What Would You Do?

[YallaYalla]

Hi,

Looking for a bit of advice please. I am slowly working out that DH has some major issues with passive aggressive behaviour. We've just come back from a week-long holiday and he is no longer talking to me because of a row we had on the last day. He has gone into emotional shutdown and as usual I am paying the price.

In brief: I wanted to do something (buy a souvenir on our last night) which he didn't want to do; I could tell he wasn't keen and offered to leave him in the bar we were having sundowners in while I nipped up to the shop; he didn't take me up on this offer, and also did not say he didn't want to do it when I asked him in a friendly way about it.

So we leave bar and walk to shop buy souvenir, him seemingly in an ok mood. On leaving shop he gets into a major strop because he was very sweaty and hot from the walk (tropics) and within a space of about 5 minutes shuts down totally.

Doesn't want to do anything, goes mute, won't respond to queries of if he's ok, my offers to go and stand in areas where there is AC, queries about which bar he would like to go to next and where we should have dinner on our last night.

Eventually he says he's had enough and wants to go back to the hotel and do nothing/watch TV. It's 8pm, it's the last night of our holiday and we're both dolled up for a good night out.

I'm pretty pissed off, but use my usual tactics for snapping him out of these moods - cuddling him, ignoring his mood, teasing him gently, trying to take charge in a non-confrontational way. It worked for a bit, and then I got a bit exhausted by the whole effort and said, fine, let's go back to the hotel. We are waiting in a taxi queue and I say I'm just popping into this shop to use the loo.

He claims he thought I said 'see you back at the hotel'. I though I'd made it fairly clear I was just nipping to the loo but it's possible he didn't hear me as we were about 10 metres away from each other. Anyway, point is, I return from the loo and he's vanished.

He KNOWS I have no money in my pocket whatsoever (he always carries the cash on nights out on holiday) and no mobile phone which I've left in the hotel safe. So he's dumped me in the middle of a capital city in Asia. Admittedly, it's a safe city, it's not late, I know the way back to the hotel 20 minutes away, and we're in a really touristy area. But it's the principle of just being dumped like that without even money for a taxi. I'm furious. Walk back to hotel room.

Half an hour later he shows up. I am fuming. Not proud of what happens next but I use the security chain to stop him getting access to the hotel room. I tell him he's not coming in as he dumped me in a foreign city with no resources. He asks again to be let in. I say no and slam the door shut.

Eventually, at 2am, he tries the door again. This time I've softened and feel pretty bad for locking him out of the room (even though HE had his wallet and credit cards and finances mean he could easily booked himself another room in the same hotel for the night). I let him in, he walks in in silence and hasn't spoken to me since.

We flew home in silence and he sat separately to me from the plane. Now we are home and he's still in the silent treatment mode, sleeping on the sofa. Total emotional frigging shutdown.

Now. I KNOW I was unreasonable to prevent him access to the hotel room for a few hours. I haven't apologised yet either (he's stonewalling me and I don't see what value it would have at this time). But, as usual, it's me who looks the nutter.

He could not express feelings on us going to the shop. He 'punishes' me for taking us there by shutting down emotionally, and then abandoning me on the last night of our holiday in a foreign city with no bloody money in my pocket. I shut him out of the hotel room but in no way compromised his safety (for all I know he spent the intervening hours in the hotel lobby bar knocking back single malts). And, as usual, I am sitting here tearing my hair out, trying to find a way to get him to open up and being given the silent treatment.

I've spent some time on the internet this morning looking at PA behaviour. I'm sure he doesn't have the PA personality disorder as generally he is a very good, loving, honest man who holds down a very stressful and highly-paid job and - this issue aside - our marriage is strong and we have a good relationship. But I just can't BEAR this passive aggressive shit.

What am I supposed to do?
Any tips for how I can make myself feel better while his mood subsides?
Any tips for how I can snap him out of it?
Should I apologise for locking him out of the room?

Sorry - this is an essay - just feel like I'm going mad here. Thanks if you got this far.

Congratulations Yalla!

I do notice that at the start of the thread you mention that you and DH were thinking of starting TTC. Just above you said that "2 doctors in fact told me that I didn't ovulate last month I stopped taking folic acid, ate crappy foods and drank alcohol." Sounds as if you were TTC if you were consulting doctors and taking folic acid. Did DH know?

"I think I have to give this child a chance at being brought up by two parents"

That appears to be some sort of mystical holy grail for a lot of people. I felt the same as you when I was pregnant and the cracks in my relationship to show. When my DS was 2 years old, I realised how much damage our dysfunctional relationship had already done him and wished to high heaven that I hadn't fallen for that "2 parents better" myth.

I'm not trying to persuade you into something against your better judgement; I wish you the best of luck and hope that it all works out for you and that your husband recognises he has a problem and genuinely wants to change it; but so far, nothing you have said indicates that your DH has any intention at all, of changing his behaviour. And that is a terribly ominous situation.

You probably already know this, but be aware, keep your eyes open and please don't think that you are damaging your baby by leaving a man who has deep-seated problems he refuses to face up to. If it comes to it and he refuses to change, you would be damaging your baby by staying with him. Never ever fall for the myth that 2 dysfunctional parents living together in denial, are better than 2 parents (dysfunctional or otherwise) living apart. They're not. But good luck, fingers crossed for you.

No, its not your pregnancy hormones , and i think its sad that you already have this level of self doubt about what was horrid abusive behaviour. If you replace the word partner for freind or neighbour in your description of his rotton behaviour, it sounds very differant doesnt it , and you would recognise it immediateley as abusive behaviour.

What is the situation legally if you wanted to return to the uk with a baby ?

Yalla - Congratulations on your PG.

I am posting partially to "bump" your thread as there are several threads at the moment and I would not want yours to get lost.

I second what Dittany and others say. I don't have much experience with this sort of thing (apart from reading MN posts) but really to me, as an outsider, your PG makes it more important to leave - even just to separate for a little bit - to clear your head and explore your options.

It is not your responsibility to "give this child a chance at being brought up by two parents" it is his responsibility to show that he can be a stable and loving father and husband.

I am so sick of the fact that women see it is their responsibility to "put up with" abuse in order to "keep the family together".
We should be seeing it as men's responsibility to not be complete f*ckwits and to realise the consequences of their behaviour.

Yalla - please take steps to ensure your safety/your growing DCs safety/make an exit plan - please read the thread I linked to and others.

Take it from an outside observer that your husband's behaviour is not ok - you deserve better.

Please continue to use MN to think/vent etc.

I can not see Yalla how you can think you would be able to 'snap' someone else out of anything. It is always their job/their decision not ours.
I am in a very similar situation.
I think sometimes I might loose my serenity over it!
My advice: get help through 'co dependency anonymous', they help you with emotional dependancy, or 'Al-Anon' Al-ANon is for the relatives and friends of alcoholics (alcohol was mentioned a few times in your letter and it might be a slight possibility?)
... should be accessible online!
secondly: focus on yourself, do not try to analyse his insane behaviour. It will eat up your resources and make you behave insane as well.
Lots of love, B

Hi,

Thanks for everyone's posts. I'm too exhausted right now to respond individually but I promise I have read them. They are helpful. My emotions at the moment are so up and down I just don't know what to do.

Since I told him about the baby (he knew we were TTC by the way and was a willing participant, although neither of us were expecting it to happen so quickly!) he has been wonderful.

Totally loving, insisting on carrying everything, talking about getting through to the scans part and how important that is, asking me all the time how I feel etc, talking about wanting to set up a baby bond for the baby etc, all good stuff! Being excited and helpful and loving, everything you would want. Making me feel all warm and gooey inside.

Things were wonderful for 2 days. Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. We had a lovely day at home and then got dolled up for a night out. Just as we were leaving home I received a work email - a potentially big commission. This is rare stuff these days so, as he was driving to dinner, I went to use my phone to email my contact back a quick one-line response.

I said something like 'let me just shoot this email off quickly' and he said something back to me like 'yeah but it's not like you're going to do the work tonight, is it', but in quite a cutting way. I didn't like his tone, so shot back 'oh god our life revolves around your work emails and I never complain'. Something like that. Just snapped back at him, because I felt (wrongly or rightly) that he'd snapped at me.

It's possible I snapped and shouldn't have. But anyway, his response was to say 'Fuck Off'.

Well at that point a line had been crossed, we were on our way to our anniversary dinner for chrissake and this is no way to talk to your wife on that day or any other. I can't remember what happened but we pulled over and started arguing, me demanding an apology for the 'Fuck Off'. I might have snapped - and perhaps I did jump down his throat a little - but I don't deserve to be told to fuck off.

Well, he refused. I said I wanted an apology and he refused. He just said 'You apologise first for snapping at me, and then I'll apologise for swearing'. Now I know this sounds ridiculous but this is what our arguments are like these days.

We went round and round in circles. I said I felt I should just get an unreserved apology, but he refused to do so unless I apologised first. If I tried to point out that snapping is bad but swearing is another level up, he accused me of making the whole thing into some sort of competition. It was a bit exhausting.

Eventually I sort of said ok well fine sorry for snapping, he said sorry, but while looking away from me out the window. We went on to dinner. He then spent a lot of time trying to make it up to me, being all chatty and friendly etc, but my heart wasn't really in it.

Today. We went for a lovely massage and spa to 'celebrate' our anniversary. And had lunch afterwards. All lovely again.

More baby talk, and he apologised properly this time for swearing last night.

Then we decide to drive to the supermarket to get stuff for dinner. I am driving as he's had a beer, but he spends a lot of the drive being an awful back-seat driver. Telling me to brake, telling me to get closer or further from cars, saying watch out as we approach junctions etc.

This drives me NUTS (we had a huge argument already about this just a few months ago) so I said, in a nice but firm voice, please stop telling me how to drive as I'm perfectly capable and you're driving me nuts. He said 'Don't be so sensitive'. I replied 'Stop telling me how to drive'. He replied 'Don't be so sensitive'. And so on, I think you get the picture.

By the time we pull into the supermarket I'm nearly losing my marbles! The comments continue (but in a kind of 'jokey' way) and I just feel so frustrated. We start to walk to the supermarket and he says to me 'You're VERY highly strung today'. I can see what he's done now, deliberately wind me up, so I say no, I'm not highly strung, but you purposely drove me nuts with your back seat driving and I don't like it.

He kept repeating, sometimes laughing like it was all such a hilarious joke, that I'm soooo highly strung these days etc etc. Eventually I just snapped and walked back to the car.

Now - of course I probably AM highly-strung, I'm pregnant for god's sake! - but WHY wind me up like that? I asked him not to do it but he just continued.

But because he was being reasonable and smiling and laughing, and I got into a strop and walked back to the car, he thinks I am the one being unreasonable.

Is this normal?

About 10 minutes later he got back into the car, and we drove home in silence. When we arrived back he went to the boot to get his swimming bag out of the boot, but left mine in there. I said to him - 'aren't you going to take my bag out of the boot too?' - and he just looked coldly over his shoulder and said to me: "Why would I want to do that?".

This was about 30 minutes ago. He has now, without a word to me, gone upstairs and is lying under the duvet in bed.

He obviously feels he has been wronged because I refused to go into the supermarket and I have totally over-reacted to his 'joking'. That's exactly how he sees it, I know.

I have a horrible feeling this is not really working out, is it?

Did I snap? Am I being unreasonable? Am I being a hormonal drama queen? Am I revelling in the drama of this? I just can't tell anymore

Sorry for the micro details about our argument, but this is how they all are - seemingly over nothing but I end up getting SO upset and frustrated and just struggle to make sense of it all afterwards. I just wanted to get it down while I remembered.

I feel utterly bereft. This should be one of the happiest periods of our lives and I am downstairs in tears wondering whether things are about to fall apart.

FFS woman wake up!

Nothing is going to change with this man so are 2 good lovely days worth all this shit?

BTW I only had myself to rely on as a child and I don't sulk and go silent when dh and I have problems.

But where is my husband gone? I just can't understand. I can't face this.

Sorry I know I'm pathetic.

Days will be lovely when they go according to his plan. When you behave as he thinks you should behave.

When you assert yourself then you are "making him" react badly.

It will always be the case.
I know you are grieving for what might have been. but the reality is that with such a man, that was always going to be a fantasy, unless you are completely willing to subjugate yourself to his version of events.

I speak from having watched someone close to me go through 13 years of this - self doubt, failing resolve, happiness for the "good times" (ie when she was behaving herself according to him).

Please don't waste time trying to get hold of something that just CAN'T happen.

And it's not him that's changed. It's you. You have woken up.

But when it's all inside your head how do you know who's right?

It would be easier if it was an affair. There is something concrete.

This requires such strength and I just don't know if I have it.

Well you had better get some as you have a baby to think about now.

Hello, Yalla, and thank you for your update! There's a great deal I want to say in response to your post, but I shan't. I'll say this instead:

In each of the three arguments you've describe, you were upset. In response, he goaded you. As you say, you saw what he did: he's making a game out of your distress, in order to hurt you more and see what you'd do.

When you choose a partner to love, and to take care of your baby, would you choose someone who does that - or someone who is upset to find they've upset you, and stops immediately?

Were you to win this commission, would it give you the financial confidence to make the break? I think he will try to sabotage it. Any chance you could borow friend, and do it from their house?

Yes Grace, you are right.

And no, I wouldn't choose a partner or father of my baby to do this.

It's not about the commission - I've got the money to leave (well, sort of). But the commission is not going to change anything either way.

I just keep hoping things will get back to normal.

I've just found out I'm pregnant and this is something I've dreamed of my whole life. Why can't I even have some basic happiness? What have I done to deserve this?

Hi YallaYalla,

re your comment
"I have a horrible feeling this is not really working out, is it?"

No it is not (do you really need an answer to the above question?) and it will not. He is doing his usual abusive behaviour type stuff of being "nice" to you one minute then bloody awful the next. Two days of being "nice" does not cut any ice at all. Infact he could not keep up the charade of being nice to you even for a whole day. And now he's sulking under the duvet (he wants you to feel sorry for him). Even my 11 year old son has more emotional maturity than this manchild.

Its the same old same old with him. Its almost the same as your last discussion with him that turned nasty. The same old format is being followed by him here this time around. The nasty comments, the belittling. You truly do not matter to him.
You don't know where you are with him at all do you?. He will end up driving you mad which is what he wants really; you're easier to manipulate then.

And no, none of your relationship is at all bloody "normal" let alone healthy. Look at what your counsellor told you - there's a massive power inbalance here.

You certainly may not like what I am going to write next but it needs writing.

Your relationship with him was coming apart at the seams long before now. He is repeating what his Mum has done to his Dad, you cannot change that within him no matter how much you want this to work out, for your child to have two parents. You both learnt damaging relationship patterns when growing up from your own parents. You seriously do not want this child to see all this dysfunction and learn damaging lessons of their own from you both. One generation i.e yourselves has already been profoundly affected by their parents dysfunctional marriage with predictable results I might add. You are both repeating the same old that both your parents have done within their marriages.

Your only chance YallaYalla is to get out of this relationship completely because once your child is born the stakes will increase, you'll be even more dependent on him and you'll find it even harder to leave. Infact he's told you you're not splitting up - what sort of man tells his wife that?.

You mean nothing to him really. To him you are but a mere plaything/possession for him to despise.

You know there's a certain kind of nasty little boy, who likes to pull the legs off frogs to see what they'll do about trying to get away?
Think about it.

I don't think I can have a child alone. Leave here, return to UK and have it alone. Because for starters I'd be going back to no job, and who on earth is going to hire a pregnant woman in her 30s in a recession?

So, if I left, I think I would have to not continue with the pregnancy.

If I BECAME a single mother, fine, but I don't want to start out as one (sorry if this offends anyone). I always imagined a family, not me struggling to support a child alone from day one.

So I am now faced with whether to do an awful thing.

What a bloody MESS.

"I just keep hoping things will get back to normal".

Oh YallaYalla. That's your denial of the situation talking.
Denial is a powerful force.

What normal exactly?. Since when has your relationship with him ever been "normal", let alone a healthy one. It never has been either normal or healthy. Earth calling YallaYalla - wake up and see this dysfunctional relationship for what it really is. This is in no way a loving relationship; he goads you and makes you upset. Its but a game to him, he enjoys it.

You can live on benefits if you have to. Because you are preganant, you will make new friends with other mums and soon-to-be-mums. It'll a whole new, fresh, exciting world. And you'll still be able to put yourself out for freelance work.

But I am a nice wife. I am a good woman. I am not a horrible person.

Why why why.

Stop putting such obstacles in your way. You could give birth to this child after you return to the UK. I take it you are a British citizen so you could return without immigration problems.

Its not your fault that the "marriage, kids and golden retriever" fantasy has not worked out but he has continued not to take any responsibility for his actions here and will not either.

You're working alone now in a foreign land and have little support. You could do this job you currently have here. I have read you have few if any friends there.

What life do you have there now?. It seems like a pitiful existance to me actually.
You are extremely vulnerable currently.

Just in case you've lost touch with things, Yalla:- You rent a flat, register yourself with a doctor and register unemployed. If you have less than £6k in the bank (I think; haven't checked the threshold), your rent and council tax will be paid. You will receive money to live on - subsistence, but liveable. You'll also get assistance with what you need for your health care and baby stuff.

yalla I have been through this too.

IT IS NOT YOU...IT'S HIM!

Look in the mirror, and say that to yourself...a lot.

It's so hard to take that step back and realise that your body...your instincts already know the truth...that's your "horrible feeling". That's the truth.

I always find the teddy bear section of Patricia Evans "controlling people" the most lucid explanation of how this dynamic works. You are his teddy bear....and when you are being you, you are not doing what teddy should be doing, so h gets a temper tantrum and sulks under his quilt. Well effing diddums.

This man is in no fit state to father anything!