How Do I Stop DH Being a Teenager Whilst Supporting Him in a Sad Family Situation?

[Highlander]

DH is going through a really tough time at the moment. SIL has terminal breast cancer (she is unmarried and is a hoarder) and FIL has recently had to move to a nursing home as he has moderate dementia. The ILs live in Ireland so going to see them is tricky.

But I hate, hate, hate DH and I fucking hate the way his family has dictated our lives for the last 10 years.

When I met DH, and moved in with him (I changed jobs and moved cities), DH asked where I would live. I said with him, of course, and he was a bit shocked. the condition was that his parents must never find out. I paid market-rate rent and took a month off work so sand the floors and varnish them. I had nowhere to put my clothes (DH claimed at the time he had no money to buy some drawers) and was very twitchy when i GAVE INSTRUCTIONS to a builder about getting the bathroom done. When his parents came to visit, I had to clear out all my stuff and move to a friend's for the weekend. DH insisted that all the alcohol was hidden in the garage (he would always do this).

I've never gone to my folks' for Christmas - lots of siblings, it's too noisy and I used to work and enjoy a bit of peace. DH used to freak out about this and insist I went ot his parents. This continued when we had children until I finally put my foot down.

The night before he proposed to me he phoned his best man and asked if he was doing the right thing (his best man rightly told him that only DH knew the answer to that). I'm still really hurt by this, after all, how would he have reacted if I'd not immediately accepted but said that I would like to consult my friends? I agreed to having the wedding in Ireland, but it ended up going from a small, relaxed affair to a huge white wedding full of people that I hardly knew. Then everyone freaked out because I refused to change my surname (I told DH that he could change to mine)

He's such a child (I know, most men are) and it drives me insane. He took 10 years to write up his research degree, claiming that someone else was supposed to do the statistics, OMG, every excuse under the sun. And now he's behaving like a petulent child because he's been turned down for jobs in top hospitals.

When I found out I was pregnant with DS1, DH was already overseas (I was staying behind in the UK for 3 nmonths to complete my PHD). The pregancy was unplanned and I wanted to terminate. DH refused to fly home, and was being really mean about me 'aborting his child'. I was a total mess (but didn't really realise it). I flew out, had the baby who was colicky, didn't know a soul. DH bullied me into flying back to the UK with 8 week old DS1, purely to show DS1 off to this parents. It was a ghastly time.

When DS1 was 4 months old, SIL was diagnosed with breast cancer (5 yrs ago now). DH was naturally devastated, but I had to practically shove him on the plane home to support her. He kept sayig that SIL would be OK - but I had to point out that the ILs were too elderly to travel to the city to visit her and that the family needed him (I knew FIL had early dementia at this point, although everyone else was in total denial).

And so this cycle of DH trying to garner public sympathy and trying to make me feel guilty began. In any crisis (and there have been many with FIL's dementia) DH would refuse to fly home and give MIL support. SIL was recently very ill after chemo, and again I had to say, 'they really, really need you - GO!'. He's in such childish denial that it drives me nuts. But he tries to make me feel guilty becauase I would only visit twice/year. A house with a demented old man and 2 small children is not fun. MIL refuses to visit us because FIL kicks off if she doesn't visit (apparently - she was happy to go off with SIL for 2 days to see a faith healer). DH tries to make me feel guilty about this (he works a lot of weekends), but to me it's just a fact of life when families live so far apart.

I've got to the point where I cannot live with his childish attitude. I find it difficult to get it all down, but I wish DH would find his own voice, instead of wondering what his parents owuld think, or what his peers think. A ggod example is the fact that I've not worked since DS1 was born.
As a research scientist, 7 day weeks were the norm for me, and the weekend work isn't that easily planned; if the cells need sorting out, or are good to go for an experiment, then you have to go while they look good. DH is a hospital consultant who also works weekends. I planned to take a wee while out and maybe change careers into somehting that had family-fiendly hours. There was no question that DH would reduce his hours to allow me to work. He still refuses to do that, although I now insist that he takes DS1 to school 1 morning/week. Coupled with his commute, I would have to work and do all the pick-ups from nursery/school. I just couln't cope with the stress. I've done a publishing course (but publishing hit the wall) and my one big test for a big compnay I failed. I had 3 days to complete it and the boys had a vomiting but. When they were better I asked DH to take an afternoon off work in order that I could do the test. He did, but made it clear that it was a disgrace that he had to skive off work so that I could work. He has repeatedly said that I 'change my mind every minute' about careers - FFS I have to do something differnt that fits in around his job and the kids!! But I don't know what to do! of course I'm exploring all options!

God this is an epic. I hate the way he never acts like a parent. He is a fun, fun person with the boys but never disciplines them He's very happy to wind them up, then sit back and wait for me to discipline them. Left alone with them, He'll never say, 'no, wait boys, daddy has to clear the lunch table/do the laundry etc'. It's always full on fun and attention, whereas I'm always trying to do a million things at once. he never thanks me for all the cleaning/ironing/cooking/admin.

He's having a shitty time with his family, but never calls his sister, never actively acts like the man of the family. It's like he's stuck in a a time-warp where his role in any family situation (ours or his mum/sister's) is to bhave like a petulant teenager. I CAN'T STAND IT

too long.............

Oh and I'm not a girl, I'm a nearly 42 year old woman. Don't patronise me,

I don't pretend to understand those last two posts. It sounds as though there is some level of delusion involved. But good luck with it.

"eyes open and fixed on the prize"
What is the prize?

I have missed something crucial in your posts. Are you not living in your country of nationality? Will you have to go back to somewhere you don't like, if you split from him?

It's not easy to go Argh. I have rarely felt so exasperated ... and contemptuous. I'm trying to understand, hence me question above.

Sometimes, it just isn't that simple, quattrocentro.

10 years ago I met dh. He was successful in his field, and I was in mine. I was in further training.

He was offered a decent job abroad and wanted to go. I decided to go with him.

Abroad was crappy for partners. No chance of work, not much social life. Got married, had children.

We are back in the UK now, bit again, things not quote so simple. I have a disabled child. Putting her in childcare would pro ably do her a lot of harm. She doesn't communicate well outside of the family.

If I stay, I get to do pretty much all the child/house related jobs. It is not an option to not do OT, in the hope that dh pulls his weight, because OT is the girls who suffer when I am stressed out.

If I leave, the same applies. Nothing would improve for me by leaving - single parent to disabled child =not much of a life. I would be even more reliant on childcare than I am (theoretically) now, and since I believe it would be harmful for my daughter, that is not an option.

It is not the simple choice you make ot out to be.

Grrr typos due to phone auto correct. Most of it makes sense...

Silverfrog, what do you get to do for yourself? Is DD mobile? What are you doing with that brain of yours, and your personality?

No, currently nothing for me.

Have spent the last 4 years fighting for diagnosis, then through therapy, intervention, statementing, educational tribunal for school place, etc. Oh, and having dd2 as well

Dd2 is coming up to pre-school age. Dd1 is 5, mobile - pretty severely autistic.

If things are reversed though men don't just accept their fate to be the one pushed into the childcare role if they don't want to.
DH is passionate about his job. I am passionate about mine which is considerably better paid than his. Financial logic dictates that I should work full time and he stay at home but there are things more important than money so I work part time and he works full time. I am willing to compromise my career progression for him to have some job satisfaction too. His end of the bargain is that he does drop off and pick up and random sickness so that when I am at work I am not interrupted.
Now that DD is older we are looking to make it so that we're both PT. My cousin and her DH work 3 days each and their DS is in childcare only 1 day a week. Again she is the high earner but respects his need to work. Why can't men be willing to make some sacrifices like this for their wives?
Fine if you don't want to work and are fulfilled at home but not so good if like OP and others you are unhappy. Seems to me OP as though you married a very traditional man who can't/ doesn't want to escape his very traditional upbringing and the signals of that have been clear from the start. He expects you to do all household stuff up to and including organising his dealings with his own family whilst he works long hours in a very traditional powerful blokey job. Unfortunately for you both he picked a woman who doesn't want that role. I am not at all sure that you will get him to change (you seem to have told him enough times how unhappy you are) so you have to decide whether to lie in the bed you both made or to decide to start again without him but then you will still be putting your DSs in childcare.

OK. I simply cannot understand. Even when I was your classic, disempowered, abused wife, I recognised I had choices. I exercised them when enough became enough. Before you tell me I'd have been different if I had kids: I was 18wks pg when X#1 and I split up. When people told me I didn't know how hard it'd be as a single mum, I said it wouldn't be as hard as having a baby AND a 'dependent' adult to look after.

Obviously there are lots of contented SAHMs (and SAHDs) in equal, mutually-respectful relationships. But this thread features women whose partners display NO respect for them, let alone gratitude or caring. You say you are not abused but each of you seems to be displaying the deficient self-belief associated with abuse victims. I can't help feeling that you are victims. All this talk of understanding your partner sounds suspiciously like Stockholm Syndrome to me.

Maybe your current partners don't need to abuse you (though I'd say at least one of them does). Maybe you were so thoroughly conditioned in youth, you automatically behave like victims. In that case, you're in even greater need of Assertiveness courses and Freedom programmes than the women who post here through tears.

If I could recommend just one thing to all of you, it would be to get yourselves to an Assertiveness course. Here's a primer:
www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2998551

I'd be pleasantly surprised if any of you even read the whole page. I'd be over the fucking moon if you actually found a local course and went to it!!

Silverfrog, thank you for your explanations. While there are obvious demands on your time & resources, those demands do NOT suffice as excuses! Like any other human being, you need varied stimulus. It'll make you a livelier & better-resourced mother at least.

Er .... how about checking the library for assertiveness groups??

www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2998551

"seems the strong women that we are and attracted them to us in the first place, blazes such a trail that our handing the baton over to them, seemingly results in them potentially freezing like rabbits caught in the glare of oncoming responsibility"

Nah, they just know you'll carry them so they can coast. It's bollocks that your strength is the problem here.

If you split up (and I'm not recommending it) your husbands would have to adjust their lives to be able to see their children, right? They'd want at least some weekend contact, they'd probably need to learn to put together a basic dinner, they would, in fact, step up to the plate.

So they can do so now.

Why couldn't those of you complaining about being SAHMs get a nanny and work part time if husbands are well paid? There are more options than the status quo, husband reducing hours or kids in daycare 8-6 mon-fri.
I have an enjoyable challenging part time job and don't see why you can't. Friends of mine where they both work have chosen to have nannies because then the kids are cared for at home and get more personal care, 1 friend shares her nanny as she only needs her part time. Silverfrog's eldest will be at school soon so should be starting to get used to being with nonfamily members.

I think there are other things you can to do have a fulfilling life as well as work, but even if I didn't work I'd probably want some time to myself without kids to write/study/ be involved in my hobby/ do voluntary work etc so would not want to look after kids full time which I find very draining.

I'd leave the men to sort their own families and share of household duties out and start looking at what you want from life.

Yes, if these men are very well paid then a chunk of the household budget should be going on giving you some free time. If you have DC with SN who won't settle for nannies, at least get cleaners in so you you can care for the DC but don't have to scrub the toilet and do the laundry as well.
You seem to be letting these men behave as though they have bought you, and in exchange for your bed, board and work clothes (oh and some sex) you are available for work 24/7 and smile while you are doing it.

I can see what oyu are all syaing, and we are finally getting a nanny (the "finally" bit being due to me, not dh)

however, that does not solve the issue. dd1 is at school - she is ok with other people to a degree (ie school, activities). but she is very stressed by it - other people do not understand her, and she is usually unable to say (through discomfort) when she is unhappy, or when someone is doing somehting wrong. It is not a solution, to me, to get someone else in, and leave dd1 stressed out. That is soething I just cannot do.

So nanny will be useful, but not the be all and end all.

things like evenings - I shouldthink it will be impossible for me to leave dds with nanny for a good 6monthsat least, and even then, we are risking having dd1 freak out at the prospect - we have just come through 18 months of sleep hell with her, not somehting to be revisited in a hurry.

having a cleaner does not mean all is ok. I don't mind cleaning toilets (no, not in a stepford wife way - dh does it occasionally too), or bunging a wash on (again, dh does occasionally - he could do a bit more)

what having a cleaner does not solve is the apparent lack of committment form dh. his solution to most things is to throw money at it. I'd rather it was a bit messier, but we had equal (or at least, more balanced, he does work long hours after all. but then so do I with the dc) input.

Iam aware of how whingy this sounds, as at least there are possible solutions available to me.

but since a lot of those solutions wouldleave dd1 very stressed, they are not very good solutions. I am nt talking "study proves childcare harmful" type stress - more hysterical to the point of self-injury stress. autism is a bugger like that.

she can't help it, and we are working onit. but the fact reamins I didn'task to have a disabled child, and dh should be pulling his weight with that. but he doesn't. and leaving won't make thatany easier.

silverfrog - I really feel for you. It sounds tough.

However, I would say that - as you can't control his beaviour and attitude - at least you can make things easier for yourself.

Doing so may give you the energy and head-space you need to tackle your relationship issues.

You may not mind cleaning, but the fact remains that if you pay someone to do it for you you will have more time to do other things (i.e. play with you DDs, book a Relate counsellor - anything).

I suppose what I'm trying to say is, why not focus on the problems you can currently solve, thereby leaving you more energy to tackle the knottier stuff.

beaviour = behaviour.

I don't understand your antipathy to a cleaner. I hate cleaning and when the kids were younger had a cleaner. If I was the sole wage earner and my husband had said to me "no, I don't want a cleaner, I want you to come home and help me do the cleaning" I would have thought he was bonkers or hated me and was trying to make me miserable for some reason. Yes, help look after the kids, prepare meals etc, but trying to make your husband do cleaning if he's not interested and you can afford to pay for a cleaner just seems daft.

the cleaner is a red herring to me.

the time I needed help with it all, when dd1 was younger, pregnant with dd2, etc, having a cleaner would not have helped.

dd1 would have been extremely freake dout byit. having someone come round and clean for a couple of hours, leaving me with a sobbing mess of a daughter, who I then had ot sing to for hours (literally) barely pausing o draw breath, was not a solution to me. going out equally hard (especially when pregnant with dd2 - hyperemesis) THAT is when I wanted dh to pull his weight more.

as I say, now dd1 is at school, I have more breathing space, and really don't mind the cleaning. would rather spend the money on books.
I had a cleaner. for years, when we lived abroad. it generally made me feel uncomfortable in my own home. not really somehting I tend ot enjoy.

It sounds to me as if your DH is trying to have his cake and eat it: on the one hand he is clinging to an outmoded, parochial, paternalistic family model, where his career comes first and his wife and children fit in around, and support, his life, taking a backseat whenever it suits him; he wants to leave the entire domestic burden up to his wife. On the other hand, he's like a high-earning wife to shoulder half the financial responsibility.

NO NO NO! This is all wrong and deeply unfair to you. Of course you are feeling resentful. Your DH and you need counselling - you'll never get to the bottom of this without it.

But we too are being demanded on here, by our supposed peers, to be AS vigorous in our determination to be in control and demanding respect.

I've tried to state that a negotiated position is better than all out war.

Karma, You think they enjoy carrying the baton. That's what society demands of them, that's what they know they are expected to do, but some men are not prepared well enoung to actually do it when called upon to do so. It IS a daunting task, why would they feel any different to us? IME when the weight of it all is on our shoulders it IS hard to shoulder the weight of it all. We end up doing so cos we have to.

What I'm trying to do is to challenge the status quo by improving my own lot, to negotiate a settlement not battle for one.

No-one likes change. If we challenge the status quo as you suggest, they will fight tooth and nail, because they perceive their maleness is being challenged. It matters not if that is actually right or wrong, but it's how they feel on a subconscious level.

If the same were done to us, 9 times out of 10, we'd fight too.

I'm not necessarily generalising here about all men per say, I've got enough on my plate dealing with my DH.

He is attracted to strong independant women, he finds them a challenge. He is a powerful person, but his self esteem is low, his confidence battered. He is lost, he doesn't fit in his land, but he's not fitting in here either.

My end goal, the prize for me is a peaceful house, where I feel valued, and so does he. It will take change and negotiation on both sides to achieve it. It will take effort and change from me to attain it, and he will have to accept it. If I stand here and demand it, it's going to end in disaster. I know him. I know men like him.

Some men are able, and have the confidence to leave their comfort zone and embrace the challenges of a family, others are not ready at all.

DH upbringing was, I now realise, deeply flawed. He struggles when my experiences, my parenting style shows him exactly what he missed growing up. Sadly, he's not always emotionally mature enough to know how to deal with it. Often he just sulks, which is never going to get the best out of me...

I'm not criticising those wonderful people who have a balanced equal and team driven situation at home. I'm not suggesting that they are less of a woman cos they have a man that helps them out in all sorts of ways, yet the same is not true for some of the posters here. We, who have men that have a lot to learn, are being vilified for putting up with any of it.

Purely talking of my own situation, I am NOT putting up with it, If I were, we'd not be rowing so much. I know many of the things that DH does are not ideal, but I am not blithely allowing it, It's all on my radar, I am not enabling, I am working to resolve it.

I could walk out, I could tell him to leave. I could also support him find himself here, as I have had to. I can work with him subtly to put right the things that need to be better.

LittleMissHissyFit, I think you've put your points very eloquently, and I admire your stance tbh.

My DH was something of a lost soul (rotten, abused childhood), and really became impossible (and abusive) when DS was born.

However, he was willing to change, and has changed.

He is still fundamentally who he's always been, but he has learned to see outside himself. He's a great husband and father. I'm very lucky.

I hope you find yourself in this position one day. Your DH is a lucky man!

Thanks Booboobedoo! how nice of you to say that!

The hating him takes up so much more energy, the wishing he'd just f&*k off or better yet simply vaporise doesn't work. I was ready until Tuesday to just let it go, that is the only logical next step to that course of action, and I thought that was my only option cos I couldn't see a way out.

Thankfully my friend - who is no way on earth a 1950s housewife, she is clever, feisty and strong, shared with me her issues and how she has changed her tactics with her hands off DH and she says things are getting there, and he is responding well, he is doing more of his own free will.

Very good point, he has to want to change, this is a leeetle tricky for DH, but I'm trying to show him the benefits of doing so.

If your DH can do it, so can mine....