Have you read the Five Love Languages? That would be where I would begin this journey. If you can identify your H’s, and start fulfilling his “love tank” as they call it in the book, I think it may help.
From an outsider’s prospective, it seems that both of you have underlying anger with each other and are passively showing it every chance you get. He knows that you want and to ‘get you back’ he does the opposite of what you want. Children, swearing issue, helping around the house – all of those are his passive-aggressive methods of telling you that he is driving this boat. Case in point, the fact that he doesn’t adjust his schedule unless he wants to – total control!
He also sounds insecure. He doesn’t want you to leave him, yet he is indifferent to the family when it is around. I think that what we perceive as indifference is his fear.
As the mother of a four year old and a 20 month old…I know how frustrating things can be. And all of us go through the times when we’d gladly sell them off to any passing gypsies. Heightened by you because you are there with them all day every day, and heightened by him because he simply doesn’t know what to do with them!
Some advice:
1. Read “the five love languages”
2. Develop routines, and stick to them. He’ll get a sense of structure for what happens throughout the day and will know what to expect.
3. Encourage him to join in activities, but don’t become angry when he doesn’t. Soon he will see that he isn’t getting to you by not responding.
4. Take care of you. I can’t stress that enough! Even if it is while your toddlers are napping, do something that you enjoy that relaxes you. By taking control of your happiness, you relieve him of that burden.
5. Cut your hair, buy some clothes, do something that boosts your self-esteem and gives him something to notice.
6. Unless he sends your children to play in rush hour traffic while drinking household cleaners, try not to criticize his parenting. You know it sucks, we know it sucks and chances are, HE knows it sucks. But you are only making him feel worse by pointing those things out. Vent here, and then when you have a sense of what works and what doesn’t, you can bring these things to light with him.
7. Set some goals, for yourself and for your marriage. Include the phrase from the DR book “when I do this…he does this…” or whatever that phrase is!
"It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere."
--Agnes Repplier, writer and historian
