Is it normal for husbands mood to determine the households mood?

[mrmump]

I'm just fed up with it, to the point where I dread him coming home/waking up. He works nights so I know he is often tired and grumpy but sometimes it feels like he wants to make me as miserable as him. I spend all morning trying to keep DC quiet, then he comes downstairs and whinges at me for not cleaning up. So we row and the children play up to get our attention, so we all feel as miserable as him. Just don't know what to do to get out of this horrible rut.

ignore him! tell him to get a grip, and that you will not allow his bad mood to make everyone else miserable.
if he wants to be miserable then he can go back to bed or soemwhere else.

then, as I say, ignore him. have fun with the children and do whatever you want to do

No it isn't. My friend's house is like this and it is horrible. She tries to get on with things and 'work around' his moods but it just spoils things for everybody and makes visitors and friend's children really uncomfortable.

He has had to work all christmas because he is self employed which has made him worse. To be honest I'm getting worried about him. he just lays on the sofa now totally miserable. he has to work so hard. and on his days off he has the children while I go to work. It just feels neverending.

It was normal in my experience - put up with it for years. Had an epiphany moment during a relate session when I said I felt anxious every time he was due back in the door and I dreaded it. He was really surprised. Didn't save our marriage though, but that's another story. Something has to change.

No. My Dad was like your DH, he worked shifts too. The shifts were always an excuse for the family to rotate between deathly silence, cowering fear and pretending to be jolly.

I was astonished when I found out that not everyone's house was like that, even with shift work. I was also screwed up, pretty much for life, by everything I learned from my parents' marriage

There's much value in kids learning manners, respect & consideration. But what you have there is a personality cult - they're not learning to consider others, merely that they are less important than their father's moods.

It would be nice to think your DCs weren't in for the same difficult fate as me & my sibs.

In my experience, staying together is NOT better for the children, if it teaches the children that you must suffer your fate and shut up about it.

What about your own self-respect & dignity, too? Wouldn't like to sing in the shower, even if your DH was tired?

Threaten to quit. If that doesn't work, do it.

Just because he works nights doesn't make him more tired than someone working days.

He is a bully and a prat.

No, it's not normal. Some people have that ability to just permeate a mood through a house more than other people - my ex could do this, and to an extent my DD can. But it's not fair on any of the rest of the household - I couldn't stand that tensing up when he opened the door, wondering what mood he would be in.

Not normal and not acceptable. I once had an ex who was unbelievably moody. It was awful. Thank god I ditched him when I did, lucky escape. Obviously it's a different gig when kids are involved but changing your dh's ways is possible if the person is keen to make it happen..

mrmump, I've just re-read what you wrote about the endless grind. I'd like to pass on one of my few childhood memories:

I'm one of four. While I was small, we were very hard up and lived in a working-class street, where all the men worked in gruelling jobs & most of the mums did part-time work. We had 3 bedrooms and a dining room but the other houses were 2-bed terraces. I've described what life was like in our house. Mornings were always very tense, as Dad worked 2-10, 8-2.

I sometimes used to drop in on a classmate, Linda, on the way to school. She was one of 8 kids. At their breakfast, they all crammed round a small table, chattering, swapping food & finding each other's shoes. Everyone seemed to be smiling, even if they were late. I used to feel as if the sun had come out whenever I went into Linda's house.

Linda's Dad worked shifts, and had a much harder time than mine with 8 DCs and a tiny house. But that didn't stop them being a happy family.

It's not normal.

My dad used to be like this - I used to lie in bed awake in the evenings listening to him shouting and feel awful (and for some reason, resonsible).

Turns out that he would be playing/shouting with the dog, in fun, not in anger. But bc of all the rubbish during the day, I owuld be so wound up and worried.

We would tiptoe round him (he's suffered from depression and ME for years) to the extent that we were all on tenterhooks and he would get cross with us for that.

So, so wrong. I've now married the most laid-back man in the world and count my blessings every day.

Now I understand why my dad was like this!It was the strain of moonlighting as lindy100 and graces' dad as well!

@stubbornstains!

Interestingly, my dad is 100% better now he has grown up.....

(and discovered the new generation of anti-depressants...)

Sounds like my mum! My brother and I, used to spend all our childhood, worrying about what mood my mum was in, if she was happy then we had a good day, but she had and still has manic depression so we were always on tenterhooks and these days I'm very perceptive of other people's emotions to the poing I don't even think of myself

Yes it's perfectly normal if your husband is an egotistical bully.

Does he do this when you are on holiday together too- it could be that you are in an abusive relationship- it took me a long time to relize I was in one Lundy Bancrofts book " why does he do that- inside the mind of angry and controlling men really helpful- moodiness and sulking can be a means of control!

Well it could be that he is depressed? or unable to cope with stress so it gets taken out on you?

What else does he do but work and home life?

My H's moods have really messed with my head. For example, yesterday evening he started telling me how much he hated and detested me etc. Then he went to alot of effort to make a meal for just me and said that he did want to be with me. After about an hour I could see his mood changing again and he finished the evening, as he has done, hundreds of times, by saying he was going to be so happy to get rid of me and the situation we were in. This has happened hundreds of times, and I was annoyed with myself as I had had an invitation to go round to see some friends for new year eve. Instead, I was left sitting on my own upset, hurt, angry, when he went off to bed after throwing alot of horrible remarks at me.

I will try for about 20mins to cheer up/jolly along/sympathise

then tell to f off somewhere else if he just actually wants to make everyone else miserable

no, it isn't normal nor healthy to dread one person's moods and the whole family have to expend energy to pacify them

I could not live on eggshells

your home is where you and your dc should feel comfortable, safe and be able to be yourself

not having to constantly check and modify your behaviour in case you piss off an egotistical patriarch

this isn't the 1950's where children were seen but not heard and wifey had to subjugate to a man's will

It used to be like that for us when dd was very small. It isn't good and I feel very sad for you.

Eventually I realised that it wasn't acceptable and grew some balls (admittedly I was too ill for a long time to do anything about it) and decided to ignore him and carry on with or without him. We had a few conversations where I told him to get his priorities sorted, to grow up and stop behaving like a brat and that if he wanted to be part of the family he had to come to Relate with me. He did all of those things - over time - and we are a lot happier now.

He still gets grumpy (he is hungover and grumpy now) but it happens far less often, we are much more able to ignore him and carry on without doing the eggshell thing, and we can laugh at him when he's being unreasonable.

It is normal for people to be grumpy once in a while, but it's not normal for everyone to feel they have to walk on eggshells around them when they're like that, and you shouldn't have to.

exactly, jux

everyone has the grumps occasionally

but when the rest of the family have to constantly modify their behaviour, it ain't good

My moods seem to affect the entire household. If I'm in a bad mood, DH becomes arsey too, which in turn makes me even more narky. The children add to this delightful mix by becoming super hyper.

I am a moody bitch sometimes

but I think the difference is, I don't expect everyone else to indulge me

I expect to get laughed at, told to cheer up, stop being narky etc