Dh a completely different person at home

[BoringWifey]

I met dh through work 20 years ago. He was charming, funny, suave, outgoing, and chatty. He was the Work Social Committee chair for five years. He’s known as a “brilliant” people manager, excellent judge of character. He is fair, encouraging and generous. He still is like this 20 years later but only at work, with his friends, with his wider family.

With me and our dd, he is a totally different person. He was fine with dd when she was little but now she’s a teen he increasingly treats her like me. Cold, sullen, sarcastic, impatient, no eye contact, no affection.

We do have a younger son, too - and dh is all smiles, hugs, affection. So I know he still can put on this act if he wants.

I called him out on it years ago, cue lots of gaslighting, then an admission that he is an introvert so he needs to shut down and be his authentic self at home - so dd and are getting the real him and no one else

I tell him off when he is “moody” like this with dd and he gets angry and says I’m imagining it, or he has to play bad cop because I’m being too nice to her.

I have ignored it for so long but he’s started working from home and all day I can hear his loud happy meetings - laughter, in-jokes, chatting away. I ask him about it and tells me this is a gargantuan effort to maintain this front for his job.

No one would ever believe me if I told them what he’s like at home.

The person I thought I married is just someone else altogether. I think he regrets marrying me, I offered to leave 8 years ago but he insisted I stay and for a while things were better.

Im so baffled. Did I make him this way? Any experience and any ideas how to make him be any different at home?

Settling for him despite all the shit he throws your way is exactly the reason he will never change. He knows that no matter how bloody awful he is, you will put up with it and MUCH more importantly, you will allow your daughter to be badly treated
that’s incredibly sad.

In adulthood, don’t be surprised if your dd distances herself from you. If you fail her in adolescence, you are unlikely to have a strong relationship with her once she’s an adult and can look at this with maturity

It's sad to see how this has left you feeling like you are the one who is hard to live with, and that you need to do better to improve the situation.
I probably would have hung about longer thinking something similar if my exh hadn't done me the favour of having a very obvious affair. In retrospect I put up with it too long; we were together 20 years too. I'm glad I have experienced a different kind of relationship since and hope you get to do so too, one day.

If you read the threads about being with someone who is Neurodivergent (not saying he is) you’ll find a lot of women in relationships where they have spent years thinking they were the problem and are now suffering significant physical issues because of the toll constantly messing with their mental health, changing themselves to make someone else happy, absorbing all the unpleasant behaviour to make it all ok, has taken on their bodies. This will happen to you. It’s not you it’s him, he doesn’t like you or love you enough to be decent to you. Being someone who needs timeout doesn’t mean you have to be an unpleasant wanker, you just take yourself off. He’s making a choice to never give you the good side. Do you want your daughter to end up with a man who treats her this way? His treating your son well should make it clear he doesn’t like women. Honestly get a divorce, live the rest of your life happy. It isn’t you being a little messy or disorganised, that doesn’t give someone else the right to be constantly shitty towards you.

I couldn’t live like this. And it seems way more extreme than simply being an introvert.

He’s not an introvert he’s an arsehole OP. You have internalised his negative comments about you. Leave him and show your daughter she doesn’t have to do the same.

You sound like me with my ex. I was convinced that I was very difficult to live with, and that men found 'women like me' (read professional, competent, organized, outgoing, curious, outspoken) challenging and this is the best I could get. I used to spout this nonsense to my friends and my partner when we first met, and they all thought I was mad as that was not their experience of me.

Guess what, I left, I am in a happy healthy relationship, I have lovely friends (friendships I've maintained for decades even), and a happy bouncy child. My ex was and is the problem. He is still angry and controlling. He'd just gaslit me over the years into thinking I was the problem. As your DH appears to have done to you. Get out and you will get perspective!

@BoringWifey how would you feel if your daughter turned round and said the same thing - it’s obviously her fault dads like this as he’s fine with everyone else. That she thinks there’s something wrong with her. That she needs to change to appease dad. That she needs to tiptoe round on eggshells to manage his moods.

stop being a martyr. The atmosphere isn’t invisible to your children. Why should they grow up in a home like this?

Maybe if you separated and he had all the time on his own to ‘unmask’ then the time he spent with the kids would be much better.

of course he doesn’t want you to leave. It suits him you staying on as wife etc and taking care of things and you’ve been trained to accept his behaviour and moods and sulking.

it’s not you. It’s him. Stop asking what he wants and needs. Start looking at what your children deserve and you need long term.

They seem able to keep up the 'what a great chap' act with everyone else, don't they?

That's not introversion. Absolutely fucking not. He's still gaslighting you.

He is a Phony

He sounds like a classic narcissist, maintaining an image of a great guy to the outside world, whilst reverting true to type with you and your family. I was with mine for 20 years, and I could never understand why he would drop everything to help an acquaintance and never ever put the effort in with his family.
When he was home with us he would mainly sleep because as he got older he was exhausted living a double life.
He did help me out with the leaving by having multiple affairs, but I was the one that had to end things, he would have never given up the comfort and the family guy image.
I am nearly 2 years out with 3 teenage children and he is stringing out the divorce by delaying paperwork all whilst being shacked up with a girl 22 years younger than him.
Once you see through them you can never reconcile that version of yourself that stayed for so long again.

He,s a narcissist sociopath, you deserve a medal and your nerves must be shot, get rid of him xxx

So you’ll never leave him and just try and change to keep him?

you are as complicit as he is in providing a horrible childhood for your children - your daughter especially.

I will never understand women who just fuck their lives up like this. For a man. A man! Why would you? Bowing and scraping and appeasing some bloke will become your life’s work

what a waste

He definitely sounds like he has narcissistic personality disorder. Read up on it - you will feel like you are reading about him. I lived with a husband like that for many years, and then saw it in other family members too. It is classic to make you feel like you are the one who has done something wrong - that’s how they maintain control over you and probably why he chose you in the first place, because you’re an empath. Sadly, it is unlikely he will change and it is quite damaging for the children, even for your son who sounds like he has been chosen as the golden child. This is also classic narcissistic parenting in order to maintain control - keeping one as the favoured child and treating others badly. As hard as it might feel, I would consider leaving him and finding a healthier relationship with a more emotionally mature and well developed person. Some therapy/counselling with someone who understands NPS can really help make sense of it all. Wishing you all the best and sending hugs.

This is a brilliant book on it: amzn.eu/d/inm4Qex

A lot of people can be like this to an extent. Masking at work and then being exhausted at the end of the day so needing lots of down time. However, it shouldn't be all the time at home and effort with one child but not the other. Is he always moody or is it that he is just not always happy and energetic?
You said you will never leave so I will offer advice for staying. Can you ask him to set some sort of schedule where he has down time at home and isn't expected to be happy and sociable but then ask that he spends one day at the weekend switched on and engaging with you and DD? Could you ask him if there are low stimulation activities you can enjoy together like the cinema or a quiet country walk?

Street angel, house devil. You must model how to manage this behaviour to your daughter and your son.

Honestly don’t know he people live like this. Can’t imagine staying with someone like this. Just nasty. Life is too short to be unhappy. Get out and enjoy the rest of your life.

This is abuse , OP. you must protect your daughter from this. The fact he is awful to your daughter and not your son shows he is in control of it. Appalling behaviour from him.

If you feel like the positives outweigh the negatives sufficiently for you to want to stay, then that's one thing. It wouldn't be for me, but it's your life. But I can't believe you're fine to just keep letting your daughter be treated like that. Using your logic, that it must be you and something you're "doing or not doing" then what is she doing wrong?

If he can put on a good face for your son there's no reason he can't do it for your daughter. They live in the same house, presumably he spends the same or similar amount of time with them.

I mean, usually I'd say if he can do it for his co-workers he can do it for his daughter but apparently not....

She might love him but lots of women love their abusers. Do you want her to be in a relationship like this in 20 years?

It's called narcissistic behaviour.Being that lovely bloke who will do anything to help others outside of the home but can't keep up the cover when at home making you and your family feel second best and worthless.He will deny any wrong doing keep you happy when he thinks he has gone too far then revert back to his normal self keeping you on eggshells.My children now in their 30s have suffered mental anguish because of the same.Get out while you can.

Exactly the phrase I was going to use. He sounds awful, abusive and nasty. He doesn't need managing, he needs leaving.

Which means that your daughter will 'keep looking for ways to change herself and adapt', especially as she'll seen how he treats her brother

Is that what you want to teach her?

I hope you are not giving him satisfaction in the bedroom? Treat him like he treats you.

i was coming on to recommence Lundy Bancroft. It’s the Mr Nice Guy abuser profile - the Americans call it street angel/house devil.

Its shit and will be impacting your daughter