Bloody fed up of critical DH

[Coffeeandcake32]

Just need to vent really and see if I'm being unreasonable! Not to drip feed my DH is generally great- a good dad, provider and takes responsibility for basically everything in the house in terms of sorting finances, DIY, holidays, admin etc (by his own choice). I work part time and do the vast majority of looking after our 5 year old DS.
I have dysphraxia which I think DS has inherited and this seems to irritate my perfectionist DH but to be fair he isn't too critical of DS. He is a bit of a control freak and good at whatever he turns his hand too and cannot understand other people struggling.
I do tend to struggle with my dysphraxia with things that others might find easy and he pick holes in whatever I do. If I even stack the dishwasher incorrectly I get a nagging session from DH (so most days). If I clean he will find something out of place even though I am pretty thorough. I've bit back numerous times asking what he hopes to achieve and I admit I'm not perfect as I do snap back a lot of the time but don't know how to handle this. What made me write this thread was yesterday I was in a and e with my son most of the day. He picked us up and when we got back complained that I had hung the bedding up incorrectly and it would have dried completely if I had done it correct...as you can imagine after a long day in a and e I was fuming

Yes he is controlling and controls your relationship among other things, so stop complying, For example, he does all the finances - you take some on, he arranges holidays - you arrange the next one, you do all childcare - give him some childcare to do. Share out these rather rigid role divisions, and become more of a partnership. At the moment it sounds like he is the captain of the ship and you are crew.

What can’t you “work out?” He compliments you sporadically on the attributes that he likes which are those that give him pleasure (beauty, motherwork) and otherwise insults you for everything else. This objectifies you as an object of beauty or utility. It doesn’t constitute real appreciation for you. On the contrary this kind of compliment by someone otherwise hostile or critical of you is arguably manipulative and abusive as the approval he offers centers himself as the arbiter of what is good. He approves your beauty or your mothering one day, but withdraws it another. He has the power to judge you.

He also gets pissy if other men appear (or can be made to appear) to be attentive to you as that infringes his ownership rights. that is very bad.

The phrase "do it your bloody self then" may be pertinent on these occasions, as well as "when you're 100% perfect, I may listen, but as that's impossible, shut the fuck up and back off".

Well it depends on how badly you’re doing things imo. If this was the other way around I think people would be saying it’s weaponised incompetence.

It’s hard to tell whether he is a control freak or whether you’re doing things so badly he’s having to do them again, for example, with the dishwasher if you’re just chucking everything in then it’s going to need to washed again, which is would be really frustrating.

Weaponised incompetence is doing household or life admin tasks so badly that the other person thinks and or believes that they are better off doing this themselves.

He is a control freak. He's even berated his wife after she has been to A and E with her son for not drying the washing properly.

These are not the actions of a good man. His mother has also stated her son has always been a critical person (probably learnt as a behaviour from his father). OP herself grew up with a critical sounding mother, this from her H is a continuation of what she already knows.

He sounds like a control freak. I couldn't live with someone who is constantly critical. My friend ended up divorcing her husband over this - he would come home from work and start hoovering even when she told him she'd already done it that morning, he 'didn't think she'd done it properly'. It's undermining and soul destroying.

@Coffeeandcake32 my advice would be, whenever he criticises you about something like loading the dishwasher or hanging out the washing, to say calmly "you are very welcome to do it yourself if you want it done differently". Don't enter into an argument about which way is right or wrong. Just repeat this phrase every single time.

I hate to be the first one to bring up the 'A' word on this thread, but needing things to be done in a certain way is a sign of autism.

I firmly believe there absolutely is a perfectly optimal way to stack a dishwasher and hang out laundry (and several dozen other household tasks). I do these tasks in this best way, the same way, every single time. I cannot for the life of me understand why DH has not learned, in all these years, why my way is the best, and why he puts zero effort into learning and remembering these methods.

But I have also learned that as an adult he has the absolute right to stack the dishwasher (and do all the other tasks) however he wants, so I just bite my tongue and rearrange it if I get the chance before turning it on.

Your DH has not yet learned to respect you as a fully grown adult who is entitled to do things sub-optimally.

To be fair, I agree with you @AttilaTheMeerkat .

This behaviour sounds lie it is in the weave of his personality.

OP, this sounds hopeless and it will wear you down like water on a rock.

Of course there is more than one optimal way to do anything. Speed, cost, pain, opportunity cost are also factors in determining the “best” way to pack the dishwasher or hang the laundry. Its nit all about geometry.

For instance if I have a screaming baby to feed and know my inlaws are coming to dinner I may choose to bung the plates into the dishwashers using speed and timing as my metric for best rather than tidiness or perfection of orientation. Why? Because I need to do it fast i order to feed the baby, I need to do it now to have things clean and put away before X time. Its not “sub optimal “ at all. I am optimizing different things than the mere geometry if the internal placement of objects.

Fuck blaming potential autism. He's a dictator in his own home.

Yes, you are quite possibly correct. But that is not how my autistic brain works.

OP - I'm not saying your DH is autistic, he may well not be. But my point is he is not treating you as an adult, an equal. That is a huge issue.

He gets jealous when other people compliment you - as if you were his possession.
He takes care of all the finances and admin - treating you as a dependent child that he has to provide for.
Time for a big conversation and a re-set on the relationship.
As an absolute minimum you need full access to all finances and bills - knowing passwords and log-in details, having bills and finances in joint names, etc.
Then make sure you do actually log in and check stuff from time to time - just to prove to yourself and him that you are an equal adult.

If he cannot treat you with respect, the relationship is dead.

I do agree with that.

he then also gets jealous if others compliment me whether they are male or female!

He's a cunt.

I just csnt work out his psyche at all

I can. He's a cunt.

Did you actually hang the washing so it was creased and couldn't dry? Do you stack the dishwasher so it doesn't clean the dishes?

That sort of incompetence would drive me nuts - especially if it made things unpleasant or made more work for me. You say he works hard and puts in effort at home - does he need to pick up your slack? If a wife described her husband as doing chores badly, he would be accused of learned helplessness or strategic incompetence.

Constant criticism is horrible and he needs to work on communicating with you respectfully and lovingly. You also need to reflect on whether there are improvements you can make that lighten the load on him.

Couples counselling may be helpful to break the resentment cycle you both seem to be stuck in.

The ‘A’ word I was thinking of is asshole. Tell him the criticism stops right now or you will divorce him.

Oh, I feel for you OP. Sounds like my husband used to act, it got bad after our DC was born. I had answers like these on repeat "there is more than one way of doing things" or "Oh, that's how you'd do it? Oh, well" or "It's done now, you want to redo it, go ahead." or "you are bossier than your mother" (which always shut him up for a couple of days).

I read about how bossiness can be related to anxiety, needing to control things to reduce the 'what ifs'... I asked him to go to the GP, and now he's on drugs and in therapy and we're all happier. Now, when I upset him or he feels insecure he can say why and how, instead of getting pissy about the dishwasher.

There's an article on control as a response to anxiety here:

slate.com/life/2025/02/trump-musk-bossy-anxiety-therapy-tips.html

When that lovely boy is a teenager he will fall in for the criticism. Honestly he sounds awful. You won’t know yourself on your own. Let him go play dishwasher Tetris in a bedsit by himself

The issue isn't about the dishwasher, or the washing. We pretty much all think our way is the best way of doing things. The issue is about communication and compromise.

Can you sit down and ask him what exactly he feels when someone does something that isn't the way he'd do it?

Is it anger? Does it upset him? Does he feel disrespected? Does he want to help try and fix it?

Or is there something bigger going on? I snapped at my partner the other day as a pan from the night before hasn't been washed up properly.

I didn't snap because of the pan, I was upset because I was tired and exhausted and I'd felt like he's not been pulling his weight over the last couple of weeks, because of that I had been a bit of a martyr so was being an utter perfectionist about the house so the moment I saw something not done properly (which was totally accidental on his part), I snapped! In reality I hadn't had the conversation with him to say 'hey, I am struggling right now, I need you to take on more'

What I'm trying to get at is there a bigger issue underneath the surface? Has your relationship changed with having kids? Are you as close as before? Is he resentful for deciding to take on the house admin?

I think this is a case of both of you don't know how to handle this, so you're in a cycle of he gets frustrated and criticises you, that frustrates you and you clap back - I don't think that's gender specific, I think that's a very common relationship dynamic!

It might be that he's just a controlling dick. Maybe that's the case. But it's clear that there is a hell of a lot of resentment building, which is a relationship killer. Would some couples therapy be something you'd both be willing to try?

Ops hs behaviours is nothing whatsoever to do with autism. Stating otherwise shows a poor understanding of autism which is a triad of social impairments. His own mother says he was critical as a child.

Couples therapy is not recommended where there is abuse of any type within the relationship. Abuse too is not a relationship issue, it is about power and control. I doubt very much he speaks to his work colleagues like he does to his wife.

In terms of the practical issues re the dishwasher stacking etc, appreciate i might have been a bit vague but I'm not incompetent in terms of housework etc - things are in order and clean. I just feel it's more picking holes with things than anything so do agree with PP about there being resentment lying there. We got together when we were young so I do feel like we may have stayed with each other out of habit- I do love him but just feel we aren't compatible the older we have gotten. Maybe there is also a part of me that is fearing to leave as its kind of been internalised in me that I can't cope without him

Of course you can and will cope without him, in fact I think you will thrive. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Your mother was/is critical and your h is just the same, it’s what you already know. Read the gift of fear.

I was just about to say "I think you aren't compatible" then saw you wrote it in your last message, sorry, it's rubbish, some women are happy to be criticised and pulled up on every little thing 24/7 and it doesn't bother them they just want to please their man!!! I dont think that's you. He wont change, you will have to if you are to make it work. IMO

I think the picking is definitely a resentment thing.

This could be of you directly, or of something else he is contending with that he feels you might judge him for ( which could be in his mind).

Do you think there is an area of his life he feels he is incompetent / underperforming in? Do you think he feels he doesn’t make enough money for instance ? And if so, do you think he wonders if you judge him for whatever this could be? Ie; is it retaliatory judgment ( in his mind)? “ Well you’re not so great yourself…”

Alternatively, do you think he blames you directly for something in his life that isn’t ideal, but is projecting his frustration with you onto other issues rather than confront it?

Imo, you're not being unreasonable. Life's exhausting and being in A&E feels traumatic to me as an individual, I completely understand you were fed up.

One thing I noticed about perfectionists, they will never change. It's just the reality of human evolution, because people like your DH drive progress. They keep things in order, they sort out the mess.

As time goes by, he'll get more picky if you don't show some tangible change, so he sees you seriously consider his nagging/corrections. If you're vulnerable at a correct time, he'll relax about it after a short nag. Overall it seems you both need to talk about what irritates you openly and how to create workable changes together. Stay calm, polite and sincere throughout, otherwise you'll be the baddie.

Make sure to watch a nice comedy every evening, at least 20 mins. Something like Would I Lie To You. Humour is such a fantastic cure to many problems. ❤️