Need help on where to go from here

[mamamia77770]

My husband and I have been married for ten years. We have two children, one who is 9 and one who is 11 months old. For our whole relationship, he would always clam up whenever he was upset about something. I would always feel crazy because it hurt me so much when he would just shut me out. Most of the time I wouldn't even know why he was upset, other times it could be because he was frustrated that I didn't clean up after myself around the house enough, or didn't make plans like he wanted for the weekend. Lately it's been getting worse and I feel more and more stressed. He'll start asking me what we should do on the weekends, and when I suggest things he says he doesn't want to do them...then he'll get mad that we do nothing on the weekend, or all we do is do the shopping..."is this our life", etc. He knows that he has anxiety, I know that much. I've been going to counseling this year....at first I started going because I wanted to figure out how to communicate better with him, and get along better. I felt like I was making it worse when he would clam up and I would try to pull him out of it (Avoider/Pursuer). He has always been someone who would result to put downs when he was upset, but now it's getting worse. He is always upset at me on how I load the dishwasher. The other week he told me that even a monkey could figure out how to load the dishwasher eventually after enough reminders that they're doing it wrong. It really hurt my feelings. I don't like how he calls me lazy, or tells me to shut up when he's mad that I'm pressuring him to talk about what's really going on.

 

He's constantly telling our older child what to do, and that she needs to clean her room, etc. He has said things in a mocking voice which I think is wrong. I finally had enough after this last weekend. He got irritated with me on last Wednesday over who knows what....and wouldn't talk to me Thursday or Friday. By Friday night I told him I couldn't live like this anymore and we needed to change things. Saturday on Halloween he wouldn't talk to anyone, was a sour puss the whole time. Only went trick or treating with us because my mom was at the house and he didn't want to be stuck there with us. But he would walk behind us or ahead of us and didn't speak to us. It was our baby's first Halloween!!

 

He had a really rough childhood....his dad I think was a Borderline Personality person who kept his family in line with fear. He was Physically/Emotionally/Verbally abusive. I finally told him this weekend that we couldn't do this anymore. I wanted him to leave if he was going to be like that to our family. He said that he wouldn't leave....I and the children needed to leave. I told him that he was bullying all of us, and that our older child had even said that to me....hoping to get his attention. Instead he just said "well I won't do anything for her anymore", and that I just need to clean up after myself, that's all he asks for. I told him that it's something deeper.....if it wasn't the house, it would be something else. He ended up telling me that he didn't want to be with me anymore. I told him fine that he needed to leave until we could get everything sorted out. He left the room and ended up coming back in saying that he was sorry for the things that he had said (which is a first), and he was tearful and saying he wanted to make things work. I have still been feeling uneasy. I don't want things to go back to the way they always do. My counselor told me to tell him last night that he had a deadline for setting up counseling for himself to deal with his past issues. I tried to set that boundary and did horrible. I felt like I was being manipulative or something??? I told him that he needed to set up an appointment and see someone so I knew what we were doing. He said that he didn't need to see a counselor that he was trying to fix things on his own and I'm not even giving him time to do that. He said he was not going to see a counselor and I said then I need to figure out what my next step is. He asked what that meant. In my counseling session I was so strong and decided that I was going to put a stop to this. I was going to say get help or we can't be together. I care about you too much to let you do this to yourself and us. I ended up telling him that I didn't want to live with his father (he is acting like him in a lot of ways, making the holidays super stressful), and apologizing later for making him feel bad.

 

I know he feels bad a lot and is stressed and depressed. He constantly wonders if this is all there is to life. I don't want our children to grow up in a home where there is tension. He left upset today for work because I keep trying to get to a resolution. He doesn't want to talk about it, and thinks I'm too persistent and demanding. I just want to know if he's interested in doing the work to change our family. He doesn't think counseling is the answer.

 

Please help!! What should I do?

[Clinton]

Unfortunately, unless he's willing to accept there's a problem and seek help, there's not a lot you can do. At that stage, you have to make the best decision for you. Your health and well being, and your children's, are just as important as anyone else's.

 

Breaking up a family is a difficult decision but sometimes it's the right one. Only you know if you've reached the end of your rope. But if you have, start making a plan for an exit. Get your financials lined up, look for an attourney, and proceed with a separation agreement.

[dave_1966]

I note that you had councelling for yourself this year, but have you done councelling together? Breaking up a family is way too important to take advice from a forum like this, it's essential you read out what you've written here to a professional in the presence of your husband.

[j.man]

I mean... are you lazy? Is he the one working while you're the stay-at-home? While a lot of what you write about him isn't defensible, if I was the one working and coming home to a dirty house, having to rearrange the dishwasher repeatedly (there are wrong ways to load it), having to be the one ride the daughter to clean her room and dealing with your opposition to me telling her to (I don't quite get that), etc., I admit I wouldn't be comfortable at all in that living situation. I'm sure it's not helping matters. He sounds resigned, which is obviously a huge barrier.

 

What I would demand is couples therapy. You two need it and I think you're well within that right. I'm sure he'd be much more inclined to consider getting therapy for himself if he hears the suggestion directly from a professional who has actually spoken to him. I don't know why your therapist thought a second-hand recommendation from your personal therapist would be well-received.

 

If he can't be bothered to attend marriage counseling, then I'd say it's time to jet.

[mamamia77770]

Thank you for the responses. I appreciate it. I don't think I'm lazy....I work part to full time from home while taking care of my baby. I try to keep things cleaned up, but there are things that are left out sometimes. I also tell our daughter that she needs to clean her room, the problem I have with him constantly telling her to do that is that is all her experiences with him! He's only telling her to do things, there are not many positive interactions. It got to the point that one day when I was telling her to clean her room she broke down crying saying that she felt like she was a bad kid and a messy kid, and she couldn't do it right. When I told him about it, he said "don't let her turn the tables on you!" There has to be both positive attention and asking her to do things. Earlier in therapy I tried even harder to do the things around the house that made him feel better. During that time, he switched to the fact that I don't plan enough things on the weekends, and he's bored. That's when I realized that the problem may not be the dishwasher after all.

[bulletproof]

He sounds like a child. I personally would leave if someone were speaking to me and my child that way and then refusing to get help to change.

Offer him the ultimatum one more time: counseling (couples or individual) or it's over. I think that's very fair.

[catfeeder]

I wouldn't try to make any decisions without first pursuing legal advice that is specific to where you live.

 

Advice does not mean action, it's simply an appointment to learn about matrimonial laws in your area and what your options are, along with the steps you'd need to consider before choosing any given option.

 

Once you gain the advice you can sit on it and marinate with it all you want, but you'll have some potential frameworks to consider.

 

Outside of that, it's all just a bunch of issues merged into a giant abstraction that's stressing you out, and nobody can resolve abstractions.

 

So get the information and thank the nice lawyer. You'll gain from that meeting a sense of whether or not this particular attorney would be a good fit to possibly represent you someday, and if not, you've gained foundational knowledge about your options.

 

If you ever choose one of those options going forward, you can shop for the right attorney who won't intimidate you but will advise you, operate for you and give you the right steps to protect yourself.

 

Meanwhile, decide whether this particular therapist is of real help to you, or not. If so, or you don't know yet, then continue sessions with him or her with a stated goal of figuring out where you WANT to stand with husband--such as he is.

 

If your therapist is not being helpful in this regard, you can state this goal clearly and see whether he or she adjusts sessions to address it--and if not, seek another therapist and sign a request to have your chart transferred.

 

This isn't about fixing husband, you can't do that. This is about deciding whether or not you want to continue living like this, and if not, learning what your ACTUAL options are to effect change--whether within yourself and how you deal with husband, or externally and how to best deal with that course.

 

PS: There are options that don't necessarily lead straight to divorce. When people think of separation, they usually auto-associate that with insta-divorce, but that needn't be the case. Plenty of couples have used a legal separation to protect their interests while teaching themselves and their spouse exactly what life would be like without the other. From there, you can make other choices about whether to reconcile or not.

[kronic]

I'm only 22, with no children so I probably cant offer the best advice but you deserve better. Honestly he sounds like he needs some major counselling because the issues from his past are still effecting him as a person today and its impacting you and your family in a negative way which is not okay.