Who is Right - Controlling Relationship

[DontKnowWhatToDoHelpPlease]

Hi,
I'm really struggling here, in a relationship for nearly 20 years. 2 young children.
I don't want to give too much away but I need advice.
Partner won't let me have visitors to the house. Kids are not allowed friends round.
If I ever suggest it it results in a huge fight.
I said it's not fair on the kids or me and he said that it's not fair on him and he has a right to privacy.
He says that it's because the house is a mess and not finished - this is very true! He says that if a friend was to come over they would stop being our friend because of the state of our house.
However I still feel that I should be able to have friends round if I want and should a friend not like my house I wouldn't want them as a friend.
Renovating and cleaning a house is very hard when both partners work and you have children and won't/can't pay someone else to do the work but our house is honestly not that bad - not a health risk or anything! It's cleaner than many of my friend's houses.
When we first had babies I was told I had to visit friends and no-one should visit us. This made settling and socialising very hard for me and I struggled with undiagnosed post natal anxiety.
My friends all take it in turn to host drinks and snacks and I could never do it in return.

Whenever we argue he uses the fact that I 'fell' into my career against me, I love my job and have perfect hours for the children. I also don't get paid too badly but he refers to my wage as peanuts.
I don't feel that I can talk to him because he gets so angry whenever I bring anything up and makes everything my fault.
He says that I only do the bare minimum in the house and should do more. I feel that I do as much as I can - I'm aware that a lot of people do much more than I do but I'm at my personal capacity. I do all the cleaning, cooking and work 5 days a week part time.

I've always been really sociable, I love hosting and socialising.
He used to love socialising and have loads of friends but now only has 1 or 2 friends.
He says I go out all the time which isn't true.
I've recently stopped going out with friends to try to help the situation and I can't bare the arguments afterwards.

I love him so much and I want our relationship to work, sx is good and when we're chilling together with no outside pressures all is good. But this isn't the life I wanted. I wanted a house where my door is always open to family and close friends and we'd always have a spare bed made up for guests. He won't let me buy a spare bed. I absolutely accept that open door policy won't have but locked and bolted door policy just doesn't seem right to me.

I feel like we're moving further and further from each other's wants and needs and I don't know what to do about it.

I am absolutely aware that his behaviour is not ok but I just don't know what to do about it. I used to have guests over when he wasn't there so he didn't have to socialise as I thought that was the issue. . But the issue is having people in the house full stop, doesn't matter if he's home or not.

I also know I'm not perfect, I have a tendency to stonewall and go quiet but I can't stand the arguments and they are always the same. He calls me the C word during arguments as well.

Please pay attention to what Women’s Aid advise, they can and will help you.

You also need to read Why does he do that? By Lundy Bancroft, your man is in those pages.

He won’t let go of you easily also because if that happens he will then have to find another woman to abuse. That takes time and he being lazy does not want to do that. He likes having you around because he can abuse you readily.

Your man targeted you deliberately to abuse. Is he much older than you, did you meet him when you were in a bad place emotionally?.

Your boundaries, perhaps already skewed by previous abuse and or poor home life experiences, are indeed being further eroded by this man now.
You are in a controlling and thus abusive relationship with this man, a man who wants you in a cage of his own paranoid making.

Do not get bogged down in your sunk costs, all this about you both being together for years (so you have further become inured to his abuses of you and in turn your kids who are seeing all this at first hand) is an example of the sunk costs fallacy. That basically causes people to make poor relationship decisions.

That's normal. I spent years trying to figure out if I was making a mountain out of a molehill. My ex used to always tell me I was. He used that exact wording too.

Went I got out of the relationship I realised just how much I'd been underreacting to everything. It was actually the opposite. I made molehills out of mountains.

You posted here because something didn't feel right, and if something doesn't feel right, it's isn't. Trust your instincts.

I think most of us think that when we are usually advised to contact them.

I'm sure you will soon start to realise how much you've been carrying and that you absolutely are not being over dramatic

If you can’t do it for yourself do it for your children. They can’t have friends round? So inevitably they will stop being invited to play dates when they aren’t reciprocated once they start school if they are not yet in school. Their friendships will be affected. They may even lose friends or struggle to make any.
Your children will end up isolated because of him. He isn’t a great dad. He’s abusive