My husband (42M) and I (40F) have been together for 20 years with 2 young children.
When we met, his quirks were funny and charming. He was a big spender, but never got into debt. We went on nice holidays and together we enjoyed life together before we had kids.
But in the past 5 or so years, almost every aspect of his personality triggers me.
He is always buying something, and our spending as a family just feels so uncontrolled. He feels I am too controlling or emotional about our finances, but I’m just sick and tired of seeing something new and ‘must have’ go through the account, and then having to dip into our following month salaries to pay for it. We are financially comfortable with good savings, but it’s still not where I’d like us to be as we’ve been stagnant for the past 5 years.
He has a very loud voice, and is quick to anger and raise his voice. I used to find him assertive, until that was directed at me. He also raises his voice when trying to discipline the kids, which I hate and tell him off every time for doing so.
His sense of humour is incredibly cringy, and he tells the same stories and jokes over and over again to the same audience. I tire of it, as do they.
We have a cleaner that comes in weekly, but he will still obsessively hoover twice a day, even if dishes and laundry are overflowing. It annoys me that he doesn’t prioritise what needs to be done versus what he would like to do.
When it’s time to watch the kids, he is so quick to turn the TV on or hand them the phone. I feel like I’m having to police him, to the extent I come in the room and he’s given one of them the phone he’ll defensively say ‘he’s only had it for 15 minutes’ before I’ve even said anything.
I feel like his parent sometimes. I try to feel warmly towards him but find it hard to not make it conditional on him doing something I want him to do (like the chores I want him to do, or parenting the kids the way I’d like him to parent them)
We are currently in couples counselling and although it’s been useful in managing how we communicate with each other, I can’t exactly bring up that everything he does seems to annoy me.
How do I find myself out of this, to look at him with kinder and more patient eyes? Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in the loneliness of the relationship we’re in, where we’ve drifted so far apart.
He is a good man at the heart of everything, works hard and would never cheat, would drop everything in a heartbeat for a loved one and would fight metaphorical tooth and nail for them.
Tl;Dr
I am struggling to find the positives in the relationship and overlook the negatives.
Sometimes I feel like this is a ‘me’ problem and I just wish I could love him for who he is, but I am just increasingly looking at him with contempt and criticism.
Has anyone been in the same boat and what did you find helped to work your way back toward each other?