DH- so unreasonable

[skinsl]

Just how long do you put up with it for? Or how long to you try to make it work?

Had the worst day ever.DH is so tightly strung, spent all day shouting at me and his mother, who have done nothing but cry. She has just arrived for Xmas, and wants to get straight back on a plane to go home.

he has fallen out with my DB, when he couldn't come to son's birthday, he refuses to talk to him so this will be the first Xmas I have spent away from my family.Which is devastating for me ,as we have a great family xmas. DH hates it.

He has a lot of stresses in his life, but nothing I do is ever good enough. i never really doubted myself, but now his mother has seen it, I have confirmation of how unreasonable he is being.
How many chances does he get to get his behaviour under control.
Had 2 counselling sessions, which have been ok, but not sure he will take anything on board.
I honestly feel that DS would be better off without him, he has no patience and snaps all the time, has no clue about mealtimes/sleep etc.
Who am i to make that decision, how can i take responsibility for taking ds away from H

He would still see ds, you aren't depriving him of that!!

Really, lives too short for the rubbish you describe!
He has stresses??? What are they....we all get stressed, he's no different. How many counselling sessions do you have booked?

I think he has some sort of complex, like he is better than everyone else, more important.
We have one more booked before Xmas, i think the counsellor knows he is being unreasonable, but not to what extent.. he's very good at explaining away things.
Stresses.. work. long hours, pressure.
I think he is obsessed with money. Resents me being SAHM, so much so that i think he would just prefer me to be miserable.
Oh god, I don't know how long I can do this for. If I was looking in at this relationship I would just say leave. Why can't I?

I think there would be something wrong with you if you found it easy to just up and leave your husband. As you recognise, it's a huge responsibility. However it's just as huge a responsibility to stay; rather than deciding to take DS away from his father, you decide to keep him in an atmosphere which you acknowledge is not good for him. Either way it's not an easy choice.

How long to give it? How long is a piece of string? It's a hopeful sign that he's prepared to go to counselling, but a waste of everyone's time if he won't take the results on board. I also doubt how much good it is to counsel you as a couple when his relationship issues clearly go far wider - if he sat down with his mother, his brother and everyone else he gets in a miff with and sorted out each of them one at a time, he'd be in non-stop counselling for the rest of his life! I'm sure, like the rest of us, you aren't perfect, but the common denominator here is HIM. You're getting on fine with other people, he rants and raves at the world. If you don't see any glimmer of hope that he will change, then giving it time is going to make no difference, except that your little boy will be more affected by it as he grows up.

I say - and it's so easy for me to say! - be prepared to leave. Look into what it involves, your rights, costs, everything. If you know you CAN leave it will take the stress off you, and if DH realises you are likely to do it it may be his wake-up call. Otherwise... well, he could be a better father every other weekend, when having his son is something special, than he is right now. Finding out does not commit you to anything at this stage.

If it helps, I was in a very similar situation with a workaholic H. I couldn't find enough reasons to leave, until an OW got involved and that gave me the final push I needed.

H was snappy, irritable and found fault with everything I did. He did and still does resent me being a SAHM even though he insisted we move hundreds of miles away from my specialist job (no local equivalent) and we have 2 dc's who aren't in full time school yet. He earned a lot of money but begrudged me even buying a lunchbox for ds. Everything turned into a battle, and it was incredibly wearing.

Could you go to some counselling on your own? The joint sessions were useless as I wanted the counsellor to see through his charisma act and get to the truth and she never did.

And I actually think H is a better weekend father than he ever was a full time one. He found living at home with the dc's too "mundane" so this seems to suit him better.

And the answer to how long you try.. I managed a year of living in hellish conditions. Any longer and my self esteem and will to live would have plummeted. If it's that bad, start making plans now.

Does your dh 'do' Xmas? If he's not interested, then you could up sticks with your MIL and go and have Xmas with your family, or invite your bro anyway and tell dh that he's to behave civilly or stay in his room!

Long term though, this can't go on, can it?

He has made his mother cry all day . I know husbands and wives get into arguments all the time and there can be crying and shouting (and I know this is not right), but he really must have lost track of his behaviour to make a (presumably) old lady sit and cry all day. I have no idea what to do with my own husband so I am not sure what to say to you really. Even my DH would not do that to his mother and believe me, my DH is a total prick who upsets a variety of people all the time.

Problem seems to be that he can't control his outbursts once they start,and he says hurtful things which can't be forgotten.
But then yesterday, he was apologetic and really made an effort. He knows he is fu*cked up but once the stress/ tension/whatever has built up, he doesn't know how to get out of it.
He is obsessed with money, he earns a lot, but we still owe a lot. He constantly says " i pay for that"
I have done some work from home that easily brings in what I could earn, but as I haven't made any money in the last couple of months, that doesn't seem to count.

There are a million things i could tell you, all ridiculous.
He took some time off work yesterday, we had a nice lunch, good fun with DS and MIL and then a long chat, and i told him i thought he was cracking up. See if it's that kind of problem,I think I need to help him, but should I but up with the abuse in the meantime?
MIL doesn't want to come home with me for XMas because her son has upset everyone, and she is mortified.

I think in my head I will get ready to leave.

MIL was upset for me, he didn't say anything abusive to her. She is upset that he can talk to me that way. Must be hard, cos he is supposedly the "perfect son"!!

How do you ask the counsellor for individual sessions, do I go behind his back?

just tell him " i am going to seperate councelling sesions as i don't feel you are taking anything discussed on board. It is when i have things figured out i will decide whether i want to stay with you"

make it plain that you are at this point.