbies that sort of thing. I get your point about not working FT all the time but he didn't say that. He said I hadn't worked.

OP posts:

beachcitygirl · 09/12/2022 15:55

Please please please take this seriously. He's
A) re writing history deliberately because something is going on.
B) He doesn't value you, & thinks that
The only valuable work is outside the home. He thinks you less than himself.

I hope not, but if his head has been turned you could be in for a shifty divorce.

It never does any harm to have your ducks in a row. (Ps this applies even for the happiest relationship

Lampzade · 09/12/2022 15:58

tusername45 · 09/12/2022 15:46

You mentioned that you will soon reach a situation where you will be the only one working. This is probably the issue.
Your probably feels uncomfortable with the fact that you will be the breadwinner and is now trying to keep you in your place by suggesting that you have never worked.

Lampzade · 09/12/2022 15:59

Original poster

tusername45 · 09/12/2022 16:09

Because he acknowledged that I had worked (for a fraction of the total time period) I sort of think that he had already decided on that time period in his head. He said it as he said the accusation, so it came out naturally, like a fact would come out naturally. It wasn't like he had just made it up on the spot or he was making insults up in anger. He seemed to genuinely believe it.
It makes me think he had had a conversation with someone previously and that this time period got mentioned and cemented in his head as fact.
I'm thinking it's like the examples of people not remembering terrible events. Their brain blots it out. It was like that, except that no terrible events had occurred.

OP posts:

WakingUpDistress · 09/12/2022 16:17

The idea that you’ve hardly worked in the last what 15~20 years feels to me like he is looking for some good reasons to expect you to work and bring a similar sort if income he did ‘when you didn’t t work’ to support the family.

And it feels like it’s an idea he has rehearsed many times in his head, even if he hasn’t said it aloud to someone else.

im more interested in the idea that it FELT to him like you didn’t work at all. Which means

your life was organised in such a way that you working never impacted HIM.
he has no respect for you and the work you did
he considered your ‘financial’ input negligible
he might well have constructed in his head this image if himself as the great provider for the family, the ONLY provider

WakingUpDistress · 09/12/2022 16:18

Why is he stopping work btw? Is he retiring?

Remainiac · 09/12/2022 16:26

I suspect that what he means is that he has a clear idea in his mind as to what constitutes “work”, and to him, most of what you did over those years wasn’t it. The bit that he does acknowledge should give you a clue about what he defines as work.
Or perhaps it’s just that it’s not really work because it’s you that’s doing it, which tells you something about how he sees you.
Not good either way.

Original poster

tusername45 · 09/12/2022 16:28

@WakingUpDistress that has helped me thank you. I did arrange my work around childcare and I was never the sort of person to ever go on about how hard I worked. There was only about a 9 month period when my work meant I couldn't be at home in the evening by the time he returned from work. So, yes, I suppose it could have appeared to him that life was a breeze for me.
I certainly did wonder if he thought my financial contribution was minimal, yet it was quite significant when I sat down and calculated it.

OP posts:

WakingUpDistress · 09/12/2022 16:38

Have you ever shared that with him? The exact amount you’ve been earning and how much you’ve actually been contributing.

WakingUpDistress · 09/12/2022 16:40

@Remainiac YY .
Fir many people, being self employed and wfh isn’t real work, esp when it’s done by women. More like a hobby that doesn’t matter much.

DontMakeMeShushYou · 09/12/2022 16:43

But I had to remember dates, times, pay, different employers and jobs over two decades. Not something I'd ever really envisaged doing - having to justify my working existence to my own husband.

Why did you have to remember all that forensic detail though?

You say there was nothing going on prior to the argument and it sounds as though he doesn't make a habit of doing stuff like this, so it is odd that your immediate reaction is to assume he's lying to you and has discussed it with others and told lies to them. It's not really gaslighting because that tends to be far more subtle and ongoing than one massive outrageous lie.

If this happened to me, my immediate reaction would be concern for my husband's health and yet that doesn't come across in your posts at all.

KettrickenSmiled · 09/12/2022 17:00

The crazy thing is that we will very soon reach a situation where I will be the only one working and I'm wondering how I am going to react to that.

WTF?
This is clearly related to him ShirkWashing your entire career history.

Why is he stopping work?

girlmom21 · 09/12/2022 17:06

My guess is he's about to be made redundant and is going to use this as his argument to justify becoming a cocklodger

healthadvice123 · 09/12/2022 17:12

@tusername45 seems strange then if not even an argument about work
I bet you have also done lions share of house and dc over years as well.
Is this really out of character for him or can you think of other situations where looking back its similar ?

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