My Husband keeps calling me a Bully

[LittleMissSparkles8566]

I’m so confused and need some advice. My partner keeps calling me a bully. Most of the time I’m talking about my feelings and wanting to know how’s we can problem solve. For example, our mortgage requires renewing and has gone up so much. By approx £600 more which may be out of our budget. I’ve been the one speaking to 3 mortgage advisors, arranging appointments, asking him to send through his details etc. This is urgent and needs sorting out asap and I have asked him got ideas on how we can manage this. He keeps telling me ‘I don’t know’ and putting his back towards me. I’m getting stressed as we need to sort this out within the next 2 weeks & he hasn’t helped. I don’t understand why. He says I shout when he responds as he does but I feel so frustrated by his body language and his lack of input and feel totally alone.

Im In therapy about our relationship and doing my best to look at the parts I may need to improve in our relationship dynamic.

Any thoughts?

Sounds like he has his head in the sand re mortgage and is deflecting, or using the word bully to distract and derail you and the topic, what else is happening in your relationship that has caused you to seek therapy?

What's he doing to work on and improve your relationship?

Like @MrTiddlesTheCat says, what is he doing to improve things?

It’s been a long hard struggle for us over the past few years. He has had issues with alcohol and lies, we have been in couples counselling as have been having lots of arguments. He does make me breakfast in bed at times and let me rest after looking after our 2 young daughters. He wrote me a letter trying to make things up and explaining why things are as they have been. But on a day to day basis his moods go up and down like a roller coaster. I would love him to suggest date nights, which I used to do each Friday however have recently given up as it felt really one sided (just me).

We have been arguing the last couple of years. He has been using alcohol and losing and I have been loosing my temper with him, he says I can be verbally aggressive and shout. So I’ve been working on my reactions and my part of the relationship. Since having kids (almost 5 years ago) our relationship has changed. I’d say both of us struggled with parenthood at first, now I’m very much enjoying it. My feelings have now changed towards him as there has been a lot of lies and so much toxicity.

So you’re in therapy, that’s good, but what about him? Would couples Counselling help? Or perhaps it’s time to accept this relationship is going to work?

isn’t

How about instead of renegotiating a new mortgage you sell the house and go your separate ways?

Someone has to make decisions and get you out of the mortgage crisis as it's not going to resolve itself.

What a wet wipe he is, sitting on his arse doing nothing whilst his wife is desperately trying to resolve the issue and to thank her for it he calls her a bully!

This awful, awful little man is dragging you down.

Do you really want to spears your life with an ineffectual limp lettuce who is woefully aware of his inadequacies and resorts to abusive name calling?

You and your children would be better off with you steering the ship and leaving that pleb of a husband behind at the docks whilst you sail the ship into a better future.

This!
I would give him one more chance to sit down with you and work out a way forward with the remortgage and if he won't engage I would leave him!

100% What @PaminaMozart says. Don't battle to save this relationship, the alcoholism and lies show you who he is. Why waste time fretting about date nights when there are much more significant problems in this relationship.

So what does he think is going to happen if neither of you do anything re the mortgage and you suddenly have to find an extra £600 a month you can’t afford? 🤔

'He has issues with alcohol and lies'.
Let's rephrase that - he's an alcoholic and a liar.

Why are you trying to make it work with an alcoholic and a liar? What kind of idiot therapist is trying to get you to do that? Did they get their degree of the back of a kelogs cornflake packet?

You're 'looking for areas you can improve and resolve'. How are you supposed to do that when he isn't willing to do the same? How are you supposed to fix HIM? You can't. And I think you actually know that.

So let's rephrase that too. You're actually 'looking for ways to bury the fact that this relationship is over. That your partner is a grade A fucking loser. That you need to extradite yourself from your current life asap'. Stop.

You cannot fix something yourself if the other party doesn't want to fix it. And he doesn't.it actually works fine for him. He writes you a sappy little letter any time he thinks you're about done...just to reel you back in. But he isn't genuine and he doesn't want to do the work.

Time to stop behaving like this guys mummy mummy get the hell outa there.

OP do you know what his finances are like? It could be that he’s worried he won’t be accepted for a new mortgage so wants the current one to run on. If he’s had issues with alcohol is it possible that he’s gotten into debt?
He could be rejecting you because he doesn’t know how to tell you the situation, because obviously it’s going to affect you all if you’re paying an extra £600 a month.

Others are correct in that it seems it’s only you working on things. It’s understandable why you would want to try to save your relationship, but you can’t do it alone.

My first step would be finding out if there’s financial issues, then take it from there.

Thanks for the feedback. I do agree with what you’re saying. I feel like maybe I just need to grow a pair of balls. I’m so worried about what others might say to me. His parents I love so much, our friends are joint now. Im so scared. 😦. But I’m so unhappy where I am now.

I do really appreciate you taking the time to reply and I think I’m going to have to grow a pair of balls and take some action. Get myself and my girls out of here.

A lying, alcoholic ostrich? This is your time to be free, OP.

Don't renew. Sell and move into your new life, free of him.

We tried couples counselling a couple of years ago!! It was hard to convince him at first and then he did used to ask me if we couldn’t speak about a specific argument in the session. Things seem to improve while we were in the therapy, however since we stopped they went backwards. In now running out of energy to improve this. It sounds silly but I’m so worried about what friends and family will think. I keep thinking of the big wedding day and how many people attended. I feel so ashamed that it didn’t work out.

You mention his parents, could you tell them about the issues with the mortgage, would they be able to speak to him?

I realise this only solves the mortgage issue & not the relationship but surely if you don't do something you could end up losing your home?

OP, everything that's wrong in your relationship and his life will be your fault. From being 'controlling' about his drinking so he 'had to lie to you' to making him feel 'worthless' everytime you have the slightest issue with him, to making him anxious by 'bullying' him to do essential tasks. Not to mention how the guilt you make him feel makes his MH and drinking worse...
Because, behind every lying alcoholic who is still in denial and not ready to own their problems there will be someone who's fault it apparantly is. And more often than not its their unfortunate partner.
You need to be very firm here. Do not collude with this behaviour by acknowledging blame - to be kind, to meet him half way or because he's gaslighted you into believing it. When he starts this don't entertain it. Tell him it's not you, it's him and that if he doesn't take responsibility then you definitely have no future.