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Relationships

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

Told off for helping

53 replies

Pudloguide · 13/02/2023 21:02

My husband owns our flat (not me). Now our neighbour has sent him a legal letter over some work needed on the shared building. The neighbour is being very unreasonable and difficult.
i found him a solicitor for legal advice and then tonight I finally told him what i would do in his position (he had been asking me all evening) and he got completely furious with me and stormed upstairs. when i went to see how he was he told me to leave him alone really nastily.
anyway, he hasnt come down and i am left here in this poisonous atmosphere feeling horrible.
i dont know what i am asking really. Whether it is ok to now let him sort it out on his own, i suppose. I was trying to help him.
he had an affair a few years ago with a woman who was always a great emotional help to him apparently (very supportive - unlike me), so i am prob oversensitive about all this!
can i but out now?

OP posts:

Shoxfordian · 13/02/2023 21:06

Why are you still with him when he cheated on you and he doesn’t respect you?

GreyCarpet · 13/02/2023 21:06

He spent all evening asking you for your input and then got angry when you gave it?

I'd imagine that the other woman just always told him what he wanted to hear.

MummyJ36 · 13/02/2023 21:07

Um.

why are you still with him?

Original poster

Pudloguide · 13/02/2023 21:31

@MummyJ36 well the affair didnt break up our marriage although i probably should have left in hindsight.
we have had counselling and both trying to make an effort. I know he is v stressed by the neighbour thing so i tried to help (found a lawyer etc), but he’s so difficult, and i dread him coming in and moaning about it and how no-one helps him.
he used to get really stressed out by work (hence his excuse of needing his work ‘wife’) but now it’s mainly the neighbour and her unreasonable demands that bug him.
i just feel very hard done by, being the bad guy.

OP posts:

LeandraDear · 13/02/2023 21:36

If you are married then the flat is yours too.

Babysharkdoodoodood · 13/02/2023 21:36

Pudloguide · 13/02/2023 21:02

Doesn't matter who owns the flat. You're married so it's both your flat (misses point entirely)

Jellybean23 · 13/02/2023 21:44

Sounds like you are the fall guy - whenever he can't cope, he's lashing out at you. Do you think there's something you don't know about the neighbour problem? Tonight, you somehow touched a nerve.

Obviously you can't do anything right, whatever you do.

Original poster

Pudloguide · 13/02/2023 21:44

@Babysharkdoodoodood yes we are married, but the flat is in his name only (he owned it before we were married and my name is not on the deeds). We don’t live there as a couple anymore. He is going to sell it soon he says.
so, i think of it as his not both of ours.
Hence being a bit peed off when i tried to help him and i am the person he ends up shouting at.

OP posts:

Jellybean23 · 13/02/2023 21:46

It matters not that your name isn't on the deeds and that he owned it before you married. I believe it's half yours.

Original poster

Pudloguide · 13/02/2023 21:53

@Jellybean23 i dont know why he got so furious.
he was all stressed out and i cooked him dinner, let him rant about the awful neighbour and finally said “well if you want my opinion, i would just get out of any arguments with the neighbour, accept she’s awful, suck up the fact she thinks she has ‘won’, pay your share and then get on with getting out of there. Thank the solicitor for the advice and say you don’t want to carry it forward as a legal dispute. Just draw a line and get out”.
Cue massive angry bulgy-eyed shouting about how he didnt know what to do and he needs peace from all the people telling him what to do.

OP posts:

Jellybean23 · 13/02/2023 22:07

I'd let him have what he asked for then - peace - to stew over it and sort it himself, the ungrateful pig. Perhaps you are right and he finds that hard to accept?

Ghostbuster2639 · 14/02/2023 04:00

The cheeky bastard, he sounds like a loon.

Itisbetter · 14/02/2023 04:07

Saying “if you want my opinion” and then giving it isn’t the same as him asking it, but I too think the flats half yours and he sounds stressy and tiresome. Just ignore him and plan a day with a friend.

3487642l · 14/02/2023 04:54

It sounds like you need to do an awful lot to manage his emotions and ultimately he takes his frustration out on you. You don't deserve to be his emotional punching bag.

AgentJohnson · 14/02/2023 05:36

Jesus woman, this is the kind of shit you will continue to get if you stay with someone who doesn’t take responsibility for dealing with their ‘stress’. He has decided to use you as a emotional punching bag, rather than finding healthy and productive coping skills. You can’t fix a twat.

DeeCeeCherry · 14/02/2023 05:45

The cheek of him.

Are you meek? Because you do come across so. Close your eyes, calmly tell him 'fine I won't offer to help again however, I will not be listening to you moaning and complaining about it'.

He's out of order for the affair, his disrespect and the moaning. Its all me me me boo hoo Im stressed so I had to get a work wife to have sex with. The neighbour gets on my nerves I'm stressed so I'm taking it out on you but don't want you to say a word or offer support. Me me me...

You must have the patience of a saint .Don't let him treat you like this

Original poster

Pudloguide · 14/02/2023 06:00

Thank you for your replies. I was trying to help. The neighbour is a horrible bully. My husband had got over invested in retaliating with her. Both he and she want it done their way the building repair. She is being unreasonable but he is being stubborn. I found him a solicitor via work but now he doesn't like the solicitors advice so i said well just don't use the solicitor then, get the work done and get out of there.
the neighbour wont include me in any of this because my name is not on the deeds!

OP posts:

user1492757084 · 14/02/2023 06:05

Stay out of it for your ownsake. Let your ungrateful husband work it out. Plan your own fun days for the next few weeks and ask about the fence in a few months time. Don't shoulder your husband's problems.

PeacefulPottering · 14/02/2023 06:30

Why would you even want to be included in it though?
Leave him to sort it how he feels is best and don't offer any opinion again. In fact I would be changing the subject or finding something else really important to do elsewhere if he brings it up again.
It's not your flat or concern and he doesn't want your opinion. End of problem.

Triflenot · 14/02/2023 06:33

Pudloguide · Today 06:00
Thank you for your replies. I was trying to help. The neighbour is a horrible bully. My husband had got over invested in retaliating with her. Both he and she want it done their way the building repair. She is being unreasonable but he is being stubborn

This says it all really OP. It does sound stressful. It’s a no win situation.

Original poster

Pudloguide · 14/02/2023 06:37

Thank you @user1492757084 and @DeeCeeCherry
i am not particularly meek! Just a bit ground down by all this. It’s frustrating because I know he is dealing with horrible neighbour and now the solicitor quite badly. The solicitor is trying to advise him in an unemotional legal way (unsurprisingly) about this particular problem but husband just wants to go on about the neighbour and how awful she has been for the last many years.
the neighbour is awful and it’s a battle he will not win.
On top of this he is very unhappy at work as he feels he is doing everything and his colleagues are not helping him.
he also cant sleep and gets up every morning exhausted and moans at me about how terrible everything is.
meanwhile i have my own job and my own things going on! Theres no fun or levity. I keep thinking i can make it better somehow.

OP posts:

Fraaahnces · 14/02/2023 06:39

He sounds like he NEEDS you to be the bad guy because he doesn’t want to recognize his actual role in the play. I suspect he’s going to be left alone, once again the perpetual bewildered victim, “wondering” why everyone accused him of being an abusive prick.

roseheartfly · 14/02/2023 06:41

Forgiving an affair is really commendable and takes real strength.

But if I was compared to the OW and my husband has the audacity to imply that she was somehow better than me, I'd divorce the bastard, take the house and leave him with his shitty legal issues.

BlackFriday · 14/02/2023 06:52

Going to suggest that this is much more than about his strop last night.
How is he in the relationship generally?
Is this a pattern?

Original poster

Pudloguide · 14/02/2023 06:55

Oh @roseheartfly it’s something that comes out of couples counselling. The person who had the affair gets to explain why it happened and usually the wife finds out it happened because she was emotionally unavailable, cold, distracted whatever - and the OW filled that void by being interested, attractive, engaging whatever. I know this is the script and what all unfaithful men trot out but at some point you have to get over that if you decide to stay.
I committed to making the marriage better by being more supportive and interested in him (he made his own commitments). So I try to show an interest in whats going on with him but it’s a real downer. I feel like all the joy is sucked out of me atm.

OP posts:

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