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.

OP, my previous comment was cynical and generalized since I saw these situations since childhood.
You clearly have one of "these" husbands.
I'm not gonna swear, but describing yourself the way you did is not on.
Would you be better off just with the children?
From experience, it's still hard work, but much more peaceful living and the small children stage doesn't last forever.
I'm happily married for 20 years, no kids.
But, being single was the best and hopefully one day it's going to be the best again, however bad it might sound.
The "no stress" because there is peace and cleanliness at home is worth everything, even (in my experience) looking at problems becomes easier.
🍀

Shall we agree on callous and neglectful, then? If not emotional abuse?

I left my ex partly because of this, and guess what, his home is incredibly tidy and well organised. They can do it, they just choose not to because they don’t care.

I don’t think it’s that they don’t care.
I think it’s because they think it’s a woman’s job.
That plus the fact, very often, when mothers are on ML, they take on the whole load and why would you want to start doing more when they can do it all anyway?

And I think @tiredsince2020 is right in saying he doesn’t care.
He doesn’t care about her, his partner, and the impact that getting up all the time, doing it all by herself has in her. Physically and emotionally. As well as the impact on his marriage.

Op, my kids are older so those days behind me now but I know how hard it was. If you put up with it for few more years, would you be happier or more resentful towards your DH?

He doesn't respect you nor love you if he is constantly choosing himself over you and the kids. He will see you on your knees but will just walk away because he can't be bothered and you said you can't really even have a conversation.

It seems like you are the only one in your marriage and the other half checked out already.

Good luck... I want to say it gets better and it does in some sense but is it kind of partnership you want to model for your kids?

I also went through a stage like this, in the end, we were just stuck in a negative dynamic, stopped seeing the good in each other, didn't listen or see each other's contributions or why their priorities were important, and we had got into a rut of bringing out the worst in each other. You don't like the way he views you, but you view him negatively. I read the John Gottman books and decided though our marriage was 'in danger' it was not fatally flawed, and used the information about having 5 positive interactions to one negative one (the minimum ratio) to be nicer. This helped, because once we had a basic level of niceness, it was much easier to say, without resentment and bitterness, can you go and take X this time, or decide who was doing what, or get my husband responsible for any chores involving machines (washing machine, dishwasher) or cars and lifts (a stereotype that worked for us).

I'm not saying save a terrible marriage, but getting in a rut can be very easy at such a pressured time with little ones, and you forget why you liked them or why you ever cared- and I also did meditation and stress-management to get my own emotional levels down as I was yelling non-stop at the kids and that was partly why my husband was shutting down, to avoid me and my bad behaviour.

If you try this and it doesn't work, you know there are bigger and more unfixable problems.

Look up the group ‘Bridging the Gap’ on Facebook.

Stop doing household labour for him wherever you can to compensate for the time he steals from you. Do you generally do the laundry? Buy everyone their own baskets and never wash his. Does he leave his belongings lying around? Stick them somewhere out of sight where they will get wet or are hard to find at short notice. Does he invite his family over? Immediately become unavailable and unconcerned about the state of the house.

@tiredsince2020 there has been many comments on how you could practically modify your behaviour to make things easier for you.
It might help you fir a bit but agree it won’t address the root.

Seeing that trying to talk isn’t productive, and you really want to try and save your marriage, I’d try couple counselling.
I think there are a few truths that your dh needs to face and is managing to ignore completely. I also think that you probably both need to learn to communicate better (it’s hard. Very few of us ever experienced solving issues with a good communicator).
At the end of it, whether it works or not, you’ll know you’ve done your best to save your marriage and you’ll have learnt better ways to communicate.

Um yes it absolutely is abusive

@BetterInColour when you did that, did your dh also agree to try it out or did you just do it on your own, hoping it would help?

Nocameltorleggingsplease, I agree with you.
There are difficult areas of any marriage, home.

Communication is the biggest factor, here.
My DH is not able to communicate back & forth.

His whole family is like this. It’s always drama!
I find this very hard to deal with, I just want peace.

Some posters are saying emotional abuse.
It does feel like that… But it’s also life as well.

The idea of the house reflecting the marriage.
That’s such a great point. It’s like that here, too!

It'll be easier to find the time and money for counselling than it will be to find the time and money for a divorce.

This is really awful. How can he just sit there and ignore his child?

You mentioned earlier that you don't think he loves you at all. I can see why you feel that. Have you said that to him?

We all snap at one another from time to time but when it becomes the only way you talk to one another, and no-one apologises for being unreasonable or grumpy, then you both need to sit down and work out what is going on, what are the underlying issues, and whether or how you could communicate better.

It very much takes two to tango though. There's no good in only one person working at a marriage if the other person doesn't want to do anything differently. Very soon you can lose any kindness, love and respect and there are only resentment and bad feelings left. Counselling only works if you are both signed up to it, have a very good counsellor (some are rubbish) and agree to implement and stick to the advice.

Hi OP, I'm sorry, this sounds really difficult. What I will say overall is: it is worth putting down some lines here because I've got friends who didn't - their children are now teenage and guess who's dealing with all the teenage stuff? Yep, that's right - the women who did all the night wakings etc. While the DHs do their job uninterrupted, progress their careers (in two cases I can think of, staying in quite nice hotels too...) Whether your marriage ultimately survives or not, you're going to be co-parenting with this chap for at least another decade and a half so it's worth being tough on what your baseline is.

A commute can be a break. Depends on the commute and what you do during it.

What has helped me:

Giving DH total responsibility for some things and not getting involved. In our case that's food shopping, cooking, driving, and supporting DC football. Obviously I do sometimes cook a meal and drive places, but I don't step in if DH's is there. As rarely does he step in and do any of the tasks on my list (all of which involve thinking ahead and filling in forms...he sucks at those things...)

Having a cleaner. I don't mind cleaning but I jolly well do mind doing his share as well as mine. I put this to him many years ago: do these tasks reliably per week or pay half of the cleaner. He chose cleaner.

Churches often run dad and DC groups once a month. Although we are not religious, I used to pack DH off to one and I would spend the time catching up on work (I'm a teacher & always have weekend work) and then we'd have a babysitter that evening and go out. DH has always done better with a predictable schedule. I made him book the babysitters.

Use more childcare than you need if you can afford it. Don't think of school holidays as "time off". They're not. In fact looking after DC during school holidays is more work due to less routine.

Regarding the sleep, we only have one DC so it's easier but we had a whiteboard with a schedule on it. I just used to point to it: Saturday 1am to 5am (or whatever). Your turn!

Do get your iron, vitamin D and thyroid checked (you could also be peri menopausal?) Any of those things can make you feel dreadful. Maybe start taking a multi vit, magnesium and high dose vit D just in case (be careful with iron as the cure can be worse than the disease...)

We have done a few rounds of counselling and it is really worth it to air grievances with a neutral third party in the 'room' (which can be virtual these days).

Finally, the clutter. You can get a flat pack skip from Hippo skips, fill it gradually and then book a collection. I have to do this every few years as DH is a bit of a hoarder, although I try to contain the hoards to his garage and desk. I find the local Freegle group useful for getting rid of anything too good to skip. I find redecorating is a good way to force the issue when clutter's building up.

I realise all this is work for you to set up but just apply the test of 'will this make me feel better' to it and prioritise that way.

Good luck.

He sounds like just another selfish, exploitative man.

There are so many of them, and women like you and many on this thread are groomed into thinking it's an issue with the two of you.

It's not. You're doing all the shitwork, he's watching you do it.

It's a him problem - he's a selfish, exploitative man.

I can guarantee that will not be his self image though. He'll think he's a decent man. Men - and women - are taught not to see any of this.

If it was race or sexuality or any other axis than sex, we'd all be rightly outraged by the fact that one group serves another, as part of 'the natural way of things'.

Hey! You don't have a DH problem. You're just both exhausted and stressed. You need to see him again as the person you love and open your heart to him. Show him this thread! Or write him a letter if you can't find your words in a conversation. Tell him exactly what you said, that you keep bickering at each other and that you don't want this anymore. That you want your family to be harmonious and happy. Life gets hectic with young ones, there is no amount of cleaning and tidying that ever seems enough.
Instead of looking at things in a negative way (easier said than done), look at the positive. Praise him for what he is doing well. Take an interest in him, ask him how he is. I'm sure you can't remember the last time you asked him that. Go out with him, sans kids, on a proper date where you don't speak about chores and calendars. Find yourself again as well, you're not just a mother. Oh and hire a cleaner if you can afford it.
Voilà, sorted!
Oh and follow all the advice by @Stoufer excellent post

This!

If you can remember why you fell in love with him, why you got married, why you wanted to have a family together, see if these things are still true, even if a tiny bit.

Have THAT conversation with him. Remind him of the plans you made, the joy you felt together on your wedding day and when the DCs were born.

Reinforce the good things, say the lovely things. And say you're finding it hard to cling onto them because you need help from him.

Be ready to hear what he says because he's going to have his own issues about feeling responsibility for the money, that his job is tough, that he doesn't feel cared for. But don't let it be a row. Acknowledge his difficulties and get him to acknowledge yours. Keep bringing it back to the loveliness you shared.

Promise to show your children that you love each other and can work together.

On a practical level, I think you need some systems that work for both of you and there can be fun in working out what that is, but you can't go from being foul to working together without the in-between step of acknowledging each other's difficulties.

Also get a cleaner for two hours once a week just for the bathrooms and kitchen. It will help.

@Sorrelia's post is exactly what I'm talking about.

He's a lazy exploitative shit. Don't 'open your heart to him' ffs.

What a load of absolute rubbish.

And actually, the fact that he is foul to you, the one who he assumes will do his share of the shitwork, means that he's not just a lazy exploitative shit -

he's a lazy, exploitative, abusive shit.

Well you're entitled to your opinion of course. I don't see a selfish exploitative man here, I see two adults who are struggling and are exhausted by the constant demands of family. And I see an OP resentful of carrying the load. None of that warrants a "break the relationship" ultimatum. If she has a heart to heart conversation with her DH and their situation doesn't change, that's another scenario.

I completely agree. Enraged on your behalf OP and so fecking OVER these men.

For me, the issues were crystallized when I realised that he would start every thought process with "how do I not do this task or cut this task down", rather than how will I do it. Nothing done with pride or good grace.

What happens if you quit work to be a full time house wife?

Oh @tiredsince2020, you sound lonely and tired.

It shouldn't be like that, young children are hard and do put stress on a relationship, but, a marriage with children is a partnership, with both people involved shouldering the same load.

I didn't work for years when our children were small, but my husband restructured his working life around us when we had our children 14 months apart. He was there, even when I was breastfeeding, he'd get up and do a nappy change, and we'd settle the babies and have a cup tea in the garden at 4am. He got up with them every day and gave them breakfast to let me have a sleep, gave them their baths at the end of every day & did bedtime whilst I cooked us dinner.

That's a partnership. They're late teens now and about to go and make their way in the world, and my husband & I really bloody like each other, and are looking forward to the next bit together.

It makes me sad when I read about these men that seem to think domesticity and child-rearing is a woman's job. Domesticity is everyone's job, if you all want a good life as a family.

I don't know your husband's background, but even if it was wrongly 'traditional' does he not want something better and more honest for himself?

It's a shitty inauthentic life to not be engaged with your family in all the ways that count.

He may be salvageable, but you need to have this conversation with him, and he needs to engage. You might like each other again if he commits to you all, openly, honestly & and with actions, not words.