Apparently i'm not entitled to a break from the kids, because i'm their mother and thats my job

[nutcracker]

That is according to dp, who also seems to think that i can't get tired or to the point of wishing i'd never had any kids.

All because i don't go to work, so how difficult can my life possibly be.

Nutty, you mentioned further down that your not sure if you do deserve better and what is a good relationship meant to be like?

My relationship is far from perfect but for example we really laugh with each other at least a couple of times a day, If I am poorly he will be sympathetic and look after me, I dont get that much time away from kids because of his shifts but he does at least once a week take both of them off my hands even if its just so I can have a cuppa, a shower and get dressed in peace. He comments if he can see I have been particularly good round the house (that sounds weird!, I mean it doesnt go unnoticed that Ive been hard at work), he tells me Im a brilliant mother, tells me that Im beautiful etc and I feel supported and looked after by him.

Dont get me wrong this is inbetween arguments of me thinking he doesnt do enough and lots of niggles but overall I think its a decent relationship.

Can you think of 3 positive things about him and/or your relationship?

Wish I could come and magic it all away for you honey xxx

kids are resiliant - nutty sorry to be so very blunt but your looking for every excuse. although mumsnetters are giving you lots of advice - you have any excuse not to take it

my kids stole a total of £6.00 from the penny jar. no one would own up to it and so i was going to cancel the holiday and lose £50. the principle.

so your kids wont get to go on holiday with two parents who dont love, care or respect each other - maybe that will be a blessing in disguise.

if your worried about your financial situation - there are plenty of advice lines out there - you should assess your finances and work it out so you are in full knowledge of the facts.

the man is keeping you down - the kids are getting you down and you know what? you only have one life and it is way way to short for this shit.

at the very least you should go for driving lessons in the evening when your dh is home. he gets to look after the kids for ONE HOUR a week on his own whilst you take driving lessons

you are completely dependant on him. this is nothing else but a power and control issue. if you want to be his dog to kick then thats your decision. personally i would buy my dh a dog to kick and fuck off sharpish.

if he thinks you play and watch tv all day - why dont you play and watch tv all day?

i dont understand why you would possibly cook a roast dinner the day after a section - is it martyrdom? no one will thank you for it ever. and no matter how hard you try when your kids get to 15 they will hate you for everything you stand for anyway.

i have a life too, i am responsible for how happy that life is. maybe you should start thinking about your own life rather than your kids and your twatty h cos if your not going to do anything about it - its just a self pity trip is it not?

harsh and cruel i know - i mean no ill will and hope you climb out of this hole in what ever way you can - am just saying what i see - other mumsnetter will choclate cover it - if thats what you wan t to hear good luck and very best wishes - get driving lessons booked

Nutty, would you want your dds to be in a relationship like this one day? Or your ds to treat his future partner like this? Because whatever we say to our kids, they learn far more from what we do.
I'm not having a go, just trying, clumsily, to say that if you were to leave, it might actually be good for your children. If your relationship stays this unhappy, if your dp doesn't change the way he behaves, your children will learn all the wrong things about how men and women treat each other.

im not sure that leaving this man is the solution to your problems.
it seems to me that what you need to change is your own attitude to life and what you expect from it. we are all masters of our own destiny. and our lives are what we make of them.
so, for example, WHY were you cooking a roast dinner after having had major surgery?what was the point?
you need to take control of your own life. and do what you want to do. despite this man. he takes advantage of you, because you let him. if you wont fight for yourself, then leaving him will only put you into differnet problems, and probably somr time in the future into a relationship with another man where you allow him to take advantage of you agian.
i know i am being harsh, and i am sorry about that. but it is your life, and if you dont help yourself, then all the advice and sympathy in the world wont help you.
good luck

Custardo - If you don't mean to have a go then why are you ???

Are you in my situation ??? Have you ever been ????

It's easy to see what i should do when you are looking in from the outside.

Thanks to everyone else for you messages of support and advice. I know i must seem very weak dithering over what i should do, but there is more than just me to consider and it will take me a bit of time to sort certain things out.

I am not going to post on this thread anymore because my situation and my inability to deal with it is obviously annoying some people.

as i said nutcracker, im sorry if i am upsetting you.
as you have posted, i assumed you wanted some advice. if you dont like the advice i gave, please disregard it. the last thing you need is to feel as if people on mumsnet are judging you.
we are not, we are just trying to be helpful.

i wish you the best, whatever you decide to do.

nutty i suppose what some people think is they know you've felt like this before (on a number of occasions) - so what stopped you from leaving/splitting up then? would you do the same again (and how many times?) and is all of that worth the "being together"? (not having a go, honest)

I knew that was what people were thinking Bundle. I said to WK yesterday that i hadn't intended the thread to turn in to should i shouldn't i leave him thread as i know i have mentioned it before and i am sure people are sick of it by now.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me with this but in future i'll won't be posting details of my realtionship, good or bad.

custardo - I know you probably mean well and are trying to state the obvious but until you've been in the situation you honestly have no idea what you're talking about, to be blunt.

Having been there, done that I know what it's like and it really isn't that easy, believe me. From the outside you can look in and it all looks so easy 'don't do that, don't take that crap' but it doesn't work like that at all. When you live with someone you do the best you can, for them and if they aren't doing their best for you they start wearing you down. They can grind you down one minute at a time and very easily you lose sight of who you really are, what you really think and how you really feel.

From the outside it seems a stupid way to live and like you must be stupid to get yourself into that sort of situation but it can happen so slowly and 'invisibly' that anyone can end up in a bad situation without ever having meant to. And you just carry on trying to do your best, after all it's what you're 'supposed' to do and you don't want things to get any worse.

Then one day you wake up and you're with someone who treats you like shit, living a life you didn't want and you honestly don't know how you got there. And trust me, its as scary as hell to try and leave.

Just over a year ago I was trying to leave and scared stiff of doing it and umm'ed and ahh'ed for ages, starting loads of threads and going back and forth. Thankfully there were a lot of very patient and very lovely MN'ers willing to put up with me and keep supporting me. Otherwise I'd have had no support and would probably not had the bottle to leave.

It also isn't a question of bravery, stupidity or strength. Very strong people have ended up in bed relationships they don't know how to get out of, unless you've been there you don't know how easy it is.

It seems simple to outsiders but takes one hell of a lot of courage so please don't lose patience with nutty, she's braver than a lot of people I know.

Frankly, if anyone loses patience why don't you go and watch telly or something, because when someone needs support there's no limit on the amount they should get.

nutty - please don't stop posting on here, you need the support and we all care about you.

Nutty, I hope my post below didn't come across as impatient. I really do sympathise and I do understand that it's easy for onlookers to give advice. I think you were looking for support, not direction, so I'm sorry I went in with advice rather than empathy.

i agree with wobblynicks. but also with what i psoted.
i hve found a great deal of support from a charity called family focus. i go there once a week, and they give me somuch support and encouragement. they have really helped empower me. i dont know where you live, there may be something like that around you.

Message withdrawn

i think beety is right, there's some thought-provoking stuff there.

I am beginning to feel that Nutty is being bullied into leaving her dh. There are no simple solutions to these situations.

Nutty - please take your time and do whatever you need to do. We are here for you no matter what you decide. Hope you are ok.

Hi again, Nutty. Sorry you don't feel you can "talk" with us anymore! It's so important to be able to discuss your feelings but maybe mumsnet is too judgemental in this case. Professional counselling? Anyway, you do need to think this through very seriously. I was feeling guilty yesterday, worrying that I might have encouraged you to leave your h when I know v. little about you or your circumstances. It really is something you must figure out for yourself, preferably with some professional help. It's not fair for us to tell you or even advise you on what to do. I personally promise to "listen" impartially and support you when you need to blow off some steam! ((((Hugs))))

nutty - sounds like you need a whopping injection of self-esteem and to break free from being a "good girl". so what if you feel the odd poster is getting ratty/fed up with you. you need to stuff them if you think they are wrong/unfair, and not let that stop you getting the advice/support you need. Problem is that women do get socialised into being selfless/not rocking the boat/staying with their partners etc - but ultimately as custardo pointed out that leads to martyrdom and doesn't necessarily make you and the kids happier at the end of the day. you can manage without DP if you so choose; especially as you do seem to have supportive family. but you do need to think through what you really want, as opposed to what you think you should want

best of luck

Custardo wasnt attacking you, just being blunt with her advice rather than choc coating it as she put. Tbh she said what I thought and was right to say it in the way she said i think.
I know what it's like, I saw my mumb live it for 25 years before leaving at the age of 60. What a waste of a life that was.
Trouble is if you dont take custys advice the same will happen to you. Do as beetroot says and reread the post but dont read it as a personal attack.

herc - sometimes not putting things bluntly isn't choc coating it at all, its just recognising how someone feels. If someone had been that blunt to me when I'd been trying to leave ex-h, I'd have probably cracked up and it would really have dented what tiny confidence I had left. Nowadays it wouldn't bother me and I can see how much sense it made to leave and how I should have just done it without any dithering but being removed from the situation is like hindsight - brilliant if you've got it but if you haven't it doesn't help in the slightest.

I think custy's suggestions, like going out for driving lessons etc were great but things like 'if you want to be his dog to kick' don't help anyone - that's not being blunt, its being insensitive, there's a big difference.

Wish I could describe properly how it feels. It's like having depression and someone saying to you 'don't be silly, you'll look back on this and feel better one day' - it's very true but also as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

changed my name for this. but 2 weeks ago i finally got up the courage to lock my dh out. it has been a long time coming and he has been more and more terrible to me with each passing day. he has been emotionally abusive to me much like nutty's dh. won't care for the children, is very depressed, quite mean at times to me and the children. the final straw for me was when he walked out one sunday while i was having a lie in, and i called to find out where he was and he went ballistic on me. he was screaming and yelling about how stupid i am. he hung up the mobile and wouldn't answer. i was so upset that i called women's aid(0808 2000 247) it was the first step for me to realize that i didn't have to deal with him. they instructed me on what to do. i decided to pack his bags up and when he got home i gave them to him and took his keys away. he went willingly because he didn't want to cause a scene, but if he had caused a scene i was advised to call the police and have him arrested.

the thing that the woman on the phone said to me which really got me, was she said how many times have your children seen you upset in the last year. They are going to think that you are the unstable one because you are the one who is always crying. They will think that they can't count on you and that you are not a strong woman. it broke my heart to hear it, but i knew it was true. please nutty, re-read these posts and really take them in. maybe it is true, that these people have it wrong, and you are happy with the life you have. but maybe there is some truth to what they say.

you are young and you have a chance to do more with your life. maybe leaving your dh is what you need to be able to go back to school, and possibly find a new partner to have another baby with(which are two things from following your posts that i know you want to do.) you are a strong woman, look at all that you have done, got yourself a bigger house from the council. you have the potential for so much more.

sorry you read it as a personal attack it wasn't meant that way. i have been there BTW with a small child. i chucked mine out, i had bills comin through the door by the dozen. and was on the verge of becomming homeless. i know about the all engulfing black hole that consumes your very being, i know too of the lonliness the heartache and how no matter how hard you try some bastard always kicks you down. i have been to the homelessness dept begging for help, lived in the CAB for a while - or it felt like it. and the cherry is being treated like scum for being classed as a one parent family as you take your ticket at the benefits office then ask for a loan to help you out with some furniture. maybe many mnetters who posted were not qualified - but still posted with advice. i couched mine differently but carefully non the less i made it constructive and at points tried to interject humour in the form of metaphore. i havent followed your relationship ups and downs therefore couldnt lose patience on that point - i clicked on this thread becuase i thought it was going to be a funny one actually - but then got stuck in.

i dont take anything back on re reading my post- i did realise i was being blunt - i wrote THAT word so that mnetters would realise that i realise i was being blunt.

so dont post anymore - it will not hurt anyone but you -as i have found out in the past. mnetters are a great source of support. re read what i said - be in full knowledge of your financial situation.
get some transport and lose some of the dependance - do the driving lessons.

then assess your situation.

i will finish as before - i wish you no ill will. all the best for the future

Know how frustrating this kind of relationship can be. He sounds like a very selfish man to wake you up for no reason. Have you tried relate or similar? He needs a good kick up the arse. Havnt caught all this thread but am i on the right track ?

No matter what you decide Nutcracker remember i am always here for you xxxxx