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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So you don't know why you married him, but you went ahead and had a kid with him when you already knew he was like this? Brilliant idea. [/quote]
You sound like the kind of argumentative asshole described in the first post. How unhappy is your life on a scale of 1 to 10? A 12?[/quote]

If 1 is the happiest on your scale, I'm actually a 1. Because I didn't marry and then have a baby by an asshole I didn't really love. I'm not one of those women so desperate to have a baby that I marry the first sperm donor who steps up, and then complains when life sucks later. :)[/quote]
NP here, if you are so happy, why are you such a bitch? Who gets pleasur rout of kicking someone while they are down?

OP I agree with the posters who say run less things by him, spend less time with him (or the time that you do spend, be actively engaged in something else), and reconsider divorcing sooner rather than later if that is the route you are planning to take.
At best your husband notices your detachment and misses his sparring partner and then you can fill him in on the new world order, or you get a little peace and distance while you plan your divorce.[/quote]

Because I'm sick of women coming on this board bitching about how their husbands suck when 99% of the time they knew what they were getting into when they got married. SHE made the mistake of marrying a dick, then made the further mistake of having a baby with him. She is solely responsible for her situation. Period. I'm not going to have a pity party for someone who made their own conscious choices. Stop settling for sperm donors. And if you're unhappy then pull the plug. But don't bitch about someone's personality after you dug your own grave. [/quote]

Go away.  You're annoying. [/quote]

+1.  First response had it right:  argumentative asshole.  Nothing to add to this discussion.

OP, my husband was like this when he felt powerless at work and it was exacerbated when pressure at home stepped up with a new baby.  Pressure was mounting to perform at work, which made him less able to help out at home and he kept "anticipating" my disappointment in him by asserting that disappointment first.  The problem lessened when the Great Recession forced him out of his job and he took a lower-paying position that gave him more flexibility in parenting.  (Maybe) not a solution for you, but more recent adjustments we've made could help.

I conceded that certain decisions were in my realm, others were in his.  Money and household budget was the biggest hurdle and we haven't cleared it yet, but have a much more amicable approach after agreeing on our priorities, what role each of us has to play, and making weekly adjustments based on needs.  Childcare is the next biggest and there's just no such thing as a 50/50 split.  It's always going to be 60/40 or 70/30 or even 90/10, shifting back and forth and changing as often time needs, work demands and available help changes.  As soon as you think you have something figured out, it changes again and you just have to roll with it with trust and understanding that one or the other of you will have to step up or step back as needs change.  But the needs have to be clearly stated and understood by all parties.

I think the biggest contributor to our argumentative household was lack of trust.  We just didn't trust each other on the basics and that meant knives out...on the basics.  If you believe your husband's only objective is to start an argument, it doesn't matter what he changes, that's what you'll see.  My husband believed that my primary need was to be right - on everything - and he approached every discussion and decision-making issue with the intent to prove me wrong.  He even went into couples therapy with that belief, pretty much ensuring that it wouldn't work.  Stalemate.  Every last argument - whether it was about financial planning or what to put on the grocery list - moved quickly to him saying I just wanted to shut him down and be right.  Ironically, it's exactly how I felt about him.

In the end, better communication, and better understanding about what stands in the way of it, really is the oil in the machine.  It's not easy, and it takes practice but for us, I had to start regularly admitting when I was wrong, leave him with decision making in areas where he's better at it, and trust that we both wanted to move past stalemates and could figure out a way to do it.  Each of you also has to make a conscious effort toward stress remediation for yourselves and give the other space to do that.  I wanted to take DH's gym membership off our household budget because he only went once/week, which worked out to $20/visit.  But it's his stress reliever, so we built it into our budget and schedule and cut back on other things.  [/quote]

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