No respect. Can't take it anymore.

[Sara16]

help. my husband is miserable and depressed. but meanwhile he is treating me like complete garbage and pushing me away. I'm starting to question just why I'm still here.

first of all, my husband feels like he is the best at everything.. parenting, work, cleaning, cooking.. I do realize he's making up for the fact that he's not happy, but it's really hard to be around. every opportunity he gets, he criticizes me or makes me feel stupid. calls me names, yells... implies that's I'm a complete moron. ooooh he seems to enjoy raising his voice at me. I mean, yelling.. as in, the next block can hear... even when the kids are around. in fact, he's even said they "should" hear it. How lovely. daddy yells. daddy yells at mommy cuz mommy needs to be yelled at. what a great thing to teach our daughter.

The other thing? The blame game. everything that goes wrong in his life is someone else's fault. he loves pointing his finger at me. making me feel like an idiot. even when it has nothing to do with me. god forbid I do make a mistake. he rubs my nose in it and basically tries to make me feel like absolute, complete shit. "this is all your fault! you wrecked it!!!"let's recap. shall we?

he has told me any other man would have either cheated on me by now, or left. why? not because I cheated on him. not cuz I'm lazy or a shit parent. not because I spend carelessly or am never around. he's told me this because I believe in attachment parenting. because sometimes the kids do get more attention than him. yes, I bust my ass as a mother, but I also bust my ass as a wife!! I cook every meal nearly from scratch. I make sure laundrys done. I clean, shop, ohh. and I work too. I kiss booboos, I breastfeed and I cuddle. and I love it.. but what do I not like?? my unsupportive husband.

The husband that told me I use our children as an excuse to be lazy. The husband that actually googled "how to get my wife to clean up after herself" when all I do is clean!!!!! we have a 4 year old and a 1 year old. yes, sometimes the house isn't perfect. yet, he never puts his own shit away. but apparently that's ok. cuz it's him. he loses it with me over things like, a couple puffs on the floor, or the fact that a piece of garbage didn't make it into the can (these incidents seriously caused full on angry fights. no joke).

let's see. my toddler son jumped off the couch the other day and banged his head on the coffee table. we were both in the living room when it happened. what does my husband do? he's gets into a frightening rage and yells at me because our son bonked his head. I mean, screaming at me. telling me it's my fault and no one else's. how he's genuinely concerned with the safety of our children now when they're in my care and I need to own up to this mistake and apologize. how the kids never get hurt when he's around, yet somehow I fail as a mother and I need to step it up. All this as my daughter is in her room bawling her eyes out. he has told me I can't handle being a mom. he has grabbed my son in a rage and pretended to be parent of the year with his discipline, then continued to tell me "it's not that hard!!!". really?? coming from the man that has only been alone with them for 4 hours at a time?? coming from the man that has never been out in public with both of them without me?! coming from the man that sees them for about 2 hours a day? wow. how could I have been so stupid?!

I'm tired of being with a man that is so terribly disrespectful. I can't take it anymore, and I'm finding it harder and harder to find love in my heart for him. I've suggested counseling and he tells me I'm the one that needs it so he doesn't have to go. I see how my 4 year old daughter is starting to kiss his ass to try and get on his good side and it just breaks me. it shouldn't be this way. or hearing her tell me she hates it when he yells. she told her grandma that daddy yells at mommy and it broke my heart into pieces. he's angry that I've become resentful, but really... who wouldn't!!

I love my family. I've supported my husband every step of the way, even when it meant sacrificing my career and relocating our lives so he could do what he wanted. I am always there for him, yet this is what I get in return. family has commented on how he treats me. everyone can see it. but according to him, I'm the problem. I realize I'm not perfect, but I feel like I constantly have to defend myself because apparently I have no idea what I'm doing.

I think I'm done. I never used to understand how couples that hand been through so much together split, but now I get it. I feel like the only reason have lasted 15 years is because I've taken shit I shouldn't have. I've made excuses for his behaviour and let it everything go. I've forgiven him time and time again, even when he cheated on me 10 years ago and he told me I want allowed to dwell on it and I had to never mention it again. I'm always forced to ignore my feelings to keep the peace and I can't do it anymore.

[TheDarkOne]

Sounds like the relationship is well and truly sour. I think you've got to get out and be happy. The position you are in now is not making you happy at all and the only way is for you to change it.

[Vivian]

If you feel that you have become a partner of convenience then you need to change the way things are. You have to get the point across to your man that you are really worth a lot more attention than what he is giving you. Here are a few ways to make him see what you are worth:

Don't give him so much importance
Women give their men far too much importance than they really deserve? Why would you want to dote on a guy who treats you like a doormat? It is time to work on your confidence and get a little more self assured. Once you get that then giving him little attention is going to be no problem.

Be cool
Be very cool with your man's behavior. If he doesn't want to hang out with you or if he cancels a plan, don't kick up a fight. Be fine and proceed to do something else. Most of the time the men treat you like dirt only because they feel that they have the power over you, being cool takes that power away from them and passes it on to you.

Focus on doing fun things by yourself
Instead of calling him and giving him a lot of attention, look at fun and constructive ways of spending your time. Look at doing things that you didn't do because you didn't have the time. Start taking your interest from one person and divert it to the activity and don't involve him in it at all. He will realize what he's missing out on

Create a little distance
Sometimes creating a little distance definitely helps when you want your man to see your true worth. So the next time he calls you to hang out with you, say that you don't have the time.

Start hanging out with new people
Develop a new and more interesting circle of friends. Don't let him into this circle and always try to avoid getting him introduced to this circle. He will realize that you have started keeping him out of your life because of his lack of interest in you.

Have the 'space' talk
Sometime you need to shake a person to make him see what you are worth. Take some 'time off" to reassess your needs and tell him that you need time to think.

Issue a warning
Tell him what you want out of the relationship and say that he has to fulfill your wishes. Give him reasonable arguments to justify your demands and finally issue your warning that unless he learns to value you he has to spend his time alone.

[David]

Continue To Call Him On His Bad Behavior, But Do It In A Completely Different Way: I would never suggest that you allow your husband to continue on with his bad behavior without any comment or reaction. But I have to tell you what I often hear from the husbands that are on the other side of the equation. If you talked to them, what you would hear is that their wife always paints them out to be the "bad guy" and seems to take great pleasure in constantly pointing out their many faults.

I often hear comments like: "my wife acts as if I'm an evil ogre or something. I can't do anything right in her eyes and she seems to just love to tell me that as often as she can. There's no winning with her. When I try to do better, she doesn't even notice, so what is the point?"

And this is why you will often have better results if you try to find a way to paint your husband as the good guy rather than the bad guy. Because if you do, you are going to get a much more positive response and more cooperation from him. He will feel appreciated and you will get what you want. It truly is a win / win. But if you continue to handle it with more criticism and disappointment, you're likely to experience more of the bad behavior and even resentment which can motivate your husband to want to continue to push your buttons.

I'm certainly not suggesting that you ignore his behavior or even try to make the best of it. What I am suggesting is that you approach this in entirely different way and hope that you get a different (and better) result.

Changing His Behavior By Making Him Want To Do Better: In my experience, the whole key is to give your husband a positive pay off for which to strive. If you can compliment him (and reward him) when he exhibits the behavior that you want, then he will be much more likely to repeat it without complaint. One reason for this is that he feels validated. You are seeing him as the good guy that you both know that he, deep down, truly is. Men love to play the role of the hero. So allow him to play the hero rather than the bad guy. He will be much more enthusiastic as the result.

My suggestion would be this. The next time that the wife comes home and the husband starts with his negative behavior, the wife might say something like: "I can see that you probably had an exhausting day just like I did. Why don't we order in and take turns giving each other a back rub? We'll both feel better and every thing else can wait." Normally, the wife would have torn into her husband and, waiting for a fight, he would have responded in kind.

But this way, both people are getting some relief and a fight is avoided. Another strategy to use is to find your husband doing something right and react even more strongly than you react when he does something wrong. Not only should you praise him to his face, but you should praise him to whoever will listen right in front of him. He will feel pride instead of frustration and he will look for ways to repeat the same positive behaviors. It doesn't hurt to praise him with your own physical affection when he is acting in the way that you hoped. This is a huge motivator for him to continue on and, in the meantime, you are both connecting with one another and making it more likely that both of you want to be kind and supportive of the other.

Basically, you are giving him the chance and encouraging him to do things right rather than waiting for him to do things wrong things and then pouncing when he does.