SAHM envy eating DP up

[Haylo]

Brief history, DP of 19 years, two DCs 4.5 and 2.5, first in full time school and youngest in nursery two mornings a week. No family around us within 150 miles. DP works and commutes leaving house at 0700 and returning at 2000. l took voluntary redundancy when in maternity leave with first child and have been SAHM since.

l can honestly say l have been made to feel 'guilty' for 'just being at home with the kids' since l finished 'paid work' 5 years ago by DP. Despite the fact l do all the child care, all night feeds and wakings, 7 days a week, all household stuff and cooking. l don't do much with the children because l am constantly aware DP thinks l am taking the mickey.

DP comes in late, so obviously evening meal has been cooked, kids fed, cleared up, baths, reading and bedtime routine done, as he walks in l am often sitting down for the first proper time that day.

He simply cannot reconcile that l play as equal part in this family as he does. He told me today our partnership is not equitable and he doesn't hink being a housewife is a full time job. It depends for me on the cicumstances, because of his 13 hours out of the house are we supposed to load all household and child tasks to me. He really takes no responsibility for anything, bins, cars, garden, pets, holidays, birthdays etc etc.

I am constantly having to justify my time because he rings me multiple times a day to check what l have done. Whatever l have achieved you can bet is not what he thinks should have been. If l have taken DD to park for half an hour he makes some snide comment about being all right for some. He resents being at work so much he takes it out on me. His phone calls and most discussions with me are liek rapid fire questions, have you done such and such, yes ok moving on until we find something l have not.

He is verging on depression most of the time and desperate to 'escape the rat race'. he wants dearly to think of some great idea which will make him loads of money so he can give up working for someone else. He is now forcing this desperation onto me, badgering me to start a business and get earning money. If l am honest l am just knackered at the end of each day, l have very little time for me, let alone getting the motivation to start a business.

l am happy to put my career on hold whilst the kiddies are young and l need to fit in with their schooling and nursery hours. Whilst l am at home l can pick up on the household stuff to make weekends family time. But l expect some respect and appreciation for what l contribute to the family, not to be told l am taking to mick.

Yes, it may not all be about his job unfortunately...
I think you need to draw a line with the constant ringing and checking. It's v v controlling.

Tell him you want a father for your children and a lover for yourself - not a cash machine.

OMG- he phones you to see what youve done and rapid fires questions at you? He is a control freak of the highest order.

Google narcissistic personality disorder and see if it rings any bells.

It may not be this, of course, but if it is, he is unlikely to change.

He does sound like an unhappy person. The root cause is probably from his own family - he is effectively trying to cast you as his own mum (who was maybe treated like that by his dad?). He's probably all too aware of his shortcomings but unable to do a u-turn.

Hard to know what you can do if he is the kind of person who won't really listen/is a too scared of his inner demons. Relate/ Marriage Course maybe? Unlikely to make things worse than they are, at least.

Yes, my XP was like this too. He was controlling as well and hated his job and was hugely resentful - I ended up staying in most days and doing nothing. At weekends he still didn't take responsibility for DS so I was still the main person "in charge" - it was exhausting. It was like being a single parent with a whinging grown up child to look after as well! I am on my own with DS now and it's actually easier because XP takes him out at weekends - he takes more responsibility for him now than he did before.

Funnily enough - what happened with his job - he had been talking for months (years) about leaving the place he worked at and moving to his friend's business (friend was self employed) - they were just waiting for friend to build up enough business to be able to pay him.

XP hated his current (ie current at the time) job because he said that everyone else there was useless, he did all the work, the business would fail without him, etc etc and he was on minimum wage. He was constantly stressed and blamed it on his job, said "I'll be less stressed when I move to friend's company, it'll be better, everything will be ok when I move."

It took me a while to realise I'd heard this before - when we had a lodger it was always "This lodger is stressing me out, it'll be ok when he leaves, everything will be fine then". It wasn't. The lodger left and he carried on being an arse. So I didn't think that the new job was going to change anything, and besides, he'd been planning it for so long and it hadn't happened, and I got fed up of waiting.

So anyway, yes I left in the end, a few weeks later he proudly informed me he'd moved to his friend's company. Everything appeared to be going well for them, but then I spoke to the friend the other day and he is getting seriously hacked off with XP and has been losing clients because of him and had to give him a verbal warning. Apparently when XP left his old job the boss said to friend "Good luck" !

....Not really sure what the point of this post was now, I can't remember but it's taken me a while to type so I'll post it anyway!

Haylo, in an earlier post you mentioned that you have 4 properties which you rent out and you manage. Do you have control of this money? Is this seen as your income?

I had a property which I let and my income from that was really very high in relation to the amount of work I put in and, possibly because of that, I didn't really see it as my income at all. And yet, it paid the mortgage and allowed us to live in a much bigger house that we could have otherwise afforded.

However, with 4 rental properties, your income can not be insignificant. And this is on top of looking after 2 small children.

I, like others, think this, unfortunately, runs much much deeper than him being a bit difficult.

Also, I think that the relationship between you is very confused. On the one hand, he is being very controlling. On the other hand, he is expecting you to do everything and fulfil every need and in this respect he is treating you like a mother. Relate talks about a marriage being a partnership of two equal adults. I don't see that there is much partnership, you don't appear to be equals and I think in many ways he is behaving like a stroppy teenager, so not adult either.

I don't have any great suggestions. I spent over 6 years trying to sort out similar but not so serious issues in my own relationship without success. The only real advice I can give you based on my experience is to draw your line in the sand now. Be very very clear and specific about it so that you know when things have gone too far. Then create very clear deadlines for change.

The risk if you don't is that years down the line, things will be worse than ever, you'll have 'lost' yourself and your H will still be blaming you for his unhappiness. At some point you will also have to deal with your own sense of loss at not having enjoyed the precious time you have now with your children.

What would happen if you said no Haylo?

Or not answer the phone when you know it's him?

Take charge a little, I know it might be a big ask but do it.

Godd luck with your 'talk' from my experience he will nto see anything wrong so you will have to close your ears and do what you need to do and then tell him.

Here's a good site to look at -- you might see your H here.

Haylo, if you can, please let us know how you got on????

The problem is that your DH hates his job.

Good site, Histrionic Personality Disorder strikes a few bells here.... not to extremes, but gosh, the analysis is very interesting.

Five years? He's been doing this for 5 years? If he hates his job that much, he's had plenty of time to look at changing it.

Equally, in 5 years, I would have found the time to get him to take a couple of days off to look after the DC and buggered off and left him to it - usually that wakes them up to how much you actually DO do in a day.

Depression? Up to him - deal with it. Control freakery - part of it. Envy - another part of it. Not having a fucking clue what he's talking about - big part of it.

I can't believe you've put up with it for 5 years, tbh.

Thanks everyone for your posts and links. l have looked at NPD, there are some scarily accurate descriptions of DP to certain degrees.

He came in late last night, l was bathing the kids and making up beds, he talked to them but not really me. Came down half an hour later to him asking what he had to do for his dinner, it was there on the cooker just ready to finish !

Kids went to bed late (again), it was 930 l was exhausted he was clearly giving me the silent treatment and acting like a hurt child, so l said l was tired and off to bed. l know l should have stayed up and made him talk, but quite honestly l didn't have the energy or the heart for it last night.

After yesterday on here l have thought a lot about the situation, something needs to change, but l need to get my strategy straight in the my head before l demand we talk about it, if l don't he will get me wound up and divert the conversation onto why l am the problem.

Its going to go one of two ways today, either loads of phone calls of "are you ok now" trying to pass the issue onto me or silence - we will see.

Will check in later, thanks all again.

Parent, adult, child model you mentioned is clear here he talks to you as a parent and you are responding as the child. Put simply don't put up with the phone calls checking up on you. Maker your own to do list for the day and do that, inculding stuff like the park with the kids. You must get a horrible feeling when the phone rings.

Haylo, reading through your thread you spend a lot of time talking about what your DP wants/how he thinks/analysing his behaviour.

Maybe you should think about what you want. Pretend your DP is normal and stop worrying about his feelings in this. What would your life be like then?

Haylo, I really recommend ignoring his calls today if he calls. That phone is like a tether for you.

Hello,

my DP and my set up is as yours.

Only that my DH doesn´t begrudge me the "perks" that coem with my job (as SAHM).

We both know that he can only work the hours he does because I am always here and am here during hols, when kids are sick etc.

Just want you to know this "envy" isn´t a normal part of this devision of labour.

You shoudl sit down properly and have a chat, maybe you could consider going back to work and let him stay at home for a year? Then after the year, reassess the situation?

For us it only works because we are both happy with our lot. Sometimes he has a much harder time, working so hard. But sometimes it is me, stuck at home with sick gremlins and the walls closing in and it´s not always a picnic! You get bored too. It´s great when the kids are well, and the weather is nice, and the chores are done.

But give me job, ANY job, for the gastly February Half term when it´s too cold to go out, the kids tearing eachother´s hair out, and the roof is leaking...

Making YOU miserable isn´t going to make HIM happy, is it? So ask him what his solution would be.

Well, he's getting something out of making you miserable, Haylo, or else he wouldn't be doing it. There are people who can't get through the day without ruining someone else's. They need it like they need air.

I second Malinkey's advice -- this would have been very hard for me to do when I was still trying to deal with my exH, who was very resentful that I got to play mother while he had to spend his days looking at porn slaving away in the office, where his talents went unappreciated, he was the only one who ever got anything done because everyone else was so lazy...

Haylo, I hope you have managed to talk to your DH but, more importantly worked out what you want from the relationship and how you want things to proceed going forward.
My DH phones/text me during the day as well but usually it's asking if I am having a nice day with the DS and if he ever needs me to do anything he proceeds it with..if you have time...
You deserve better.

I'm sure I'm about to get flamed here but here goes, have you thought about perhaps sharing the childcare so you could work part time and he could work part time. Your kids would still get a SAH parent but quality time with both of you. His behaviour to you hasn't been good but perhaps with a little bit more give and take on both sides you could reach a compromise. Just a thought...

Haylo Your DP sounds like a bit of a fruitloop. Don't get me wrong, I really DO think most men would appreciate that looking after household chores AND young children is a job in itself- they have done so for decades.

If you DIDN'T have children, he would have a very, very valid point but you do have children!

If he is a fruitloop, then I would seriously think about life apart from him.
I don't know how much money you have of your own (bear in mind that he may be very tight with cash if you decide to leave- only paying for DCs and not you. You say "DP" not "DH"- well, without going into all the details ad nauseam, you do know that cohabitation affords little rights in itself. NOT a judgement, just a fact), but I would seriously, if I were you, see how much money you've got in preparation to leave.
Just consider it thoroughly, you don't have to leave BUT it is worth considering so that he does not have so much control over you.
Hey, for all I know those properties are solely owned by you! But you get my point.

Get financial reserves together if you DO decide to leave, he doesn't sound like the "what's mine is yours" sort of man.

Haylo I have no children and my circumstances are not like yours, but I am divorcing my super-controlling husband- your DPs behaviour is so like his - checking every single thing I do. He even instructs me how many scoops of bolognese to eat!! - that I can recognise an insecure control freak a mile off.
I will tell you this, this controlling behaviour has a "drip drip" effect in destroying your on your self-esteem and confidence.
Flame me if you will, but a wife-beater is in some respects BETTER than the sort of guy your partner is- at least you don't think you're going mad with a wife-beater!!

Amen, Marantha.