DH says I've turned him into a chauvinist.

[HowDoIMakeHimUnderstand]

Have namechanged...

DH and I have been together 2 years, married for 1 and we have an 8 month old DD.

When we met, he was a laid-back, tolerant liberal man. Very much a live and let live sort of person...especially when it came to gender roles and women.

However, since we married and had DD, he has really started to alter his perception on relationships, marriage, men/women and just about everything.

We have a traditional set-up. I am a SAHM, he goes out to work. He works full time and has his own business, so he works really really long hours. As a result, I do all the housework, cooking and the majority of child-care.

Recently, he has begun to make comments in regards to a 'woman's place being in the home', he doesn't like the 'feminisation of the work-place' and says that when he was younger he was led to believe that there was no such thing as a happy housewife so he gave up thinking he would ever meet one. Until I came along apparently...

I am a v. laid back sort of person. I don't mind picking up dirty socks and towels off the floor, I couldn't give a fig what he wears, how he does his hair and I don't give a crap about clothes/jewelry/shopping etc. I hate confrontation, so if something trivial is bothering me, I just let it slide. Because of our personalities, DH is very much the dominant one in our relationship.

This is just who I am naturally, it is not planned nor is it a conscious choice.

However, it seems that my laid-back, do all the housework and generally let him get on with his business/go out to pub/fix up his cars, attitude is bringing about a really unpleasant side in him.

He now spouts forth that all women should stay home full time to raise their children and that no man really wants to do housework and change nappies...and any man that does so is just pandering to 'his woman' because he has been mis-led by the feminist movement and the media into thinking that he has to act 'like a pussy' in order to keep a woman...

I've tried pointing out how wrong this attitude is...I've argued with him. All to no avail. He just smiles at me and says 'Well, I'm just glad you're not a career-woman type. I go out to work, you stay home...this is how it should be'. He even said our marital set-up has made him a chauvinist.

What should I do? We are fundamentally very happy with our marriage, he treats me really well, is always there for me if I need him and is a completely devoted father. But I'm v. worried about the impact this new 'thinking' could have on our DD as she gets older...

Have I made a rod for my own back here? Should I stop behaving like this? What can I do?

Advice really needed here...thanks if you got this far!

While I agree with all the comments the OP has elicited I keep wondering whether there isn't something else going on here.

How can you go from a liberal easy- going chap with egalitarian views into some misogynistic twat from the 50's in the space of 1 year?? If it was an act I don't get the need for the pretence in the first place - why not say nothing either way?

And if he was just an old-fashioned guy who has realised that the traditional ways are best why is he so angry??He should be happy and smug, since he has got what so many of his contemporariness clearly want and do not have.

Why does he go out of his way to insult women when they haven't hurt him? If he had been completely fucked over by some total bitch in the past you could sort of understand it.

He is angry, or threatened, or something. Has there been an influx of high flying, intimidating professional women into his area of work?

I'm afraid that a man using the phrase "feminisation of the workplace" would be grounds enough for divorce. And I am not joking- I could not subject a daughter to that misogyny.

If you said tomorrow 'I don't fancy doing all the housework. I believe it's a man's role to take some of the share for the care of our children and house' (which is, let's face it, a far more reasonable stance than his), what would his reaction be, I wonder?

Or if you said 'I am bored at home and want to go back to work'?

Or 'I am going out on Saturday night with some friends. You're ok with babysitting?'???

Or anything that doesnt involve you doing and being what a woman 'should' do and be in his narrow view?

Come on. Open your eyes.

OP It's best to take any advice you are get with a pinch of salt, some may find it difficult to understand the situation fully as they place themselves in your position and how they feel and what they would do. That's okay but the most important part is what you feel about it.

I don't think he is controlling and i don't think he hates women but i do think that it is best if you address him on this so that it does not influence your daughter at a tender age where she would soak in her surroundings like a sponge.

Have you tried telling him you don't want your daughter growing up hearing her 'role' her father thinks women should have.

A persons view can only change if they want it to no one can force them to think differently however they can refrain from expressing that view when it will impact negatively on those in their surrounding environment.

Agree with msboogie on the 'feminsiation of the workplace' comment. Really bad.

WombFrootShoot I do not defend what he says. What I do defend are the allegations that he is abusive to me. He is not.

sammyuni I do very much want this sort of talk gone by the time my DD is old enough to understand anything said.

He has promised to be supportive of her no matter what, but I still do not want her hearing the kinds of language that has been used.

Well, if anything, you can show him this thread so that he can wake up and realise that the vast majority of women would not put up with this shit - so yes, he is very lucky to have you. Very lucky indeed.

It sounds like he is gloating at his good fortune. It also sounds like you are slightly uncomfortable in the role he describes you in.

What do you want him to say? What would you like in the future? Tell him, and while youre at it tell him the stuff he is saying right now makes him sound like a dick!

OP then tell him this you have to let him know, it's good that he wants to be supportive of his daughter so refer to this when he makes those comments. Hopefully having his own words applied to his own daughter that he seems to care for will make him wake up.

well i think it's up to you how much you want to rock the boat.

yes, i think your dd may get the message that 'good' girls become housewives and look after their dh's needs from your dh. she may choose to ignore it.

i think i would be putting my foot down and saying 'i don't want to hear that rubbish in my house.'

i think you also need to make sure that your dd sees that you have choices and that when she grows up she will have choices too. keep up your qualifications. make sure you have your options open.

i'm sorry, but i find this a deeply depressing thread.

HDIMHU...your name, your title, your OP... all pointed to you having a problem with his attitude and your position in relation to him

you expressed concern about his influence on your dd

now you don't have a problem at all

which is it ?

I am really not trying to have a go at you...but you have contradicted yourself

you are defending his pompous posturing and really rather creepy dismissal of what was obviously a violent and concerning case of DV (whoever was in the right, it doesn't matter...but he seems pretty sure and you agree with him )

you have said in black and white you are afraid to force him to face his sexism, so you go along with it

I will quote you..."I am frightened to rock the boat"

he has "expectations" of what tasks you will achieve during the day

you may not verbally let his misogyny go, but your behaviour (by passively going along with it) says otherwise

FWIW, I never said he would leave you for a younger model in 20 years, but the truth is, there are sad tales on here from women who have subsumed themselves to the point where their husbands don't see them as very important any more...like just any other domestic appliance

I am on your side, believe it or not, as is every other poster on here...even though you may not like what you are reading

OP is there any possibility that the time scale of this change in him has coincided with a change in the dynamic of his industry?

I am thinking that he is threatened in the workplace which is where all this "moneygrabbing women" talk comes from. He is taking refuge in this olde worlde view a bit like people who talk about the Eastern Europeans coming over here and taking all our jobs.

Perhaps these money grabbing career women have stopped him feeling like the cock o' the walk in his work life? and if only they'd fuck off back to the kitchen sink everything would go back to how it was before...

He also seems to believe that men should have all the money and women who try to extract their due at the end of the relationship are money grabbing. This does not bode very well for you in future if it all goes tits up.

Seriously, get a job for yourself. Get a career.

Dunno what you want TBH. People have told you their experiences as far as being with men who hold these kinds of views, and they're not very edifying tales are they? You don't feel you fit into that bracket? Fine!

Others have told you that you must keep on "pulling him up" everytime he says something vicious about women. Then we have the confusing...don't want a row stuff...from you. Oh and, lest we forget, the patronising little "I don't mean you dear" bullshit. ( anyone else thinking of the classic "I trust YOU darling, it's other men" stuff that controlling men wheel out every 5 minutes)

You've said what you're doing isn't working. Huge respect you're getting in that case eh?

what do you want? You want him to stop saying shit about women? Then it's going to be argument or you're going to have to just STFU and get on with it.

But please don't swallow the shit about the other poor put upon husbands with the nutty wives crap he's feeding you. I very much doubt that every marriage breakdown he encounters are entirely down to the bitch lying wives.

actually...if this idiot spouts that kind of shite at work, he might well find himself on the wrong end of a sexual discrimination charge

if it is wrong to talk like that in the workplace...it is wrong to talk like that at home (even more so with the tender and trusting ears of a little girl, all agog to hear what daddy says....)

I agree with Mrsboogie - you don't turn into a tosser overnight because someone makes your sandwiches for 8 months.

I have been making DH's sandwiches for considerably longer than that and he's still a lovely, respectful, feminist man.

I think, OP, you also need to look at why your DH continues to say these comments when you've made it clear they upset you.

And why does he choose to say them to you?

It sounds to me like he's putting out a subtle (or not so subtle) warning. He's saying:

"THIS is the behaviour I find acceptable in a woman."

"THIS is what I think of women who act in transgressive ways."

"Of course I except you from this because you're different and I love you" - coded message, if you weren't different, I might stop loving you.

Can't you see, he's not just making random thoughtless comments, he's doing a sustained broadcast advert of what he thinks of a certain type of woman, to reinforce the way you need to act in order to retain his good opinion. If aren't taking these comments personally you SHOULD be, because he's saying them to you. Why is that?

I'm afraid the bottom line for me would be that I couldn't love a man who said things like this. If you can then fine - but you need to work that out for yourself.

TYV..you have articulated again how this bloke has done, and is continuing to do, such a number on her

Ok, well I asked for opinions and I got them. And for that I'm grateful, to everyone who took the time to post. It's given me alot of think about.

I'm going to leave it here for tonight and go to bed.

Night all

goodnight and look after yourself

MN is nothing if not honest....very hard to take at times

People often try to pull back on these threads..they come on wanting to talk about some issue with the husband and maybe get some ideas on how to handle him, then a whole torrent of revulsion at his behaviour is released by other posters and they are faced with the realisation that, actually, it's all so much worse than they thought.

The OP is suddenly faced with the stark realisation that she might have to take rather more drastic action than she had anticipated.

She knows what we know - she just needs to process it for a while.

ok, I have to jump in...

I was raised fundamentalist christian (mormon if you must know - the kind who think orthodox catholics have lax morals). I am the oldest of six children and my mother was a SAHM until the youngest was in school, making me 21. My parents made the choice to have my mother at home, sometimes through grinding poverty, because they felt it was important to have a parent at home with the kids and my father had greater earning potential. My mother did EVERYTHING and my father frequently had to travel for business. The year I turned 13 he travelled 48 weeks out of the year. Mom took care of us 100% when he was gone. I spent many years swearing I would never be a SAHM because I was afraid of having my mother's life.

I know where you are coming from in that respect. I was raised thinking that my eternal salvation and place in heaven was CONTINGENT on marrying and being a SAHM.

Both of my fundie parents would be horrified to hear some of the things you have quoted your DH as saying, even in jest.

I am a SAHM now, not really because I took a shine to it, but because it makes sense in our lives right now. DH audibly dreams of a future date when we can trade off and he can be a SAHD (he is delusional ). Our lives are very much in "traditional roles" atm. However, my DH was attracted to me because I had my own ambitions, wanted a career, and didn't aspire to SAHMood - which is quite common in the mormon community. Oh, did I mention DH's folks are possibly more fundie than mine? So the upbringing didn't cause it.

My DH would also be horrified if anyone, man or woman (women can be chauvanists too), said some of the things you have quoted in his presence, and my DH is just enough of an asshole that he would punch confront that person on the spot

You have been reacting as though we just don't know your DH the way you do and that 99.99% of the time he is utterly lovely and we misjudged him. Look, I know the feeling. I was in an abusive relationship for two years (not that yours is) and constantly defended my relationship to outsiders even as my boyfriend told me how poorly I (my dress, not knowing his native language, etc) reflected on HIM.

In retrospect I wish I had listened to the outsiders, who could clearly see my relationship with more perspective than I. I only thank god I didn't marry the guy and get myself in deeper than I was.

I recognize that you ARE married and you HAVE had a baby. I don't think you should leave your DH because he is a bit of a knob at times - that's an overreaction, but you CANNOT let comments like the ones you have mentioned stand, even if it means a fight.

My dad didn't know that my then-boyfriend was abusive, but he told me I should be careful with him because he heard BF casually mention a girl as a "slut". Dad told me that it was indicative of his lack of respect for women. Well, I was just young enough to think my dad didn't know anything, so I thought he just didn't know loving Boyfriend the way I did and that he would never talk about me that way... until, of course, he did. (the sin that brought on the slut-shaming ire? I wore a short skirt.)

I cannot stress how much you NEED to make explicitly clear to your H that saying things like this in front of you is UNACCEPTABLE. He can say it at work, at the pub, or think it silently inside, but he needs to know, under no uncertain terms, that it is NOT OKAY IN THE HOME YOU SHARE.

This may lead to a fight - or a few fights, but it will be worth it, and hopefully the first time you really stand your ground, if he is as otherwise decent as you say he is and you are as otherwise easy-going, he will respect your wishes because he can see how important this is to you. It seems that you have chosen over the years to reserve and pick your battles, well, this is one battle that needs to be had, for both the sake of you and the sake of your DD, who trust me, will turn into a little sociopathic monster in about ten months (my dd is 18 mo ), and neither of you deserve to have those sorts of things said to or about you. You may feel that your H is excepting you from the disparaging things he says, but your DD won't. Kids have an amazing way of taking the most generalized thing their parents say and personalizing it to a heartbreaking degree.

Hello HDIMHU,

Just now I'm a SAHM and my partner works long hours, including some weekends, at his job. We have a 4-month old son, and I still have health problems from his birth and we are just now getting into a routine. I do the cooking, cleaning, laundry and shopping during the week, but we have a list of chores - that we drew up together - for things that need to be done daily, weekly or monthly.

We drew up the list of chores as a team, writing down things that we thought need to be done, and we therefore help with each other's needs. For example, he has a fish tank and I really would forget to feed the fish if it weren't on the list. If we haven't finished the daily chores that we agreed need to be done by the time he's come home from work, he helps me finish them. On the weekends, we do the tasks and tick them off as we do them - no one has a role as the "person who must feed fish because of his/her gender".

My job is to look after our child and the house, yes, but not to the extent that I am too exhausted to do anything else. His job is to earn money, yes, but not to the extent that he is too exhausted in the evenings to do anything else. We support each other, and no we're not Christian, we just do it because we think it's the right thing to do, and the right way to treat each other.

If you want to run your household differently, fair play to you, but it doesn't seem like you are completely happy with the way your household is just now, or the way your husband is treating you. So you either get to 1) keep things as they are or 2) change things. Those are your choices. I've read 7 pages of posts, and they say pretty much what I've just said there.

Maybe you are content to keep hearing misogynistic stuff from your partner, but I am surprised that you will do this when you have a daughter.... not that it would be any better for a son to hear those comments! If you can't change things for yourself, do it for your child(ren).

For the record, at no point has anybody said that Op should leave her husband