Speak to me after your period’s come

[Crunchycrabclaws]

DH and I have been going to couples therapy for 8 months.
There have been some good bits of progress with our communication but still we can default to our unpleasant arguing style, despite being taught new methods.

Our usual argument is me telling him I feel as though I’m doing everything housework wise (because I am) and him denying this.
He literally gaslights me saying that he does make the beds, clean the bathroom and organise/ tidy our DD’s toys and clothes. He doesn’t. I do.

Tonight I said calmly that I felt frustrated that he always just dumps all of the mess on the spare bed and this makes me feel as though he values his time more than mine. He just responded by telling me that it was all my stuff I told him it wasn’t, it was our daughter’s bits and bobs she uses for doing art, he just said yeah so it’s not mine then.

He then accused me of ‘ranting’ at him and told me to tell him when I get my period and then we could talk.

I hate that he lies and says he does make beds etc when he actually really never does. When I tell him his lies frustrate me and make me feel disrespected, he didn’t give a shit.

I feel so cross with him.

Kindly OP, what is it you want from posting here? Is it just a rant to get it off your chest? If so, no worries I feel for you and hang in there💐

If for advice then sorry but everyone is going to say leave, he sounds horrid and very disrespectful of you, and also therefore your daughter (think about that one)

If you're aren't for leaving then sorry but you're unlikely to change him, we all have our crosses to bear, but please do think about your daughter in this

If you can't leave and have to live with it I would start with small changes. Do all your own washing and your child's. Leave his on purpose. Anything he leaves out, just hoover round it. My ex use to expect me to do everything and we both worked full time. I just stopped doing stuff for him. He soon started washing his own clothes. He stopped asking me to iron things. If he was late home from work I cooked dinner just for me and by the time he had come home I had eaten and washed up. I stopped making him a pack lunch. The relationship did not last but it went on a few years like that. We had no children together though.

Ok, so if you won’t leave (I won’t use ‘can’t) then you have to put up with it. He will never change.

option1: plaster a smile on your face, wash and clean and stop asking him for help, he won’t ever help. Don’t give him ammo re your period dates, he doesn’t care, he won’t be kinder to you, so don’t tell him. The happier you make him, by not complaining or asking for anything, the less rude he might be, and you might be less broken. Expect nothing from him and you cannot be disappointed.

option 2: do nothing for him. No cleaning, washing, cooking. This feels riskier to me, he will be unhappy and will retaliate and try to make you unhappy too. This feels toxic with your daughter around to witness. What he won’t do is say ‘shoot, I have no clean pants. Let me wash them myself and be kinder to my wife in the future now that I appreciate the burden she carries’

If you can’t leave I would switch to mindset 1, he’s the boss, you keep him happy, he is less awful to you. To reiterate, I really absolutely don’t like this option, but if you won’t leave then you need to find a way to survive, and fighting him is unlikely to end well so you could placate instead.

If you’re going to stay you really should keep going to therapy together. If it takes making a chore chart for everyone to do their bit then so be it.

What a terrible environment and role model for your child.

I will tell you this. He will wrap your daughter round his finger. She will hate you, copy his abuse and grow up treating you like shit. Or you do what I did

raise an independent daughter who knows what love and a relationship are, can stand on her own two feet, has her own career etc my daughter saw me aged 7 divorce her abusive father, she saw his behaviour and she is now no contact with him aged 17, she’s applying to university and loves my partner who is a decent man who supports her and pulls his weight with housework and everything. Currently in Cambridge for open days etc and they made a mistake and assumed he was her Dad both of them said they would be privileged to be family. Set the bar higher. Teach your child what to accept and what to not accept. Don’t accept an abuser

Thanks for your replies.

As per, I received an apology email from him at work today and since he’s returned home it’s as though nothing happened.
I wrote on here to clarify my stand-point as I find getting the sequence of events helps me to clarify my thinking.

I write on here to check whether I was reasonable to have felt gagged and diminished by his response to me expressing my feelings.

I write on here to unconfuse my gaslit brain, to seek solidarity from others who may have come across similar situations.

Those that go to LTB at the first post about a dickhead partner aren’t living in the average economically challenged household but a fantasy world where women have financial power and freedom to give their children the things that they will need to stand the best chance of thriving.

Don’t get me wrong, if we didn’t have a child, we wouldn’t still be together. At least that’s true from my point of view. But we do, so we will battle on. (Literally) and that’s just reality sadly.

I’m a single parent with an average salary and I think you should leave him. It’s not easy, but it’s better than being in an awful relationship.

There is absolutely no point in going to couples therapy if there's any kind of abuse in a relationship, and there is here. He is gaslighting you left, right and centre, and he will be gaslighting the therapist/counsellor as well.

You need to go by yourself.

Your child cannot and must not be used as glue here to bind you and he together. Were you used as glue also by your parents?. You both will continue to model a dysfunctional relationship to your DD; this is no legacy at all to be leaving her.

You have a choice re this man, your DD does not. What does staying with him teach her about relationships?. Its a decision that could well come and bite you on your behind big time, not necessarily now but in years to come. She will rightly come to the conclusion that you put him before her. Its also a massive step to assume that a "lesser" lifestyle would necessarily equal using foodbanks.

A man like that would give me the instant ick and he'd be long gone. I mean after 8 months of therapy what's the point? You've made hardly any progress.

It's one thing to keep staying under the same roof together because of economic realities but still sharing a room? Surely the sex isn't that good.

I think I'd at least be moving into that spare bedroom but I would definitely move my absolute shit to get the fuck out of that house before he turned my dd against me. Which he will do op, mark everyone's words. It's a cycle.

Now he is back in the nice part of the nice/nasty cycle of abuse which is a continuous one. And I agree with the poster who wrote that he will wrap your daughter around his little finger.

Going to couples therapy with your abuser is something that is never recommended. You are not safe enough to be in such sessions with him at all and he could manipulate the counsellor into taking his side.

he could manipulate the counsellor into taking his side

All too common, sadly.

Since you choose not to leave you need to find a way to a) make your PMT bearable - have you seen GP/gynae about this? and b) find a way to deal with his gaslighting. There are a number of techniques - google them. But don't try to argue your point of view - he will never accept it, and probably enjoys the power he has over you in this way.

Those that go to LTB at the first post about a dickhead partner aren’t living in the average economically challenged household but a fantasy world where women have financial power and freedom to give their children the things that they will need to stand the best chance of thriving.

I'm disabled, haven't worked for decades due to health problems. I am housebound. I have no money except PIP. I will be on food banks etc.

Guess what I'm in the middle of. Go on, guess.
I'm divorcing my abusive, dickhead husband of 30 years. It's not a fantasy world, it's real and I can't fucking wait. Put your big girl pants on and protect your DD.

How old is your daughter @Crunchycrabclaws ? I’m guessing she’s under 10.

How do you think your husband is going to treat her when she’s a teenager ? I’ll tell you now, he will act exactly as he does with you.

He will bully and lie and gas light and manipulate. He will diminish her and disrespect her.

“ Oh no “ I hear you say “ You don’t know him, she is is pride and joy “.

Yes I do know him, I was married to him once. How he treats you behind closed doors, when no one is there - that’s who he is.

Once your DD is old enough to see through him and have her own opinions and argue with him - that’s when it will start. He will begin to take her apart mentally , just as he has done to you.

I bet you have mental health problems, stress, anxiety or depression . That’s what happens when you are being psychologically abused. I also bet he tells you it’s because of your childhood / work stress and that you should cut off your family / quit your dead end job / pull yourself together and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Does any of this sound familiar ? Am I completely wrong ?

If you're not going to leave then stop complaining about it.

So take something for your pmt then? And stop recording your dates in a place where he can see. You know what he is, you can control your behaviour.

So you are employed and still do all the housework, correct? You want him to see what you do and start putting in joint effort. Unfortunately he sees you and your DD as one joint unit, hence her toys on your bed were to him yours if they weren't his, because she is your DD. Why he thinks like this is pure misogynism, which will become more obvious if you were to have a DS, who would then become 'his son'. I get how it's working, I grew up in a household where my DF clearly stated ' my son, your daughter' on more than 1 occasion- but even he did some hoovering, cooked once a week and washed up now and then despite my mother being a SAHM.
My advice is grit your teeth and dig in, if he wants to play the game of you and DD being as one, do only housework relevant to you and your DD, absolutely nothing for him. No cooking, cleaning, tidying or laundry on his behalf. Your house is likely to become a mess for a while, but that should give him clear evidence. Shows that he's not doing enough for himself, let alone anyone else.

There is a huge gap between staying with someone who has contempt for you and food banks.

So OP do you work?

Did you work?

Can you work?

I write on here to unconfuse my gaslit brain, to seek solidarity from others who may have come across similar situations.

You're asking us to enable you. Take a little pressure off so you can carry on being abused. The LTB posters are honest and no bullshit.

I've repeatedly assisted people with communication tools, ideas for relationship, other ways to make things better. Not in your case. In your case any attempt to reduce your feeling to manageable levels would be a lie. He is intolerable. And therefore helping you to tolerate him is abusive.

I'm stunned your counsellor is enabling him as well.

You say "limiting DD's future prospects" what does that mean in your thoughts?

A happy, relaxed mum who has time to discuss books, school work, enjoys taking them to activities or days out with happiness is far, far, far more beneficial for "future prospects" than what, bigger house, the best clothing, an expensive but essentially hollow holiday abroad with two parents who dislike each other.

Don't get caught up in tick boxes, that you need this, this, this and this, a really nice car to pull up at sports day. It doesn't matter. None of it.

Having a dad who hasn't got contempt for her gender will empower her much more.

We have boys but they have a dad who said yesterday, in light of the talk of misogyny being discussed as a form of terrorism, "how can someone just decide to hate half the people", he works in a sausage fest industry and when a female turns up he breathes out because it makes it all much less of a sausage fest which is better.

Materialistically we have very little to view, but we have two growing into confident, respectful, socially and emotionally intelligent and are able to come to us with anything, either of us. A considerable influence on why they are developing into amazing rounded human beings is the positive influence from both me but their dad particularly as well.

Children from the age of 6 look towards their gender parent for guidance, so think about things OP. What are you and her dad teaching DD? What are her influences of expected behaviour in romantic relationships moulding into? Are you a strong, independent, listened to woman, with views your partner respects? Do you play games and make excuses with PMT or allow gaslighting over housework and put yourself as a female bottom of the heap?

You have the ability to change things, it might be a sideways or downward move at first but in the long game is that such a bad thing?

So much projection on here.

Honestly, just because reading a snap-shot of the dysfunctional aspects of my marriage has triggered you, it doesn’t mean you have automatically become all-knowing about each aspect of my finances, my mental health, my work situation or indeed my relationship and have the perspective to flip into binary, non-nuanced, lazy LTB tropes.

Not one of you know the whole picture nor would I bore anyone with it, so please stop with the fantasy story telling and projection of your own painful relationships onto mine.

All relationships have toxic elements to them and I am being proactive in addressing mine through therapy. It may not work, who knows. I may end up leaving him in time but right now that’s not on my agenda.

So what if I find it cathartic and validating to read that I am understood on an online forum?

All fantasy.
As a single parent, I’d be the opposite of a ‘happy and relaxed mum with time on my hands.’

DD would be in child-care facilities 50 hours a week, I’d be burnt out, I’d have to move to a very unsafe area where I felt scared
and where DD would have to move school, away from her friends.

I’d be absolutely beside myself worried about her time with her dad due to various behaviours of his and his family members.

No, I’ll stay stoic for DD and deal with it when she’s independent.

I get it, OP.

Are there any practical steps you can take to reduce the problematic behaviour? Fore sample, he does all things garden / bins / his own washing and cooking. You do everything else? Might not be a true split but at least a start.

Some couples are just awful at empathy and communication. Division of labour seems easiest because if it's not done, it's clear who was meant to do it.

Or any chance you could get a cleaner?