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.

My ex used to be a lovely happy man. Then he turned like this. To start with I put it down to tiredness/shift work/money worries/health issues....depression ....basically I was clutching at straws trying to excuse it or kid myself it was temporary.

It was permanent. The last 4 yrs (in particular) he ruled the house. My eldest suffered with depression and saw a children mental health counsellor because she was posting on a forum about self harming. I struggled to work more hours, do more at home, be the barrier between him and the children, take the burden of childcare/household work in order to alleviate his stress and return him to the lovely man I married.

I eventually accepted I couldn't do it all, couldn't make it work and we divorced.

Funnily enough he's turned back into happy man

He didn't wish to divorce. He just can't cope with living in the family home - it's too noisy/busy/demanding.

It is however happy again.

He visits and is lovely. Ask him to have the kids for too long and he's crabby and horrid...

I don't regret my decision to separate for one minute. My children smile and are happy now

I know my situation is not normal as my H brings with him into the house an 'atmosphere'. Whenever he is not at home, the whole environment changes.

No, not normal at all, and I think my dad must've been part of this moonlighting arrangement too, as he also worked shifts and we used to tiptoe around the house when he was home - when he got in he would make straight for the living room and turn the telly on, one of us would be sent in as the sacrificial lamb to see what sort of a mood he was in, and then have to come to report back to the kitchen with a thumbs up/down gesture (walls were thin and he would sometimes follow us and listen behind doors as he was paranoid as well as bad-tempered, jealous and insecure.

Whenever he wasn't there or I went round to my friends' houses, the feeling of utter relief and the happiness of being able to relax and not walk on eggshells was indescribable. As autumnlight said, the whole atmosphere and environment changed when it was just us and mum.