Am I the one who's the problem?

[Katlow]

Me and DH have a 2yo DS together, really challenging in terms of behavior and his tantrums are quite intense, we're on track for him being diagnosed with autism.

Me and DH are just not getting on recently - I just feel like I'm waiting for the next argument and it always ends up with me in tears.

So for example, last night DH went on a night out to a gig. I stayed at home with 2yo. He cooked us tea and laid everything out for bedtime before he went which was nice and I thanked him for. I put DS to bed and get to sleep myself for around 11:30pm.
12:40 am DH comes home and gets in bed. Not massively disruptive but it wakes me up and I can't get to sleep until between half 1 and 2 o clock, I didn't say anything about this and he didn't know he woke me up.

DS wakes up at 5:30 am and I get up with him and take him downstairs. He has his usual little tants because mean old me wouldn't give him a packet of crisps for his breakfast, then I wouldn't let him have jelly so it was loud but it always is. DH is usually out of the house for work at 6 so doesn't see this but he's got a days holiday today.
It gets to 7:30 and I go upstairs and ask DH if he can help out with DS while I get ready for work as I'm tired. He reluctantly gets out of bed and mutters something under his breath and goes downstairs. I follow him down, and say "What did you say then?" and he said "I just won't have another night out in future then" I say "Why? What have I done wrong?" he says that I'm always complaining and tells me to go away. I asked what I complain about as I don't feel I do, to which he says that I say I'm tired every morning...
So I'm sat on the floor at this point nearly in tears (seems like an overreaction but this is following a lot of other arguments that are similar within the past months and seem to have ramped up the past few weeks) and he keeps saying "Just GO upstairs! You've got me up now so GO upstairs!" and I'm saying I just need a minute to calm down and he's saying "Oh... so you want to calm down down here do you?" and I'm just crying quietly. He then says "So you're going to cry and make me the bad guy again and twist this round on me?"
I did go upstairs, I should have done earlier tbh but I was just frozen because I wanted to talk it through but in my head I knew he wouldn't understand my side.

Everything I do seems to be wrong.

I do the housework before he gets home from work - I've not done it properly and will redo it.
I don't do the housework before he gets home from work - I'm lazy.

I try and talk to him about issues, he usually stays quiet - all I do is talk at him all the time and it's boring.
I don't try and talk to him about issues - he's asking me what's wrong constantly then he stays quiet and all I do is talk at him - rinse and repeat.
He does talk about an issue, he finishes what he's saying (so I think) and there's a pause in the conversation so I reply - I'm interrupting him and never listen.

I try and tell him that he should spend more time with his friends and organise more nights out to get a bit of time for himself when he says he's stressed - he doesn't want to.
When he does - he'll make an issue like this morning or he'll tell me he'll be home on the 11 o clock train, when he's not home, I'll text, its the next train, still not on that one, I check he's ok and it's the next train he'll be home on and then when I'm upset he wont bother going out again.

He shouts at our toddler and swears - I intervene as he's stressed - I'm belittling his parenting.

He does pull his weight, he'll take DS out every Saturday morning and give me time to myself until dinner time. He does all the washing and drying, does the housework (will re-do the things I've already done). He'll ask me if I want a drink or get my charger from upstairs for me and little things like that.

I did say before I went upstairs this morning that I don't want to be with him anymore. I know if it wasn't for our son and the fact that our finances are so entangled I would have left months ago. I realised today that, if I went home tonight and all his stuff was gone and so was he, I'd be devastated but it would almost be a relief?

I'm not sure what I'm asking really, I just feel sad all the time and constantly feel like I'm not enough

You are tired and he is looking for a constant argument to force you to end the relationship so he is not the bad guy.

That is why he cooked for you before he went out, in his mind he is a charming man who does even cooking before having a well deserved time off with his friends.

I would start planning on leaving tbh.

I also think that he's checked out but is trying to make you actually end it. Stop trying with him, start living independently and grey rock the nastiness. I don't mean ignore him, just the nastiness. If he mutters under his breath then ignore him. If he makes dinner thank him. I think your baby is probably just being a tiddler but your husband's seething resentment is quite possibly affecting him.

It's not that you're not enough, it's that he's abusive. Almost everything you wrote describes his abuse but this bit is horrific:

He shouts at our toddler and swears - I intervene as he's stressed - I'm belittling his parenting.

How can we help you to leave him? You must protect your child from growing up like this. Please tell people (family, friends, your GP, Women's Aid) in real life and get out safely. You do not deserve to be treated like this.

I agree with above posters - he wants out and wants you to be the bad guy who ends the relationship

Just doesn't sound like he's coping well, or supportive, and there's a change needed.

It also sounds like you've brought it all to the table, so really, he's just not willing to listen to you, and as others have said...

It's a matter of time before this reaches a head. I think you need to walk away.

Oh gosh, I don't have kids but I read this and it gave me flashbacks of what I have just left behind. I think I say that on every flippin message of this nature but seriously the "don't twist it around on me" while i'm crying is so so much like what I have dealt with.

It makes me super grateful to have left and I was feeling pretty down about it recently. Honestly, I wouldn't just say leave for the sake of it, but please leave.

The reason i'm saying that is because this is not a "he's tired/stressed" situation, it's an attitude situation - his attitude.

It took me sooo long to realise that nothing I ever did would improve the situation and that his ingrained attitudes were basically going to mean that this is how he would behave and that it would happen any time he felt like it. It was horrible and I cried as well, I tried to be reasonable but often lost my shit and stayed off work because emotionally I felt like I was being crushed.

I agree with going to womens aid, and your GP (I did both) because the problem is you end up genuinely believing you are the problem and it erodes your self esteem so much you become a shell of yourself. Work performance drops off a cliff, I'd imagine so does your patience with your baby if this carries on.

You're tired and you're trying your best and he is being a man child in constant victim mode, and very nasty with it. You can't change how he behaves only he can, and if he's anything like mine, he'll see nothing wrong with his behaviour BECAUSE I did this for you or that for you or the next thing for you and that means that he's really not a bad guy at all and you're just "never happy".

If that rings true then get out, or at least plan to.

Thank you all for your replies, I really appreciate it as I'm just at a loss at the moment.

I did try and say lets separate as a trial last weekend after a similar argument and he says that's not what he wants. He'll get better for a few days and then it's the same thing again.

I've said to him a few times "do you even LIKE me? because it feels like you don't" and he'll say of course he does and apologise.

I've asked him what the issue is, as there's obviously something getting under his skin and it's not that I don't hang the washing up in a particular way and he'll claim he's tired or stressed. But then I try and help him with that and I get shut down.

I might sit him down tonight when I get home from work and ask him what he really wants. I have done this before and he's said he doesn't want to divorce but I guess actions speak louder than words.

Oh god, I had Thursday Friday off work last week for mental health reasons because of this exact reason. I told work the truth and I've never had time off for that reason before so this has struck a chord. Especially the crushing feeling. I felt like I had a lump in my throat like I was trying to swallow a frog that wouldn't go away. It's getting to the point where I don't even want to talk it through anymore as it just feels hopeless.

We've been together 10 years and I'm 28 and he's 30 and this has just started in the past 12 months.

Please be careful in what you say to him tonight @Katlow , do not let him know that you know he's being abusive. He will either ramp it up (and there's no knowing how that will end) or be nice again for a while. But you will no doubt pay at some point for having the audacity to be unhappy.

It would be an idea for you to speak to Women's Aid if you can before you speak to him, they are experts in knowing how to handle these men. They will not force you to do anything you're not ready to do but they will support you and advise you of anything you need to know.

I'm sorry you're going through this

I'm usually straight into the "he's a dick" camp. And while I'm not NOT in that camp, I think it's actually a bit more complex. You have a high needs child, who is 2. So you are both tired and stressed.

the extra examples you gave all paint him very badly, so I'm with you on that, but on the example that precipitated this post, I'm not so sure. He went out, helped before he left etc. He did wake you up but it sounds like he didn't do it on purpose and you didn't say anything. Then, he thought he'd get a lie in and while I'm not sure that was terribly realistic when you have a high needs baby and you had to go to work, I'm also not sure that you had specifically agreed/not agreed to such a lie in after a night out.

Then, after he does get up, you're crying on the floor in the room. I mean, I tend to agree with him, if you can't talk about it, leave and stop distressing your DS and him. Then, when you've calmed down, do talk about it.

But having said all that, I recognise a lot of myself in the entire exchange above when I had a high needs baby who didn't sleep much nd I was constantly exhausted and tired and stressed. And so was DH.

You feel like he doesn't like you, because he really doesn't like you. Trust those instincts. You have them to keep you safe. He's a bully and you'd be far better off getting free of him.

He definitely didn't wake me up on purpose, was fairly quiet as far as getting into bed drunk goes. I just woke up due to the mattress depressing.

He definitely was expecting a lie in which I can't really blame him for. He literally said "What do you do when I'm not here in the morning? Is the TV broke?"
The reason I don't put the TV on is because DS is quite sensitive to transitions and he is OBSESSED with the TV so I try and avoid it as much as possible as when I switch it off, its WW3 and I knew at the point it was getting switched off I'd have to fold him in the car seat kicking and screaming. I usually take DS upstairs with me to get ready which I couldn't do as DH was in bed.

I wanted to talk about the issue saying can we get to the bottom of what's wrong? and he went "you woke me up!" so at that point I knew he wasn't going to get further into it.

I want to be fair in the way I put him across as I want appropriate advice, if I am part of the problem I definitely want to know because I'm starting to think that I have this blocker in my brain where I just can't see that I'm being a dick.

I know he was stressed about DS as he came down saying "All he does is fucking CRY" which is a... fair assessment as he does cry an awful lot over not awfully a lot but that's just who he is.

Idk. 12 months ago I would have told you he was the perfect husband. Always caring, always attentive, pulled his weight and made me feel loved completely. I was almost smug at how we'd cracked the code but apparently not. :(

You're not too young to start over in that case, I've got 10 years on you and was only with mine for 5 - not even married, but engaged.

Yeah so for me, I would organise meetings then make excuses to cancel them, or take days off work and just sit and cry at home.

My job is actually the reason that I ended up leaving because I started a new one and I just couldn't focus at all. I had to tell them the truth in the end as well and by that point I had to actually do something about it otherwise i'd just keep going down hill with no end in sight.

If you've been with him all this time and it's only started in the last year is it because of your DC being born do you think? I mean look, either way it doesn't actually matter why, what matters is how you've been left feeling and I think overwhelmed is probably an understatement. I think I would have been in the happy farm if I had stayed - my situation involved him following me around the house when angry and me locking myself in rooms as well so there was more than just his bad temper, it was the games he would play with me.

The victim mode stuff that you're talking about though, that is DEFINITELY ringing bells for me and you're sat there like "wtf did I do???" - problem is that what I found is asking follow up questions didn't help, it just pissed him off even more!

It feels so upsetting to be told you're "twisting it around on them" when in fact that's exactly what they are doing, I would argue until I burst into tears and it never made him feel any different. What hurt me most was how he regarded me and my intentions towards him when I loved him a lot and just wanted things to be good. It's not to say I didn't do mean things as well when angry/upset sometimes but the way he regarded me was basically the way Hitler regarded Jews. It was horrible. I wondered what happened to the man who was once so lovely to me and why had I fallen so far from grace.

I'm working now more on the attitude of what I think about him rather than being sad about why I was discarded.

I wanted to talk about the issue saying can we get to the bottom of what's wrong? and he went "you woke me up!" so at that point I knew he wasn't going to get further into it.

I am not minimising where he's been unreasonable, but I think that this is fair enough. Dh was appalling at getting the kids up and leaving me to sleep when it was my lie in turn. Partly because when it was his lie in, a ten tonne truck could drive through the bedroom and he'd roll over, blink sleepily and go straight back to sleep. So I used to be endlessly resentful that he'd be supposedly happy for me to have a night out, but it was pointless as I'd be up dealing with the DC early anyway in some way or another.

The fact that your child is likely to receive an autism diagnosis so young suggests that things are not easy at home at all.

When you're both calm, and perhaps DS is sleeping, can you sit down and talk about how you can improve things for both of you?

For some of it it's hard to sya who's being unreasonable (if anyone) because couples can needle each other and harbour resentments that unfortunately come out as passive-aggressive slights. Especailly when kids and uber-tiredness are involved.

But when you say you can't do anything right and:

Cleaning - I've not done it properly and will redo it (Been there - terrible control freakery, who needs that in life?)
and
he shouts and swears at your toddler

That's not great from him. If he insists that he doesn't want to split but the same things keep happening and you do, then that's what will have to happen.

Could you enlist some help with childminding to give yourselves a break?

And/or
Counselling could be worth a try if the relastionship is at risk but you both want to try to salvage it

Is he calling you lazy when you don't do the housework? (Because that's obviously not ok)