Would really appreciate some help

[cailindana]

Even though this is a relationship problem, I posted here because I think I will get better advice.

Rather unexpectedly, I find myself unwilling to continue with my DH. We've been together for 12 years and married for 6. We have two children.

I was brought up in Ireland and I would say my childhood was steeped in misogyny. The subtle messages I was always given were that men were the Important People who must be kept happy at all times and women were sinful idiots who were there to be slaves to men.

I railed against those messages, but inevitably they seeped in to some extent. Also, I was sexually abused as a child and my parents didn't care - what did I expect? I was a girl, that's what happens to girls.

So, despite being intelligent and relatively confident (I did a lot of acting in my teens, including big stage roles and some film parts) I got to age 19 with little or no sense of my own self worth. I then met DH and fell madly in love.

He was absolutely right for me at the time. He listened to me talk about the abuse I suffered, he was stable and kind and nuturing. We had a few rocky patches but I very much believed in love and when I married him I was extremely happy.

Now, six years later, I feel that, while the relationship was good for me when I was totally lacking in self esteem, looking for someone to make a family with and desperate for someone to love, it now does not work any more.

I've tried to talk to DH and he is very keen to change but I think he can't.

Kind as DH is, I have always come second in our relationship. I accepted that, most of the time. I now see though that any time I tried to push forward and insist some priority went to me, he subtly pushed back, was outwardly supportive but practically uncooperative, and as a result I have curtailed my life in order to fit with our relationship, which has essentially revolved around giving him the life he wants.

That's not to say I haven't benefited from our relationship, far from it. We have had some very good times, we have two wonderful children, and we have a nice home in a great place.

I feel though that while he has benefited massively from our relationship, I have made many many sacrifices. The crunch point came for me when I asked him to make one small sacrifice for me and he said no. Outright would not inconvenience himself in any small way for me to pursue my dreams.

I cannot come back from it. Whereas all the pushing back down through the years has been subtle, this was blatant. While all the time saying he wanted me to have a career, he wanted me to progress, he would support me blah blah blah, when he had to have one ounce of inconvenience to make that happen he just said no. And it all became plain to me.

Once, our relationship worked. I was a broken woman looking for security and I was happy to trail around after him, being his cheerleader and supporting him.

Now I want a life of my own. I do not want to have an "also starring" role in his production. He has shown by his actions that he does not want to support that.

So I feel I have to move on. But I will not make this decision lightly and I need some help to talk it through. Your help would be much appreciated.

yes, i was thinking (still, i've banged on about it on loads of threads recently) about all those leisure activities deemed "for women" which you can do in the house while the children are asleep, and which have the added bonus of being productive so you can wear/eat/decorate with/give as presents the proceeds

Not counting time when the children are asleep as childcare leads to the situation where men think "ah well the children are asleep I'll pop to the pub for a few on my way home," leaving the woman as the default carer who has no choice but to stay in the house.

The fact is, once children arrive and for a good number of years, someone needs to be with them at all times, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If you are one of the parents then you are just as responsible for that time as the other parent, it's not the case that it's one parent's duty to cover all of that time while the other parent dips in and out when it suits them.

...and all those fitness DVDs aimed at women so that they can do them whilst also caring for children. far fewer aimed at men i believe. men can go out to the gym or for a run

Indeed. I genuinely think that psychologically being unable to move freely in and out of the house is very damaging. It makes you insular and increases your sense of trepidation about the world.

DH is out with the kids this afternoon (part of his campaign of change!) and I went for a walk. The sense of freedom from walking with arms by my side, no changing bag, no negotiations with a toddler was huge. When I've been stuck in the house for too long with the children I start blowing things up in my mind, creating obstacles for myself and becoming defeated and unwilling to do things. You actually start to forget there's a big wide world out there with fun things to do!

Oh, and I think the thing of "SAHMs find it hard to get back into work" comes partially from the fact that being at home narrows your world and makes you less able to tackle the wider adult sphere. Being so focused on minutiae and fielding constant child demands while being tied to the house makes you start to lose perspective I think.

Oh right well I have to say that DP is brilliant at birthday and Christmas presents for me, always has been, and since we had dcs he gets them lovely things to give me, which they find adorably exciting. It was my birthday recently and dd1 (5) was absolutely dying to give me her present, counting the days. that was lovely for me, obv, but also for her, being helped to get me something she was really proud to give me. I felt so sorry for my sister the year it emerged on Christmas eve that her husband had just absolutely forgotten to consider whether their dcs had birthday presents for their mother. And for them, too - they were a bit too little to organise it themselves, but big enough to have missed out from not giving their mummy a present.

cailin, totally with you on the way your focus shrinks when confined to the house, it is a whole different perspective and you know it, losing confidence, but not being able to see how just the act of getting out of there and changing the scene will give you the perspective you need to do other things.

I don't know if this rings true for anyone else, but I was very much taught growing up that my feelings were irrelevant and that what I thought or wanted was not important. My parents never ever validated me in any way and I have a massive tendency to worry endlessly about everyone else's feelings

cailin you've summed up my childhood in a couple of sentences without the violence. I'm such a people pleaser and that has to change.

On another note, it's great that your DH is stepping up, let's hope he carries on.

Ok, a couple of practical ideas. I'm slightly concerned I've overplayed this, and everyone's just going to go 'well, duh!', but here goes...

• Have a shared 'to do' list. We've experimented with different ways of doing this - from fancy techy solutions like Trello (an app that lets you add tasks, share them with others, tick them off etc.) to (my favourite) a wall in the kitchen painted with blackboard paint, with 'To do' written at the top. However you do it, the point is that things that need doing that benefit the whole family (buy present for x, get car serviced, make dentist appointments...) get written up there, rather than being in the head of the person that traditionally does them. I think it helps to make visible the huge amount of work it takes to keep a family going, and encourages everyone to take responsibility for ticking things off.

• On a similar note, have a shared calendar. Again, could be a paper calendar on the wall, but we've found having a shared Google calendar works best. That way if one of us wants to know if we can do something, we can easily check whether the other already has something planned at the same time. Helps avoid resentments building up that one of us has more freedom and ability to be spontaneous than the other.

• If you've agreed that one of you is responsible for something, do whatever it takes to stop yourself from interfering in tasks you've agreed the other will do. In our house, for example, dp does the morning school run. I usually have breakfast with everyone, then head off to work and leave them to it. On days when I don't do that, I inevitably get drawn into doing stuff that otherwise would get done perfectly well without me (although the kids do end up with brushed hair on those mornings, which I suspect doesn't often happen otherwise )

Apologies if those all sound really nerdy

not at all!

the lists thing is a good idea, even if I just write them and then tick them off it is a form of communication

eg - "reply to parent that dc is attending birthday party, buy present and card and wrapping paper; mark in calendar to arrange transport"

but in our house, that is

"reply to parent that dc is attending birthday party. mentally check that we have present, card, and wrapping paper, which has been done in job lots. mum will transport, as mum drives"

so there is less to communicate, so the whole thing becomes a bit of an exercise in willywaving (fannywaving?)

Sorry I feel like I am attacking you Amber!. I think writing lists out in public is a great idea and exactly BECAUSE it gets everything out of my head where it "rightfully" belongs!

Maybe it should go

[child] party on [date] PLEASE SEE BELOW

replied? TICK, initials (mine)
present? TICK, initials (mine)
card? TICK, initials (mine)
Wrapping paper? TICK, initials (mine)
Dress for dc to wear, ironed? TICK, initials (mine)
Transport? TICK, initials (mine)

then, below that,

FAMILY VISIT on DATE: see below

meal planning
shopping
Thinking about moving children around for beds
washing and changing beds
putting out towels
thinking about local attraction / entertainments
cooking (do you break this down by actual meals? how brutal would that look?)

and so on

Amber, when you do this, does it actually work to get any of it taken up, or is it just an announcement of: this is how it is?

at fannywaving!

I think that, ideally, this sort of approach would be agreed collectively, as part of a conversation about the extent to which chores multiply when you have kids, and the best way to ensure the load is divided fairly. The tick/initials approach should make the point, I guess, but maybe not in the most constructive way... A middle ground might be to write everything up and tick it or cross it off but without the initials bit, which should still make the point about how much you're doing. Or is that way too subtle?!

It does work in our house to get things taken up, although we very much still have jobs which are seen as 'mine' or 'his', and never make it onto the board (but I feel like they more or less even out, so that's ok).

I actually quite like the tick & initials approach because it does make the sheer volume of work involved and the way that load of work is distributed very clear. Why do we need to worry about whether it's "constructive"? Constructive of what? Male ego?

I sound more combative than I'm feeling! I just feel that if vezzie IS doing all of that work, why should she shy away from making it visible?

Fair point, gin. I was wondering as I wrote that if it sounded like I was being too conciliatory, and not sufficiently pointed. I guess my tendency is to work from what I'm trying to achieve (a fair distribution of what is traditionally regarded as 'wifework'), and try to find the best way to get there. In my case it was through a collaborative approach; in other relationships it may need to be more direct.

Thanks Amber. We have a calendar and a to do board. What I've been explaining to DH is that division of chores isn't really the problem, it's far more fundamental than that. Besides, I have done the whole dividing up the chores thing in the past and it's sort of worked, but only to the extent that DH will do his share as long as I remind him and monitor it. When we moved to this house three years ago we decided the bathroom was his job. It took at least 18 months of me reminding and him avoiding before he started doing it at all, and it's only been recently that he's starting do it in any way properly.

A good friend and I went out for a couple of bottles of wine last night. I wasn't planning on talking about it but it all spilled out. She was really understanding and helpful and it was good to talk about it face to face with someone. Her take was that I was justified in what I was saying and that it's a case of waiting and seeing how things pan out, which I agree with.

DH looked after the children today while I went shopping. I bought some lovely new clothes, new bras and new boots and I didn't for a second think about the cost. It was great.

I hope you don't mind me bumping this, cailin. I am interested in how things are going with you... how do you feel about things now?

Sorry totally missed your post vezzie.

Update: Things have changed massively.

Dh has read "our blood." He is seeing the world with new eyes and finding it very hard. He cried the other night at a film because a man greated a woman badly - unheard of for him. He is like a different person. It's odd for me but overall very good. I'm still reserving judgement to see if it'll last.

treated

He's been doing masses of housework, he's taken the kids overnight to his parents and he's talked a lot about his attitudes. The change is enormous. He offered to take time off work on Thursday to help a friend of mine who is struggling with injury and an unsympathetic husband!

That all sounds wonderful. Well done!

According to lundy he needs to keep this up for 2 years before you can trust he had changed completely. That's a long time soyouneed to watch really carefully abd jump on any wrong moves straight away.

I agree whatdoes. I have told him I do appreciate his efforts but I don't trust at all yet that it's genuine.