I give my DH the ick

[200miles]

Two young kids (pre school). Both me and DH work full time.

Pretty happy and settled. DH is very good with the kids. So hands on (rubbish at admin etc but v present and always playing).

But he's a grumpy git. Just like my dad is. And the grumpiness is almost entirely towards me. Nothing major, I'm not scared of him. But he just acts like he's got the ick around me. For example if he notices I'm on my period (tampax box out in the loo) he might grimace. We were just away and he made a comment about how big my bikini bottoms were, always "joking" but I'm not an idiot...I'm late 30s, size 12, and admittedly don't make a huge amount of effort with my looks at home. But also he often doesn't respond to what I'm saying and if I pick him on it he will say "don't know what you want me to say". He talks to me about practical stuff like the price of petrol or the bins but often seems totally bored by anything else I have to contribute. He doesn't kiss me and sex is very infrequent and brief. I see him roll his eyes a lot. He is also worse when we are out. He does have days of being fine with me and we get on but I just feel he doesn't like me that much anymore.

I have tried talking to him and he makes a joke. If I push it he will call me sensitive or I'm being mad. If I keep pushing it he can get v angry "get over yourself" "you're talking absolute shit" etc.

We both earn similar amounts and work similar jobs. I really don't know if I can stand shared custody and losing my home. The kids really are v happy as we rarely argue and we are both happy and present with them. But there is such a sadness in me.

I'm considering staying but just building a thicker skin and finding my fun elsewhere. Not an affair but just increasing my social life and hobbies now my kids are getting closer to school age.

Can that ever work as a strategy?

I would indeed take it that he certainly no longer loves or cares for you, if he ever did.

I am so sorry, because it must be very painful to see.

Sadly, your relationship is indeed abusive and his contempt is palpable.

Your children will absolutely be absorbing this and it will be their template for future relationships.

They will not have the words to explain the confusion it will cause in them, but it will change who they are and will absolutely seep into their DNA.

I completely understand that leaving sounds huge.

I don't think you need to rush into anything, especially as the children are so small.

I think you can indeed take your time to plan your eventual exit on YOUR terms.

In your place I would start accepting your marriage is over.
Start really emotionally detaching.
Start counselling to support you.
Start actively planning for a future without him.
Invest in your career, friends, hobbies, and your savings.
Send as little time as possible together with him.
Use seeing friends, hobbies and work
to divide up free time and childcare, so that you are both involved with the children, but separately.

In your place I wouldn't discuss anything, I would just implement these changes as peacefully as possible.

Do not waste money on expensive holidays, do them separately so that you both get a break.

Stop doing wives work.
Let him sort out laundry and food or at the very least carve it up equally.

Initiate zero conversation and tell him absolutely nothing about yourself.

Treat him like a lodger that shares childcare with you.

Remain calm and pleasant but indifferent.

If you can move into a spare bedroom it would be great to have your own space.

You can do this.

My friends sister did it.

She would no longer bring him to her family things either, told him he didn't enjoy them and take some time for himself.

Likewise, she no longer went to any of his family things which she had never particularly enjoyed either.
She effectively separated while married.

Unbelievably he was surprised when she told him it was over as he had thought they were getting on better as they no longer bickered.
She had simply ceased to engage.

She needed the time to get her head and finances in better shape.

They used mediation and it was a good eventually a good divorce and co parenting arrangement.

You deserve so much better than this.

This is the time to arrange your exit on hour terms.

Talk to close friends for support.

Your kids might not now notice the contempt their father has for their mother but they soon will. The path to least resistance (staying) will take its toll on your mental health and is your dysfunctional marriage the primary relationship role model you want to model for your children. What would you say and want for your children if they were in a relationship with someone like their father?

Do you want this to be the next 10 years of your life? The next 50?

Move on. You are worth, and entitled to, so much more.

This is good advice and is very similar to how I handled it. You don't have to leave tomorrow, but just slowly start getting your ducks in a row.

billy1966

amazing post ❤️
and in many ways this is what I did before I split with my ex !
that said I left it too long and it impacted one of my DC more thank I would have liked

but this shit isn’t easy

😞 sorry. you sound like u deserve better. I don’t think he’ll get better. My hub hasn’t changed after 24 years. I also saw a different side to him after the wedding.

you said your husband will stay for the children but most likely they’ll be women on the side. Put yourself first now.

@UnfortunateTypo It's mainly regular, low level nastyness that made me leave my long term relationship.I was sick of the disdainful looks and sighing, the calling me an idiot or a prick even, the regularly answering the phone abruptly with a 'WHAT??!'. He became increasingly like this over time, and once he was a much higher earner, I think he was trying to test how low he could actually go.

@200miles this sounds exactly like my relationship and I know exactly how u feel, I've been with my partner for 18years and we have 2 children it feels like I'm stuck 😞

Did he also look at you with a 'God what do you want now?' look?

@EarthSight yep.

Honestly I am so much nicer, funnier, more attractive and more popular than him. I couldn't see that then really. It's as if men like this pick a woman who's great and then set about wearing them down.

Please forgive me if I sound big headed, I'm really not, I just feel enraged by what he did to my self esteem for fifteen years.

@AgentJohnson is correct about protecting your mental health, but having a plan can do this can remove the sense of powerlessness that can damage it.

Also by ceasing to engage, investing in your plan, actively detaching can take the heat out of bickering.

If he sees you being super calm and impassive, you may actually see him improve.
The key is to not spend time together.

These men and their active contempt for their wives make me well up.

I cannot imagine the grief it must cause women who went into marriages in good faith.

I am heading for 60 but I have two stories that I remember well that warm my heart on the karma front about men like this. All are dead now but the stories are my parents generation and women back then were so stoic when faced with the reality of being married to such utter pricks.

Will post them in a bit.

He doesn't sound kind. I would sit down and discuss separation. I wouldn't want to stay in a relationship where I felt disliked nor would I want to role model that to my kids

He’s just horrible to you. 😞

Hi @200miles my ex H sounds similar to yours. Mine was also occasionally physically violent (usually smashing things up, a few incidents of physical assault over our 20 year relationship). To my shame I could have coped with this if there had been love and affection in between. In recent years, our marriage was like yours - no affection, lots of contempt, he would never listen to me, would ignore texts, walk out of the room while I was mid sentence, roll his eyes/ sneer if I pulled him up on it - etc etc.

I think once upon a time there was love, hand holding, pet names etc but tbh it’s so long ago I don’t really remember and it wasn’t a huge theme of our relationship in any case.

We have 2DC (aged 8 & 5) and in the end it was only them and the fear of disrupting their lives that kept me there. I ended the marriage in November and his reaction was horrible (actually psycho - rage) but I haven’t regretted it for a second. The kids are sad that we are separated but in the whole
seem so much lighter and happier (probably because I am). I knew it was bad when I was in it but the further I get away from it, the more I realise how toxic it was, how he used his moods to control us and how we were all on eggshells around him.

Like you I am not financially reliant on him which has made leaving so much easier. He has pulled out all the stops to make things difficult but every day it gets easier.

@Almahart so right! I look the best I have ever looked since we split. Lost a stone almost overnight (combination of stress and not being his drinking companion), just feel so much more attractive without a nasty man putting me down all the time.

I feel like now I am becoming the person I was always meant to be.

How are things today, @200miles ?

How does your husband's father treat his mother, OP? Is there a family pattern of contemptuous behaviour?

I think everyone on here has said it all OP but I just wanted to say: you deserve to be happy and your children will want that for you as they grow up. Imagine being in their shoes, watching their Mum become more unhappy. They won’t be little forever and they will pick up on what’s going on. Please, please find the courage to leave. 💐

@200miles he doesn't like you. You deserve better as does he (ie someone he does like). I think he'd be off like a shot if he could get away with it. I think you need to move on and find someone who makes you happy.

Uprooting your children is very very scary but I can not stress enough, how damaging it is to grow up in an environment where contempt is barely concealed.

Your choice of thread title says a lot and doesn’t convey the severity of your H’s immaturity and abusive behaviour.

Why do you think he stays if he’s soooo unhappy being married to you? He isn’t staying for the kids, so what’s in it for him? Laziness, the status of being a family man or the convenience of projecting his self hatred onto someone who he thinks will always be around for him to do so. Whatever his ‘reasons’ are, they can’t happen if you don’t play your part by accepting them.

Well done to those that left these awful men.

I really hope the OP is inspired.

One older woman raised 4 children with a husband like this and he treated her with barely concealed contempt.
Her children knew exactly what he was like.
He had a stroke and she knew she faced being his carer and while in the hospital he continued to be contemptuous of her.

Something clicked in her and when he was being moved to rehab they asked her to come in as some adjustments would have to be made to the house.

She told them that he wasn't coming home, their marriage was over and he would have to go to a nursing home.
He couldn't believe it and was apoplectic.

Her children supported her and none of them would either entertain him moving in with them and their young families.

He spent 20 years in a nursing home and she never went near him.

She sold her house and divorced him and had 20 years of peace.

Same thing happened to another woman, a teacher.
Selfish lazy husband who spent his time golfing and treated her with like a skivvy.
He left her after 30 years for another woman.
House sold and she missed her gorgeous garden more than him.
She bought a little house and happily got on with her life and new garden.
He too had a stroke and the new woman wasn't seen for dust.
Her children did initially try to rope her in but she was having absolutely none of it.
They were divorced and it was nothing to do with her.
He too went to a nursing home and was years in there.
She told my friend that his affair was a blessing as she would have nursed him.
She was so grateful to have dodged that bullet.

These men only get worse as they age, make no mistake about that.

OH SHIT @betterthanbitter

I'm getting divorced now but that link explains SO much. I was his hyperfocus for the first year.

Thank you for all the posts. It's funny the way the brain works as I read so many messages saying "leave etc" and then the odd one warning me about the impact of divorce on kids and often better to work it out and that is the one that I absorb. But maybe that's because my instinct is to stay and try so that's what I want to hear.

Those stories are v eye opening @billy1966 as even when I tell myself it's OK at the moment in these years as I'm working, looking after the kids, I think about the future and us growing old together and it's genuinely an awful thought.

He won't admit the contempt. He just says I'm being difficult or emotional. I have suggested counselling before but he said I'd hurt him so much with that suggestion as he was so happy.

He won't admit the contempt. He just says I'm being difficult or emotional. I have suggested counselling before but he said I'd hurt him so much with that suggestion as he was so happy

Yes, to him you probably are being difficult in that you are trying to tackle the issue head-on, trying to make sure that you are treated with respect and that just doesn't work for him. He probably won't admit it becuause an honest conversation about it will lead to some kind of negotiation. He wants to continue as you are, and use gaslighting and having you doubt your own mind as a way to silence you.

The only thing you have to rely on here is our own judgment. If you saw a man behaving in the way he does towards his wife, what would you think of that? Objectively, can you say that his behaviour is that of a man who loves and respects his wife?

To me, you are both co-parenting. I can't see much of a relationship here because he's clearly checked out. As an exercise, I would ask myself 'What will it take for me to leave'? Where is the line, exactly?