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[quote=Anonymous]To put a long story short, I married a guy with OCD, or a short temper, or maybe a combination of both. When we were dating, I didn't see it. I didn't even see it our first years of marriage. He had high expectations of himself, and I noticed of his parents, but he didn't put them on me. Then it really started when we had our first kid, and now, 10 years into the marriage, its gotten really bad. I don't know if he's verbally abusive but certainly often snarky, condescending, and pedantic. He doesn't name call or curse, but the things he says (sometimes yells) are very judgmental. His expectations about everything are really high (he's got a truly photographic memory and in medicine) and sometimes to my mind, unreasonable.

Some examples:
-Every meal needs to be home cooked with whole ingredients (if its not, it's taking the lazy way out, and not focusing on our kids' health). So I will get a 15 min lecture about the evils of added sugar if I buy jarred sauce.
-Not cleaning the kids' plate or our plates is a sign of wasteful and horrible modern values. (so that means I end up only eating the kids leftovers to avoid waste).   
-One of us needs to attend all the kids lessons so that we can properly help them (again, otherwise it's just using the piano teacher as a baby sitter, which is irresponsible and unfair to the child). 
-One of us needs to be around when the kids are doing an app on the ipad or watching TV, so that their time is 'active'. (i.e let the kids watch the discovery channel and occasionally point out things that are being shown - otherwise its going to rot their brain). So that means I can't even distract the kids to cook the damn home cooked meal. 
-Its good that I work out for 30 mins three times a week, but I should really aim for 5-7.
-I should speak only in my native language to my kids, despite him not knowing it, because otherwise I'm not giving the kids the gift of a flexible mind that will recover quickly from brain injury and stroke. Even though at this point, English is my first language. So I get a lecture every time he hears me slip back in in English.
-I should use whatever free time I have (which is what, -10000 hours??) to come up with a more creative and entrepreneurial investment strategy so that our savings don't just sit in vanguard index funds (our current strategy, which he thinks is intellectually lazy).
-How come I don't sew the kids clothes when I know how to, and own a sewing machine? Why aren't I using this as an opportunity to teach our kids sewing, and only use it to hem pants?
-Why don't I get more involved in gardening, when I grew up with a garden and know a little bit? Why do I insist on only doing a few vegetables each year? Why can't I aim for an entirely sustainable kitchen garden that we can eat off of, all summer long?

You get the idea, it goes on and on. There's no end in sight to his expectations. 
 
I work a federal job full time with flexible hours, so these types of expectations fall on my disproportionately, as he works much longer hours.  He had to work one day this weekend, and in the time he was gone, the kids and I went to a birthday party, and planted our (container) vegetable garden. They also practiced instruments/dance/karate, and read out loud to me. The older one practiced her written letter writing in my (native) language. Then we just played, breaking only to eat our (home cooked, from scratch) dinner. When he came home, after dinner,  despite the older one being tired from all the activity, he starts quizzing them on math patterns and geography.

This is just how he is. He expects go, go, go from everyone. He expects perfection or excellence in everything. He has no empathy, no flexibility.

A decade of this has left me just completely mentally exhausted. I'm tired of being told how everything I do is just not good enough. I'm tired of the lectures as if I'm a kid. I pretty much long for the minute my head hits the pillow every night, starting right from the morning when he looks at me askance for putting milk and cereal (all those added sugars!) in front of the kids.

And no, he won't go to therapy (couples or individual). Why should he when he just wants us both to do everything right? And I want to continue doing some things wrong, just because its easier or because I'm stubborn? I myself am in therapy recently, hoping it will help me sort this out.

Thanks for reading, I actually just needed to vent.  But if anyone can relate and has some thoughts, I'd love to hear it. [/quote]

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