Moody DH is making me miserable

[raggybaggy]

I don't know what to do about my dh, I don't like him very much at the moment. I'm nearly 5 months pregnant with 1st child and maybe am being oversensitive or whatever. I just feel like he is taking over my life so completely. We went to his parents for xmas (they're nice people) and although he loves them he gets really irritated with them all the time. I'm really shocked that he's so rude and short with them. He's always been like this with them and afterwards he gets really upset with himself about it. Only thing is now he's starting to treat me the same way. We went to paris for a couple of days last week and he just seemed to find me really irritating. He got annoyed because my french is really rubbish and I blush when I'm trying to speak french. He used to live in france and is pretty fluent, but he seems to resent that he does most of the talking. He also gets really annoyed that I don't have a plan of things I'd like to paris, the one thing i did want to do was look at some of the scultures in the louvre, and he just acted completely bored and pissed off for the 30 minutes that we were in there. What he really likes to do is drink, and as I'm pregnant I only have the occasional glass of wine at dinner, but he's constantly trying to get me to drink more. While we were in paris, he'd deliberately walk very fast so I had real problems keeping up. At one point when I was using a cashpoint, he walked some distance away and 'hid' (in my opinion)behind a poster board. I thought he'd just gone off and left me. I was so upset I burst into tears, he then came back and made me feel stupid for being upset, saying he was just looking at a map. This all sounds really trivial and stupid but I feel so upset about the way he talks to me sometimes.

He frequently ticks me off for not being tidy or organised. He's really pissed off because our sex life has gone off the boil since I've been pregnant. He get's annoyed if I have to work late. I feel like I'm losing touch with my friends because I expend so much emotional energy on my relationship with him that I feel too worn out to see my friends and anyway don't want them to know that things are so rubbish for me at the moment. I don't even feel like I'm me anymore. If I wasn't pregnant I think i'd leave him but now I feel really stuck and isolated and don't know what to do to make it better.

oh raggybaggy your post is so heartfelt. He sounds like a right b**d to be honest, has he always been like this? How does he feel about the pregnancy?

It sounds like you are both a bit stressed at the impending life change. But can you try and have some down time together at home, early nights and long baths etc etc? I'm really sorry that you are having such a hard time.

Sending you big hugs {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} and wishing you happy times before your babe arrives.

raggy, my heart goes out to you, how rotten that you are feeling like this at a time when you really need him to be totally supportive. From what you are saying I'm not surprised you don't like your DH very much atm, his behaviour sounds spiteful and childish.

A couple of questions - has he been like this before or have these moods/unpleasant behaviour just started since you have become pregnant? What about his parents - do they just put up with his moods or not? What is he like about discussing things - is he OK to talk to?

If there is any possibility that he doesn't realise the effect his behaviour is having on you, could you explain to him how you feel? Sometime I think something must be obvious to my DP when it isn't, I think that's maybe a male/female thing.

Anyway, sorry for the hundred questions when you have enough on your plate.

Hi raggybaggy.

I'm afraid the only hopeful thing I've read in your post is that he feels upset with himself after he is rude and nasty to his parents. This indicates that he knows it is wrong. One can only hope he feels the same way after he is nasty to you, too.

Let's get this straight - none of this is your fault, it is all about him. There is no point your running yourself ragged trying to please him; you never will. You could be perfect in every way and he would still find fault.

Do you stand up to him? Do you say, 'This is not reasonable behaviour, if you like it tidier, you do it.' Or 'You made my last holiday a misery, next time I want to go with a friend instead.' Would that make him sit up and think or would it just make him angrier?

He needs psychiatric help to find out what is lurking inside him hurting him to make him keep lashing out at those around him. If he refuses to accept this then you are indeed in trouble. He will certainly continue this behaviour until he drives you away.

You can only expend a certain amount of emotional energy on someone who is, frankly, bullying and abusing you, in the hope that your love will help them mend. If it doesn't work, and fairly quickly, you may safely assume that it never will, and without expert treatment, he will continue this way without your being able to do a thing about it.

I'm sorry to be so negative, but I have been through a relationship just like yours. It is better that you know now .

raggybaggy, I'm shocked by your DH's behaviour, you are in a time when you need more support and he is acting as a child. The only thing that comes to my mind is that now that he is going to be a parent you have become a more "real" part of his family and feels that he can treat you with disrespect as he does with the rest of his family without driving you away. How is the relationship between his father and his mother?

You are not alone and if it helps it is always better to take care of one child than of two (meaning your baby and your DH).

Keep posting

Blimey raggybaggy, if I was married to your dh our sex life wouldn't have gone off the boil because I was pregnant (which I am) but because I would want to strangle him with my bare hands!

I will say that I sometimes get very frustrated by having to be the one to do all the 'talking' on holiday or deciding where to go. I speak Spanish and we do (or should that be 'did'!) go on holiday to Spain quite frequently. I mitigate that by going to eat in touristy places where they have menus in English, so I don't have to translate the entire menu every time (verrrrrry frustrating) and by not trying to organise everyone's day for them but hand over the guidebook and let them work things out for themselves. I'm lucky that dh is pretty confident in foreign countries having lived and worked all over the world (apparently without ever learning any foreign languages, although he can understand Swedish pretty well) and will have a go even if that means saying 'tack' in Chile and 'gracias' in Sweden .

However, the other way I avoid it is just not going to places where only I speak the language. Next time he suggests Paris, why not suggest Amsterdam or Copenhagen?

I find the trying to get you to drink more completely unacceptable. There's a section in one of my pregnancy books about 'what to do if your friends are encouraging you to drink' and I thought 'surely no-one would ever do that!'. I just can't get my head round the thought process. Even if it is his opinion that you can safely drink more (although in honesty it sounds like he couldn't care less about the safety of your baby) this must be entirely your decision and his attitude seems selfish in the extreme.

Has all this started since you became pregnant? I wonder if, to give him some benefit of the doubt, he's having a hard time coming to terms with the changes in you, and your life together, and just expressing it really, really badly. I note that he's always had this issue of being rude to his parents (can't help but feel that them having taught him a little more respect in his formative years might have helped everyone enormously) but he does at least have enough self-awareness to feel guilty about it, if not the self-control to stop himself from doing it.

To be honest, it sounds to me like it will get worse once the baby arrives - obviously I hope I'm wrong and he'll come around! But he seems to be acting like a sulky child who can no longer be the centre of your attention, and that's not going to get any better once you have a baby to look after. And sorry to say this, but if drinking is what he really likes to do, what kind of dad is he going to be? Don't get me wrong, my brothers have perfected the art of nappy changing after vast quantities of red wine (possibly this improves the experience!) but none of them have the sort of sulky tempers that get worse for the booze.

As others have said, I think you need to tackle him about this if you can find a way. Next time he feels guilty about his attitude to his parents, perhaps? And certainly don't take any crap about not being tidy. You've got enough on your plate just now.

Also I'd say don't cut yourself off from your friends. They're not just there for the good times, after all, and it sounds like you could use some real life support as well as Mumsnet just now.

Best of luck to you.

Thanks all of you for your sympathy, it really helps that other people think this is bad behaviour too. I have tried to tackle it before and in different ways. I really lost it before xmas when I just felt he was constantly putting me down. I was so upset I couldn't stop crying. He denied that he put me down ever and said that he wouldn't be married to me unless he thought I was a great person. But he wouldn't admit that he ever did or said anything to undermine me, and implied that it was all in my head and I'd just have to find some way of getting over my own insecurities. We've had subsequent rows where he has apologised for being insensitive. After our trip to paris i thought his behaviour was so odd that I thought there must be something wrong - we watched cinema paradiso (sentimental film about growning up) on tv one night and he just cried and cried afterwards and I thought he must be suffering from depression or something. I did wheedle out of him that he has been feeling very down recently but he says he doesn't really know why, although he did say he feels anxious about being a dad. Having been through all this I too feel anxoius about him being a dad as he can be so hot tempered and difficult when he feels like it. I told him that I thought he should see a counsellor and speak to someone about the way he's feeling, but he said no and that he'd deal with it.

I haven't been able to bring myself to say that I hated being on holidays with him and found it really stressful. I'd rather have stayed at work. I did really try with speaking french, it wasn't that that annoyed him so much, it was just that I blush easily and everytime I blush he comments on it and then I end up feeling even more self conscious. This all sounds really pathetic as I read it back to myself but sometimes I just feel like im being tortured.

His parents are real softies (like me) and they don't like to argue or have confrontations. They just ignore him when he's being bolshy. They always say he doesn't mean it and he usually apologises later, he really does love them but cant seem to control his irritation.

About the drinking, he loves a few glasses of wine in the evening and says he really misses me drinking with him. I can't say that I ever thought it was an important part of our life together. I've told him that I've come to really enjoy not drinking (lost lots of flab and feel much more alert) and don't think I'll get into the habit of wine after work like I used to after the baby's born. He seems really angry about this, as if it's a real problem. His response is that he'll never stop drinking for anyone as he really loves it and has few vices. ON the plust side, he did give up smoking when i told him i was pregnant and that was really hard for him, so think he thinks he's already made enough sacrifices.

He likes to be the centre of attention, and i think he's not going to like it when the baby steals the limelite. I really hope I'm wrong.

I feel too depressed to go to work at the moment. I've got my second scan today and he's meeting me at the hospital and taking me out for lunch afterwards. Maybe things will get better, but thanks so much for making me feel like I'm not alone with all this. I really don't want to speak to our friends or my folks about this as they'll just get all angry on my behalf and I think it'll make things worse.

Raggybaggy, don't feel pathetic - I can imagine just how you must feel if he makes you feel self-conscious when you're already shy about speaking in French. Personally I'd just refuse to in that case!

It certainly seems like he has some issues, and I find his attitude to drinking bizarre, quite frankly, and I used to drink quite heavily before getting pregnant. Like you, I've enjoyed the feeling of cutting down, being more alert, I'm certainly not planning to go back to my old ways after the baby arrives (not safe for either me or the bean anyway). Fortunately dh has also had to cut down for health reasons, but even if he was healthy I think he'd just reduce his intake along with me. I'd have no problem with him drinking but would take some serious exception to the idea of him sulking because I didn't want to, that's just weird. I hesitate to say it, but I think your dh may have a problem with alcohol, even if he's not drinking particularly heavily. On the other hand, it could just be a facet of his feeling of depression, but either way he needs to get his head sorted out.

Of course he said he didn't need to go to a counsellor, is there any bloke alive who, upon having that suggested to them, says "oh yes, what a good idea. I'll make an appointment". I don't know if it would help if you suggested you both go along to counselling? Or even go yourself if things are reaching a point where you're feeling too depressed to go to work. You might find the help of a counsellor useful to find some strategies for dealing with him.

no advice raggybaggy just a virtual hug and to say that you are getting some fab advice from tribpot x E

raggy, would it be possible that he is assuming that if you don't drink that means that he just miss that time together so actually what he is complaining for is not for your not drinking but because he believes that you are cutting the time and conversations around the wine drinking all together? I don't know if I'm making myself understood here but I have seen that men (or at least my DH) sometimes understand something completely different to what we are trying to say). Would it make the things slightly better to explain him that you will be with him, that you are not drinking but still you will enjoy his company? If he's happy with that, then you can tackle the drinking problem. One little step at a time.

Hope that helps.

But leave some reasonable time in between so he don't think you are asking too many things in a very short time .

Just remebered... I have a friend who used to be an as to his pregnant girlfriend but as soon as he saw the baby, he melted and changed his attitude completely . Hope the same happens to you, but in the mean time don't stop considering the counsellor route.