Would be grateful for some insight. I grew up with an abusive father and an emotionally immature mother who was not able to protect us from his abuse. We also grew incredibly isolated and I have absolutely no reference for what a normal, healthy marriage looks like.
I'd say overall my husband isn't a terrible man. He is conscientious about world issues, worries about his mum, is an active father, and is fairly religious. But from thr very start of our relationship he's has often put me down. Before marriage it was very occasional and usually limited to one issue (my social naivety/ineptness), but it's become much more of an issue since getting married. I'm going to give you one recebt example to illustrate my point I recently got back to work after maternity leave. He was asking about my day and I explained that I'd been placed on one-to-one assessments of some students (I am a clinician working at university). He then responding with something like "so you just sat down and watched them all day without having to do much". And I said no, actually I have to perform the entire examination myself alongside assessing them since the students are not yet qualified. He still persisted with the suggestion that I actually didn't haven't to do much despite my protests.
I cannot tell if he's just a know it call or he's deliberately trying to undermine me. I remember when trying to breast feed he kept coming up with ridiculous things like I don't have milk because I'm pumping so much (to this day he doesn't accept that pumping increases supply). We were visiting distant family once and he didn't even trust me to buy them a gift. When we were planning our house renovation he kept overriding my decisions because he was the one paying for it. When we travelled to another city for a festival, I asked him to book a certain hotel nearby the venue and he proceeded to book a self catering apartment in a really rough part of town for exactly the same price.
When we argue he brings up the same stuff- how I don't drive don't speak our native language well, how socially inept I am, how naive I am, I don't like what real adult life is about because in my last rental before moving in together my rent included a few bills (I have been responsible for all bills in previous rentals), how clumsy I am. He once joked that I was rough like an MMA fighter when I elbowed him lightly by accident in the car. Q
He rarely makes me feel cherished. He doesn't remember my birthday or anniversaries and never has. He rarely bothers with gifts. And if he does get me flowers (maybe twice in our entire marriage) he just makes it into such a big deal.
I don't actually feel comfortable being myself around him anymore. I'm very conscious that I'm shrinking myself when with him. I suppose I know what the answer is to my question. Still I'd love to hear from anyone else in a similar lookin marriage.