Think Husband ghosts me to keep me from speaking up about anything!

[Brauneyes]

There has been an ongoing pattern in my marriage for a few years now which appears to be getting worse the older he gets.

He basically ghosts me (don't know how else to explain it) if I raise anything with him which he feels challenged about, no matter how trivial.

If I speak to him about not leaving our younger child unattended for example. Last week he left her unsupervised in a swimming pool viewing area awaiting her swimming lesson whilst taking a work call outside because he had no signal. He returned 5 minutes later and she was still stood at the side waiting for him to return whilst her lesson had started. I explained to him that leaving her unsupervised like that isn't ok, particularly somewhere like a swimming pool. He didn't even leave her with a known adult- just stood there by herself. He argued the toss and defended himself as usual. I said that I wasn't ok with his decision and then he didn't speak to me for about 24 hours.

After 24 hours he then wants to speak to me as if nothing at all has happened. No acknowledgement of not speaking to me or about the swimming pool incident. Just strikes up conversation with me about random things and then gets pissy if I'm not being all normal with him.

He's told me he's tired of my roller coaster moods 🤔.

The week before last I told him I couldn't have the children when he had a work meeting as I was working myself and it was his usual post-school time with them. He refused to listen to my reasoning, just like the child scenario. Then the same happened... Completely ignored me for 24 hours, then went back to talking as normal about trivial things but no affection, no kisses, no hugs for days. I've heard it called stone walling before. I think this is what he's doing to try and keep me in line. Like I'm being trained to be quiet. It's just making me more angry and resentful of him.

I can't win because if I challenge him after the 24 hour ghosting period I'll be accused of dredging things back up again, but I also don't want to be normal with him when I've been blatantly ignored. How do I handle it? I'll leave him if this continues, but I need strategies in the interim?

To add, our child is 5.

Jesus that verges on the unhinged. I wouldn't trust him with his dc, He is clearly mentally unwell, and abusive. This will grind you down until you loose your sanity.
Make plans to leave this person.

My ex does this. You are correct, you are being trained. My ex rewards good behaviour with acknowledgement and punishes bad behaviour (any perceived criticism or difficult discussion) with aggression then silence. Over time that deters you from behaving 'badly'. Maddeningly it meant I could never get a resolution to anything. He did some really borderline negligent things with our DD and I never felt I could trust him with her because he refused to acknowledge them, then would just 'wait it out' until I dropped it, blanking me or walking off if I tried to bring it up again. It's disgustingly disrespectful behaviour and actually very controlling. You can only discuss things he is willing to and finds tolerable, anything else will be ignored. He expects you to push any issues with him down and keep them in so as not to dent his precious ego.

Yes @Iggityziggety this is what he's doing. My concern with leaving him is the DCs being with him without me there to ensure they're safe and well!

How did you manage to leave? Did you have to accept that he would have the DCs regularly on his own in the end?

As far as strategies go, I used to make a huge effort to emotionally detach from him when he was in a sulk period and go about my usual business, pretend he wasn't there, not bother asking him anything so he didn't have the opportunity to give me a clipped response to remind me he wasn't happy with me, and generally made an effort to seem happy and relaxed, played with DD and had a laugh, didn't let it show if it was getting to me. I also did some grey rock type stuff when he would try to draw me into his defence and justification for whatever he had done where the aim was always to deflect from him and onto me.

Even if he magically stopped this bs overnight...could you ever feel at ease around him again, knowing that he could return to pulling this shit at any minute?

It is stonewalling. That's the very word.

When you say, ignoring, out of interest - how does this look? Does he refuse to answer questions, for example? Or just make it obvious he's in a mood and won't talk?

Fortunately he is very much not the default parent, he really struggles with DD because he has poor communication and negotiation skills (shocker!) and likes his own time to do hobbies etc so he has her one night and day a week. I think if he had pushed for 50/50 I might have stayed. I worry more now about the emotional harm he could cause her as she already tells me daddy never says sorry etc.
Leaving was not easy but having made that decision made dealing with how he was so much easier because I knew it had a time limit on it. I didn't need to try and fix what was going on anymore because I had accepted he was never going to see or stop what he was doing , so I just stopped bothering to bring anything up anymore and arranged to leave. Ironically he thought the relationship had got much better because I wasn't 'starting arguments' anymore. So that was pretty telling.

@Iggityziggety yes that's exactly what my husband does too... if I give up bringing anything up with him, he thinks all is wonderful too and has also stated that I'm "causing arguments again" when I do need to bring something up with him...its very controlling.

I relate to a lot of what you describe with your husband's parenting too. Our older child, who is 11, and him are constantly butting heads and he blames her for being argumentative too.

He however won't accept one day/night a week but has already told me he would accept 2 overnights with a dinner after school too if we separated, so I'm considering this. Unfortunately my husband feels entitled to the children even though he appears to make minimal effort with them.

By ignoring @Pinkbonbon I mean one word answers, walking out of rooms when I walk in, sulking. Like a sulking teenager who has been told off I guess. He then stops this and expects to strike up trivial conversation with me again, I guess because he's bored. But there is no resolution from the conversation we've previously had and still bad feeling as there are no cuddles or kisses for often a week or so afterwards. If I feel like kissing him or touching him he pulls away quickly