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Ok ladies, please can you help me with this one…
My husbands greatest attack of me is that I don’t support him.
I’ve done some googling but I’d love all your thoughts on this.
What do you think is the definition of supportive?My own thinking is a) that I have single-handedly raised our three children and provided a home for them and him. It hasn’t always been single-handed, but the buck has always stopped at me, so he has never, ever been prevented from pursuing his own (work or leisure) agenda by family matters. Never. Is that not support?
B) his horrible temper has completely killed any desire of mine to “mop his brow”. If he comes in and attacks me for things (shoes in the wrong place etc) he instantly belittles me and has eroded my self esteem. It simply isn’t in me to say “hush hush why don’t you sit down and tell me all about it” – and after all I’m way too stupid to understand.
When he goes away from home he wants me to follow him so that I can feed and water him, and that is what he sees as a lack of support. No matter that it also means I put myself in his line of attack, but also with no consideration to my needs and how much work it is for me to organise my life around meeting his.
I am just trying to get straight in my head (because things are brewing here)… am I a horrible, unsupportive wife? Maybe it’s easier to do it that way round. What would be the definition (or a description) of being unsupportive?
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Not sure but my cousins eyes were really opened lately as he’s started a year off work looking after their toddler and new baby as his wife need to get some time in at work or she’ll not finish her probabtion year(think that was reason anyway) He is amazed at how tiring it is. Perhaps you could swap roles for a week
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Relationships /marriages are supposed to be a joint partnership, or so I thought! It sounds like it’s one way traffic here. I learnt with my abuser that the more I did, the more he expected.
I don’t think you can ever make these kind of ‘men’ happy. Even blood, sweat and tears doesn’t seem to be enough. You sound like a great wife and mother and the main thing is that you know your own worth. Xx
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Let’s reverse this question Lottieblue. When does your husband support you?? X
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Similar situation. I paid for house, all bills, and looked after children while husband back and forth between here and another country. Drove him everywhere as he wouldn’t take his test after failing, and did all his life admin for him as well as helping with is business.
Told on a daily basis I neglect him and put everything else first and that everything would be fine if I could just go back to being the same person as when we first met (pre-kids and job!)
Amazingly I can still doubt myself and think maybe he had a point! Horrid how their opinions poison your own thoughts. -
I used to think that I was supportive with my ex, but with n**cs, they don’t appreciate it as supportive and they come to ‘expect’ it as a right and then berate you for it if you ‘withdraw’ it.
One example I can give of what I liked to do that I thought was ‘supportive’ was have a cup of tea ready for my abuser when he got in from work. He would message me with his ETA of arriving home each day so I’d have the cuppa ready and waiting, have the house nice and tidy and relaxing so that when he got in he could take his shoes off and sit and relax for 15 minutes or so with a cuppa after a long drive home of over (detail removed by Moderator).
However, the day I was busy with something else and his cup of tea wasn’t ready and waiting when he got in everything kicked off. My gesture of kindness had started to become an expectation, and if I didn’t live up to it I was punished.
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Oh your story rings so true to my experience.
He told me that it was my fault he was moody/aggressive/angry/abusive and I should have recognised it was out of character for him and forced him to seek help. Therefore I was a bad wife and unsupportive!!
Truth was I was confused, scared and lacking in self esteem. I wondered where the man I fell in love with had gone, he just seemed to get worse and worse as the years went on and I think I may have suggested seeking help but it would have been thrown back in my face. I had always tried so hard to be the ‘perfect wife’ tea on the table, doing all housework etc but nothing I did was ever good enough so in the end I stopped trying.
As you said, its hard to want to comfort someone When they treat you so badly. I too single handedly feel like I’ve raised the children. The small contribution he paid would be generally to criticise and discipline them. I never felt like we were a team through any of it, raising a family, running a home.
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