Love my DH but he’s REALLY getting on my wick

[BobLobla]

Married 25 years next year, two adult dds (19 & 23). He’s gorgeous & a lovely dad and I do love him. But god help me he’s getting sooooooo annoying in his middle/older age (58).

Seems far less able to go with the flow; is more pedantic; less able to deal with people, life stuff, everyday annoyances. Have had to advise he cuts his social media scrolling as he gets rage. We share politics but he’ll rant if he’s left to it with others. I’ve recently gone self-employed and he tries to micro-manage my every financial decision. We paid the mortgage off this year so we’re ok financially.

Is it just me? Sometimes I think I’d be perfectly ok just left to my own devices.

I call mine 'Victor Meldrew' when he gets like that. 😂

😂

I hear you

Me too.

My husband and his brother will happily rant together for hours unless we shut them up.

I put in an ear bud and pretend I can't hear.

Luckily there's other old farts he sees most days because of their mutual hobby and they can all offload when together

So this is it then? Incapable of changing back to a more carefree existence so me and the dds will just be constantly 🙄 behind his back - even though they adore him. Seems inevitable. But won’t this eventually chip away at the love & shared experience?

Mine is turning into a grumpy middle aged man; I'm not fucking here for it. Hate it. Such negativity.

Exactly how I feel.

It doesn’t have to be inevitable, have you tried tallking about it? Bringing it to his attention in the moment?

My DP is 69 and just as capable of dealing with life as he was twenty years ago. He doesn’t get any unjustified rage, or frustrate adult DD any more than I do haha. We can both enjoy a chat about politics or current affairs but it’s never grumpyily-for-no-reason. Our closest friends are late 70s and the H is also not like this…would consider being crotchety the height of bad manners.

I definitely suggest bringing it to his notice.

You could have him get his hormone levels checked. Low testosterone (or Low T as it is sometimes called) can cause a lot of those symptoms and lots of older men can benefit from some degree of hormone replacement/ supplementation.

You should probably go private though as I suspect dealing with the NHS for that would be a nightmare.

My husband has always been on the negative side. I have no hope. Well i go out and leave him behind, no moaning and i can get the food I want.

I’m in my 60’s as are most of my friends and yes unfortunately most of our husbands are like this. We tend to just go out and leave them to it.
I always make a comment on the age gap threads when some unsuspecting 25 year old is thinking of dating a handsome, successful 45 year old. I want to scream no don’t go there.
Sorry op it’s another one of the injustices of aging, like wrinkles and grey hair.

Sorry to tell you this but they often need it explained to them. They sort of know it, mine did. He had stopped learning new things the last 2 years at work before retiring. He was starting to feel redundant.
It needed a plan; How to spend the next years of our life. Once he accepted that it was not inevitable to just run down and diminish he contributed ideas. His favourite idea is pub lunch one day a week. We go on the bus so he can have a drink.

Definitely needs spelling out to him. Phrases I used to use to my DH, after telling him he was turning into Victor Melrew, were...

Do you realise you just said [quote back the ridiculous thing he just said]

Please put a sock in it. You're doing my head in.

Go and write a stiff letter to [keir starmer / ofcom / whatever] instead of cluttering my mind with your ranting.

I don't care.

Stop. I'm not interested.

Fortunately DH soon saw the funny side and seemed genuinely keen to mend his ways and not turn into a boring ranting old fart.