Don't know how to handle husbands behaviour

LegacyUser

I have been married to my husband for more than 15 years. 2 kids between 10 and 15 years old.
Background - he is not Irish but moved here for college and stayed. His father is dead and the rest of his family live in his home Country or other countries.
My father is also dead and my family either live hours away in Ireland or abroad.
My husband is estranged from his family. He has not seen them for a long time.
I am a stay at home Mum. I took redundancy during the last recession and didn't go back.
We have had up until now a solid marriage. He travelled a lot with his job but was paid well.
Now he has been working from our house since March. He still has his full salary and we do not have any financial worries.
I have tried since the estrangement with his family a few years ago to overcompensate for that by making his life easier. So, I do everything within the home and organise everything. I do most of the cooking, all the cleaning organise everything for him and the kids. All of the bills for the house. This was fine when he was away a lot. But I am exhausted now. I get up at 6.30am and get breakfast for everyone and I keep going until 10pm when I have the kitchen cleaned and the lunches made. For some reason although I have done this for years I am exhausted now.
And he has started acting strangely. If I forget to do something, he says that I deliberately didn't do it because I don't want to do it. He is very moody and is either working in the home office or on his phone. If I try to talk to him he either ignores me or snaps at me. I have tried asking him what is going on but he says that there is nothing wrong and I am imagining things. Or he calls me a drama queen and says that I am making a big deal out of nothing.
So I try to ignore his behaviour.
Today, he found something of his on the grass outside and accused me of throwing it there deliberately. I hadn't seen it there at all.
He doesn't sleep through the night and I wake up at 3am or 4am and he is downstairs watching TV or on his phone
He does exercise and meets friends for an outdoor hobby
. He seems completely normal with them.
Our love life was fine too until recently. He is very erratic now. If I don't feel like it, he will almost sulk. He isn't in the mood if I am.
The first lockdown in March we were fine but this has been the way now for about 2 months.

Any help please.

Big Bag of Chips

You need to get him to talk to you. I don't understand why his estrangement from his family led to you doing everything in the house? I don't see how the two are linked. But, the fact that you've always done it, he now expects it. So if it's not done, he questions why.

How old is your child? Do you need to be a stay at home parent now? I know it's probably not the best time to be looking for work, but it's something you should be thinking about for the near future. Get things back to even between you. You both work, you both help out around the house.

These past few months have been very difficult for everyone. People who have never struggled with mental health issues, or life in general are finding themselves falling in to a rut.

Try get him to talk without allowing him to turn it into an argument. Ask him what he needs from you. Tell him what you would like from him. Try to communicate again. It mightn't work first attempt, but keep trying. If you as a couple have fallen into cycle of not talking/not listening/arguing, any attempt at conversation will be approached with scepticism and defense.

Communication really is the only solution here. But it won't necessarily be easy.

LegacyUser

Sorry for not being clearer.

The estrangement with his family happened in the aftermath of his father's death. He was not in his home Country and certain actions were taken by the remaining family that led to the estrangement. It is difficult to explain and I don't want to give details of that. He has said many times since then that when his father died that he lost his entire family.

At the time he was travelling a lot for work, so I took the decision to make our home a kind of safe space for him to come back to with no responsibilities or problems and it kind of grew from there.

I have no idea what is wrong now. I am still doing everything that I did before but he is here all the time now. I have tried many times over the past while to get him to talk to me but nothing works.

Our youngest child is 10. I had hoped to return to work in 2020 and had an interview in early March but the firm decided to put recruitment on hold shortly after and I have not tried since then.

TheadoreT

Sounds like he has made a far bigger lifestyle adjustment as a result of covid than you have as you were already a stay at home mam. So would partly explain why he's been thrown off kilter a bit more.
Has he always struggled with sleep or is it just a recent thing? That little(if at all) sleep would make anyone erratic/snappy/moody. I think addressing that issue may see a big improvement in his general mood.

JustAThought

I’d say the stay at hime is a huge lifestyle change for you both - him being around all day, and you having him around. It makes people edgier than usual and shows up their quirks - or newly acquired lockdown quirks! Its probably hard on him not having the additional social outlets and travel and stimuli he usually has - I’d ‘just’ put it down to that. Also LOTS of people not sleeping properly - lots of friends complaining. I’m barely getting 3 or 5 hours a night - lack of proper exercise & brain racing from mild cabin fever. It’ll pass.

HildaOgdenx

This past year has put pressure on almost everyone and relationships have been tested in ways that they possibly never were before. It's a huge adjustment to both of you, from being apart a fair bit, to being constantly together, in the house.

He isn't your boss, so he doesn't get to criticise what you do or don't do, first of all. If he can maintain normality and civility towards friends, he should be able to at least speak civilly to you.

Counselling might help. It sounds like he wouldn't be open to attending, but you might find it useful for yourself. It sounds as if he has checked out of the relationship, tbh.
As pp has said, communication is the key, but unfortunately if he won't talk to you, I don't know what will work.

Katgurl

Two separate issues here -


1) His family estrangement is sad but it's not your job to compensate by being his employee at home. You need a life too. Do you have one? Hobbies, friends etc. Being supportive does not mean being a martyr.

2) Lockdown is putting real pressure on relationships. Hopefully things will improve over time. In the meantime you need to sit down and talk about how you can share home life better.

qwerty13

Katgurl wrote: »

Two separate issues here -


1) His family estrangement is sad but it's not your job to compensate by being his employee at home. You need a life too. Do you have one? Hobbies, friends etc. Being supportive does not mean being a martyr.

2) Lockdown is putting real pressure on relationships. Hopefully things will improve over time. In the meantime you need to sit down and talk about how you can share home life better.

Re point (1) above, I think with the best of intentions, you’ve painted yourself into a corner, where you do everything of what I’ve seen described as the ‘life admin’, ie you taking care of the house, the kids, the arrangements etc.

Are you forgetting your own needs? Is that why you’re taking criticism from your husband so much to heart? Do you get any time to pursue your own interests, or meet friends or family, and just have fun?

Re point (2), I think there’s so many relationships that are having to deal with a different way of living. I’d say your one is exacerbated by the fact that your husband travelled a lot for work - so he may not be fully used to ‘normal’ family life of the pain that is housework, and trying to manage kids. He may have got used to taking his lifestyle a little for granted either.

I’ll have to reread the thread again, but even pre-COVID, did you two make time for each other (date nights, wine and netflix, or whatever your fancy is). If you didn’t do some form of that, then it’s an issue, as in not making time for your adult (not parent) relationship. And an issue that has been worsened by COVID restrictions.

LegacyUser

Thanks to everyone who replied.

Qwerty's post struck a chord.
Before this current pandemic, if he was away then I was the one at home and so I did everything. We spoke every night on the phone and I would involve him that way in bigger decisions but the smaller day by day decisions I made myself. When he came home, we would have a family dinner the night he returned and then dinner alone either in a restaurant or at home the next night. We did make time for each other and had a great weekend in Dublin together without the kids in early February.
I would have met people for lunch or coffee twice a week. At the weekends when he was in Ireland he would bring the kids to all their sports to give me a break.

My closest friends do not live near me. Neither do my siblings. I do have friends nearby but they are more of the school Mum type of friends.
With Covid I have not met many people at all. And we have not gone out to dinner as a couple since that weekend in February. I would love to see The Crown but I am too tired every night to start it.
I need to start taking some time for me I think as I do not do that at all now.