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?

You say that you will never leave. And that's exactly why he does not feel any need to change his nasty behavior. He's got you under his thumb.
And of course there is nothing you can do to change yourself and adapt because as long as he feels that you are willing to do that again there is no need for him to behave in a decent way.
Can I ask you what kind of childhood you had? I bet you had at least one parent who was abusive to you - physically or emotionally. And you hoped that by being a good girl the parent would in the end be nice with you.
It's the exact same pattern in your marriage.
It will not change. Also not if you would be more assertive because that will provoke tremendous rage in him, as I have seen with my own abusive ex. I am not like you. At first I did not understand what was happening, how could this nice charming man be so mean all of a sudden. But it did not take long before I started countering him, no way I would put up with this unprovoked nastiness. And then he got really mean and we broke up. I was heartbroken because I had wanted to make it work but after a while I understood that I dodged a bullet.
Of course it's your choice to stay with him. BUT your children are not able to make that choice.
If you don't leave you risk that they will hold this against you.
And BTW your DS is still small so now your husband is nice with him. But I bet that the moment you son grows older and has his own personality your DH might try to break him.

You aren’t the one that needs to change.

It’s not you, it’s him.

To matter what you do nothing will make a narcissistic man like this any better. You sound like “changing” will help but you will start bit by bit to hand “ power” over to your husband. You could find yourself in an extremely abuse relationship eventually ( though I would class Him as abuse right now).

How much adapting do you think you can do? The goalposts will always move, you'll never feel good enough or that you've cracked it, because his behaviour of you will never change.
Do you think it's fair your DD should also constantly adapt to win the approval of her father and men in general??

You and your DD should feel reliably loved without having to change who you are.

Do you even know what changes you need to make??

The best you can do is become more independent and confident so you're not reliant on some dickhead man's option of you.

Just no , if he were genuinely an introvert then he’d be outgoing at work and quiet at home .
He is not a good person

I can relate to this because this is how I am! I still manage to maintain my high energy, fun loving self with my daughter but not with my husband sadly. I have ADHD and I’m also quite introverted so finds when I’m at home I actually need space to myself without having to interact and put on the front that I have to put on all day long. I don’t have any answers for you and I’m sorry you’re in this situation because it must be hard as I’m fully aware of my own mannerisms.

He is that shiny person to people or situations he considered valuable or are beneficial to him. It's not necessarily an act, more like the way he prioritises his effort or generosity. Don't allow him to pathologise it.

Any feelings he has towards you or your marriage is NO excuse for behaving this way with your daughter. It sounds to me like you've simply lost your value to him. He likely didn't want you to leave because you're currently fulfilling most of his needs, even though he behaves like a twat. The way he behaves with your daughter should be leaving material in itself .

@Reachedtheend My father is the same. It's clear to me that he doesn't love me and isn't interested in me at all as a person, and never has been. He's made no effort to show any any real interest in my life of interests. In fact, he mostly behaves as if he dislikes me, even when I was a child, despite being well behaved. I could deal with a lack of interest, but he often behaves like a bully, someone I need to watch out for, someone I can't be vulnerable with, lest they laugh at me or use it to as an enjoyable opportunity to scold me for the tiniest, most insignificant error that anyone (including himself) could do. In the past he has enjoyed provoking me to the point of tears - it's enjoyable sport for him and you can see it in the smirks and enjoyment on his face.

I really don't think that's the same thing as what the OP. Her husband is just being a dickhead to her and her daughter, and he'll continue being that way until she leaves him.

Agree. Google covert narcisism and see how many boxes he ticks.

Especially the gaslighting.

i was married to one of these for a long time. Leave! You don't need his permission and this is a really unhealthy environment for both your kids to grow up in. And you also deserve far better.

If he's an introvert, he's in the wrong job. He needs a job where he can be calm, be himself and not feel the need to take out his anxiety/frustration on you and DD. That is so wrong. I suspect he loves the attention and praise he gets from his work place. He won't change because that's who he is - a performer. Quite sad, really.

The only way is out. You mustn't keep adjusting your behaviour in order to appease him; that'll have a serious affect on your mental health and it doesn't actually seem to make an ounce of difference.

How long before he turns on your DS?

My H was like this. To the point where once, he had been picking at me all day. We went out that night, to meet some new friends, and as we got to the pub he said, “why on Earth are you wearing that? You look awful.”

Then he went on to charm the wife of the couple so well that within weeks she left her husband and they’re married now!

My dd talks about how much lovelier life is these days and how she used to walk on eggshells around her dad. That makes me very sad, though I thought I was doing the right thing staying at the time.

I wish you all the happiness, OP. You deserve better.

Please get out and take your children with you. My so-called dad treated me very differently to my brother (i.e. the golden child, because he was the boy that my dad always wanted). I suspect that was the beginning of a wedge between us, which never really recovered. As adults, we don't speak unless we happen to see each other at family events.

It's really damaging to your confidence when you're the child that gets the negative treatment by one parent. No amount of the other parent trying to make up for that, and treating both children the same, will make up for that.

My husband is like this and so is my father. My husband could network, give presentations, manage hundreds of people then at home we see the shell, quiet, moody, tired , miserable. Unfortunately this lead to a breakdown as he couldn't sustain it and he hasn't worked for 4 years.
My dad is 80 now. He worked in government and was and is an extremely social person. He wants to be talking to other people all the time and hates being alone. Unfortunately my mum and I were the ones who had to bear the brunt of a bad temper, delusions of grandeur and the worst the after effects of alcohol consumption as all of the socialising involved drinking. Even on Xmas day my dad was drunk at the dinner table. I was desperate to leave to moved out with the first boyfriend I had at 21, the above mentioned. Now im stuck with someone who brings me no joy whatsoever. I've been a fool but I strongly advise you if you are brave enough to separate

You’re being weirdly self-absorbed and self-aggrandising to imagine you can control his behaviour OP. Do you really think you have that power? You don’t.

Honestly, it’s not about you. This is him, it’s who he is, it’s how he would behave with any woman.

You’re just that, ‘a woman’ to him. A useful possession he lost interest in as soon as he gained ‘ownership’.

Stop flattering yourself that he cares what you think or feel. He doesn’t. He never will.

My exh was like this. I think it's a real hazard of marrying someone you meet at work - people can put on a persona and that's who you think they are. The real person is both, so you can't change him. Decide if you can live with it or leave.