Talked to husband last night. Ideas? Thoughts? Am I expecting too much?

[Marguerite]

In everything he seems to be trying to do, in every interaction, he seems to be focussed on keeping score and on comparisons. "I do X." Or you tell him you're in pain and he counters with, "me too."
'Well, buddy, the comment wasn't about you, it is not a competition. If you hurt too - I'm sorry, but this isn't about comparison. We both hurt all the time, but right now I have other stuff on top of it, it's called "recovery" and it will happen faster if I get some support and respect.'

He's just not plugged in to working as a team with you. You said today is a good day for fixing the pipe, it's urgent, he says he needs to go get firewoOd. For NEXT WINTER. OK, the pipe is important, the firewood is important (they cannot be compared though - the firewood is probably even more important in the scheme of things) but the pipe is more URGENT. There is a difference between important and urgent. Important - it has to be done, preferably before it is needed. But urgent - it has to be done TODAY, even if it is not that important. For example, you want to enter a local lottery. If you don't enter, you have no chance of winning. It would be nice to win but life will go on if you don't. However, you're going to the store anyway, so dropping in your lottery entry at the store will be convenient. You need to go to the store in the next few days to stock up on bread and milk. Going to the store is important but not urgent. Entering the lottery is urgent but not important. Both can be accomplished in one trip, if you plan.

He seems to do what he darn well wants to do, regardless of anyone else's input. That's a problem, and it also teaches bad lessons to the kids.

If my husband tried that, he would be pulled up short. Even if I had to stand in the driveway as he tried to back out - "You are not going anywhere until that pipe is fixed! The wood can wait until next weekend, although if you fix the pipe now, you can still have time to go get the wood and I might even help you."

I admit - I do tend to leave my husband to get on with things he wants to do, at his own pace. But if a job comes up that has to be done, I tell him. And hound him if I have to. I'll even offer to pitch in and help. There was a time when I was too ill to stand for long, but I could crawl. I helped do the paving, because I could do it on all fours. I took a lot longer to do it, but I did a darn good job, meticulously laying each paver and carving the sand out for it to lie nice and flat.

With my kids and their constant gaming, I have been known to threaten to pull out the fuses from the electricity meter box. "I've asked you several times already - now I'm telling you. Get off your duff and get X task done NOW. You can do it in the ad breaks if you can't bear to be parted from your TV show. I'll call you when the ad break is over, but only if you go back out to work during the next ad break. If that job doesn't get done, the TV will go off even if I have to tell the electricity company that we are no longer on the grid."

He really does sound like there's a heavy component of depression in there. Making decisions and planning often go out the window when there is depression. Cleaning up after himself is part of the "I can't plan my way out of a paper bag" issue you get in such cases.

I've also been known to go on strike. "I can't cook dinner, I have nothing clean to cook with." Take yourself and the kids out for fast food and leave him out of the equation.

My eldest sister's first husband was one such "richard cranium". I remember one time he went fishing, taking her best kitchen knife with him on the boat because it was sharp (he was useless at maintaining knives, so he took the one my sister relied on and looked after herself). He then did not follow safety procedures and capsized his dinghy on the bar coming back into the harbour. Her good, expensive kitchen knife ended up in the bottom of the bay. He couldn't understand why she was angry with him, and not concerned for his safety - the thing is, capsizings on the bar were so common that there was no danger to him. Only to everyone else trying to cross the bar without hitting his wreckage.

Marg

 

[Shari]

I got home to easy child 1 working on digging up the broken pipe and trenching for the new one. husband was watching, and did, actually, help some. Nothing overboard, but he helped. (fwiw - wee helped, too. He put the primer and cement on the new pipe ends and fitted them all together, as well as carrying several sections out!) However, easy child 1 said he wasn't happy that we were doing it because its going to mess up the yard!!! Another OMG. Its getting warm. The leaking pipe is beginning to smell.. You'd rather have that stench over a few ruts in an already trashy yard??? I swear.

But its done. And now he's in front of his precious tv.

The deal with the competition....I feel that way, too. Like its some sort of sick competition. Or that even possibly he's upset that he perceives mine to be worse. I know how awful that sounds, but just a week or so ago, man asked me how I was doing, and by the third question, husband was answering them all with regards to himself, and that's not an isolated incident. I didn't get to see my surgeon for almost 2 months, and he spent most of my appointment time talking to the surgeon about himself - and then talking me into not needing the walking cast and braces that I needed to progress...which just blows my mind.

There have been a couple of folks around town tell my exMIL that my injury must not have been that bad because I' up and about awful soon, and honestly, I'm wondering if that's speculation on their part? Or info from the broom closet, or maybe even husband.

 

[susiestar]

Shari, your husband is caught up in a really sick, twisted, wrong cmpetition fueled by his need to be babied/pampered and what seems like true determination to do only what appeals to him. Real life just isn't like that, or shouldn't be.

The statement about not taking HIS child to the park because he would have nothing to do there would be the straw that broke t he camels back for me. I hope that whatever goes on with the counselor helps you to figure out what you really want to happen and what you realistically can expect from each of your possible option.

My husband would be hearing how I couldn't do this, that, the other and everything else "because there isn't anything fun for me to do" when it came to his EVERY request, thought and demand.

especially if he had the cajones to approach me for intimacy. Actually, he might wind up without his favorite body parts if he tried that.

Ihope that whatever happens, be it he changes dramatically into an acceptable partner for you (in your estimation - not in mine or anyone else's), or you decide you are sick of him and toss him out - that you can feel comfortable with your decision and that it doesn't keep you in the position where you keep wondering and hoping but the little he does is designed to mollify you just enough to keep you taking care of everything for him.

His actions with your surgeon were a real illumination of how he thinks and feels - it CLEARLY is never all about you in his world. EVERYTHING that you do/experience is not real to him because he is the only real person. It truly sounds like his concept of you is not at all normal. It actually sounds like he doesn't see you as your own person, but as an extension of him. So if he does nothing and you do all the chores, he is still overworked nad he does "so much" around the house because you are part of him. Not a part that really matters, but not a separate person with wants, needs, thoughts etc... of your own. It is what allowed him to monopolize your doctor appointment - the appointment was about him and how he was feeling regardless of the fact that he was not the patient and was not injured.

I know that it can be a tough concept for some poeple with autism, and maybe that would explain his behavior. Do you really want a relationship where you are not just taken advantage of, but where your partner cannot even see that you are a different person and cannot see that you are just as important as he is?

(((((hugs))))) I am sorry that you have to deal with all of this.

 

[HaoZi]

Wow, surprised the doctor didn't kick him to the waiting room.

 

[Shari]

Wow, surprised the doctor didn't kick him to the waiting room.

i should have. He isnt allowed to go with me anymore, now that i can drive.

 

[AnnieO]

GRRRRRRRRR!!!

My kids? Aren't technically mine. I used to take them to the park. Heck, I was in no shape to play with them - but I did! It wasn't to impress husband. It was because the kids needed an outlet!!!

Yup. Not limiting to shins. I've been trying to be nonjudgmental, but this is RI-DI-CU-LOUS!

 

[Shari]

The good news, he actually agreed to go...with no arm twisting. it helped that he asked my permission to bring his dads cows here again. Granting permission is not exactly what I meant by wanting to be included.

 

[susiestar]

Why did he want to bring his dad's cows to your house/land? If your place isn't good enough for him to take any kind of care of, why is it good enough for his dad's cows? Does his dad pay rent for the pasture/grazing/whatever that they use up? Or is this just expected to be shared as "family property" even though you are not good enough for them to even be polite to you?

Granting permission, esp as I am pretty sure he would have done it anyway if you had said no or that you needed those resources for your own livestock/purposes, is not including you. It is maybe paying lipservice to the idea that you might be able to give permission or stop him. Maybe.

I hope the session with the counselor is helpful.

Does your husband know that there are not many women in the universe who would put up with his koi? Maybe he and cgfg's mom deserve each other. Just wondering.

 

[Shari]

I hear ya Susie.
I'm not very oPtimistic. He went. Readily agreed to go back. Said the same things he does to me (sh does do all the work, he doesn't do what I ask for help with, etc) the only thing new was in response to his tv charges, and that was that he watches tv. He said he does that because I'm on the computer all the time! Lol I am am
Computer programmer...I work from home sometimes and inwork a lot of evenings to make up
Time i miss in the office. That computer is your bread and butter buddy. Ill update a status or respond to a msg on fb on my phone, but I don't sit down to the comp til before i go to bed typically. It was just a retaliation on his part, anyway, but I'm gonna log my hours.
I asked him on the way home if he's really been trying. After a long pause he said probably not.

Now he's discing the yard some more (easy child already did) because easy child 'tore it up so bad' fixing the sewer.

 

[Marguerite]

Watching TV because you're on te computer - it's like an open admission that if he wasn't watching TV he'd be surfing the 'Net. As if there aren't enough chores to be done! Or cleaning up after himself!

You're working, so he should be working, or at least giving consideration to what needs doing around the place, before he picks up that TV remote.

I have the TV on a lot during the day but will either work while it happens to be on, or will carry on regardless. Sometimes if there's a particular TV show I want to watch, I will organise my time so I have something to do with my hands while I watch the show.

It still sounds like he's wanting it to be all about him, including your attention.

Marg

 

[Shari]

Yeah, and the whole deal with the computer was 100% retaliation. Like when he said the other night that I refused his help. Technically, I did. But never anywhere close to the help i had or have been asking for.
I'm not holding my breath about this.

 

[idohope]

Good luck, Shari. There are a lot of similarities between your house and mine. husband and I have tried counseling three times. We have been going to the 3rd for about 1.5 years. It is a long hard haul to get him to see what needs to be done and for him to step up and do it. Part of it is that he feels that he does more than most men with the kids. (Although he seems to miss the fact that I am the major wage earner in the family and the primary caregiver for the kids) And he does drive them around in their evening activies but is mostly a “Disney” Dad. If he is left alone with them on the weekend he lays on the couch napping while the youngest watches tv or takes them to Chucky Cheese or something. He can not manage the kids and do laundry or house chores but also needs to have time on his own and 3 hours of TV each night. He is totally frustrated by clutter in the house but cannot tell the kids to pick up their stuff. It requires too much effort to get kids away from computer etc to do a chore. His solution is to throw things that are not his out when no one else is around and hope they don’t notice.
After all this time I understand some of my husband’s whys. He is overwhelmed by a house with 3 kids including a difficult child. He likely has ADD. There are issues of my being controlling and he being very conflict adverse. But a large component of it is his central focus on himself and a lack of care of what is important to me.
If it is close to dinner time and he is hungry then he fixes something for himself. He will feed the youngest child but otherwise will say they are old enough to ask for food if they are hungry. It would never occur to him to provide a family meal at one time. Even if I am home he might cook something but not tell me that it is ready (e.g. if I am upstairs). This is despite how often we have spoken about how important it is to me to sit down as a family to eat when we are all home. And I think this is not done out of spite. I think in some ways he is just oblivious. He was hungry why wouldn’t he eat. But at some point there needs to be a recognition of what is hurtful to someone who is supposed to be your partner in life.
My husband also has anger issues (verbal not physical) and I now know that I have bent too much and taken on too much in the house to avoid his anger at myself and at the kids. I am working with my own therapist on this.
I don’t know where things will go with my husband and myself. I feel that we are essentially divorced and living in the same house. But I do need to know that I have done everything that I can before I divorce him. I am worried about the impact on the kids and feel strongly about the sanctity of marriage but do worry about the example that I am setting for the kids as well. So we will see how the counseling goes. The last year has focused mostly on dealing with difficult child and we are finally turning to issues closer to me and him. Like with a difficult child, counseling between spouses can take time I believe. I also think, Shari, that if all possible you should work with a therapist for you. So you have someone in your corner, figuring out what is right for you and helping you to do what you need to for you.
I dont think you are expecting too much but it may be more than your husband can give or more than he can give right now or more than he can give until you have both been through a lot of counseling you have hard decisions to make.

 

[Shari]

By pure d luck of the draw, the counselor we "got" is a lady with a BiPolar (BP) child. And she asked a male colleague to sit in, also, who has an autistic son...when husband brought up how Wee does not listen to you, the man said what he has found that works for him and his son is modeling behavior...you say it, then you get in and do it, with the expectation that the child follows suit and then you eventually wean yourself out of it (this is what IHBT has had us do with Wee for years, and I'm seeing some real payback with it now - all winter, bar a day here or there, he picked up anything he got out in the living room without even being asked...just when he got done, he picked up!) So these 2 people also "get" what life with a difficult child is like.

Lady counselor asked man counselor what happens if someone tries to use a gruff or authoritarian approach with his son. He said you'll get a reaction, but it sure isn't one you want.