Unhappy, but am I throwing things away?

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Me and DP have been together for 9 years and we have a 3 year old DD. DP works away Monday - Friday and also has occasional work trips lasting between 1-3 weeks ( 5-6 times a year).

He covers a good deal of the household bills which enables me to work part time (although full time for me just wouldn’t work due to him being away) but I just feel so deeply unhappy/resentful.

I feel resentful of the time he gets alone every night while I am here dealing with difficult bedtimes, nightly wake ups and of course typical 3yo tantrums/behaviour. Generally although yes he’s away, most days he’ll only work until 3/4pm so not like he’s working hard into the evenings.

I also feel like things just aren’t the same anymore. Some weekends it’s like he hates me, looks and speaks to me with such contempt and I have brought this up before and he just says that isn’t the case. We don’t laugh anymore, we barely have sex and to be honest I don’t even really want to.

I fully understand that he may well be feeling resentful of me for getting to spend more time with our DD and I know he misses her so much when he’s away, but he gets all the fun bits at a weekend, meanwhile I am here in the thick of the daily grind and I just don’t think he gets how exhausting I find it. Meanwhile I’m trying to work/sort childcare around him being away/last minute work trips. My life comes second fiddle to his.

I want to bring it all up but I know it will end up in an argument whereby nothing will be resolved and he will effectively put words in my mouth and think that he knows how I’m feeling/what I’m trying to say.

I'm actually at the point where I want to end things but I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m doing the wrong thing especially with regards to DD. She loves her Daddy very much and he’s an excellent father to her when he is home but while he will take on the bulk of the care/entertainment/fun stuff at weekends, I’m just left catching up on stuff that didn’t get done during the week or I'm working. But she deserves a stable home with 2 parents although as it stands it mainly me and her alone anyway.

I just don’t really know how to go about bringing all this up, and feel terrified for the upheaval this will bring both mentally/financially.

Please help a gal out!

I would consider writing him a letter about the way he is speaking to you,not giving you any love or time if he blows up when you chat about this.
Has he ever expressed to him about this and where his resentment is coming from x

I would consider writing him a letter about the way he is speaking to you,not giving you any love or time if he blows up when you chat about this.
Has he ever expressed to him about this and where his resentment is coming from x

I think just being straight up is the best approach. When your DD is in bed or have a family member take care of her, tell your DH exactly what is on your mind. What is there to lose? You are already planning a an escape now it will be better to know where you stand once you communicate the problem directly to him.

I pondered this at length because I was so unhappy for years.

I decided I would be even worse off by myself amd hung in there.

Life as a single parent sounds awful from my friends who have ended up in that situation. Unrelenting hardship, poverty and hard work. And these are professionals.

I wouldn't do it by choice.

As a military wife there are some options for support you could consider. Your husband should be able to get you some couples counselling through welfare. It won’t solve all your problems but know many have used it and found it helpful.

It also sounds like you’re choosing as a family to have your husband weekly commute because you own your own home. I don’t know what support network you have where your home is, but it doesn’t sound like you’re getting much help. So it might be worth considering trying an SFA at his current posting and seeing if this improves matters. You can rent your home out and the military will cover the legal fees to do so.

Your child should be entitled to 30 hours childcare based on the age you said, which can also ease the burden on you… even if it just means you can spend some time in the week catching up on sleep and doing house jobs so that weekends can be proper family time.

military family life is a tough life and only you will know if your relationship is strong enough to withstand it. But I would recommend using the support available for exactly this type of struggle before you decide to leave

I would try and talk to him about it and how you feel, I’d also looking at going back to having a date night maybe once a month, maybe you just need to reconnect with each other again, it’s worth a go before you decide on a change that you may regret.

Couples counselor here.
I would absolutely suggest counselling for you two.
I'm going to paint the bigger picture, as far as I can tell from your post.

He was in the military when you decided to have a child. It was okay with you then, mainly because you had no idea how hard it would be to be the main caregiver 24/7 with no day-to-day support from your husband. 3 years in and you're drowning.

I get it. You're allowed to change your mind about a situation you thought would work out fine, but turns out to be a nightmare.
What you're not allowed to do, is resent your husband for doing exactly what you both agreed he would be doing, just because you've noticed your end of the deal isn't working out.
You're allowed to find motherhood hard. You're allowed to tell your husband how hard things are, to be 'on call' all day, every day.
What you're not allowed to do, is play the game of 'who's struggling more?', and battle him for the title of who drew the shortest end of the stick. Your struggling doesn't mean he doesn't have struggles of his own, and vice versa. The question shouldn't be 'why is it your fault that I'm struggling?'. The question should be 'how are we both struggling and what do we as a couple have to do to help each other cope?'

I'm sure that if he were the one posting, he'd have his own very valid story about why it's your fault that he's feeling a certain way. And again, it's not an either-or situation. You can both have very valid feelings of loneliness and disappointment in each other.

If you want to give this marriage any chance at succeeding, you both need to let go of your victim mentality, and stop painting each other as the villain in your story. He is not the origin of your problems, and you're not the origin of his.
You are both members of the same team. The happiness of all players on that team is what that team should be striving for, because the team isn't happy until every single one of the teammates is happy.

Sorry OP, it sounds like you have fallen out of love with him.
You say yourself you're not sure you even WANT him around more.
Really, it sounds like you want to split. Your DD can still see him at weekends, and you have the chance of seeing someone else or at least not feeling resentful every weekend.
It won't be easier for you though, it may be harder in many ways.
I'd be very surprised if your relationship could survive another couple of years of this, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was thinking along the same lines