DH and I are foul to one another

[tiredsince2020]

I don’t know if anyone else experiences this, but far from being the best version of myself around DH I become irritable, snappy, defensive, sarcastic and passive aggressive, and I feel he’s much the same to me.

We have a lot of pressures on us as a family. We have two very young children (young toddler and preschool stage), I work three days a week, DH is full time but because his job does take him away sometimes and is a long commute he isn’t around much during the week. I feel he isn’t very supportive. For example yesterday I took both children out of the house in the morning to a church event, when I came home the house was still a tip. I didn’t expect a deep clean or anything but just a quick tidy of toys would have been good. I feel all the house stuff falls on me and it’s impossible to keep on top of. As a result the state of the house is a factor in everyone’s stress levels. But no sooner is it immaculate and gleaming than it is trashed.

I don’t feel he’s very supportive with the children - he does love them, but he’s happy to leave the kind of day to day mechanics to me and if we ever disagree on something it often doesn’t get addressed properly, meaning it just kind of festers.

I am sure there’s things he isn’t happy about with me too. But it comes out in these horrible ways. I know people will say to talk it out but I am not sure how. Mostly it I try to talk to him about something serious it ends up being my fault somehow or he just dismisses it.

I know I’ve painted him in a bad light here and honestly I was ready to tell him I wanted to end the marriage yesterday, and that might still happen but I really, really don’t want it to. Not for me but the children.

I think you need to keep your kids away from this abusive situation. If neither of you will leave immediately to stop them seeing this hell, is there another adult who could take them.while you decide what's more important?

Oh my I could have written this myself and in fact this weekend I went to stay at my mums after we argued about him not pulling his weight. I have a toddler and 4 month old, who is breastfed, which is relevant because when I ask for help with the house his responsive is you won't let me feed the baby. I don't need help with feeding that baby, I can do that. It's all the other things I need help with, washing, cleaning tidying, just to lighten the load a little. His response was well tell me what you want me to do 🤦🏻‍♀️

I spent the night away with my baby and he had toddler, came home and the house is clean and tidy Shane it takes an argument to get done though 🙄

I don't have any advice because I need advice too haha but just know you're not alone

Ha at ‘just’ tidying, it takes hours.

I know why everyone is saying to talk to him about it, I really do, but I can’t stress enough that not only does it not work, it actually makes things considerably worse. I know that the next three years at least are me frantically scrambling to do it while he’s seemingly oblivious.

But everyone’s focused on the house and it isn’t just that, it’s the absolute lack of seeing anything that needs doing unless it isn’t done and then the moaning.

I don’t think parents bickering sometimes counts as abusive or every household in the country should get a visit from social services.

Thanks @acupofteamakeseverythingbetter . I’m horribly glad it isn’t just me. Problem is I know if that happened I’d come back to the same mess - not that I’ve anywhere to go!

I understand OP, looking at your posts you seem to have exhausted every avenue in sorting it- only you can now decide whether you want to carry on living this way or to move on.

My husband and I have been very happy together for 28 years, inc 4 children and 3 dogs through that time. As I suspect you'll find in most marriages, we went though a time when the quality of our relationship was low. In our case, we were both defensive so any discussion became a toxic battle of one-upmanship and I-have-it-worse-you-need-to-do-better. Any slight non-alignment of opinions was viewed as critism and met with defensiveness. It meant we could neither discuss nor resolve anything.

Bottom line is, we did get through it. It lasted about 18 months in total. We are now very happy and stable again.

It took us both admitting we are contributing to the issue, in different ways. Then ultimately a commitment to our relationship that we wanted to be kind to each other.

From my point if view, I made a conscious effort to use kind and neutral language towards him, when he said he felt attacked. Because of my efforts, I also expected him to use kind and neutral language back. This stopped him being defensive.

We also had to accept that his standards are not my standards, and vice versa. An untidy bathroom bothers him quicker than me. Unwashed bedsheets bother me more than him. I don't have to clean the bathroom because it bothers him. He doesn't have to change the sheets because they bother me. And so on.

If there is something that bothers one of us more than the other, but the job is a ball-ache and you want the other to help. Then asking for that needs to be asked as you would ask for a favour, not an expectation.

This raises the point - what if one is happy in a messy house, does that mean the other has to do everything? Well, firstly, check if you have unreasonable expectations. Life is busy with two little kids. Noone would expect a tidy home when there are toddlers - littlies need toys around! As long as your home isn't neglectfully dirty, then lowering standards is ok. Maybe he has the right idea with tolerating mess in the lounge?

If you absolutely can't tolerate the amount of mess he can, this raises compatability issues. That's a different issue to who-does-what around the house. If one will always prioritise their time to do high standard cleaning, when the other will prioritise down-time and "just about enough" cleaning - then there is some work to be done in your relationship in terms of tolerance and boundaries. Ultimately you would both need to decide the boundaries of your tolerance, and what you will do past those boundaries.

I think that poster is best not engaged with to be honest.

The thread is called me and DH are foul to each other. You guys really have low.standards when it comes to what a healthy relationship looks like
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Absolutely!! Do you know what is a real turn on for me? Him taking initiative. Shame he doesn't realise that and wonders why I'm never in the mood haha we don't want to have to tell them what needs doing. I tell my DH it all the usual things, hoovering, washing, putting laundry away...

Has he always been like this? Or has something happened to change the way he reacts to you? You’re right of course that if you can’t get someone to talk with you you can’t have a constructive conversation. I’m sorry this is how things are. Do you think he wants to stay married? The move you mentioned - was it away from people he knew? Either he’s a tosser or he sounds uninvested in your family life in some way. (Or both)

This is it and it’s hard to know. In a couple or short years things will have eased in terms of the demands on my time. So making a long term decision on this time seems silly. But it does highlight that he doesn’t really love me or I guess if I am honest I him.

Ask the social services what they think about your relationship and see if they want to "engage" with you.

It isn't him 'helping' more, it's him taking some responsibility for his children's welfare and doing his fair share of chores.

This was the tipping point for me to be honest, it wasn't even as much about the cleaning or whatever on its own, but just that someone who loves you wouldn't be content watching you do it all.

I was like this with my husband when our kids were small. I have to say, in my experience, the husband doesn't really clean up his act, but by dint of the kids being less demanding as they age, your life gets easier and so you resent the husband less.

My kids are of an age now where they sleep through, don't need me if they wake before me, aren't messing the house up, even help with chores etc. I'm far less tired and stressed so I no longer resent my husband for not helping.

So, if there's love there and it's an otherwise good marriage, I'd stick through the tough time and see how you feel in the good times. I think that is a better to get an honest judgement of how you feel. Now I'm less tired and stressed, I'm able to appreciate my husband's good qualities that I was blind to in my anger. He isn't perfect, but neither am I.

You have my sympathies because I remember how awful it is, but it will get easier.

I see that paid work done by men is worthwhile, paid work done by women is less worthwhile and home/child stuff is worthless. Common or garden misogyny.

I see a PP has said he must be tired from his job. But presumably not more tired than OP who works three days a week and does everything else.

I had this when kids were little. Various things have improved over last 24 years(!!!) and dh isincredibly helpful does all shopping cooking takes kids out etc. but he never ever understood about cleaning or decluttering.

I look back and our real problem was actually too much "stuff". Declutter is the key. Tidying won't help. A slob comes clean is a great book.

This sounds like it's a 50/50 problem.

If you don't delegate you will be stuck with everything yourself permanently. You have to accept that there will be a learning curve while someone takes longer figuring out what they need to do and how it all works. It would be the same if you hired a nanny, they would need to learn your ways and where things are and any problems. But you would be more patient and professional with them because you wouldn't want them to run away.

Accept that things will take longer and won't always be done your way.
Delegate specific tasks you can go through and train him on (that way they are always "his" tasks and not something last minute that ends up going wrong) to take the load permanently off your plate.

As soon as a problem occurs, you fix it so it doesn't happen again. For example, that same day you set a Spotify playlist of 5 songs and just go through the wardrobe and put everything too small in a bag and set it aside in that time.

Basically, if you really want change then make it happen in a logical way and don't set him up to fail. You're setting the idea that he can't do anything right, and he's annoyed because he's trying to help and it's never good enough but you're going to be mad if he tries and mad if he doesn't so how is he supposed to win?

Yes, it takes longer to adapt processes for more people, especially when they don't know what they're doing yet. Unfortunately you have to find the time, because there's never enough, that's just how it is.

It sounds like you also need to prioritise what's important and what's just busy work. There's no need to clear your lounge 7 times a day, do it once at the end of the day. Don't prioritise a task just because you can see it in front of you, prioritise the ones that are going to cause more time/hassle in future.

And no commuting doesn't count as time off.

I could have written this and we're still struggling. Two things have helped (1) couple's counselling (which I obviously had to arrange) and (2) a spreadsheet for each week which goes through the minutiae of the day e.g. baby night feed, morning bottles tea and coffee, morning clean kitchen and sterilise bottles, baby breakfast, toddler breakfast, morning activity etc. We fill in when the other is out as we both work full time and I ask him to say what he'd be happy doing and there is an initial by each task. He said it was good just to see it all laid out and realise everything there is to do. It's not been a complete game changer and we don't follow it strictly but I think it's increased his contribution from about 10% to 30%. The thing I would also say is if it's shit but you still love him, I wouldn't rush to LTB, I've seen marriages massively improve when kids are at school and life isn't as crazy and hard.

These sort of barely concealed threats are so tiresome and they take away from people needing support.

Before I had children, I was a DSO in a school. Some of the conditions of poverty, chaos, substance abuse, domestic violence and mental illness children lived in with either no input from SS - because their cases didn’t meet the threshold for intervention - or with very minimal support - were mind blowing.

Our children live in an affluent household. This shouldn’t matter but actually where SS are involved, it does. They have educated parents, no one has mental illness, abuses substances, is violent towards one another or the children, and they are well cared for - because of me, which is kind of what I’m tired of.

I will repeat you are best ignored. Bickering and sarcasm is not an abusive household. It may not be ideal but it certainly isn’t SS level!

Also church events were a source of marital discord. Sunday is ironically the day of falling out.
Too much is expected of Sunday.

Seeing your parents be foul to each other constitutes emotional abuse. The fact that you are likely white and middle classed will mean that abuse to your children will go unnoticed longer than a poor, non-white kid's might, and you'll have more room to abuse them, but it doesn't mean that they aren't being emotionally abused by the "foulness" in your marriage.

The fact that nobody will hold you rightfully responsible says more about our society and political situation than anything else. But no you're no different than anyone on a council estate rowing with their bloke about who smoked the last fag. You're just richer.

Have a massive declutter of the whole house especially toys. Kids don't need many toys, they play better when there are just a few. Kids usually prefer to play outside or making dens with cushions/blankets or creating things with recycling stuff (that sort of thing) This way it's easy for the kids to tidy away their toys themselves which they should be doing. Have a minimal wardrobe and wear clothes for longer. Kids can also put away their clothes and tidy their bedroom. Write a schedule of eveyone's responsibilities to take the load of you

How sad that this mother thinks this is normal