I’ve been with my partner close to 15 years we have a child together who is under 2. I find it so difficult spending time with my Oh and I know it’s not normal.
im extremely close to my family and we do a lot of things together… but I often hope that my OH doesn’t want to come. Which he so often doesn’t. I find that particularly around others he acts very indifferent. I feel like he goes out his way to be defiant and say how rubbish everything is if he knows it’s soemthing everyone is enjoying.
He often undermines me in front of others and will say I’m lazy and makes little digs or will say I don’t do things I should be doing. I have told him that this is something my family would hate to witness and I feel like now they tolerate him.
I do often get excited about little things that we’re going to be doing or something I’ve bought for our child or the house and he barely acknowledges. Or i could tell him a piece of information and he won’t acknowledge but if im telling a friend or family emmeber something he’ll say she doesn’t tell me anything. I do find myself withdrawing from him and often will be in the car having wee conservations in my head thinking about different things and he’ll say I’m quiet but it’s mainly because when I do talk I get little back.
when we first got together he showed a lot of controlling and manipulating behaviours something we had lots of disagreements about… he definitely would gaslight me and i threatened to end the relationship many times but he always said sorry that he would change. And he did… except he went from one spectrum to another and totally lost interest in doing anything with me… but then we had a good couple of years and then we had a baby and he was mostly wonderful while I was pregnant. Apart from a few occasions like refusing to give me a lift to work when I was 8 months pregnant because it was his day off.. but since the baby has been born I found that some of that controlling behaviour has crept back up and he belittles me in front of people, shows little interest in other people when in their company. Truth is he can be great… he can tell me yeah we should do that… and then will turn around and say I didn’t say that. He can tell a lighthearted joke that I find amusing and will retell it to others and he’ll say he didn’t say it.
he’ll tell me he would do anything for me and whatever I want etc and can be so loving but his moods are so interchangeable.
I now feel like he critiques everything and almost like he doesn’t want me to succeed. I tell him that it’s exhausting that he disagrees with everything I said and he will say it’s his opinion. If I tell him I’m upset with a remark he tells me I always focus on the the negative and I’ll acknowledge that he didn’t mean it that way but he’ll refuse to acknowledge that it hurt my feelings.
we can have lovely evenings watching films and having a laugh. The main concern was with how he acts around others… and how I don’t enjoy spending time with him doing things. But now I feel like he’s making snide remarks at me.
he doesn’t stop me from seeing friends and family but everytime I tell him plans he’ll say well you can’t do that and rhyme off a random reason and then will say kidding.
or I’ll say that me and the baby are staying at families and he’ll guilt trip about leaving him alone and when I says it’s okay I’ll come home he tells me no it’s fine he was joking because truthfully I think he likes when he’s alone.
if I didn’t see my friends and family the truth is we wouldn’t do anything.
I don’t know if I’m being over sensitive and I know this was a massive ramble that probably doesn’t make sense.
but I do wonder if he has some sort of personality disorder? I also wondered if he was suffering from postnatal depression, he yelled at our 2 day old baby to go to sleep and as someone who is a massive night owl I was so shocked that he found it so difficult.
i just feel a bit lost and don’t know how to bring the subject up as he gets defensive and annoyed. He’ll ask for examples and then I struggle to think or if I think of one he’ll come away with some excuse that often doesn’t make sense and when I say that I don’t understand he gets mad and will tell me the conversation is over and walks away. He might huff for a little and then will come and give me a hug and say sorry. Sometimes.
I find it hard to say how I feel out loud I guess from fear of being misunderstood.
i don’t know what I’m really asking but perhaps some perspective? Or if I’m being overly sensitive or just ways for us to reconnect.