Husband is unhappy

[Freckles10]

I’m hoping this is a safe space to have a bit of a rant/get some advice on my hubby.

We haven’t been doing well recently. Lots of arguments about my husbands expectations of me which I am apparently not meeting. ie, things around the house not being done etc (I’m a stay at home mum).

Money is a bit tight at the moment and his 40th birthday is approaching. We discussed some extravagant holidays which in the end we decided not to do because hubby said we couldn’t afford it.

I didn’t want the day to go by without celebrating so I decided to sell some things on vinted and raise the money to take us away overnight. I chose some activities I thought he would like and then an overnight stay.

I think he has hyped the weekend up in his head (he thinks I have, but I don’t know when he thinks this has happened as I’ve rarely mentioned it) and this evening I have told him what we are doing and he’s told me he is really disappointed. He’s said everyone he knows are having big holidays to fancy places and I’ve just booked an activity weekend of which it includes activities he has already done and that we could do any time.

He’s said I’ve basically just planned the weekend around what I want to do and he isn’t going. He’s told me to cancel the whole thing. Despite the fact that his best friend and his wife are joining us. That I’ve got a babysitter for our two children. That I won’t get a refund on the hotel. He wants the whole thing cancelling and wants absolutely no mention of his birthday. No cards. No gifts.

Im numb with shock. I genuinely don’t know what to do or think. He said he expected to be going abroad doing something like Iceland or Amsterdam…despite the fact we had said we couldn’t afford it. But then if I had planned nothing, I would have been the wife who didn’t plan anything for her husbands birthday!

so now I have to go to my mum and my sister and explain why I don’t need them to babysit our children. I need to tell my mum she can have the money back that she contributed towards the weekend away. And he has to tell our daughter why we aren’t celebrating his birthday.

My question isn’t about the situation itself - it’s about what I do next! Firstly, how do we get through this? I can’t just go “yeah whatever” because a) that’s not me and b) I’m genuinely so hurt by this. I don’t know how to be ok with it! And secondly, I’ve told him he needs to speak to someone. That I think he isn’t happy and that he may need to professional support. Has anyone else see behaviour in their husbands like this when they hit 40? He is very hostile at the moment. Small things make him so angry! He hangs the fact I dont have a job over my head but then says I can be off work as long as I want. I just don’t know what to do to make him happy! To make us happy.

I need to know if this is a phase, whether he is maybe depressed or having a crisis that we can work on or whether this is it for the rest of our lives. I’m at a loss.

I couldn’t agree more

Your DH seems very angry.

He picks you up not doing things at home (which is not on) and wants you to be there, but is also resentful of you not working. He doesnt seem to be offering support with DC’s to facilitate you working, as you see the childcare as your responsibility to fit work around it. Now he is throwing his toys out of the pram because the organised birthday celebrations are not fancy enough.

He seems very image conscious? Has he got friends or siblings he is trying to keep up with?.

You are putting yourselves under a lot of pressure with private school if that means you can’t have holidays. What happens when the fees rise? What about when DD wants to go on the school trips…? And then your second child will go as well?

I think you need to have a serious chat about your lifestyle and expectations and plan a way forward.

He sounds like a really unpleasant man who lots of people (you included, OP) are making excuses for.

My ex would also often seem unaccountably angry at me and the world, would blame me for his bad mood (though could never seem to give clear reasons why, often offering contradictory reasons from one day to the next).

He also loved spending on luxuries and it turned out (years down the track) was doing a great deal of it without my knowledge, using his business funds to do it, instead of bringing more home to help our tight financial situation (incidentally, I was working as many hours as I could even with two small children to juggle).

I knew in my gut something was off (considered depression, mental health issues, even an affair) and that the problem wasn't what he was insisting it was, but until I found a paper trail, I had no idea that he was secretly squandering thousands a month on himself, all the while moaning about being on a budget at home. His anger at me was just his guilt lashing out and trying to find someone else to blame for the situation he had created.

He really isn’t the horrible person people are making him out to be and I understand why everyone is coming to that conclusion. What he has done in cancelling his birthday is selfish. It is childish.

OP, it's you that have told us what he has done and said,cancelling his birthday and saying the things he has said are more than 'childish' and 'selfish'. He has been really nasty to you, he's deliberately tried to upset you. Just because he is 'nice' at other times doesn't mean he isn't a nasty spiteful person. It's your life but I wouldn't want to be in the same room as someone like that let alone spend the rest of my life with him.

I feel sorry for you.
He says he feels trapped and only stays because of the kids. He has said that to you to be nasty to you and to make you scared of upsetting him, he wants you to behave in a particular way and is training you to be a doormat, it's really sad.

If he said something as nasty to your kids what would you do? Would you makes excuses and minimise it or not?

This. This is your answer. He’s had his head turned and because he is married to you he is pissed off. He’s projecting. He wants to or is having an affair. He’s playing the poor victim because he’s not free to do as he pleases because he made a commitment to you when he married you and had kids with you. Now he’s regretting it because he has convinced himself that you and the kids are the ball and chain preventing him for living the life of riley and so he’s taking that out on you emotionally. He’s a prick. And an ungrateful pig who thinks he’s too good for this family life and think the grass is greener on the other side. I would tell everyone why he’s not going on the trip, keep the kids at your mums, go on the trip without him and let him stew in his own ungratefulness. And when I came back, I’d be telling him that his behaviour is that of a spoiled brat and if he had any balls he would leave. He can still have the kids 50/50 but I bet he won’t because he cares more about himself and he’s a selfish prick. You deserve better. And all these people focusing on whether you work or not, ignore them. That’s got nothing to do with him acting like this when you went to the effort to celebrate his birthday by selling your own bloody stuff to fund it. Wtf?! Talk about missing the point.

I’m just going to tell you this, from an older mother’s perspective.

All of my friends that kept working, all of them, just did it to keep their jobs, they were not one penny financially better off by working when their children were small.

I have friends in so many different types of jobs, some really successful and every single one of them were penniless when their children were young, barely breaking even while paying for childcare.

They only kept working to keep working, so that they would have a job when the children were older. Not for any money. If you break even at this time, you are lucky.

And also, I agree with previous poster that his head has been turned. I do not know the answer to that, I’m unsure how it can be stopped once it has started.

When do men ever fight for their marriages? The pressure on women to fight for the marriage is just another means to oppress us

Ultimately, the only way is:

• you get a job with him taking on more childcare commitments.
• you cut your cloth accordingly which neither of you seem to want to do.

All options being given to you are being ignored anyway.

I'd be back to work full time, op, asap

Even though that means working pointlessly for nursery fees

He does not value the work you do with the kids and home

But he will value a job that brings home cash

Which makes zero sense, obviously

The other options are- she gets a full time /part time but full days job and pays childcare, so doesn’t earn much. But is working, and what will he say then? Then she will at least have a job when he finds something else to criticise her about and she realises it’s not her it’s him.

I agree he is having an affair. But people are rightly focusing on OP not working. She doesn't have free access to their money ad evidenced by selling stuff on Vinted, is dead set on private school fees while not being able to afford weekend in Amsterdam. This is just not realistic and she made herself very vulnerable. Her husband doesn't value her work, picks up fault in her running the house. Once the husband leaves he might ask for 50 50 as the new stepmum might be the built in nanny. Things might go really badly for OP and she just seems oblivious

It’s not a narrative at all - other posters have also picked up on the fact that she has numerous excuses not to work, when she just needs to work.

I know loads of SAHM mums. I don’t have an opinion on SAHMs one way or another other than that if a family is in financial difficulty or it’s coming down to one person needing a second job to keep up with a lifestyle the family cannot afford - then the SAHM needs to get a job. Any job. Being a SAHM is a luxury, which it sounds like the family could afford until the additional luxury of private education was also added into the mix.

Bluntly, he’s not even on six figures (from the fact they get 30 free hours in Sept). He cannot comfortably finance luxury holidays, private education at seniors level and a decent standard of living on his salary alone. That doesn’t make him a failure, but I think it’s making him feel like one because he’s ’failing’ to be able to provide the life they want, while his wife is doing nothing to help the situation.

If they cut their cloth differently, she could afford to stay at home.

They have plenty of options, but from the posts on here the OP is the one dismissing them all, because they all come back to either abandon private school plans or get a job. She doesn’t want to do either.

I can't believe the majority of the responses are to tell you to look for a job so that he stops being moody.

Yes it would ease the financial pressure but it wouldn't stop your H from being a rude self-obsessed, entitled prick.

Yes, you need to look for a job. You need to be independent so you can leave him!!

Then he'd either be paying a decent amount to you in CMS plus you could work part time and probably get some benefits.
Or he'd need to provide 50/50 childcare meaning you'd get a job easier

Can't tell from the info you've provided but I suspect it's quite an emotionally abusive relationship.

I'd find an overnight stay with DP that he'd made so much effort to find money for (selling on vinted etc) far far better than a flash holiday that he'd got us both into debt by booking. Far more thoughtful and romantic. Guess he's just too materialistic and interested in keeping up appearances with mates

It’s not a narrative at all - other posters have also picked up on the fact that she has numerous excuses not to work, when she just needs to work.

The only excuse she has given so far for not working (yet - as she has said multiple times, she is looking) is that it’s hard to find a job with flexible hours that pays enough that working is going to give them more than break-even. If the whole point of working is to increase their income, break-even or a little better is fairly pointless, at least in the short term. She might as well hold out for something worthwhile.

Personally I think the private school plan is madness but that wasn’t the point of the thread. The point of the thread was the man-tanty that her husband had after she organized a lovely birthday weekend for him that was within their means.

Agree with @CheekyHobson and @TipsyJoker . The issue isn’t that the OP doesn’t currently work- it’s the behaviour of the husband. @Freckles10 has said that

• He tells her to be a SAHM
• He tells her she’s not good enough at housekeeping
• He feels trapped by her and their children, rather than loving them
• as well as wanting her to do more domestically and be a SAHM he wants her to get a job
• she has to offer a “grovelling apology” before he will get over his mantrum

Maybe experience has made me hypervigilant but this looks like a frog in boiling water to me. I can’t imagine that this tantrum is a one-off and nor can I believe that anything the OP does will actually solve the problems. Her husband has made his happiness her sole responsibility and that only ever ends one way.

He resents and bullies you. Emotionally abusive because financially you depend on him. Free yourself from this, life is too short to tolerate bs.

The reality of private school fees is very very hard. The bills come relentlessly. They rise 8% or so a year, they are huge. I put my youngest in private education for 2 years for 6th form and it almost killed me. 6 terms... you are looking at 7 years. with no treats, stress ++, rising fees and no fun times. And you do have to pay for extras, and exam fees, and, and, and
If he's feeling this bad now, it is madness to go ahead with private education

Your belief that you should fight for your marriage is misplaced here. If a snake bites you, you don’t fight to make it like you, you get away from it.
I agree with you OP that people should stop discussing your child’s school - that’s not the issue. The issue is that your husband doesn’t seem to like you and bullies you at the moment, you say he wasn’t like this before. What’s changed?

Ok if not emotional abuse it’s him being an arse with the monthly arguments come on you’ve wrote he will use it against you if you go on the weekend without him.

I’d be having that weekend away to take stock of your life not his yours. pity your now skint cos I’d be going back to therapy to find out why you’re appeasing him and apologising for it when it’s him.

as for work you need to do a plan of hours and see how you can make thst work because you both have to in it 50-50 with pick ups and drop offs and paying for the nursery and school together not just you.

Cos you’ll stay and be mindful in a few years you will be resentful of him and wonder why the hell did I do that

so we’ll see you in 2 years time then.

I say this cos that’s what I did and bloody hell I resented the bastard as it was subtle at first the abuse cos it’s abuse normal couples talk it out not argue monthly. It was always one sided always my fault not ours or his for whatever he was moaning over.

I got a job but he changed the arguments to something else it was tedious in the end so I left and yes he said to all he was blindsided.

Pim guessing there is another woman in the picture. Someone who is working and could go away on a fancy holidays with him

It sounds as though he wants out of the marriage, but doesn't want to be the one to actually do the leaving, and therefore make himself the villain.

He's setting you up very nicely in that role, you aren't earning, or doing enough around the house, you don't care about him enough to book expensive breaks away... and the list goes on.

I'd put money on him having his eye on someone else, or at the very least wanting out of the relationship. Don't discount another woman, you'd be surprised how many men can carry on affairs when all they do is work and go to the gym.

you say that he is both "happy with our outgoings" and "feels like a walking wallet"

He is conflicted. Maybe it is his way of saying that, actually, he is not ok with your outgoings.

So in that case i would set a time when you are both calm and go through the outgoings (you could prepare this info in advance to cut down the time it takes to do it and give him less time to get agitated about it. Then go through line by line, see what you both really agree on, what one of you doesn't agree on 100% and anything you both agree can stop.

But in any case: go back to work. Full time if you can find a job. He can cut his hours if necessary to step up on the parenting front. Otherwise you are just a nanny, right? (in the same way he is a wallet)