I swing between thinking my partner of 18 years is a wonderful person capable of being awful, and an awful person capable of being wonderful. For years I thought the same thing about his family, who have made him so miserable at times, and now he’s repeating all their bad habits.
If we didn’t have two kids (4 and 6) I’d have been out of here so many times in the past few years. But for their sake, I want this to work. And he is also my best friend, who is capable of being the kindest, most fun, thoughtful person. But he has this other side and all this complicated baggage, which every time I convince myself it’s worth fighting for, shows itself and I want to run a fucking mile.
So, there’s the anger. He’s like living with a landmine. Constant confrontation (which was the house in which he grew up). And if it was ever over serious things I’d understand, but it’s the most incidental things that I say or do that get my head instantly bitten off. He’s never violent, but aggressive/angry/belligerent/bullish/incredibly rude. For me, these behaviours are not only deeply unattractive, but feel unhealthy, particularly when he can’t rein it in in front of the kids, or stop (he’ll make a point, and then make it 10 more times and go on and on and on until I snap, then it’s all my fault and I’m the angry one, etc). For context, I’ve locked the bathroom door and hidden under the duvet loads of time to avoid his rants.
I don’t think it’s healthy to be pleading several times a week “not in front of the kids”. I’ve tried talking outside of arguments about his behaviour in front of the kids, and he agrees, then does it again the very next day. It’s like he just has no control and doesn’t think of anyone else first.
So there’s that. Then there’s the control thing. In a nutshell, I struggle to change anything in the house, from throwing away incidental things like old newspapers that are gathering dust (“where’s my newspaper gone?”), to weeding the garden (“what are you weeding” along with instructions on what I should be doing) or moving house - will avoid conversations about anything future orientated (“not now I’m tired/busy/etc)” or gets angry if I try and open a conversation.
Oh, and there’s the hoarding. His family are all ludicrously untidy, as well as having deep emotional ties to ‘stuff’ which piles up (beyond collecting, think a lifetime of stuff with NOTHING thrown/sorted away). It’s caused years of stress having the in-laws house to deal with, and now I can see the same patterns re-emerging. I really don’t want my life to become like that - it never made any of them happy and it’s not fair on our kids. Any mention gets my head bitten off. I’ve tried everything to discuss this rationally but over the years I’ve lost patience and now I often get fed up with it all and criticise his family (I get that never goes down well with anyone).
I really want our family to stay together. He’s a great Dad besides the emotional lack of self control. I’d like to help him to get over some of these habits, but we’ve reached a point where we can’t communicate and everything ends in conflict. He blames me for nagging and undermining him, and sometimes I can’t tell anymore who’s to blame and he’ll never own his behaviour (I try and make a point of owning mine, but he can’t compromise) and everything always ends up as my fault/I’m damaged/insecure, etc.
Anyone else been through this?
Am I being unreasonable expecting him to change? Am I being unfair criticising his family when I don’t want miserable histories repeated?