QuestionMy husband is horrible; moody, negative and anti-social. He tells lies about silly things, and exagerates a lot. He has no sense of humour at all. We hae been married for 6 years. When I married him I was single mum with an 8 year old daughter. He has always been moody and mean towards her. We have two other children together, aged 4 and 2.
For the first five years of our marriage we lived in his home town. His parents offered no support with the children and I was left to cope alone, with no friends. But I am a positive person and I tried hard to settle in. I retrained and became a writer and journalist, so that I was able to freelance from home around the children. I have a book published and I am now writing my second book. I have an agent, and regularly publish my work in magazines. When my husband is in a particularly bad mood, he breaks objects and punches walls. He has never raised his hand to me or the kids, but he has smashed my computer, and my daughter's, and didn't apologise. I sense that he is jealous of my work.
Then he decided that we should move 650 miles away to my home town. I didn't want to go because the children were settled, but he insisted, saying if he stayed in that town a minute longer he would kill himself he was that unhappy. He worked long hours and had no friends.
So we moved and have been here for 6 months, and I have my family and friends nearby again. My mum helps with the kids and I am now able to travel to London a lot to meet clients. But now my husband says he hates it here and wants to move back to where we were before. My eldest daughter is delighted as she misses her friends. They are both pressurising me to move, and I have reluctantly agreed because it is a nice town to raise the children.
But I am concerned that we will have the same problems as before. My eldest daughter was involved with a bad crowd, I had no friends or family, and my husband was threatening to kill himself.
He is never happy, always miserable, and I think this will be the case wherever we are. He seems to delight in finding fault with everything, and looks for ways to start arguments. He is hurtful and mean towards my daughter and makes her cry.
On the other hand, he is a good provider and has always been faithful. I have had to worry about him cheating, drinking too much, etc.
But I've had enough of his negativity and bad moods. We haven't had sex for months because I am so resentful of the way he treats us.
AnswerHi Helen~
Absolutely under no circumstances should you move back to where you once were. If he's not happy now, he'll never be happy wherever you live. You have to put your foot down and tell him, no, you refuse to be pawns in his personal war with himself. Just b/c he's so unhappy doesn't give him a right to make you and everyone else around him miserable. You must stand up to him and tell him no. It's not in the best interest of the children or you. He can go if he wishes, that you're done playing his games and with his acting childish if he doesn't get his way. You can't let him continue doing this to you and the children. It's already taking a huge toll on your daughter, hence her hanging out with the wrong crowd. He's a bad influence on the family and most of all your oldest child. Her mental health and well-being can't be jeopardized anymore than it already is.
It's tough to be put in a position that you're currently in. But something has to give here and you're simply not willing to be bullied into moving again. You have family and friends as a support system. Why be so willing and freely give that up for him. It's not worth it at the end of the day. He needs to get some sort of professional help for his depression and mood swings. I'd even venture to say he might be suffering from bi-polar disorder. A person with that can be impossible to deal with, thus, making it hard on the entire family unit.
You now have to decide what it is you want to do about this whole ordeal. One thing is for certain though, this can't keep going on with him bullying you anymore. So while you can't control how he acts (or how others), you do control how you react to him. He can't make you feel inferior w/o you permission. Ultimately the right thing to do is to go with your heart and do what's right for you and the children. This isn't about him anymore, it's about you and the children. He needs to stop being so immature and selfish.
