My husband and I have been together for 12 years, married for 4. When we first got together, he was the frattiest of frat boys, only without the college part. I come from a pretty abusive and neglectful background, and I also moved around a lot, which left me being super isolated and not very good at forming actual relationships with people. We met through a coworker of mine, and we had fun together, but things were always weird. I should also say that there's a good chance I'm on the spectrum, and my husband likely has adhd – we're both in the processes for official diagnoses. I say all this because I expect some weirdness, but I'll never know how weird is too weird on my own. Anyway, we were always pretty volatile, I grew up taking care of everyone around me and minimize my own needs while placating, and my husband has never had to care for anyone but himself, also being cared for by others – two different kinds of neglect that are pretty diametrically opposed in a healthy world.
Some example situations we've had, in chronological order – there's a lot of writing, feel free to pick and choose…
We moved 1000 miles from my limited family, near where he grew up. Within the first month or so, he kept trying to stay out all night at a friend's and I would ask him not to, saying I would happily drive him there and pick him back up at any time if he just wouldn't leave me alone all night in this strange place. The last time we fought about this it ended with him punching a hole through the bathroom door, telling me I was being controlling for not letting him go and that I was isolating him and abusive. I should also say that he struggles with alcohol, he was drunk, and he makes some giant leaps when he drinks. This was maybe 2 years into our relationship.
After that, his explosions died down, but we fought… Fight… a lot about him taking responsibility for aspects of our life. I'm always the project starter, the chore divvyer, the check lister, and as we got older and we bought a house, got pets, got married, our parents aged, it just all became so much to manage. But I work from home, so I tried to give some leeway. Anytime I'd ask him to take responsibility for things he'd agree, not follow through, I'd get upset, and he'd lose it, saying I took everything he did for granted and accuse me of saying he didn't do anything, going so far as making lists of the things he's done. I've never said that to him, I always thank him for his efforts, even while asking him to do more, but he really only does things when I ask him to do it or make the plans myself. In truth, I don't rememeber many specific events before this year – this year has been so immensely stressful that I feel like half my brain has been shut off.
Within the past year, my mom was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer (she's miraculously all good now 🤞) and he really has handled it poorly (in my opinion). We had planned a 2 week trip around Europe with a friend of mine that was meant to begin the first week of my mom's treatment. I really didn't want to go, but he told me if I didn't go he wouldn't know how to get around or what to do there, and my mom also said she'd feel too guilty if I didn't go, so I went. The night we landed I ended up having a sinus headache so bad I spent the whole night throwing up. We were meant to go to Oktoberfest the next day, so my husband and friend went together and I stayed in the hotel until the shops opened and I could get some medicine. Eventually I met up with them in the evening, only to find them both black out drunk. My friend was manageable, but my husband has half a foot on me and about 60 pounds. He ended up passed out outside our hotel where I had to leave him, I didn't know what else to do and the hotel staff said he'd be fine. I kept checking on him, and the final time I found him in the back of an ambulance. The nice emt helped me get him inside, but my husband never apologized for this event, even getting angry at me for getting upset. This made me feel so betrayed that I told him we needed to separate our finances and if he didn't seek therapy within a year, I couldn't stay with him. I've been asking him to go to therapy for years due to his drinking, unhealthy relationship with food, and his extreme defensiveness (with everyone, not just me.) This wasn't a new request, but it was a new deadline.
After we got back, I stayed with my mom. I took our two dogs with me, and somehow my mom ended up with a puppy that I took care of, too. My mom couldn't eat solids, so I was taking a lot of care with her food, taking her to her appointments, and I was working (from home) full time. Her treatment was only 6 weeks, but really aggressive. I knew I couldn't stay with her forever, but she had this new puppy to take care of and no energy. I decided to build her a fence around her yard to make it easier – I dabble in woodworking. My husband happened to be visiting a friend in the same town one weekend (3 hrs from our house), so I asked him if he'd spend a morning helping me set some concrete posts. He never actually visited my mom during her treatment, even the couple of times he was already in town. In truth, he really only sees my family on holidays. When we visit their town he always stays with a friend unless I specifically ask for his help with something (moving a chair, whatever). He wouldn't have seen her during her treatment if I didn't ask for this fence help. We drove together to the store, and I double parked front to back so that we wouldn't block the carriageway when we were loading the wood. He absolutely lost it on me, saying it was a real demonstration of my bad character that I chose to double park near the front of the store, because "there were people who really needed it." I wasn't in handicap parking, the parking lot was almost empty, and while I was at the front, I wasn't near the doors. Besides this, I was tired as hell, why didn't I deserve it… And I think my character was already doing enough to give me this one little pass. He was slapping the dashboard and just losing it, with me bawling and confused. I dried my eyes, got the things I needed, and on the way back I asked him why he felt he could speak to me like that. He effectively told me that he takes his frustrations out on me and he hates it when other people park badly, and that "he didn't know why he was like this." No apology. That said, he's parked horribly many times and we usually just go, "oh no, we're the assholes…." and laugh it off. This is when my dumbass finally started to say, "hey, I think something probably isn't right…."
We've planned to move next year for a long time, and recently my husband started pushing for Buffalo, NY. We've never been, we plan to go soon, and I was originally against it, wanting to move closer to the rest of my family on the west coast since I was a kid. For unimportant reasons, I've recently warmed to the idea, asking my parents if they'd be OK moving there and doing very preliminary planning. My husband was laid off for a month, and he promised me he'd "work a 9-5" doing reno work on the house (this is still the same story). In reality all he did was hang about 20 ft of gutters, painted some cabinets, and replaced our 10×5 porch ceiling, asking me for hourly help while I was working. Then he decided to start a keto diet, which got him sick and unable to do anything for a week, then he got ACTUALLY sick and was still unable to do anything for another week. For the record, I've built floor to ceiling cabinets from scratch in our kitchen, laundry, and bathrooms, replaced our floors, and other bits and bobs without any help at all, so he's not the only one doing reno work. When he was finally back to work, it was at a job where he'd be making way more money and he was stoked. I made the mistake of saying, "that's good, we're gonna need it so we can pay someone else to do all the work you didn't get to do while you were off," mostly lamenting the sick weeks (especially because the keto one was self induced and I knew he wouldn't stick to it – he's already off it a month later), but it sent him into an absolute frenzy about how I take for granted everything he does, but that it's my fault because my expectations are too high. I explained to him that they aren't my expectations, it's what he told me he would do and our timeline's pressure if we plan to move by next year. So then he accused me of controlling everything, saying moving like iiiii wanted to… So I reminded him we've always talked about moving… So then he accused me of controlling where we move because I've always planned on the west coast and he doesn't want that…. So I reminded him that I agreed to Buffalo… Which he then said something about not having ever been there so why would he want to move there… But he had literally been excitedly talking about moving there for weeks, even picking neighborhoods to tour. I don't even rememeber how that night ended because it was so overwhelming for me. My birth father spent the first 10 years of my cognitive life gaslighting the hell out of everyone in the family, so I was in a horrendous space after that conversation.
Still trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, I said, "well hey, maybe it's all just been a huge misunderstanding on both sides because we don't know each other as well as we'd thought." I spoke to my own therapist about it, and decided I'd make lists of "how I show affection" and "how I receive affection", with the expectation that he'd do the same. I went to give it to him, realized he was already asleep and I had woken him up, and tried to soooo nonchalantly say, "oh, sorry, I didn't realize you were asleep, it can wait until tomorrow." But he demanded I tell him now, which I didn't want to do because I'd be rushed by the fact that he wanted to go to sleep and I wanted to respect my own feelings and the situation. But he absolutely raged until I gave in and gave him a summary, and he scoffed about why it was so hard to just brief him and we'd talk about it tomorrow. I explained it made me uncomfortable, and he just kept berating me for being difficult. But I told him he didn't have to understand, he just had to at least apologize for making me do something I didn't want to do and forcing me to be uncomfortable instead of him, because he always does this. If we've fought about something, he'll make me address it in the middle of my workday, an hour before I have a meeting, even when I tell him I can't get into this now because I have a meeting. He'll accuse me of thinking work is more important, or just simply say, "too bad" and refuse to leave my office. Anyway, today, 10 days later, he finally gave me a response list but said that he didn't have anything to put on the "ways he receives affection" list. I told him that, honestly, taking 10 days to respond to my feelings after throwing that rager of a tantrum when I wouldn't immediately respond to his feelings told me what I needed to know. He just yelled, "I guess it does," and ran to his room. We've had separate rooms for years due to our work schedules, but he's also ridiculously messy and I would never share a room with him ever again. I texted him after and said that I'm still angry it took him so long to respond but that I'd talk about anything on the lists because I don't want to shut down his feelings, just respect my own. But I was also thinking, if he has no ways that he perceives affection, then what does he even get out of being in a relationship? No wonder everything I do makes him angry, there's literally nothing positive I could give him, only neutrality at best.
And, in case anyone is curious about myself, I'm super boring. I just play video games, read comics, and work. I don't really go out besides for a daily 2 mile walk/hike with our dog and weekly grocery run. I don't drink due to a chronic illness, and overall I'm a pretty laid back person. I'm maybe a bit negative, especially this year, but my work and chronic illnesses are also super stressful. I've made twice as much as my husband for the past 10 years until 2 weeks ago (I've never held that over him, not even in a joke, and we've had a joint bank account until a year ago), I do all "my" chores, do the deep clean version of all "his" chores, I do about 80% of our pet care, I'm the one responsible for managing our finances/bills, I also do all the event management, like reminding him of his own family members birthdays. I cry super easily, but I try to rebound quickly from fights because I don't like being angry. If I think I've done something wrong I will ALWAYS apologize, it's a core tenant of my personality, and I try to look at things from both sides and give grace for mental health or trauma related responses (probably how I've found myself here). I definitely don't handle his provocations well, I feed right into it by defending myself or explaining when I should really just walk away. I also feed the cycle by providing no ramifications for bad behavior besides "you've hurt my feelings". Really, the only fights that I catalyze are when I get angry at him for not doing something he's said he'll do, or when I get overwhelmed by being responsible for everything. I do tell him he should eat better and drink less, but I don't think I ever do it in a mean way. I don't think I ever raise something in an overtly mean way, I've never called him any names, or anyone a name actually, I just get angry and tell him I need more from him, and he gets immediately defensive and then we have that stupid cyclical argument where he diverts to other topics like how I take things too seriously, have a bad memory, remember too much (?), or am too negative when people ask me how I'm doing (not fucking good). Also, for the "stress" record, my 13yr old dog died from bone cancer this year – I got her as a puppy before I met him, and she was with me 24/7 for the past 5 years. My chronic illnesses have also gotten WAY worse, inexplicably, and the neighbor dog I've been walking with our other dog since our old dog passed was recently hit and killed when she got out. I also cannot express how stressful my job is, I literally tell people how they're doing their jobs wrong and then am responsible for fixing it with them, or deciding if we let them go. Shit has just been continually piling on me this year, and my husband will literally watch me cry from the door of my room and then just walk away.
I guess I'd just like an outside perspective and chance to vent. I'll answer whatever questions.