Anonymous wrote:OP, I’d suggest the NAMI Family to Family course, not only is DH’s family full of neuro divergence and mental illness, it may show up in your kids too.

Have you posted before? The FIL with very early dementia sounds familiar.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you work OP? I think you need to get your ducks in a row and start thinking of leaving. I know it seems impossible and overwhelming but start taking small steps towards leaving. Empower yourself. We can do hard things!

I want to know the answer to this as well. I'm guessing the answer is no. Whether or not she admits that, though ...

Yes I work. I love how every post on DCUM about a spouse that is causing hurt and pain assumes a woman has earned that hurt and pain by bringing in insufficient income.

Just in case any woman out there is so arrogant as to believe that a job magically protects them from a dud spouse: it does not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I'm so sorry, OP. My best guess is:

Either he's conducting an affair and has started the blame game to make himself feel better. Or, if he's exhibited signs of inappropriate social reactions before, he's on the autism spectrum and will continue to have these reactions now and again all throughout his life, when he's stressed out.

Both scenarios are very serious. Get your act together, because you have some hard decisions to make for your family's future.

Is autism a reason for not getting shared custody? That would be sometime to investigate before leaving kids with him half time.

PP you replied to. No, an autism diagnosis will not be considered. The bar is very high to prove that a parent is unfit for custody. You would need to prove that the parent has directly harmed the children in a measurable way, or that he's a habitual user of hard drugs, etc. Something serious like that, or regular physical absences for work such that he cannot actually live in the same house with them for most of the time (deployment, long-distance job, etc).

That’s too bad. I don’t think we should judge adults with autism if they’re functioning fine, but if they’re creating this kind of chaos it’s a shame that the court wouldn’t protect the kids.

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Anonymous wrote:He needs his space. And you're worried about him being gone for a couple of hours. He's may be close to making some big life decisions. And you might not be in it.

What you do is: you let him save face. He returns. He returns to a gentle, calm environment. He is telling you with actions and told you with words: it's too much. Too much stress. You expect too much emotional support -- go find friends, others to help with your emotional needs. He can't do it. It's too much for him, he's not wired that way. Likely too, you have the kids scheduled way too much. Especially revealing when, in the middle of a marriage crisis, *your* concern is how to get the kids to their activities and how you will get your errands accomplished. He's rethinking the marriage and you don't get what's important.

This, I think. He isn't a person who talks about his feelings and emotions? He has them, though. He just doesn't want to, or doesn't know how to without breaking down, or doesn't want to feel week. But he's got stresses and problems he doesn't let on about. Maybe big ones. And maybe those are at a critical point. Work? Job? Health?

He can't cope with his and listen to you "share" or "vent" or prattle on at the plant store.
In an ideal world, of course he should be able to.
But this is where he is now.

Ah yes, the DH is a man so he must just be operating on a higher plane of intelligence and emotional sophistication than OP can even imagine. He shouldn’t be expected to lower himself to polite interactions with people who have time on the weekend to look at plants. And OP should be seen and not heard, doesn’t she know that?

Really he is so superior that he shouldn’t have to interact with his family at all, right? OP is just a dumb little girl who doesn’t understand how the world works, right?

/s

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Anonymous wrote:Sounds more like he went for a walk. It is very dramatic to say he walked out on you and you are protecting your daughters from the truth…what truth…that he went for a walk.

When someone walks out on the family, they don’t leave their phone and car and all their belongings. If walking out on the family just means go for a walk then we all walk out on our families often.

Picking a fight and then leaving unannounced when there is a full day planned isn't going for a walk.

Anonymous wrote:He’s having an affair and is looking for a way to make you the bad spouse so he can justify his actions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you work OP? I think you need to get your ducks in a row and start thinking of leaving. I know it seems impossible and overwhelming but start taking small steps towards leaving. Empower yourself. We can do hard things!

I want to know the answer to this as well. I'm guessing the answer is no. Whether or not she admits that, though ...

Yes I work. I love how every post on DCUM about a spouse that is causing hurt and pain assumes a woman has earned that hurt and pain by bringing in insufficient income.

Just in case any woman out there is so arrogant as to believe that a job magically protects them from a dud spouse: it does not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you work OP? I think you need to get your ducks in a row and start thinking of leaving. I know it seems impossible and overwhelming but start taking small steps towards leaving. Empower yourself. We can do hard things!

I want to know the answer to this as well. I'm guessing the answer is no. Whether or not she admits that, though ...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oof, I remember this. The silent treatment, the manufacturing of conflicts out of thin air when I asked him what was wrong, the feeling that I annoyed him by even existing, the entitlement to check out or stomp out knowing I would provide continuity for whatever needed to happen….finish cooking, pay the restaurant check, entertain the guests. It was horrible.

Yes he was sleeping around, but that was merely a symptom of deep, pathological selfishness, spiced up by a fun whiff of sociopathy. He was an empathy void. And boy did he hide that well before he locked me down.

You know those men who leave when the wife gets sick? Yeah. I wasn’t going to stick around and find out.

I’m sorry OP. I have been there and for me, it never got better. Maybe it will for you. But I’d take this event as the bellwether it is. With no discussion, and over a nonsense event (the plant thing? Really?), he bailed on you and your kids. Hell, he even endangered the dog by leaving the gate open.

I’m leery of men whose protective instincts of those more vulnerable don’t remain intact in moments like this. They often make bad life partners. I would insist on counseling, no two ways about it.

OP and that is what I needed to hear. Whatever is going on with DH and whatever emotions I dared to express (apparently dcum agrees with him and thinks I need to squish myself down into the tiniest lump possible and not say a word about anything ever) don’t change the fact that he sought to make himself more emotionally comfortable at the expense of one of his own kids having to miss a baseball game or a birthday party and the dog potentially running into a busy street.