AIBU not cooking or washing anymore

[Shinesun14]

Me and DH have only been married and living together for 5 months. I have two dc (13 and 15) here most of the time bar eow. Dh has dss (8) who is here 40%.

Since he moved in his outgoings have gone down and we are 50/50 - I work ft as a social worker with a very high risk case load and dh has his own engineering business (both stressful jobs but different).

Dh parenting is a bit shit sometimes and he guilt parented. Dh understands that that's not actually the type of dad he wants to be and is working on it. However, I feel he has resentment towards me for picking this up after we married and projects onto my dc.

Dh has found it quite hard living with teenagers, they are emotionally healthy and adjusted teenagers with no attachment issues and both are doing well at school and have interests outside. Dss has a few challenges but is mostly well behaved like my dc are mostly well behaved.

My dh has started leaving more and more housework to me alongside cooking ect and has started being critical of me. I feel he's projecting as he isn't doing what he's supposed to be. He also has his own kitchen cupboard with his and his sons food in. This is because twice my dd (15) used the last of the Nutella and didn't tell him so dss couldn't have his spoonful of Nutella in his morning porridge. We are quite different in that I buy my dcs treat food like Nutella and when its gone its gone until I next do a big shop. Dh likes to be more organised than that. But I hate that he has a seperate cupboard just for him and dss, its divisive imo.

I also need to lose a stone so I've said from now on I'm not cooking for him or washing his clothes as its not appreciated. I've arranged another cupboard for my dcs food, they're more than capable of making basic meals for themselves and they were a bit about him and dss having a cupboard full of their food. I'm also not doing his washing anymore as he doesn't do his jobs around the house after we decided when he moved in who's doing what. He's now bought a washing basket for himself . He's not very happy with me and is saying I'm taking things too far and I'm unreasonable as he needs to know what food his dss has and needs his own cupboard to do that. I think if I can go back to only washing for 3 people and not cooking most days I'm on a winner. Why should I pick up his slack. He's now saying that he's not going to buy us a new family car since we're living so seperate and is saying he's also annoyed about paying 50/50 on bills (even though his outgoings decreased by almost 50% moving in with me).

So AIBU to continue the seperate theme, why can't my dc and me also have seperate cupboards? Or am I being petty?

His actions are not the actions of a person who cares about you OP. It’s all about him, and what you should be doing for him. He’s a nasty piece of work.

Oh dear.

We can see what’s happening here. You need to move him out and I suggest you start counselling to understand what he’s doing here.

It’s insidious and extremely manipulative. How conscious he is re what he’s doing is debatable but he is deeply unhealthy. It’s classic gaslighting and shifting of blame.

It’s no coincidence that this is happening ahead of what should be lovely adult 121 time with the two of you. Most adults wouldn’t care ahead of what should be a lovely break (to be blunt).

He needs to move out. Now.

None of this is okay and some of your thinking on this is skewed (ie It's my fault and i am yelling at my phone no! It's not! You arent in the wrong here)

There are red flags everywhere and personally I would need him and asap and probably look to end this. It's not good for you and not good for the kids.

And YY they never think they are abusive.

I also agree with all MzHz has written. I deliberately avoided the term emotional abuse in my posts as it typically creates a defensive mecanism in the person on the receiving end of the behaviour.

Let me just say this. For those of us who have seen this behaviour play out, we can see the red flags. It’s why I wanted you to not bite as I was keen to see if you attempting to deescalate situations would be successful. That would have shown something workable. It had the opposite effect of escalating things. Not good.

It’s hard to know how much of these behaviours in him are conscious or sub- conscious. It’s really hard to know and ultimately it’s not your issue. It’s his. I will also say this is no reflection on you / nor is it personal to you.

You may start to wonder how this has happened. What can you do differently? Etc etc. And that’s exactly what this behaviour is designed to do. It’s designed to keep you off kilter and start morphing yourself into someone so that these exchanges stop. It’s how broken people break other people.

Healthy people (even when deeply unhappy) don’t do this.

He feels his time is more precious and more valuable than yours. Boo hoo.

Well done for not accepting the role of walking household appliance.

Hold your head up high and be sure to tell your dd why you are slinging him out. You’ve set a good example!

You’ll be sad OP. But you’ll be fine

Why live with a man like this?!

Why?

To me it sounds like he was spoiling for a fight yesterday. He kept pushing and pushing, the more you tried to back away from it the more he pushed. He was determined to have a fight last night.

Sorry you’re having to deal with this and hope you can get him out soon

OP I can see what’s happening here too and my heart breaks for you. Your last update screams of an abusive man, in fact the whole thread does now.

I have been there before. It took me until my child told me she was scared of him and me cowering in the kitchen beneath him over a smudge on a spoon for me to tell him to leave.

I made all the excuses in the sun for him. I felt the ‘guilt’ as you said you are feeling bit this is exactly what they train you to feel. This man is abusive and is playing the long game. You will not win here. He does know what he’s doing. Do not let him take away who you truly are, nor your dignity. It sounds like he wants to fight as well so he can reclaim power. The same as my ex he used to purposely cause scenes to see my reaction, then when I decided not to fight back and just accept and say ‘okay’ not to rouse things it made him angrier. That’s exactly what your husband has done when you decided not to rise to it.

I know it’s so hard to see. It will become clearer once you give your head some space from this marriage, it really will. As you said yourself, you cannot see the woods from the trees. Please at least grant yourself some space to give yourself the change to see it.

Keep us updated and we will be behind you all the way. I owe my life to everyone on mumsnet who supported me until I left mine.

You are very lucky to have two well-turned out happy and content teenagers, this will change if you let them live in a toxic relationship. I know this is your relationship, not theirs, but they will be affected by it too.

Maybe to make it less drastic, continue to be in a relationship, but don't live together. I think both you and your children will be able to breathe better then.

I hear you @sassbott you’re right about being cautious about the emotional abuse thing, and I know only too well how over used it is

I think your posts have been really insightful and thoughtful and I am sure helpful to @Shinesun14

@Shinesun14 my dear, people like us sometimes fall for people like my ex, and your h. It’s not our fault at all. We have a vulnerability that acts like a beacon.

I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard about women who help others in crisis situations- SW or even domestic abuse workers - who get targeted by people who aren’t who they seem to be.

You have done nothing wrong. He’s deliberately trying to make you think you have, to gain power.

Your Life shouldn’t be like it is now. He resents you, your kids, your job, everything about you

How can that happen in the blink of an eye?

It hasn’t. It’s fake anger to destabilise you. He’s not the man you married. The man you exchanged vows with was pretending

Nobody could be so different to who they’ve been in such a short space of time if they were being authentic in the first place.

You can do this, you can get out and it’s an easy thing, he leaves.

(((Hug)))

I really wish it wasn’t so. Wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.

Just an after thought too, I am with a wonderful man now and it’s made me realise how huge the difference is from a decent man to a nasty one.

I know, one hundred percent, if I had left some sweetcorn in the sink, even if he had had a bad day, even if he was angry at something else at the time, he would clean it up without a bad thought towards me. And go versus if he had done the same.

I know if he needed to hang out washing and my clothes were on the maiden, he would fold them up and put them on the bed or put them away in my drawers. The washing he was hanging out would not just be his clothes. It would be a mix of all of ours.

If he really needed help, he would ask. He knows it would be his fault for not communicating it, not mine, if he had to clean up something alone. He would not be passive aggressively cleaning up after himself and punish me for it afterwards.

This happened in my past relationship continuously. It does not now and never has done.

Please ask yourself whether he’s punishing you with every action he does. You will soon realise that you know he is. Remind yourself each time he does this. Count up the many times he does this in a week. Then ask yourself whether someone who isn’t abusive and who loves you would punish you. You will come to realise that such a person NEVER would.

@SwedishK

You are very lucky to have two well-turned out happy and content teenagers, this will change if you let them live in a toxic relationship. I know this is your relationship, not theirs, but they will be affected by it too.

Maybe to make it less drastic, continue to be in a relationship, but don't live together. I think both you and your children will be able to breathe better then.

This. They are more switched on than you think. And personally, my DD will be leaving home in a couple of years and I want these next years to be as special as possible for her. No other personal relationship is as important just now as this time we have together.

This man needs to leave. No more of his threats. I'd call him from work.

'You need to move out.'

I'm going to leave but I'm really sad about it. Really sad as obviously there are positives to this relationship or I wouldn't have married him. He just isn't able to be part of a family with me or care about me when he feels upset about something.

What’s the plan @Shinesun14? Have you thought about how you are going to go about it?

You are bound to be sad about it, this is your life. It’s not a great feeling knowing you put hopes on someone who turned out to be everything other than. I was so sad when I made the decision to leave my ex (but it turned out I wasn’t as strong and clued up as you are, it took me 6 months of counselling first unfortunately!) but I recovered very quickly when I realised mere days later I was walking down the street and I had to remind myself to put my shoulders down, they were constantly tense and raised and I never realised I had been like this automatically for months and I didn’t have to do it anymore. You are worth so much more than having someone make you feel the way you do

@Shinesun14, I felt I had to respond to your thread as your H has almost identical behaviour to ExH.

I spent years in this cycle because some days were good. I loved him and wanted to make it work as I felt it was a communication issue and I accepted I wasn't perfect. I thought it was a case of us growing together. We had such compatibility in so many areas and our children's lives could have been so positive had we made it work.

Like you, I started to record the incidents and stumbled on a recommendation on MN for a book and that's when I had a light bulb moment. The book was by Patricia Evans.

I realised it wasn't a communication issue and it wasn't about family life.. it was quite simply Ex H did not want a mutually beneficial relationship. It had to be his way and always about his needs. Sometimes if our agendas coincided it felt as if we worked together but he never unilaterally did anything for the family unless it benefitted him. If he gave more then he would feel resentment. His resentment was real and I have no doubt he genuinely thought he was reasonable.

It made no sense to me because why would another adult who was intelligent not understand that compromise was essential for a relationship? Why would anyone spend that amount of time in conflict over a jar of Nutella???

Like you I work in a role that requires understanding of people but this knowledge and empathy is probadly what kept me there because I kept trying to understand. I eventually learned that his thought processes were not rational and mostly definitely not fixable...even with vast amounts of solo and joint counselling.

Ex is now with someone else and through our children I hear he has passed the adoration stage (since they have commited financially through a house purchase) and now into the devaluing critical stage. Like you she is now being labelled as having mood swings and he is driving through his agenda, he is also starting to alienate her children (very much like the separate cupboards you have). She is no doubt still in the bewilderment stage and wondering where the golden period went.

One warning, Ex H never appeared that motivated about money until we separated and then he became extremely unreasonable, like you he moved into my house but he used all legal avenues to keep his money and go after mine. It was horrendous and the marriage cost me financially. If you are a short marriage, under 3 years get out ASAP as you could lose 50% of your equity plus pension should you stay longer.

I am so sorry for you as I completely relate to the situation of feeling exhausted for work because of the emotional effort expended on the marriage.

I don't know why your H and Ex behaved the way they do...it is disordered thinking which seems to only appear once they feel able to exercise control. Many of us have been fooled.

@Shinesun14

I'm going to leave but I'm really sad about it. Really sad as obviously there are positives to this relationship or I wouldn't have married him. He just isn't able to be part of a family with me or care about me when he feels upset about something.

Oh love, we know what you’re feeling. We really do.

Please try to see that the positives you’re seeing now won’t last and you’ll see ‘nice h’ less and less.

The caring and feeling upset thing is smoke, it’s not about when things upset him, you saw the other day how he was looking for a row and didn’t stop till he got one.

Manufactured anger. It’s just to make you doubt yourself, get you confused so you’re easier to control

I know the next steps will be hard for you to take, so take them in your own time, one at a time and focus on whatever you need

HE needs to leave YOUR house. That’s your goal for now.

So please get a quick chat with a lawyer, understand what your risk and potential problems are and put into motion the way to make sure you’re getting out of this as quickly and efficiently as possible

Once you have a roadmap, you can then start to visualise what you need to do first.

@Shinesun14, just realised you are only married 5 months. It's really detoriated quickly and I can't see how it will get better as he doesn't seem able to empathise with you. How long did you know each other before marriage?

I think some men date SWs because they want a caretaker, emotionally and otherwise. You probably have SWed him a bit in the past which means he could mask his worst excesses. Now he's there 24/7 he can't.

Sorry

I havent got a plan yet @Themadcatparade but when I spoke with h earlier he started again saying that as he only has dss 3 days a week he is going to prioritise him over chores and that I'm unintentionally selfish but I should understand. I pointed out he managed his chores just fine when it was just him and dss, he then said that was OK as they had constant interaction but now he feels like he's becoming less close to dss as dss prefers spending time with my ds. He also said he saw dss most days as even if it wasn't his contact day dss only lived round the corner and would knock on the door sometimes after school (I actually think this is rubbish as dss gets picked up by his nan and his nan hates h) (I also think its emotional blackmail towards me).

All I've said for now is that i can see you're really unhappy living with me and my dc and not seeing dss as much (the schedule changed as dss wanted to start forest school, so instead of basically every other day it changed to a full fri to mon eow, a Wednesday and a Sunday on the other weekend). And that he needed to think about that as its not fair for him to take his resentment out on me about that. I told him I'm also going to be thinking about whether I want this relationship anymore and h spoke about living apart and that dc are the only stressor, I said actually if it wasn't dc it would be something else. The issue is your underlying resentment, that you don't communicate your needs before you get pissy and you think its OK to talk to me like you do just because you're upset and that won't go away if we live seperate.

Unless he comes home with an apology, a counsellors number and a session booked to work on his processes then I'm gone. I really doubt that's going to happen. What you've all said about disordered thought processes are correct and firefly i felt utterly adored by h when we first met. Like totally adored and actually worried about the pedestal he put me on, now I've completely fallen off...

When you say you're leaving, I hope that's just a turn of phrase, as I understand he moved into your house, which is protected as your asset?

Yes, I'm leaving the relationship but not my house! My house is protected, my only asset really that may be up for grabs is my pension but I think as we won't have been married a full year that will be safe, my dc are already the named beneficiaries. I will speak to a solicitor.

I feel so sad talking about this like this but realise its not going to get better, only worse.

I'm so sorry OP because I was previously in the give-counselling-a-go camp but this relationship sounds absolutely horrible. He sounds horrible and really nasty. I think you are right to get him out of your house. You deserve way better than this.

Get counselling for yourself absolutely

Not joint, people like him will twist things and recruit the counsellor

You’ve already spoken to him about how you feel. Someone who was perfect for you, in love etc would of course make sure that whatever it was he was doing, he’s stop. Not look for MORE blame to throw your way

You know he’s lying about the more contact thing, you know you’re being played.

i felt utterly adored by h when we first met. Like totally adored and actually worried about the pedestal he put me on, now I've completely fallen off...

Yup. That’s exactly how relationships that end up like this as quick as this start.

i feel so sad talking about this like this but realise its not going to get better, only worse.

I PROMISE you, when he’s out, when you have your home back, full use of all your cupboards and the kids have free range of the Nutella, you’ll see that you have done the right thing.

The worst thing in the world is the feeling of monumental stupidity that you feel knowing you’ve lost YEARS AND YEARS to people like him.

i felt utterly adored by h when we first met. Like totally adored and actually worried about the pedestal he put me on, now I've completely fallen off...

That's the pattern for covert narcissists, idealise, devalue (finding fault in everything you do), then discard. The cycle repeats but generally gets shorter.

You will be gutted as no one wants a bad relationship but many of us fell into it because we were unaware of the warning signs. It's usual to target strong, happy and empathic women.

Another difficulty is that counsellors are often very unaware of disordered personalities and the assumption is that communication is a joint issue but that isn't the case. You can communicate effectively with someone who doesn't/can't see your point of view. Do you have support? I imagine some people will not be aware of his other side? Ex had a reputation as a charming man but at home he was very different.