How to navigate life with a DH who doesn’t want to participate in family life?

[Jammie12]

DH has an avoidant personality and I’ve only just realised this after being with him for years. We have two DC’s under 4 years old and it’s become very apparent since our recent baby he’s slowly checking out of family life. When life gets tough or we argue he wants to disappear and says he’s “done” without discussion then reappears like nothing happened. We mainly argue over the fact he never wanted to change after having DC’s, he wanted to come and go as he pleases, leave me to be the default parent. This is all started after the DC’s came along. With our eldest DC, he was involved in family life but since our second, he’s become distant. I feel like a single parent and a maid for him. I take the DC’s out alone most weekends, he wants to stay at home alone. He will be desperate to go back to work Monday, only talks about work and money. His life is work and sleep. I implemented some changes in the hopes I can feel better, I tell myself that this chapter in my life is just about raising the DC’s and loving myself . I started the gym, leaving baby with my mum for an hour during the day and I do feel better. Every time I go to speak to DH about the lack of involvement in our family life I bite my tongue and tell myself this is how it is. I’m deeply unhappy but I get moments of happiness. I don’t really know what I’m asking for.

How sad for your husband's kids. Quite surprising you want to tell MN what a massive bellend your husband is.

He's one of the many men who wants a wife and children, but doesn't want to be a husband or father
@LeebLeefuhLurve very succinct and very accurate!
@Jammie12 I wouldn't bother wasting your time and effort trying to reason with him, subtly & gradually cut him out of the loop, build a life for yourself and then cut loose from him.

So many woman are people pleasers who've had little or no parenting from their own fathers, it's no wonder the pattern continues when they have children of their own.

I married a man like this too. Left home at 6am to go to work, got back at 8pm once the kids were in bed. I was effectively a single parent, although also working full-time. We had endless arguments about it and in the end we split up. He now mainly works from home, in the same job! Which shows he could have done that all along, he just didn't want to.

I wouldn't actually start divorce proceedings until you've done some groundwork, made a plan to make sure that you can work everything to your own advantage.
He believes he's superior to you and he will not play fair, don't give him a chance to get the better of you or come out the winner.

Wow. What a low bar for women, and what they are role modelling to their children. Men must just bloody laugh their socks off at what some women will put up with.

I'd say it's because people who are inclined to be selfish and self-absorbed are able to pretend otherwise, but when it becomes real and they are required to actually make the sacrifices they find themselves extremely unwilling to do so.
Also, 'love is blind'!

'demand avoidance' @PrettyPickle
Oh come on, that's not a mental illness, it's code for being a selfish immature arsehole!

Where is your list of pro’s about ‘DH’ what is he bringing to your life?

annoys me when mumsnetters jump straight to LTB but would you & the children actually be happier?

There is no way to navigate it. DH was a lazy bastard when it came to parenting our DC and he's no different with the grandchildren. If I had my time over again, I'd have binned him off when I first started feeling resentful. The truth is he's brought nothing to our family other than financially. And that's not enough.

My otherwise lovely DH didn't want kids as he didn't want to share.

I think this is an aspect that's not talked about but really does sink a lot of relationships, once DC come along, that and the actual work.

I also think this avoidant thing is bollocks.

Well said.

OP, this is really relevant.

You leave.

So you want to be petty & teach your children that relationships are toxic.

great lesson for the kids

Would you want your children to think this is an acceptable way for a relationship to “function”?

the OP isn’t teaching them that. Her partner is.

I wasn’t responding to the OP there. I was responding to someones suggestion of playing tit for tat

The thing is, you are surely describing someone who is 'lovely' provided he gets his own way?
I don't mean to speak against you @Chatsbots but isn't that what is going on? Another man* who is only happy if he is the boss and everyone obeys him.

*Yes women can be like this too, but compared to men there are fewer of them and they have a lesser ability to perpetrate their selfishness (imo).

Do you work? I’d be plotting to leave. This is a miserable marriage and very soon your children will be picking up on the toxic atmosphere, if they haven’t already.

So many men don’t actually want children. They do it to make the woman happy (ironically) without giving any real thought to how much of a sacrifice it is. This is why it’s absolutely laughable when, on age gap threads, posters inevitably clamour to tell a 40 year-old OP that her 20something boyfriend will definitely leave her after a few years “when he wants to have kids”. Yeah, right…

I agree that they often don't give much thought as to how much of a sacrifice it is, but I think that many women also don't really realize until it happens. The difference is that the man knows it's easy for him to just dump it all on her because she is the one who will be more upset if the child suffers.
I'm not sure that men have children to make women happy. I think it's more a case of wanting to keep her occupied, limit her freedom and her earning capacity so that she is less likely to leave him without the benefits of all the services she provides him for free.

Next time he says ‘he’s done’ and disappears, pack his stuff up and make sure it’s waiting for him when he returns. Tell him your done and follow it through.

Honestly….I went through this for years with my ex, I did all the parenting, I did the weekend trips out alone and eventually even took the DC’s on holiday alone. Eventually I put my foot down and kicked him out. I wish I had done it much sooner. He wasn’t helping with the dc, it was like having an extra dc when he was home. Things were much easier when we split.

I disagree with the last paragraph. When a woman wants to remain child-free, it’s a very unusual man who tries to get her to agree to children so she is “occupied”. If anything, men hate losing their wife’s attention to children and being ‘de-prioritised’ to the extent some actively envy their children.

"DH has an avoidant personality"

God these endless labels are so depressing. They imply a genuine psychological disorder or even a reasonable excuse. They are neither. The fact is that your DH doesn't want to be a father and family man. He doesn't like it. Pure and simple. You've got very little chance of him changing OP so, unless you leave him, this is your future.