How do you speak to a DH that is being, IMO, very selfish and when you try and communicate how it makes you feel/that it’s not ideal, just shuts you down. Also will happily have a big strop in front of the children but if I try and say one comment which is in no way negative or not for them to hear, just talks over me not to speak in front of the children?
DH makes no effort in the house - I take on the mental and physical load of everything and he just seemingly walks around with blinkers on ignoring everything that needs doing and making mess. He does cook sometimes but when I’ve already made the weekly meal plan and ensured we had ingredients.
We don’t have a lot of disposable income at the minute (childcare) and are currently going through a remortgage. In recent months into past few weeks he’s had an abroad stag, a night away with friends staying over in a hotel and is wanting to go to another night out next week (will include train travel) plus the ‘home’ version of this stag do (again will need train or bus travel to get to) a couple of weeks later. He’s also booked and already paid for another stag in a few months time, yet he’s refusing to discuss it as he just keeps joking, he’ll discuss it after Christmas so it doesn’t ruin Christmas?
I’m not someone who thinks you give up everything when you have a family and can’t go out but, I do think they should come first and if you don’t have the money/aren’t helping at home, you can’t just please yourself.
My other annoyance is that he makes no effort to do anything with me. He doesn’t compliment me or offer much affection (complete opposite from how he was when we first got together) and I’ve said so many times, I wish he’d just put as much effort into doing something with me - going out for a meal/a ‘date’ night/us going to stay out for a night with what little money we have. Obviously I could plan things but that’s not my point and if I did that, it’d just become something else I don’t have the mental space for and something else done for him he can just plod along with rather than him doing it because he ‘wants’ to - if that makes sense!
He thinks it’s okay as he’s spending money left over in his ‘own’ bank account after our money has gone into the joint for bills etc (but we often need this topping up).
He is also completely obsessed with football. If there’s a match on, he’ll drop it on me on the day, demand we cut any family outing short to be home, takes over the living room TV (the main place the children play which makes them cross as they don’t want to see it), physically cannot move or help with anything else whilst it’s on and has teenager strops if he can’t watch it.
Today was one of those days as we’ve had a few TV provider issues this week and he couldn’t get it on. We’d been out to get some pumpkins and he decided he wanted to carve them today. It wasn’t done by the time of the match, so in his fume that it wasn’t working, turned on us and started shouting and speaking rudely to DS and I about how I’d just left all the stuff all over (I was having a 2 minute sit down as I haven’t been well this week either and was feeling dizzy).
He then started saying it was me who’d wanted to do the carving and stormed off upstairs as DS started pressing buttons on the remote to turn it off, not before revving the drill he’d got out as a pumpkin carving ‘hack’ in a way which made DS ask him to stop scaring him.
I had asked him calmly a good few times to stop being so over the top about football and to stop speaking to us like that.
DS then shouted him from the hallway wondering where he’d gone and he had a go at me for ‘allowing’ him to do this when he needed his time to calm down, likening it to my neurodiversity where I occasionally need a couple of minutes to regulate after overstimulation.
After a bit, he came back downstairs, all sweetness and light again as he had reset the TV box - no apology. I pointed out it might be worth it, even just to DS but he refused as if he had no reason to and blamed us for not understanding why he ‘needs’ to watch it and purposely antagonising him (DS with the remote/me ‘allowing’ him to shout up to DH etc).
He’s promised them he will take them to FIL’s today so they started playing up a little, wondering when they would be going. It’s seemingly expected I have to keep them quiet and out of his way so he can watch undisturbed. He then started having a go at me about how they weren’t ready to go (despite him being the ones taking them yet wanting to be glued to the TV) and got angry that I (again I point out, have been unwell for days) hadn’t got them ready with shoes on etc, for him to just take once the match was finished.
Towards the end (I’m talking ET), DS picked up the remote and he immediately started flapping and panicking, begging him not to take the remote. DD was stood in front of him with her arms up asking him to carry her about 5 times, whilst he just ignored her, engrossed in the TV so I had to point out to him she was talking to him.
I feel like a glorified parent of 3. I often wonder if this is what marriages get like over time and I’m unrealistic in expecting to have someone who compliments me, might come home with a bunch of flowers or chocolate once in a blue moon or out of nowhere says, right, on X day, we’re doing X. He always makes me feel like a burden and an old nag who stands in the way of him doing what he wants to do and that’s his stand point.
I’m only early 30’s so it makes me feel a bit rubbish that feeling unloved is what my life is!