Angry

[copes1]

My long suffering husband finally cracked tonight. I am hyper critical of most things these days but have not been aware of how this has affected him. I can't help this behaviour although I wish I could make it go away. I have not been very nice and criticise everything he does around the house (which isn't a lot). I don't think he can do anything as well as I can - according to him. e.g washing up etc but when he stopped doing it as I would "have a go" at him I got more angry that he didn't do enough around the house. He works 7 days a week and I know he's tired but I resent the fact that I work too and he expects me to wait on him hand and foot. That's how it seems to me anyway. Where can I get help for this? He says it's me being unreasonable and I think it's not all my fault. It's really getting me down and it's threatening to ruin my marriage. Any ideas/advice?

[SteveHartnett]

Hi. I'm sorry to hear of your troubles.

The first port of call would be "Headway" if possible??

Are/can you do this??

If you need any help with this please let me know??

They will he able to offer you the "Help & Support

Please let me know if I can help/assist you further!!

Steve.

[copes1 in reply to SteveHartnett]

Thanks. I know about Headway and will be contacting them tomorrow. I just needed to get some things off my chest. Thanks for replying. Why is it that you are oblivious to things which affect others so much?

[SteveHartnett in reply to copes1]

Hi. That's fine - following my B/I in 1998 I had one nightmare after another which made me very angry!!!!! What would have happened if I was more physically/mentally disabled?? & I was unable to access any SVS?? Well I think I know the answer too. Which is a very sad state of affairs indeed!!

Steve.

[Gaia_rising]

I appreciate that my slant on this won't be textbook, but I just wanted you to know that you're not on your own. I had a ruptured aneurysm, leading to subarachnoid haemorrhage, at the end of February this year. The husband's way of coping with me being in hospital for two weeks was to move himself, and our son, in with his parents. Gods forbid he should have to do his own laundry. He took a further two weeks off work when I was discharged, to 'look after' me, and essentially just made me angry, by lounging on the sofa, passing wind, and not moving his rubbish.

My situation is strange, the marriage was over before the brain haemorrhage, I have no interest whatsoever in 'trying again', or 'trying to change', as he asked me to, shortly before the rupture, I did change, I changed from an ambitious 18-year-old, into some sort of housemaid. It's my own fault, in part, he'd always been 'looked after', his step-mum used to come and do his cleaning, and cook his dinner before I moved in. I acknowledge that I perpetuated his neediness, by doing everything.

I was fractious before the haemorrhage, and, for a period afterwards, I was worse, I handled my general, constant, bubbling anger by writing down what was bothering me in blogs, sometimes not even posting them, just looking back at the words, and seeing which bits I could sort out myself, and which bits could be left for another day. I handled the flashpoint rage by simply walking away, the husband still hasn't cottoned on to the fact that I leave the room every time he eats, because I can't stand the noises he makes.

He's never really 'done' housework, and has sort of grasped that his "Leave that, I'll do it later." is ALWAYS responded to with "I'm doing it now.", because he doesn't 'do it later', he watches another YouTube video, and tries to show me something hilarious on Facebook while I'm washing dishes from a meal I didn't eat. I don't think he knows how the washing machine works, and, when I had my hand in a cast, a few years back, I still did all of the housework, because he does it wrong, and it needs doing again. I've seen him TIE jeans-legs to the washing line, and, on the rare occasions that he does decide to tidy something, he spends more time bothering the son and I, asking us if we want some random bit of rubbish he's found, than he does actually cleaning, before leaving piles of stuff he's heaved out of cupboards and drawers 'for later.'

I suppose that the practical advice would be to draw up a rota, so that you can share out the housework? He's working seven days, but you won't have your full strength or capacity (absolutely no offence to you intended, I'm an absolute she-bear, but acknowledge that sometimes I just have to stop, or I'll make myself ill.)

You're going to have to accept the ways he does things, if you want him to do them. I'm grinding my teeth as I write, thinking of the way the husband puts things away in the wrong place, and insists on wiping still-wet plates with a tea-towel, leaving them covered in fluff, instead of just letting them air dry. He hates seeing dishes in the draining rack, I hate bits of tea-towel on the dishes...

Some people on here have hired cleaners, I haven't done that, because I KNOW I'd end up cleaning up before the cleaner came, sort of defeating the object.

I'm not very much help, am I? I just wanted you to know you're not on your own, and we would all reach breaking point at some stage. I'm not proud of myself, but, after a particularly headachey-weak day, the husband had asked if we had any bread, instead of just looking in the bread-bin, like a normal adult would. "I don't know, have you checked in your bloody sock-drawer?" came out of my mouth, like an over-tired toddler HATING everything. Long-standing cause of irritation, for twenty years, instead of LOOKING in his sock-drawer, he follows me around the house like a particularly stupid dog, and asks me if he has any clean socks. "IN YOUR SOCK DRAWER!"

[Jacacr]

I have in the past got 'fed up doing everything' whilst working too. The best thing I ever did was to get a cleaner, I have quite a large house and 2hrs twice a week is really over the top, as once she started it was done on a regular basis. I consider this a luxury well worth paying for, even if cleaner dosent do everything she 'breaks the back' of most of it. ... I found that instead of feeling resentful and expecting hubby to notice and help, I just did something about it!! (he pays half of course!)