How to talk to DH about my feelings?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t bother Op. don’t bother talking about feelings with someone who clearly doesn’t want to nor can handle it. He’s emotionally stunted.

Focus on yourself, your kids, your friends & family, your career and activities.

Outsource the cooking, cleaning, yard work.

You’ll still have to do all the household’s thinking, organizing, planning, problem solving.

View you spouse as dim-witted arm candy.

Consider changing your PoA and health decisions to someone who gives a damn and is reliable.

Teach your kids to set boundaries w “takers”.

To be sure, this kind of attitude is likely why he is detached in the first place. Men withdraw when their women henpeck, nag, and make it obvious they "view" them as "dim-witted." Who would want to engage with such a person if you're being treated that way?

+1. This is why DCUM attracts so many divorced women with failed marriages.

[Anonymous]

So, who walks the dog with him?
Who goes with him, spends the time with him. A perfect opportunity. If anyone's interested. A walk and talk. Perfect time to bond with Dad.

Dogs and inanimate objects and screen time are nice because none of those talk to you or ask you things or have requests. Easy peasy.

Dad goes on a walk --- why isn't anyone else in the family going with him??
That's some family-togetherness right there. There it is, an opportunity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So, who walks the dog with him?
Who goes with him, spends the time with him. A perfect opportunity. If anyone's interested. A walk and talk. Perfect time to bond with Dad.

Dogs and inanimate objects and screen time are nice because none of those talk to you or ask you things or have requests. Easy peasy.

Dad goes on a walk --- why isn't anyone else in the family going with him??
That's some family-togetherness right there. There it is, an opportunity

Maybe “Dad” can sit down without his phone and have a meal or two a day with his kids, and teach them the art of back and forth conversation! Instead of dragging others on the 1 thing out of 50 that needs to be done.

[Anonymous]

I don’t have a dog but going out for regular walks and having to get some fresh air and quiet sounds like heaven. Whereas figuring out dinner every single night is really painful after a while (and I used to love to cook). Can he at least do it on weekends? My husband doesn’t ever do it either but at least he admits it is because he hates cooking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you wanting to talk about your feelings or about his flaws? If your just dressing up your criticisms of him as "feelings about his flaws," I wouldn't expect anyone to take that very well. (Depending, I suppose on what those flaws are, how you are presenting them, and what you expect as the end result of the conversation.)

+1

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Why is bringing up income in the context of household responsibilities a dick move?

If she works outside of the home as much as he does but makes way less, that seems like an opportunity for her to do fewer hours working - because the household finances won't take so much of a hit - and reduce her overall workload.

If her lower income is a reflection of fewer hours worked outside the home, then its fair to consider that in terms of equitable overall workload.

That shouldn't be the whole discussion. I can totally see guys blowing off any concerns at all about equitable contributions to the household. (Sounds a lot like OP's husband is doing just that.) But I don't see why relative income is off limits entirely.

Because it is a dick move. I work full time. I make more than my husband, and still do more at home. It never occurred to me to bring money into "division of labor" talks. One, even though he makes less, he is working hard and his job simply doesn't lend itself to working fewer hours. It's always men who feel that simply because they bring in a paycheck, they can do little or nothing at home.

I don't get this. Maintaining a household requires a certain combined level of effort. Part of that effort is doing the sort of work that generates the money necessary to finance the household. It's arbitrary to ignore that slice of the effort when discussing overall division of labor.

So, in your mind, even though we both work 40+ hours outside of home, one of us gets a pass on a whole lot of stuff because one of us brings in a bit more? So let's say I'm a nurse working on my feet all day long and bring in 70K (I'm not a nurse and don't really know how much they make, just using it as an example) and he is a lawyer working in house making 300K, he gets to come home and prop his feet up while I have to take on a second job at home becasue my profession is not as lucrative. I can guarantee that a nurse is working 10 times harder than an in-house lawyer.

It's not a matter of getting a pass. But if one person works 50 hours to make $300k and the other person works 50 hours to make $50k and the couple is overwhelmed between the effort required to work both jobs and take care of the house/family, it would be rational to dial back the hours spent on the $50k job and devote those hours to household effort. Cut back expenditures to account for the lost income.

Why not dial back the hours on the $300K job? Oh, because you think it's so important that they couldn't possibly do that? I make over $300K and let me tell you, my job isn't that important. I would never ask my husband to dial back his job just because he made less than me.

It's just less efficient. If the problem is not enough combined hours in the week to finance the household and put in the labor required to manage it, you can yield more hours for less cost if you cut back the lower paying job.

That's not necessarily the case. A school teacher can't just cut down their hours. A lawyer who decided not to pursue partner could. Also, people have feelings and opinions, so even if your mathematical equation were true, which it's not, it fails to take into account about a million important things.

Sure. It's a rational starting point. But there's no need to be dogmatic about it. If the other variables don't make it a good solution, then the couple needs to adapt.

In any event, I started down this conversational path back before I'd read more of OP's story. With them, it doesn't sound like it's really a matter of having too few hours to secure the finances and do the non-financial work. Sounds like her husband really just doesn't want to be engaged with the family -- which is a different problem. His excusing himself because of his financial contributions is kind of a red herring.

We agree on that. It doesn't sound like OP should cut back her work because her husband has been disappearing from family life so that could put her in a precarious place. And it also doesn't sound like he isn't engaging for lack of time. So OP needs to have a conversation with him, probably involving a therapist and multiple sessions, so she can be sure he hears what she's saying and she can hear how he feels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t bother Op. don’t bother talking about feelings with someone who clearly doesn’t want to nor can handle it. He’s emotionally stunted.

Focus on yourself, your kids, your friends & family, your career and activities.

Outsource the cooking, cleaning, yard work.

You’ll still have to do all the household’s thinking, organizing, planning, problem solving.

View you spouse as dim-witted arm candy.

Consider changing your PoA and health decisions to someone who gives a damn and is reliable.

Teach your kids to set boundaries w “takers”.

To be sure, this kind of attitude is likely why he is detached in the first place. Men withdraw when their women henpeck, nag, and make it obvious they "view" them as "dim-witted." Who would want to engage with such a person if you're being treated that way?

You think you have a chicken and egg problem PP, lame deflection. You do not.

To be sure, this kind of attitude is likely why SHE is now detached. Women withdraw when their “man” is a slob, “can’t remember things,” and is unreliable and thus disrespectful all facets. And make it obvious that they don’t care about anyone except themselves.
Who would want to engage with someone if you’re being treated that way?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t bother Op. don’t bother talking about feelings with someone who clearly doesn’t want to nor can handle it. He’s emotionally stunted.

Focus on yourself, your kids, your friends & family, your career and activities.

Outsource the cooking, cleaning, yard work.

You’ll still have to do all the household’s thinking, organizing, planning, problem solving.

View you spouse as dim-witted arm candy.

Consider changing your PoA and health decisions to someone who gives a damn and is reliable.

Teach your kids to set boundaries w “takers”.

To be sure, this kind of attitude is likely why he is detached in the first place. Men withdraw when their women henpeck, nag, and make it obvious they "view" them as "dim-witted." Who would want to engage with such a person if you're being treated that way?

You think you have a chicken and egg problem PP, lame deflection. You do not.

To be sure, this kind of attitude is likely why SHE is now detached. Women withdraw when their “man” is a slob, “can’t remember things,” and is unreliable and thus disrespectful all facets. And make it obvious that they don’t care about anyone except themselves.
Who would want to engage with someone if you’re being treated that way?

I understand that you're projecting, PP. And I'm sorry that you had a bad picker. Truly. But this response is to the scenario OP originally described, in which it sounds like she bean counts, henpecks, nags and otherwise tries to micromanage things. Then another pp (you?) came along and urged OP to further diminish and demean her partner. You know, kind of like you're coming at this from a similar perspective.

I mean, we get that you're a bitter shrew, but that doesn't make your feelings or your opinion here valid.

[Anonymous]

If you are anything like my wife and constantly criticize and then want to project your feelings onto me, I will listen but I am going you give you zero feedback. The feedback is will be criticized and then used as ammo against

My advice to you is to ask yourself, is what I am about to say that points out something I don’t like about my husband rooted in emotion or rational thought. If it is rooted in emotion don’t say anything.

[Anonymous]

If I am reading this right- She was a SAHM, got bored and got a job to feel more fulfilled since they don’t need the money, but now she found something else to be mad about. Story as old as time. Divorce him so he can find a woman who knows what she wants and appreciates him providing a great life for her and the kids.

[Anonymous]

Not the answer to OP's problem, but let's not criticize dog walking as family time! I'm convinced that's one of the things that has helped keep my wife and I connected.

With all of life's other demands, we don't always *want* to go on walks. But our dogs are very persistent. And, once we're out, it's a good time to just talk about whatever. Sometimes I go alone. Sometimes I have one of the kids help. But it's a good part of the family routine.