"not very lady like"

[Gifgaf]

I've always thought of myself as quite feminine but I am not exactly a soft speaker all the time and with my DH we have unique humour with each other and I occasionally swear.

However, for a while now my DH keeps making references at me that I am not speaking "very lady like". I never thought of it that deep before but now it's starting to make me feel insecure and I don't want to be that woman who swears a lot and have worked to stop but I just have a certain kind of personality and it's who I am.

Don't really know how to act anymore ...

It's not like I am swearing and being so loud to make people uncomfortable. I am actually a massive introvert but he is the only person I am very open with and can joke around. I mainly say "fuck sake" or "shit" or "fuck off" when I am really mad. It's not the best but also not the worst..

I have but it hasn't stopped

Sounds like he wants a wife from the 50s.
I doubt that anyone aspires to be ladylike these days.
We're women. And we decide for ourselves how we want to present to the world.
He's trying to control you with a meaningless term. If this is a new thing you have to wonder why.
Meanwhile be the woman you want to be.

It seems being myself isn't good enough lately

Swear if you want to swear, because you’re an adult and he doesn’t get to tell you what to do. You are a lady, it’s literally not possible for you to be un-ladylike. If you’re doing it, it’s ladylike, because you are a lady.

Based on your update I wonder if he misses ‘the old you’? Whatever, I miss the old me, it’s hard being a parent.

I can't disagree tbh

Ugh.

“Ladylike”. Fuck off with that. Any man saying that to me would be straight in the bloody bin.

What a patronising and misogynistic concept.

He's had his head turned. Negging you is a classic sign.

Swearing is an indicator of higher intelligence. It’s been well documented.

I don't think that hitting someone round the head with a spade is vastly ladylike either, but sometimes, needs must.

😞 I hope not, I am 6 months pregnant on top of it all

Only recently he's started acting and speaking like one. He used to worship the floor I walked on before but when someone pushes you to your limit all the time, makes you lose interest in them as a person and maybe that's showing in my speech and actions and now seems unappealing to him..

I hate it and he knows I hate it. It's so degrading! I am a good woman to him and a great mother and it's hurtful to hear tbh

Indeed - who wants to be ladylike? Implies the idleness of the lady of the manor to me. Just be yourself, everyone else is taken.

You really need to draw a line in the sand here. He either stops with all of this bullshit or it's over. You cannot raise children in a home with this kind of abusive dynamic.

Have I understood correctly, he’s been pushing you to your limit so you are less impressed by him and he’s having a go you in return?

What else has he been doing?

What’s worrying me is that many men get abusive when their wife is vulnerable- pregnant- and unable to leave.

But you are able to leave. Don’t let being pregnant stop you. Far better to make it clear what’s acceptable well before the baby arrives.

say “Good, I’ve no interest in being a lady, it’s an outmoded, sexist concept. I’m tired of your repetitive petulant whinging on this topic”.

I have other kids with him already but I have a full time job, a full time house dry, full time mum and I am overstimulated and burned out 95% of the time and he knows this because I express it. I have told him to pull his weight around and he does something but it's simply my enough to make it fair and equal. I have withdrawn a lot from sex as well and half.because I don't want to have sex with someone who makes me feel bad and stresses me out but also I am going through a lot and already feeling over stretched and hormones play out. He's taken such a turn in MANY things and it's becoming hard to tolerate. Making comments about how I speak and look is really pushing it. IF someone has turned his head, he can keep it turned and screw himself. I wish life was as easy as those influencer mums make it seem but the reality is not picture perfect.

I ask, do you mean to be a twat?

Ah. The diagnosis is sexistprickitis I'm afraid, and there is no cure.

Next time he says you aren't being very ladylike, tell him he isn't being very chivalrous.

Ah OP it sounds like the final straw.

Next time he says something like that say to him " I don't exist to please you. This is who I am and if you don't like it you can fuck off. I won't tolerate misogynistic comments directed at me, and if you say anything misogynistic again, I will leave you".

My horrible partner went through a stage of trying to put me down in this way. Used to say shit like I have a "horrible blokey voice" and I sound like a man with the things I said. I told him the above and it did stop. (I guess, like me, right now you just want it to stop. Of course it doesn't erase the problem of what to do with a man who wants to call you nasty names, but only refrains because of a threat of separation.)

*I would

Oh also since he's a misogynist hit him where it hurts. Ask him what sort of man talks to the mother of his children like that? Isn't he embarrassed to be heard saying things like that?

If he doesn't like it, he can lump it.

Otherwise what happens is that you try to change, but it's not enough, it's not quite right, you need to try harder

and then he buggers off with someone 'ladylike' anyway.

This is who you are. This is the person he chose. It's not Pygmalion and you're not Eliza Dolittle to be 'polished'.