Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is your DH American, OP? For some reason he sounds foreign to me.

Her DH is foreign, so is she. This is Chipotle Lady.

I am foreign, husband is not. What's Chipotle Lady?

It's not Chipotle lady because Chipotle lady's sentences are always more rambling.

Controlling and abusive. This will get worse, not better.

I'll offer a dissenting view - have you tried to become more organized? Have you levelled with your husband and said, "If you leave the gifts I buy and receive alone, I'd love your help to become more organized"?

Sounds like OCD to me. I have female friends who were like this and the only thing that helped was therapy plus meds.

It's too bad you can't buy a duplex together so he could live in one side and you could live in the other. He could keep his side OCD clean and you could keep your side however you like. I suggested this to my sister, who is a slob married to an extreme neatnik. (they've since learned to compromise; they decided on a minimally acceptable level of clean and she maintains that and he goes further if he deems it necessary.)

I come from a family of people who like to do things a certain way. My father is so picky about loading the dishwasher that we all just stack our plates in the sink and let him do it. If my roommate loads the dishwasher inefficiently, I reload it without comment. I'll rearrange stuff in cabinets and drawers without comment. The key here is that I do like things a certain way, but I don't feel like it's my roommate's job to be able to read my mind or do things to please me. She is an adult so I don't make house rules other than stuff like "please don't leave your first-floor window open when we're not at home." (safety/theft issue.) My daughter is only 4, and I treat her the same way - it doesn't have to be "my way", it just has to not be a stupid way. (i.e. don't wash darks with whites or crank the AC at 60 when we'll be gone for a week.)

Your husband needs to learn to do things himself if he wants things a certain way, and to pick his battles only with actual important stuff. You are normal, I think - his behavior is not. (and to be honest, I'm not sure why you married him. I would have picked up on this stuff and gotten the hell out before marriage ever came into the discussion. sorry.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is your DH American, OP? For some reason he sounds foreign to me.

Her DH is foreign, so is she. This is Chipotle Lady.

I am foreign, husband is not. What's Chipotle Lady?

Anonymous wrote:This is abuse. Plain and simple.....

Get to a counselor, get you and your child out of there. They don't ever change. You may think they do, but trust me, they don't.

Leave. Now.

Nailed it. This is control. Get out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is your DH American, OP? For some reason he sounds foreign to me.

Her DH is foreign, so is she. This is Chipotle Lady.

Really?

Anonymous wrote:Is your DH American, OP? For some reason he sounds foreign to me.

Her DH is foreign, so is she. This is Chipotle Lady.

OP - there is something terribly wrong with your husband and he will drive you crazy unless you do something about it. If your husband won't see a therapist, you should get one for yourself - this is a situation that requires professional help. Keep a daily log log of what's happening in your house and share it with your therapist. Make sure you have support group of your own - friends, family. Be as independent as you possibly can.

OP, I want to say that I would never last with someone like that- I wouldn't be able to function. I'm the one who posted about my mom's controlling behavior and your DH makes her look like a gentle lamb.

I think you have to consider that you are the kind of person, for whatever reason, who would marry someone like this and put up with this dynamic for so long. Was this kind of controlling behavior modeled in your family life growing up?

I suspect you will only make a change when things just get bad enough- but it sounds like they are already there. At the end of the day, you have every right to keep gifts from whomever. and no amount of sighing, pouting, talking at you changes that. but this is just one example of a larger issue- that probably requires therapy and intense therapy at that.

Agree with posters who've told you your DH has clinical anxiety, probably OCD and (I'm adding here) depression. They're often co-morbid with each other.

You've only been together as long as you have, however long that may be, because you are modifying YOUR behavior to "make it work." in the lingo of the 1970s, i think they call that co-dependent.

I hope for your and your baby's sake he will agree to medication and talk therapy. Note: medication is an absolute must here. Even with meds and behavioral therapy, he will not magically have a all-new laid back worldview. But ideally, he'll stop with the abuse.

I'm writing as someone who is in the process of divorcing a husband who got worse and worse over the years, to the point where his lifelong anxiety and mild OCD blew up into depression and finally furious rage/anger directed at me and our son. We no longer have a chance, because I can never forgive him.

Please don't let your relationship slide to this point.

This is abuse. Plain and simple.....

Get to a counselor, get you and your child out of there. They don't ever change. You may think they do, but trust me, they don't.

Leave. Now.

Things he "approves?" that's not a relationship..

Is your DH American, OP? For some reason he sounds foreign to me.