Vent--No more capacity to deal with DH being a drama llama

[Anonymous]

I empathize with you, OP. My DH is similar. Some PP have given great advice. Others, not so much, but they don’t realize that you can’t communicate with people who are manipulative and abusive like this. No matter what you say, they will turn it around in favor of themselves. Agree with PP that women are often pressured to think that if they only supported his career more, or had sex with him more, or did more around the house so he could relax, then he’d be happy and treat us well. It’s the exact opposite- the more you give in, the worse they treat you because it worked. It’s like having a toddler, you can’t reason with them or be nice to them in hopes they’ll behave. They just aren’t capable of it.

I started drawing more boundaries because I figured that no matter what I did, I was wrong, so I may as well do what I want. It helped me get my life back on track but led to WW3 at my house. We will likely be getting divorced by the end of the year. Not a happy ending, but I’m glad I spent the last year preparing for it.

Do you have friends you can spend more time with? I found that connecting with women in similar situations helped me keep my sanity.

[Anonymous]

The contempt you have for him is uncomfortable to read. You’re going to be getting divorced; the only question is whether it is on a timetable you choose or one he does. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Op here. Thank you for the (mostly) safe space to vent, the supportive posts, and the posts that have given me some things to think about. I'm not going to go through answer specific posts (except for one, below), but I'll give some general answers based on the things people seemed to comment on/ask about the most.

DH willingly left behind the small town we lived in and a job he enjoyed so I could attend grad school in DC. It wasn't always easy or smooth, but he supported me going for it. So when his "dream" opportunity presented itself, I decided I would support him as he did for me. Plus I was pretty burned out on my current employer, so we took the leap.

I think DH also just got really used to having a stay at home wife while I was out of work. I've asked plenty of times for him to pick up some slack now that I also work full-time, and it will go okay for a week or two but then he slips back into his old habits. I can't not make dinner--we have a kid who needs to eat. I can't stop grocery shopping--again, kid needs to eat. I can't not do dishes--I've tried, it only ends up attracting bugs AND we then have no clean plates to eat off of. I can't not do laundry--gotta have clean clothes (although I have taken to only doing mine and the kid clothes). I really think some good marriage therapy could help us tackle this, but like I said he refuses.

My end goal is not to move to DC and divorce. My end goal, I think, is for us to stay married and both secure somewhat fulfilling jobs back in DC because we both love the city. We held on to our little rowhouse because the intention was always to return.

Anonymous wrote: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!

Thank you! I use my writing skills in my job, though not as much as I would like. I learned pretty quickly making a career as a writer was unlikely, but do enjoy the outlet it provides. I've been working on a novel in fits and starts over the years but it is no where close to finished.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I can't not make dinner--we have a kid who needs to eat. I can't stop grocery shopping--again, kid needs to eat. I can't not do dishes--I've tried, it only ends up attracting bugs AND we then have no clean plates to eat off of. I can't not do laundry--gotta have clean clothes (although I have taken to only doing mine and the kid clothes).

Here's what I found helpful:

Make a list of all the chores and who currently does them, then divide them up so it's 50/50.

If he doesn't hold up his end, don't nag him or do it. Just let him suffer the consequences.

If it's laundry- he has no clean clothes for work. His problem.

Dishes- let them pile up no matter how ridiculous it is. If you get bugs, he gets to call pest control. If you have no clean dishes, use what you can- I've eaten off of Tupperware lids before. Once it piles up so much that it takes 2 hours to clean, he'll learn his lesson.

Cooking- don't make dinner when it's his turn. Let him handle feeding your kid. You may have a couple nights of stale saltines with peanut butter, but the kid will survive. DH will figure out that stale crackers every night gets old fast.

Grocery shopping- Same as cooking. If he doesn't do it, there's no good food and he's stuck eating random crap. Yea, you are too, but if you suck it up for a couple nights he'll learn. He'll also figure out that if he doesn't do the grocery shopping in a timely manner, he's stuck rushing after work when it's the most crowded and that's a huge pain.

I know it's tough. I recommend "Drop the Ball" in an earlier post and it's really a great book for this. She describes how her DH was supposed to take over going through the mail and he let it pile up for three months until it was a mountain. Yes, they missed party invitations and bills and whatnot. But everyone survived, and he learned his lesson after then spending an entire weekend going through all the mail. Never happened again. Men just have different standards of what's acceptable, and they don't learn unless you let them suffer the consequences.

Also- when he does do chores, don't be too picky. I used to get frustrated that my DH picked out produce at the grocery store that I wouldn't have picked. Then we started doing grocery home delivery and I realized I never had a problem when the delivery person picked out different produce than I would have. I figure if I'm forgiving to a stranger, I should be that forgiving towards my DH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I think DH also just got really used to having a stay at home wife while I was out of work. I've asked plenty of times for him to pick up some slack now that I also work full-time, and it will go okay for a week or two but then he slips back into his old habits. I can't not make dinner--we have a kid who needs to eat. I can't stop grocery shopping--again, kid needs to eat. I can't not do dishes--I've tried, it only ends up attracting bugs AND we then have no clean plates to eat off of. I can't not do laundry--gotta have clean clothes (although I have taken to only doing mine and the kid clothes). I really think some good marriage therapy could help us tackle this, but like I said he refuses.

My end goal is not to move to DC and divorce. My end goal, I think, is for us to stay married and both secure somewhat fulfilling jobs back in DC because we both love the city. We held on to our little rowhouse because the intention was always to return.

Since you both work and have a higher income than when you were SAH, may I suggest that you consider throwing money at the problem? Get a house cleaning service or a mother's helper to come in and do some of the housework. If you hire a mother's helper, they can do things like laundry and dishes and general cleaning, maybe even come to the house for a couple of hours each afternoon and make dinner and do basic cleaning. Alternatively, start to order from shopping delivery services. When our twins were young and we were both working out of the home, for a while, we started ordering groceries on Peapod and scheduling the delivery to the house at a time when one of us would be there to receive the groceries. It wasn't the best (fresh produce was one where they didn't pay much attention to quality back then), but that and a monthly cleaning service significantly reduced the stress on both of us.

So, look at the things that cause the most stress and see if you can hire someone to do that for you so that you can reduce the tension between you by eliminating one of the sources of stress.

[Anonymous]

Well, count me in as well. Sounds like my DH. I’m sorry to hear there are so many of us.

I think the issue is that men do not seek help with their issues- medical help, therapy, support from family/friends/ groups and instead internalize it and dump it on their loved ones. I don’t know why, but seems common. Men also seem less able to handle “household stress” well especially young children. Even when my DH is at his best, his patience level with our kids is 50% of mine. They just don’t get it. Work issues seem to trigger a lot of it- mine is stressed st work so his patience level with the kids has gone down from 50% to 20% of mine.

With the kid stuff, I’ve found that I need to do my own thing and just leave DH out of the equation unless he wants to help and/or join. He just makes everything worse, when he is in these moods. So, make your own plans on the weekends- plans with friends or take your child to the zoo, errands, out for the day etc. Don’t even factor DH in. Assume that you are pretty much a single parent, and be pleasantly surprised if he joins. Sometimes my DH does, sometimes he does not. Don’t even remotely expect help with getting child ready in the AM or help in the evening. Like I said, basically function as a single parent with regards to the kid. Get a sitter if and when you need one.

Ignore DHs moods. Pretend not to notice all the huffing and passive aggressive stuff- don’t engage.

If you want TV just get it setup. If he doesn’t like it, too bad. Don’t engage in an argument if he tries to start one.

Encourage DH to do things he likes- exercise helps my DH a lot, and so does seeing friends and things like golf etc. Since I am doing all of the parenting anyway, I’d rather have him doing those things (which help his mental state) than watching tv.

Both your DH and mine are probably depressed and anxious. I do try to talk to mine about this at opportune times but it does little good. For now I am waiting it out (he is in a stressful period at work which is making things worse) but at some point I will consider divorce. Not there yet.

Sorry OP. It stinks, I know. Wish I had better advice but the DHs are the problem here and we can’t fix it for them, even if we wanted to.

[Anonymous]

What if you name the problem?

Tell your DH you're not going to watch the Nats game with him, because his temper tantrum when something inevitably goes wrong is stressful. So while you do wish you and he could wind together in the evening, instead you're going to sit on the deck and read a book. I think a lot of men are so used to the women around them managing and ignoring their moods that they're completely unaware of how childish they're being.

My own DH thought he was often "hiding" his frustration until I told him I wasn't going to go out to eat with him until he read the menu of the place we were going first. He has legitimate frustration, food allergies make eating out a chore. But he likes eating out, so we'd regularly go, he'd get the menu and ask questions at some new place, and then pout the entire meal if they couldn't accommodate him. I didn't enjoy eating a meal while he was pouting, yet he wouldn't leave to go elsewhere. After a few times of this I decided if he wanted to do performative pouting I didn't need to go along to be his audience. I've heard a lot of women complain about things similar to this, and often they've never expressed to their husband how their behavior is perceived, just assuming their husband knows he's a drama llama. Point it out. Stop accommodating it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Since you both work and have a higher income than when you were SAH, may I suggest that you consider throwing money at the problem? Get a house cleaning service or a mother's helper to come in and do some of the housework. If you hire a mother's helper, they can do things like laundry and dishes and general cleaning, maybe even come to the house for a couple of hours each afternoon and make dinner and do basic cleaning. Alternatively, start to order from shopping delivery services. When our twins were young and we were both working out of the home, for a while, we started ordering groceries on Peapod and scheduling the delivery to the house at a time when one of us would be there to receive the groceries. It wasn't the best (fresh produce was one where they didn't pay much attention to quality back then), but that and a monthly cleaning service significantly reduced the stress on both of us.

So, look at the things that cause the most stress and see if you can hire someone to do that for you so that you can reduce the tension between you by eliminating one of the sources of stress.

Definitely get a cleaning service if you can. It's helped saved my sanity. If I'm not worrying about cleaning bathrooms and the kitchen floor, then the little things I have to do on a daily basis don't bother me as much. My husband definitely doesn't do 50% of the housework, nor anything close to 50% of the kid work, despite us both having FT jobs with long commutes. He does do yard work and car maintenance, so I remember that and let him slide. But that biweekly cleaning service is worth every penny. If OP can swing it, maybe give up something else (for me, I've been forgoing a new car, keeping my 10 year old one limping along), I think it can take some pressure off.

Won't change her husband's attitude or outlook though, but maybe lighten OP's load. FWIW, my husband is similar. He comes home from work, complains about his job, his boss, everyone there is an idiot, it's so boring and tedious. And then he gets himself so worked up, he blows up with one of the kids over something stupid.

[Anonymous]

Op, there is a lot of good advice here for your empowerment (ie, just go ahead and have cable installed in the bedroom). Above all else --- just act. Act more, talk less. Especially day-to-day things, expenses, decisions. Just act.

[Anonymous]

You can win this one! Hang in there! Help him get a job in DC. You will be stuck in that town until your son is 18 if you separate now. Do everything you can to get back there. You can fake it till you make it. Once you are back in DC, separate. Please do not risk custody issues by staying in town. A friend did this and so wish she waited. She is stuck on West Coast with her young sons while her family is in Boston. Her husband will not even fly home for Christmas with boys to see her parents.
Take care of you, work on depression, and do everything under the sun to help him get back to DC.
Good Luck to you.

[Anonymous]

I think you’ve gotten a lot of great advice here Op. I think it helps to break it down as you really have three separate issues going on:

(1) division of labor: most of us have struggled with this. As others have suggested, throwing $ at the problem and hiring help is the easiest. Otherwise it helps to be very specific with DH because it seems men sometimes can’t “see” what needs to be done. When my DC were small I put DH in charge of laundry- all of it. I told him if he did 100% of it- on his own timeline just get it done- I’d be happy. He did. I continued doing most everything else (cooking, cleaning). Mine would rather have an “area” he is 100% responsible for than have to coordinate with me on other things.

(2) DHs “issues”. Maybe he is depressed, maybe it is situational (job stress, he is not good with toddlers), maybe it is something else. Who knows. Try to get to the bottom of it. Wait for a good time to talk and suggest all that you can depending on what he says...exercise, a doctor, etc.

(3) how to manage yourself in the meantime while this is getting figured out- you have gotten many good suggestions about walking away, doing your own thing, etc etc

Good luck OP! We are all behind you. I really hope this is just a “blip” for your family- it happens. Hang in there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you’ve gotten a lot of great advice here Op. I think it helps to break it down as you really have three separate issues going on:

(1) division of labor: most of us have struggled with this. As others have suggested, throwing $ at the problem and hiring help is the easiest. Otherwise it helps to be very specific with DH because it seems men sometimes can’t “see” what needs to be done. When my DC were small I put DH in charge of laundry- all of it. I told him if he did 100% of it- on his own timeline just get it done- I’d be happy. He did. I continued doing most everything else (cooking, cleaning). Mine would rather have an “area” he is 100% responsible for than have to coordinate with me on other things.

(2) DHs “issues”. Maybe he is depressed, maybe it is situational (job stress, he is not good with toddlers), maybe it is something else. Who knows. Try to get to the bottom of it. Wait for a good time to talk and suggest all that you can depending on what he says...exercise, a doctor, etc.

(3) how to manage yourself in the meantime while this is getting figured out- you have gotten many good suggestions about walking away, doing your own thing, etc etc

Good luck OP! We are all behind you. I really hope this is just a “blip” for your family- it happens. Hang in there.

This is true...there can be hard days, hard months, and sometimes hard years, and couples can still come out of it on the other end. I'm in the hard years category, and am working to hang in there.

[Anonymous]

Ask him to stop whining and how he wants you to help, although there is little you can do to solve the problems he created. Then do the 180 and file for divorce if he continues to be depressed. If he is man enough, he will find a better job as a responsible partner and parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you’ve gotten a lot of great advice here Op. I think it helps to break it down as you really have three separate issues going on:

(1) division of labor: most of us have struggled with this. As others have suggested, throwing $ at the problem and hiring help is the easiest. Otherwise it helps to be very specific with DH because it seems men sometimes can’t “see” what needs to be done. When my DC were small I put DH in charge of laundry- all of it. I told him if he did 100% of it- on his own timeline just get it done- I’d be happy. He did. I continued doing most everything else (cooking, cleaning). Mine would rather have an “area” he is 100% responsible for than have to coordinate with me on other things.

(2) DHs “issues”. Maybe he is depressed, maybe it is situational (job stress, he is not good with toddlers), maybe it is something else. Who knows. Try to get to the bottom of it. Wait for a good time to talk and suggest all that you can depending on what he says...exercise, a doctor, etc.

(3) how to manage yourself in the meantime while this is getting figured out- you have gotten many good suggestions about walking away, doing your own thing, etc etc

Good luck OP! We are all behind you. I really hope this is just a “blip” for your family- it happens. Hang in there.

This is true...there can be hard days, hard months, and sometimes hard years, and couples can still come out of it on the other end. I'm in the hard years category, and am working to hang in there.

OP here with an update. I told DH what I was feeling and mostly got blown off. Basically, he felt he wasn't doing anything wrong and I wasn't sufficiently acknowledging his contributions. (I didn't say "what contributions?!")

But last week he was having yet another woe-is-me morning, but off to the pumpkin patch we go. Then, with all of us in the car, he managed to t-bone another car, entirely DH's fault. He gets into a screaming match with the other driver, more f-bombs than I cared to count. Completely embarrassing, totally out of control. Next morning, he's still raging and I had enough--I'm trying to deal with insurance, figure how getting a rental car, etc., while he's still hung up on the fact that the other driver yelled at him. I snapped that he needed to get over it and get it together because we're in this mess 100% because of his actions. I'm an unsupportive witch blah blah blah and he's been crashing with a friend ever since.

God, this sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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?

Ditto, we deal w DH weekly temper tantrums as well. Nothing gets done because of them, which he really seems to like.