Vent--No more capacity to deal with DH being a drama llama
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Anonymous
No her plan is to screech incoherently to strangers on DCUM. |
Anonymous
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I think what strikes me about your post is your lack of responsibility or ownership. You blame your DH for decisions you made (ostensibly) as a team/partnership - the decision to move to another city. I assume he didn’t drag you kicking and screaming. He’s not solely responsible for your happiness.
Maybe the fact that he knows he screwed up, and you probably let him know that often, is really wearing on him. It’s not fun to have that burden on his shoulders when he was originally trying just to do right by his family by going after a Dream opportunity. I also wouldn’t just dismiss his feelings like you have in your post. You show very little respect for him. |
Anonymous
| No advice just sympathy here. I too think my husband needs therapy be he disagrees. He has become an angry bitter person and I think his is all job related too. He had a great job for a long time and was a happy person. The past couple years he has bounced from job to job and he’s miserable. Which would be fine except he refuses to see/admit that he’s not himself. |
Anonymous
| For the chores, check out the book “Drop the Ball”. Lots of good advice on how to get husbands to do their fair share. |
Anonymous
| Sorry you are going through this OP. It must be mentally exhausting. |
Anonymous
| Translation: Everything is his fault. I do everything right. Why can't he just magically change? |
Anonymous
| When he insists about things like dropping cable, put your foot down. You seem to let his word be final, even when you disagree. Please go ahead and get cable again. Little things like that can go a long way. |
Anonymous
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I'm sorry, OP. I feel you. No actual advice, except to say that usually I give up on longer posts, but yours drew me in. Not sure what your job is, but you should definitely be writing.
Good luck! |
Anonymous
DH has had everything his way -- move to the new city for his "dream job" where presumably he got to get some social release there whereas OP just stayed home unwillingly. Now if her depression dated from before the move I will say something else. Not all money saving ideas are created equal. Maybe you're saving $50 a month. But is it worth the aggravation it seems to be causing if you've got an Internet connection prone to random brownouts? (I will caution that moving back to DC won't solve everything either and may just reverse the roles.) |
Anonymous
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I feel you op. For those of you saying op had a choice, that's true up to a point. Women are often told to "support their husband's job choices" with the expectation that if they do, he will be happy and he will be kinder and more loving to them. Look at all the nonsense about "home is where the heart is" or "home is where my honey is". Add to that a city that op hates coupled with her husband wanting to save money in a way that seems to piss him off, and op has got to wonder why she's there.
OP, I would tell your husband that you all moved for him to fly a six-drawer. If he isn't happy at his dream job, then he needs to find something better. Now is a good time to move both because your kid is little and you don't like where you live. Take this as a learning experience and be very firm in what you want. Don't compromise on location, house or anything else. Having lived in places that I've hated, where I was treated like a third-class citizen, and one rough neighborhood, where you live is not something you want to compromise on. Women feel the effects of a bad environment very differently then men. Look for children, dogs and people who want to talk to you. That's how you know you are in a good (note I didn't say expensive area). I've been made fun of on this board for posting this, but it's a rule I will not break Your husband had his chance at doing tthings his way. If he was kind and loving to you, and if you liked the current city, I wouldn't be so blunt. Clearly, his plan sent you into a depression (assuming you were healthy to begin with) and the current setup isn't doing anything for him. |
Anonymous
Add me in. My DH is like this too. I'm tired of walking on eggshells with this man. For all the folks who say, "why did you marry him?", well my DH has grown angry and miserable as time went on. He wasn't this like this when we got married. Or the folks who say "why don't you communicate?" Yeah, some of us have tried. But these DH's are so defensive and not self-reflective at all. When I try to discuss these things, he quickly goes to "FINE, I WILL JUST LEAVE AND YOU CAN BE THE ONLY PARENT." In my younger days I didn't really understood staying together for the kids. Now I get it. If it were just me, I'd leave. But to uproot my (teen and tween) kids and turn their lives upside down? |
Anonymous
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My husband is a bit like this also. Several years ago, he accepted a new job that nearly doubled our HHI because he wanted to buy a house and build better savings and have a second child. Note that I said HE wanted those things - I also want them but I was not the one pursuing this job and making 5 year plans about it. We are in year 4 of that plan, which is going like clockwork as mapped out in 2015, and he is such a drama llama about it. Hates the job. Doesn’t play to his skills. Feels like he’s wasting his time. Feels venal for taking a job solely because of money. Blah blah blah.
I hear him out, comfort him, make suggestions about how to reframe his dissatisfaction, remind him that next year, he can step down to something else and I can take the financial load, but none of that really reduces the complaints. It is frustrating but probably less frustrating than OP’s husband, who seems to accept zero responsibility for how they ended up in this situation and also makes zero attempts to improve the situation. |
Anonymous
| Even thinking about him as a drama llama makes your resentment shine through, OP. You need to get him on your family team and the way you are thinking and blaming him will not work out. He is wrong, but he is your husband and your child’s father. You need to suck it up, buttercup, and get those phrases out of your mind and grow up. |
Anonymous
You might want to consider getting an outside, unbiased person to evaluate your home/marriage/family. There are times that a toxic relationship full of friction is more difficult on kids than a separation where they have two parents with less friction returning to sanity. My brother had a difficult marriage because they fought about money all the time. When they finally separated and later divorced, they fought much less when they had separate accounts and could each make their own financial decisions. As my xSIL says, when they were no longer sharing money and financial decisions, they could remember what they loved about each other. It took a couple of years, but they ended up being wonderful supportive friends and good co-parents. They both remarried and my nieces have two wonderful sets of parents. Things were easier growing up with two nearby households and two parents who were happy than one household with both parents unhappy. |
Anonymous
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Tough it out until the toddler gets older. It does get easier, physically at least.
As for his job, encourage him to stick it out for a reasonable amount of time, then look for something else. This sometimes happens with jobs. It sounds like the stress of a move, a new job (or jobs), and a toddler are taking their toll on you both, though you are dealing with it better than your husband. Just remember that jobs can be changed and that kids grow up. It won't always be like this. |