I just don't know what to do anymore....

[tearfulmummy]

I've name changed to do this thread. I'm a long-standing regular MNetter.

I just need some help/advice about my relationship with my DH. We have two daughters.

I have been with DH for almost 20yrs. He is a lovely caring guy, when he wants to be. He has a temper. I saw it this morning.

He works extremely hard and puts his job first and foremost in his life, even before me and the kids. This has always been a bug-bear for me. Whilst I know holding down a full-time job is important I don't see it should always come first. He is in charge of his own working day. He can make changes to his day if he chooses to. When it comes to me and the kids he won't.

He has no relationship with his parents. He blames me for that. They never liked me from day one. They've always made it obvious they don't like me. They preferred his first wife. We have not seen them for many years. They've not even met our youngest daughter. Their choice, not ours. We ring them - they put the phone down. We text them - no reply. They live a 2hr drive away. His Father once said to me on one of our first visits that I was the girlfriend on the rebound. He has also called me some vicious names in the past and has made some very threatening comments about my family. As a result I do not like or trust DH's family.

DH's temper was awful this morning. I told him I'd had enough of being stuck at home. I desperately want to go back to work but I have the children to consider. My youngest is due to start school this Autumn but finding a job that will fit with school-runs is almost impossible around here. The schools themselves have no part-time work either. I told him I'd love to go out one evening, even just for a drink, but there is no-one to have the kids. I have friends but I don't like to ask them. DH has no friends - he is always too wrapped up with work to keep his mates outside work.

I told him to f-off this morning. I'd had enough. He keeps me awake with his snoring. He doesn't come to bed until the early hours because he watches rubbish on tv. He wakes me up when he comes to bed. We have no sex life whatsoever. I can't remember the last time we had sex - must be last year. When I told him to f-off this morning his reply was 'ok, I'm off'. I told him not to come back. His reply was 'ok, fine'. He was stood at the stairs and he told me to push him down the stairs. He kept telling me to push him...'come on push me down the stairs then'. Needless to say I didn't.

We have no money. We are fully skint. I am struggling to keep our fridge full. DH's money is good but with our mortgage and general outgoings we have next to nothing to live off. I have a car which I've considered getting rid of but I know if I do I'll need it for some emergency or other. I have an elderly Mum who doesn't drive and lives 10 miles away. My Dad died some years ago. I can't get rid of the car in case she needs me. I can't afford to run the car but its legal, that's about it.

I worry that the kids are picking up on the bad state of my relationship with DH. He does nothing to help himself. He is a good Dad but has no patience with them. I'm often telling him to calm it with the kids because its all too easy for him to raise his voice with them. The eldest is now becoming quite scared of him and his temper. He has never hurt them. He's not like that but his shouting and temper is scaring her. She comes to me when he's like that.

I can't afford to be living on my own with the kids. We don't have the money to survive. He has nowhere to go anyway. He'll never leave. His parents won't want him. He has no other family.

Y'know what though. I do love him. But I don't love him the same way I used to love him. I don't feel close to him anymore. We don't kiss or cuddle. I hate this. What do I do? xxx

Yes dittany. You give some advice about childcare and it's fine. Someone else posts, and it's 'smug and dictatorial'.
You need to join forces with izyboy and get busy marking everyone's posts out of ten.
I think that having an honest discussion with one's partner about feelings is a useful starting point, when the OP is clearly very unhappy about her life. If you don't agree,just say so. If you do agree, then try to do it gracefully, without the snide comments.
I never suggested that the OP needs to be like me. It's up to each of us to build our own relationships and lives, and accepting that whatever choices we make may bring some compromises. The OP can go and forge ahead and get a career, (which she said she wants to do in one post) but that is very likely to mean retraining/refresher course and will involve some childcare.
Or she can get do bits of work which fit around the children but may not bring so much job satisfaction.
Or she can remain with the status quo, and accept that her life isnt perfect but that there's enough good things about it to not want to change it.
Entirely her choice.

Gosh, theres no hope for me then?

I've been trying to write the same post as tearfulmummy for weeks now but didn't know where to start.

When your as low as this, you are negative.

Big, big hurdles and no energy to jump them.

Iv'e been so damn confident in the past and if you met me in the street, you'd say I was on top form but OMG I'm a bleeding nag now.

I can't even go out and have a drink, I'm allergic to alcohol, one drink now and I have a hangover from hell on the sofa all day being sick - Can't even get a release that way. I do go out with friends for coffee but when I get home, I'm usually in a shitty mood.

Tbh, I'm bored of listening to myself and thinking about how miserable I am.

I want that fire in the belly I used to have to bring about change but I just don't know/remember how to stoke it up IYSWIM?

I'm watching this tread with interest for inspiration.

Tearfulmummy, you are not alone.

I'd use a childminder. What do you do if your 11yo refuses to go to one? Suggestions please?

I've just returned from helping put the kids to bed. Thought I'd post again 'cos I think there are some interesting points. It can indeed be very difficult to get up and get going when you feel there are so many issues to fix. It probably feels like one whole big muddle.

Unfortunately the job market is still not particularly open to adult returners or offers good, flexible working conditions. Indeed Dittany I wonder if much really has changed for ordinary women.

I can empathise with the OP as I am a frustrated SAHM who is hoping to completely retrain in a few years with major upheavals to our current way of life. I am daunted, but I have a very supportive DH.

There is the crux of the matter, the OPs DH is defined completely by his work offering no thought to his wife. It is so hard to think clearly about these matters if you have lost all your confidence and have no support. EVERYTHING is a major issue so it really does have to be a gently, gently approach to change with lots of encouragement and sensitivity from other folk.

Limara After school club?

izyboy, my ds is such a difficult child, I am drained by him. The arguing........

I was offered a day working as a T.A in a local school but he threatened not to go to a neighbours, who's son is in his class, before and after school. I persevered and dropped him off but worried about him getting to school. When I picked him up from the neighbours, he said the neighbours kid told him he didn't want him coming back and wouldn't walk home with him.

He would make my life so difficult in the morning as he does already, that I would probably be a nervous wreck before I got to work.

My dd on the otherhand is an angel.

Any suggestions apart from better parenting with more discipline

Limara..I'm sorry you are in the same boat as me but glad also because now I don't feel quite so alone. xxx

To my mates I am the happy bubbly person they have known for a long time. Underneath I'm not.

DH and I have some real issues we have to sort out, for the sake of our kids, I know that. Its knowing where to start thats the problem.

I try to talk to him but he walks away. He can't stand confrontation. He's all for a quiet and easy life. Sometimes after he's left for work I simply don't know which way to turn. I have a million and one jobs to get done in the short time I get on my own during those two precious days a week when both my kids are at school.

DH has taken DD1 to the cinema tonight. I'm glad cos she needs some time with him on her own. He doesn't do enough one to one with the kids. He took the dog for a walk last night, taking DD1 with him, he spent the entire walk talking to a colleague on the phone. DD1 told me this this morning. My answer...ignore the call and enjoy a chat with your daughter especially as it was about 8pm. I often tell DH he is only paid from 8am until 6pm. Outside these hours he should ignore work. I may as well talk to a brick wall.

Yes I know I should be grateful he is in good well paid job but he's got to put his family first, ie me and the kids, and he doesn't. I feel like his employer is part of our marriage, what there is left of it atm.

LEM storms in and bashes some heads together - FFS girls, why couldn't you have left this the fuck alone??

I respond quite well to a swift kick up the mnet backside, the OP has clearly had an awful day. Not only has she started to face the problems with her marriage and life she has had to put up with you lot either telling her she is shit or arguing about it.

Let me tell you something. It is very easy to give advice - things can be quite straight forward. My situation is very similar in lots of ways to TMs. I have been told to get a job, take control of my own life etc - all good advice, honestly, really good, sensible advice, all meant with kindness. But its really hard, its scary to make changes. So maybe the OP is looking for excuses not to get a job, SO WHAT? She has been at home for 10 years, her confidence must be really low - well, why not come along and make her feel worse.

Sometimes, people aren't in the right frame of mind to respond well to Do this, do that advice. Sometimes a sympathetic ear is all that is needed. I have had some real rollickings on here but i have a hide as thick as a rhino, but my bollockers have probably got frustrated with me posting the smae thing over and over. This poor cow gets a roasting the first time she posts.

OP - i am pretty sure there are jobs out there for you, its just a case of looking in the right place (but don't ask me where that is). Would it be out of the question to maybe go along to your local college or carears advisory service and see if they have any advice. What about YOU being your own boss? Start something yourself? Look at me giving advice im too chicken to listen to. How is your DH about you getting work, is he supportive, have you discussed it?

Limara, tearful, please do post, don't go away.

MN is all about taking the rough with the smooth and whilst there are some with very firm views in one direction or another - Xenia often being quoted and with some justification - most of us do want to try and be helpful to mums and dads even if the choices they want to make are different from ours.

LEM has been outstanding on this thread, a real example of the power of Mumsnet.

From a personal perspective, all I can add is this. I am a WOHM by both choice and necessity, in that my dh is chronically ill and can't work. Even if he could I would certainly work part-time, as it is it is full-time and I have a suspicion I would work f-t regardless, that's just who I am. I find it hard to detach from work and will often take phone calls on my days off. I worry about it and focus on it too much. I feel a lot of my personality is bound up in my work because I am successful there and not as a parent, and not as a wife. I wonder if your dh feels any of this.

Of course I feel the guilt. The terrible guilt of not being the mum my mum was. I don't get the option of switching off completely for 8 or 10 hours a day, I have to run my home by text message from the office (people have asked if I can turn the washing machine on via text, alas not).

I don't want ds in full-time childcare. I have no option but to use part-time childcare. He is a sensitive little boy and I quite often feel that had I put him in full-time childcare at 9 months my life would be a hell of a lot easier - and so would his! But there you, what can you do.

I have a bad temper and I lack patience with ds. Partly that is to do with work stress and coming home at the end of another horrendously difficult day to another horrendously difficult day. Dh does not act as a 'mum' would, all the cooking, cleaning, housework, organisation, finances fall to me or to the cleaning lady. His illness requires a great deal of my time too. Result: one stressed out, crappy mummy.

What does this mean? Not that I sympathise with your dh with having a back-up team I would die for (seriously ladies, if you don't mind a celibate and also polygamous marriage, I am happy to take an MN wife) just that you both need to find a way of dealing with the stress. And like LEM, I am shit at taking my own advice. The elephant in the room for us is the resentment I feel at dh's illness. I have lost friends over the issue of whether he really is even ill or if it's mostly in his head, so a sort of equivalent issue to 'your choice'/'his choice'. Sort of.

I don't think this post makes sense but I just want you to know you are not alone. Posting on MN for advice can be bracing but sometimes, over time, those posts are the most meaningful. Take it one day at a time.

Limara, is there an after school club? You can't back down on this one. Sounds like he is scared you wont be around for him, rather than just being a little shite. Maybe if you explain to him that you are doing this so you guys can have some extra money.

TM, reading your last post really reiterates to me that you need to see a doctor. Its like reading a transcript from my life. You really sound like you have some anxiety issues going on. Why not take a look at this site, its called Moodgym.com, or something like that - if you go to the mental health threads,it is linked from there - there are questionaires you can do to see if you are anxious or depressed, the questions are very similar to those the doctors ask you. Looking for negatives all the time is one of the biggest symptoms of anxiety apparently, and not being able to get stuff done? flitting from one thing to another? Sound familiar?

Tell me you will at least consider going to your doctor, there is no shame in asking for help.

My DP is the same, he wants an easy life (and is that such a bad thing?). Maybe his job is really tough just now and that is why he feels the pressure to put in so many hours. My DP works for himself and i was under the impression that this meant he could have the odd day off when I he chose to, but heavens, i hardly see him and he is always stressed. I have to accept that for a while, this is how it is. Don't get me wrong, im not sying he doesnt have responsibility for what is going on here, i just think that men are far better ostritches than women.

Limara I second the After school club if there is one, kids fall out all the time and staying at a friends house leaves you playing to the mercurial nature of kids' friendships. Yep don#t back down.

tribpot - what an honest, thoughtful post.
My feeling is that no one on this thread has set out to be hurtful, or harsh. I really don't feel comfortable making that judgement about anyone.
As tribpot expresses so well - MN is about accepting that if you choose to post on a public forum, then you are accepting that not everyone will agree with your viewpoint. If the OP wanted to, she could have told us all about her life, moaned about it, but then said 'Ignore me, I'm just having a whinge, but actually I'm quite happy with the life I have so ignore me!'. She didnt do that. She made it clear she doesn't want things to remain as they are, and that she wants advice. Which people have given.
In any situation like the OPs, there are two sides to the story. The OP feels that her husband is totally driven by work, and is ignoring her pressures. Turn things around and imagine an alternative thread by the OPs husband: 'I feel hugely under pressure to be the sole earner because my wife won't use childcare to enable her to get work.'
Life isnt simple, it isnt black and white. People aren't (generally) forced into marriage and parenthood. It's a joint decision. It just seems that somewhere along the way, a lot of partners lose touch with eachother, and end up in polarised roles, one parent doing the bulk of childcare and the other having the pressure to earn, and probably both harbouring resentments. For every SAHM secretly feeling trapped and unstimulated, there's no doubt a working father who wishes he could have more time at home without the pressures of work.
None of us have the perfect life, but the fact is, employment conditions are a hell of a lot better than they used to be. Maternity leave can be up to a year long - unheard of when i had my first dc. Flexible working is more common now than ever before. Paternity leave... I would have given my right arm to have my DH home for two weeks after I gave birth! That's another fairly recent improvement. It comes down to communication with your partner, and then finding a way that you can both get as close to the kind of life you want, accepting that it will bring compromises. That compromise may be less money, nursery fees, time lost out of a career, an element of boredom.... there is no magic solution. We all struggle to find the balance that works for us.

TM, Can I please ask a question... is your hubby happy? Just you say he's got no family of his own that he can talk to, you also state he's got no friends. Obviously your marriage is going through a rough patch, so I'm guessing that you guys don't find it easy to talk either? So if he is unhappy too, then what else has he got except work? Maybe he throws himself into work, because that's his 'escape'? Could you try to get some time alone where you could perhaps have a heart to heart? Would something like that help? Maybe this is something you need to face together rather than alone??

Another Xpost!

Limara - you have my sympathy. Really difficult situation. I suppose that sums up what's been said before about every situation having pros and cons. You have been very fortunate in many ways to get away without having to use a childminder in 11 years, but the downside is that it's probably much harder to introduce the idea of childcare to an 11 year old than to a 6 month old!!
I would look at other options than a CM. After school club tends to work better at this age than a CM, as kids tend to want to be with their choice of friends and not feel 'looked after'. Our village school didnt have an after school club and DH and I set one up in desperation as we couldnt find other suitable childcare. I wouldnt recommend setting one up - weeks of work, employment legislation, funding, CRB checks.. blah blah blah... all while we were doing our full time jobs and looking after 3 children!! - but it proved that where there's a will....
I definitely agree that you shouldnt back down though. An 11 year old should not control whether a parent works or not.

Elkat. I guess you could say he is unhappy. His lack of mates is due to him throwing himself into his work. I often remind him that he's not been in touch with X or X and suggest he ought to give them a ring. He'll try the once and then forget about it. There were many times I suggested he ought to ring his parents, before they cut their ties with us, and he wouldn't bother. I can't keep telling him what to do but without wishing to sound harsh he hasn't helped himself either.

He has often said all he has is me and the kids. There's been many times I could've walked away from him but I know that would be the end of him.

TM sounds like you are both really stuck in ruts that neither of you are REALLY happy with.

Out of everything that has been said on here is there anything specific you would like to take forward?

I used to have a fabulous job which was really interesting and I never used to dread going into work.

Now, I get up in the mornings and I feel really up beat about each day. I achieve my routine of emptying the dishwasher, get a load on, wipe down the sides, make the beds, make the sarnies and get the dc's to school.

I do this ever morning and do my cleaning job for 2/3 hrs Mon-Wed.
(highlighted above to show I'm capable of being positive)

When the dc's get home the bickering starts. It really gets me down

Mealtimes suck. They always hate whatever I cook. Bicker,bicker, then I shout 'you don't talk to her, you don't talk to him' > More bicker, I order dd or ds to leave the room, they come back bicker bicker.

DH comes in, he says, 'had a good day?'

Then we bicker bicker.....

Then the sucky bedtime....Atmosphere - who is going to get dd in the shower/bath..

I am so fed up with us 'talking' about sharing the responsibility of getting her ready for bed. I have to nag him. Might as well do it all.

Reading this through, I need to toughen up but I do, what am I doing wrong?

Tearfulmummy, so sorry to hijack thread.I too love my DH but I feel so friggin trapped I want to rebel IYSWIM?

Limara - time for you to break out and rebel then!! Maybe at bath time, jump into the car and disappear off into the sunset!!

But seriously.... there's a lot about your day that is really very normal. The day starts off well.. all goes according to plan.. then the kids get home from school, grouchy and tired and it all goes tits up. First of all, a lot of kids moan about their mum's cooking. There are several ways of dealing with it. Put it in front of them and they put up or shut up. Tell them to make themselves a sandwich. (Perfectly nutritious, just a bit boring night after night). But dont take it personally.
Don't give in to your dh not helping out with bath and bed time. He won't do it exactly the way you would (my DH never got the hang of washing the kids hair) but hey, they'll live.
Most importantly, if you used to have a fabulous job, then you need to think about how you can get back to a life that's more rewarding. I think maybe the BIGGEST advantage of having an interesting career is that although when you get home, things won't be any different (ie the kids will still bicker, still moan about dinner) YOU WON'T CARE AS MUCH!!!! When you have been out all day, having interesting adult conversations, doing something that challenges you, it puts things into a different perspective. I find it far easier to ignore my kids' bickering now than when I was home on maternity leave. It used to drive me up the wall then. You are clearly coping very well with things even if you don't feel like it. But it's time now to think about YOU and YOUR needs. If a cleaning job a couple of days a week is not enough for you, then look at how you can change that. You mentioned earlier about your ds kicking off and refusing to go to a childminder, and you had several responses to that issue. Don't let him dictate how you live your life. You are a capable woman who deserves to have a fabulous job again!

findtheriver thanks. scoffing toast right now which is my tea!

Hah know the 'I want to rebel' thing. And I have a great DH who really does pull his weight. It can be tres tedious being at home. I have tried many careers before becoming a SAHM and no doubt will launch myself onto the unsuspecting jobs market again some day (employers quiver at the thought). Some days are indeed truely shit. However I try think about it as just one more stage in my life.

I think for TM and yourself tho' its not so simple because your DH's are not pulling their weight you have my empathy.

Oh and I have to say work has been tres shit at times as well. I go by the 4 year rule change job or equivalent every 4 years to keep interest levels up, however into the 5th year as a SAHM with newborn and my feet are very itchy.

I personally dont think it is that easy to dip in and out of employment. There is alot of lip service to flexible working conditions but at the end of the day it is up to the employers discretion as to whether you get the hours you want. Also with the possibility of recession many working mums are having to really compromise themselves to look good in the work place. Perhaps cleaning is a pretty good option hmm..