What tipped you over the edge if it was never quite bad enough to leave?

[SpeccyDoodler]

DH is a ‘nice guy’ but has had some stinkers over the years. Each time, I think about leaving but it all settles down and we bumble on again. Barely any intimacy for years. Both early 40s, one DS12 plus several years of failed fertility processes.

Nothing recently has been particularly bad but one wee thing has tipped me into absolute rage that I’m struggling to hold in.

I think I’m done. If you eventually left after 10 years of it being not quite bad enough, what tipped it for you? How did you start the conversation? I’m fit to burst.

Watching

But I think that’s chalking up a grievance over something entirely un-necessary? He’s not bothered about having the blinds open, you are - no one is right or wrong here, but you have made it into some kind of daily test for him.

Just take the blinds down tonight, put them in textile recycling (or give them away) and get a pair of lightweight curtains instead.

Failing to listen to hospital news - I would be upset about that.

Dinner claims and blind-leaving - I think these are probably things to let go.

It’s definitely not a daily test, that’s really not my style, and I gave up raising it yonks ago. It’s just an example of something nice he could do that I struggle with. He opens it half way for the cat on a daily basis; it would be very easy for him to shimmy it up to further. He chooses not to, then watches me do it.

As I said, it’s not major in itself, especially compared to what some posters have gone through. Hence constantly pondering what my tipping point will be.

Lots of little things happened over our 12 years, but I always thought - it's not that bad, he's not physically abusive, he would never cheat, surely it's not enough to leave.

And then I (binge) watched the series of AfterLife, with Ricky Gervais... it sounds ridiculous. I'm not particularly a fan of his usually, but somehow got hooked on it. Midway through watching it, I realised how sad it was that I was (relatively) young, and with someone who, if they died, I would not miss them as a partner in any way at all. He's the father of my child, so obviously there's a lot of concern in that respect, but as a husband, as a person who is supposed to be my world, my everything... nothing. He didn't make me happy - he made me permanently feel on edge, we had nothing to talk about, we didn't laugh about anything. If I was ever to be seriously ill, he wouldn't support me, he would actually make it harder (I had recently had a brief health scare which I hadn't told him about as I couldn't handle his catastrophising)

I have a lot of years ahead of me, and I want to be able to be happy... or at the very least, I don't want to be unhappy.

Very rambling post I know, but for me, this was the trigger to unpick everything and change my life!

No criticism of you at all....but that you think what you have written above isn't horrific is so beyond sad.

Before you had children he clearly couldn't have given a damn about you, not even slightly.

Those examples are so shocking.

You couldn't have ever felt loved and cherished in your life to have thought that was normal acceptable partner behaviour.

You deserve so much better.

Is he purposefully not lifting them all the way up in the morning or not putting them all the way down when closing them?

The reason I ask is DH is like a robot at night here going round closing all the blinds and curtains for ‘security’ reasons. I think he’s been watching too much Crime Watch….

Well that is apart from our front door which doesn’t sounds like your patio doors but does have a glass panel pretty much top to bottom. DH leaves a gap in them at night so the dog can look out. I’ve asked him to open them all the way in the morning but doesn’t but the gap for the dog is always there from the night before.

In no way do I think he doesn’t care about me or is it chipping away. He’s just a bit absent minded sometimes with everything else going on in life. But aren’t we all sometimes.

I hear you. I could’ve written this. Right down to knowing he wouldn’t support me if I was ill. He proved that when I was crippled with endometriosis.

After I had open surgery to remove a tennis ball-sized cyst, he lasted one day before getting frustrated at having to do an extra drop-off.

what you said about not wanting to be unhappy really hit home.

I'm sorry but I disagree.
He isn't bothered about it but she has specifically asked him to do it for a reason- because it's physically difficult for her. Anyone who actually liked and cared about their partner would do this small act of kindness. He can do it for the cat but not for her. That is a calculated snub. A calculated way of saying she isn't important enough to bother being decent to. It's actually downright nasty.
And if it's one of many small such dismissive things it all adds up to diminish her.

My last straw started with an argument over him not making me a cup of tea (after I’d spent all night at work and all day making food for our two extended families to come over for Xmas!). It escalated as they always did into him getting defensive and nasty.

With my XH it was a camping trip in a storm. I guess that will test any marriage to be fair!

I'm sorry OP. It's not OK that he treats you like this. Let's reframe the question as what is good enough about the marriage to make it worth staying married to him. I couldn't stay married to a man like him. He's cruel. He's unsympathetic and he doesn't behave as though he loves you and cherishes you. If he's none of these things then it's time to move on with your life. How many more years do you see in front of you drifting along in this poor excuse for a relationship. It's time to explore what you want out of life and maybe that's being happily single and not beholden to anyone but maybe you could meet a loving new partner and remarry. Life's too short to be unhappy and he doesn't sound like someone you would want to waste any more time on or spend years growing old with him.

I had got myself a takeaway when he was out at the pub. When he got home he said I was always eating and I was a fat cow. I was 7 and a half stone at the time at 5”6. I immediately knew hoe much he had harmed me over the years and said there and then “I don’t want to be with you anymore”. That shut him up, the fucking prick.

This is how I feel too.

If there was one small thing that I could do on a daily basis to make my partner's life a bit easier, for very little detriment to myself, I would embrace doing it.
He doesn't care about her. In the same way in the aforementioned blog, he didn't care enough to put his glass in the dishwasher. It's not important to him. It's important to her, but she doesn't matter.

I think a great many people are incredibly self centred and for many years the partner just goes along with it to keep the peace and to keep a lifestyle - and then one day it just comes to you that 'life is all about them' and you are there just to enable it

That doesn't sound daft to me. A film ended my first marriage.

Let me explain. Exdh was awful in many, many ways, and in the last year or two that we were together he mainly ignored me. He didn't work and was up all night and slept most of the day. At times we only passed on the stairs. When he WAS awake in the day he would sit at his computer with his back to me and honestly didn't know or care if I was there or not. There was no point trying to talk to him as he wouldn't listen. I would literally get up to go to bed and he didn't know I was gone.

One night I watched City of Angels and after the scene where Meg Ryan dies and Nicholas Cage goes to find her and cradles her body in the middle of the road, I had to go in the kitchen to cry. I couldn't hold it together because I knew that nobody would ever care about me like that and I felt so utterly alone. If I'd gone out and got squashed by a truck he wouldn't have known I was gone until the police arrived on the doorstep and I doubt he'd have been bothered apart from the fact that he'd have lost his live in skivvy.

So that was the end of us. I never watched the film again until recently when I watched the death scene on YT. I honestly couldn't believe THIS was what had upset me SO much! The acting was dire! What sort of state must I have been in?! Ricky Gervais was a million times more believable in After Life.

This is horrendous and you would have been all dressed up etc poor you xx

I do get that argument - about partners doing the one little thing - but if there is some minor domestic arrangement or object that causes tension in the marriage (a set of blinds in this case) I would rather abandon that arrangement or ditch that object than live with the tension. It's just not worth it.

I have been married a looooong time (and in a relationship even longer!) but it is really only recently that I have come to see the merit of letting some things go.

He'd been emotionally/financially/sexually abusive for years but I made excuses. Didn't/couldnt/ wouldn't see what he was doing. At this point he'd nicked 5k of my money to have his teeth done and a hair transplant .
Diagnosed significant depression/ anxiety/ eating disorder. Four suicide attempts. Admitted myself to a private MH unit as an inpatient as no NHS bed locally to try and sort myself out, had to take out a loan as he'd spent all my money.
Wouldn't come and see me, wouldn't take my phone calls, because of how much I'd hurt HIM then posted on Facebook 'as a joke' in answer to the question - what would you have changed about your wedding - the bride.
I was done from that point. When I came home from hospital he told me everything I'd needed to hear in the absolute depths of despair but I felt nothing. Left him for good when he physically assaulted me a few days later.
Dont get me wrong - I was very hard to live with when I was depressed, found it so difficult to help myself, was drinking far too much and did meet someone else which drove me to go - but writing it all down and reliving it makes me see I really didn't have any choice .

Not trying to argue but what would you "let go" in this instance? Just keep the blinds closed even though you like them open? Or struggle to open them yourself every day while your husband watches on (after he's already opened them slightly for the cat)?

Just curious

I couldn't hold it together because I knew that nobody would ever care about me like that and I felt so utterly alone.

Yes, absolutely this. There was no way my husband ever cared enough about me to be even a tenth of Ricky Gervais’ character.

Tillybud, as per my first post, I would ‘let go’ of the blinds that I could not open without assistance and either leave the window un-covered or get an alternative window-treatment (such as a lightweight pair of curtains) that I could open and close by myself. Because surely the OP would rather a) be able to do so independently and b) get rid of this source of tension in the marriage?

I remember reading a post by a Mumsnetter who was upset that her husband no longer brought her a cup of tea in bed on days when he was getting up early to go to work. She was a SAHM by the way! Cue dozens of posts saying that he should do this one small thing for her…To be honest, I thought that her expectations were a little unreasonable.

It is lovely to do something voluntarily, but once the other person (even your spouse) starts expecting it and holding it against you if you don’t do it, then it becomes a drag.

On another note, isn’t the idea of love languages helpful here? Is there a difference between how the OP shows love and how her DH shows love?

She could leave tomorrow if she wants of course, but it’s a big step to take.

I've said this many times on here under different names but mine was the middle of December, freezing cold, had to work late, walked to the bus stop, bus was late, got soaked, got home and was an actual ice block. All I wanted was a bath. He told me I couldn't have one as I'd already had a bath (we didn't have a shower) that week and it would cost too much. So he hid the bath plug. I knew right then it was over.

Thanks for replying, and tbh the blind thing I would do the same as you as I'd like to be able to open my own blinds.

But I think the big difference here is the OP has asked if her husband can do it for her cos she struggles, and he kind of half does it anyway for the cat, but refuses to do do it properly for her. Seems fairly weaponised to me.

It's kind of like someone making themselves a cup of tea but not offering their partner one when they know they would definitely want one. Course you can make the tea yourself but those little things are just the everyday mutual kindness that goes into a relationship surely?

He did some pretty horrendous stuff over the years, belittled me, beat me up once, told me I was stupid and insane constantly . He was when he called our children "twats" that I totally lost it. That was the final straw for me. I'd been with him from 14 years old until I was 35 , and by the time he'd done there was virtually nothing of me left. Please get rid, you deserve better.

For me, the writing was on the wall when I had cancer and undergoing gruelling chemotherapy and he shouted at me, muttered 'for fucks sake are you crying again?', rolled his eyes when I said I was terrified of dying, and sat scrolling on his phone and eating dinner while I lay next to him crying in agony and distress. Because he'd 'had a long day and was hungry'. Sadly it limped on for another few months but there was no coming back from that.