here are my first posts all lumped together, what do you folks think?<P>My first marriage broke up after 11 years due to my husband's drug addiction, eventually he died of kidney failure. I met my current husband thru a dating service and when he first called and we first met, I thought, wow, a guy who can really talk! Trouble is, we are going on our 2nd year of marriage, and that's all he allows, is himself to talk. When I get home from work, he doesn't want to hear what my day was like, he tells me everything he did all day, if I try to talk, he ignores me and turns on the tv. After a year of marriage, he still knows nothing of my past because he's not interested. I sure know a heck of alot about his! He treats everyone as less intelligent than himself, constantly trying to teach volumes of knowlege to them (and me), and if I try to contribute something I know about a subject, he gets angry, or he ignores me, then later, if he hears it on tv, he's amazed that I was right, or he tries to tell me about it, and I don't dare say that I knew about it or that I'd previously told him that, or he sulks or gets angry. He has an attitude of "pity" toward everyone here, says they are sad because they are less intelligent, non-educated and don't have the means to better themselves, (even though he was born and raised here, moved away and came back to retire) often he insults people by doing this. When we were first married, he insisted on paying for all the groceries and household bills, and if I tried to pay (or pay him back later), he refused, saying "that's what a spouse is for", he also doted on my two children, paying them for household chores that I would excpect them to do just because it was thier responsibility as household members, and buying them anything they asked for. If I told them to pay him back out of thier allowance, he said, no, he didn't like kids to have to pay back for things. He won't let me go see my folks (25 mi. away) more than 1 per month and then I have to arrange it in advance with him, but he sees his mother every day, (of course she is only 11 mi. away) and she calls 2-3x per day. This January, he started giving me all the utility bills, which I paid, we had never discussed who would pay what and I figured this was my share, however, if I am on the internet and his mom calls, he gets mad because the phone was not open for her call-I got call-wave so I would know if she called, but she refuses to leave a message on it. I figure if I am paying the phone bill and the internet bill, I should be able to use it, but he says the computer is "not a toy" and should be used only for banking or business purposes. He gets mad if the kids use it to look up things for school or e-mail friends (they have friends from the town we lived in before the marriage and they like to keep in touch). He won't let me go see my old friends without him, and then he sits in the car and expects me to say hi and bye and watches the clock. He keeps us on a schedule even though he's retired, if we leave the house at 1:01pm, he keeps checking and announcing the time at 10 min intervals until we arrive where we are going and keeps track of time while we are there. When we get home he re-caps the time used and how efficient we were. Last month, when the water bill came, I laid it on his desk, and he had a fit, saying I was accusing him of not doing his share in paying the bills. He said he paid the house mortgage and the income tax and the groceries and I should be grateful. He also said that when we first were married, my son's room needed carpet and paint and it was the only room that he'd spent the money to fix up and now my son wasn't keeping it cleanly as he wanted, also, he had bought a new mattress for his bed (we had one, but he wanted the boy to have a double size and bought a bed), he said we should treat him better since he had spent so much on the boy's room. He wants us to keep our stuff in our own room (including me, he bought several shelves to put my nic-nacs on so they could be taken out of the frontroom). He keeps the living room set-up like a doctor's office, books and magazines on the coffee table, and the dining room table is covered in paperwork and books. I brought in my dining room table and put it in front of his so we could have a table, but he won't eat at it, insists on having his meals served to him at his chair in front of the tv-I asked why we couldn't have a family dinner and he said he wasn't letting anyone screw up his retirement by forcing him to go back in time 19 years and be the typical "hubby-famly man", he said he came out here to retire and be on his own time. He's been married 4x before and he says every time they broke up because the mothers were too protective of thier kids and didn't allow him to discipline them. I have never said anything to him about what he tells the kids, if it's unreasonable I might tell them privately not to worry about it, but if it's reasonable, I let it go. He constantly quotes Arkansas' laws on marriage and community property laws like some kind of a threat or something-and how this house is only his and his alone. (If it's our home, shouldn't we think of it as ours too?) He has a basement full of tools but I can't use them because they are "his". If we go to a sale, he looks at what he's interested in and we have to leave regardless of if I'm interested, he says "I don't need anything here" and loads us up in the car. He won't let the kids have anyone over because he suspects everyone of casing the place to steal from him. Once we had a slumber party for my 13 year old while he took my son to a boyscout camp. We had two carefully screened girls over, and planned the rest of the pary at the river park so it wouldn't be at the house. He got so nervous about them being here, that he cut the campout short and they came home at 11:30pm. Right after that, some motor oil and a can of gas dissapeared out of his outside cabinet and he said my daughter's friends must have come back later and taken them. He bought my son a bb gun, then said he probably asked for it so he could shoot cats. If mail comes in for me, if it's addressed to "parents of" from the school, he reads it first and monitors what is said about the kids (most of times it's just a reminder of how many absenses they have or how many immunizations they need this year). He tried to teach my daughter to drive, but he threw her into heavy traffic the first day and hollered at her so much, she won't drive with him anymore, and he's mad at me over it. When I first married him, he took me out in his car which was a stick and said he was going to teach me how to drive it, when I told him I'd driven a stick before, he still insisted on "teaching" me the right way to drive it. Anytime a question comes up, he will "teach" the answer over and over for a month or so. When I found two jobs here in town and quit my job in my old town, I asked him his opinion which one he thought was best, he said "well, the one at the photo studio is right out in public, at least if you are working at the school, you won't have to worry about your appearance" (I am heavy-set), I didn't say anything to him, but was depressed for a day or so. Now if I ask even the least little thing about a job or his opinion, he says he won't talk to me about it because he "gets himself in trouble". Now I've gotten to the point where I'm ready to leave, and when the subject of the water bill came up and he started spewing about me taking advantage of him paying for the mortgage and income tax, etc., and he said he was giving me a chance to build up a savings so I could "feel better about myself", I wanted to talk, and he said it wasn't a good time, so I tried the next morning, and he said I was on my way to work (Monday)so it wasn't a good time to talk so we would have to wait until Friday afternoon, so on Fri. I tried and he said it was too late at night, and on the weekend, he had to go take care of his mom, and had to go to the store, and had to do this or that all weekend, so I've given up. I've been keeping a diary of these things, mostly to get it off my chest. I'm starting to think I was some sort of "project" for him, he always tells me he doesn't give to regular charities, but gives to local folks around here to help them out. He's always saying he doesn't know why his neice doesn't marry so she doesn't have to work so hard and raise her kid by herself, although she seems happy the way it is and has just gotten a good job with the post office. He's also always saying that he feels sorry for heavy-set girls (such as his other neice) who probably marry the first guy they see or get themselves pregnant out of wedlock because they have low self-esteem). I had a good job, and was doing ok in my rental home, my kids weren't going without, I just wanted someone to fill the gaps in my love-life, not a financial sugar-daddy, but I think he thought that because I lived in a rental trailer and was a single mom, he had to "rescue" me. That's not what I was looking for! I know he won't go to a councellor, and if I ask him about it, he'll throw a fit.<P>I married my second husband in Nov. 1999, and our first Christmas together was wonderful! We had a real family Christmas, we had agreed to do Christmas eve with my folks and Christmas day with his brother because it was a tradition he had kept before, taking his mother who is disabled up to his brother's every year. We spent Christmas eve with my folks, dinner and presents, then went home and opened the family presents the next morning, then taking his mom up to his brothers for dinner. It was wonderful, I even video taped some of it and sent it to my best freind and she said we looked like such a perfect family. But the next year, I thought it would be the same, we did spend Christmas eve with my folks, but my husband was watching the clock the whole time and told me I should have called before we left to tell my mom it wasn't nec. to make a dinner because we would eat at home. He stayed long enough for the presents to be opened, then wanted to rush off home. On the way home, we discussed plans for the next day and he said we probably should open the family presents that evening because there was some ice still in the area, and we may have trouble getting to his brother's house the next day (his brother lives in a genuine hillbilly tarpaper shack up on a mountain, it's hard to get up there in bad weather even when other roads are ok). So when we got home, I asked him about opening presents and he said he had two phone calls to make and then he'd be ready. He called his mom, and his brother and then I asked him about the presents as it was 10pm and getting late, and he snapped my head off, said we could open them ourselves without him, he was watching tv! So we went ahead, and left his presents under the tree. The next morning, I was still in bed, and my husband was in the frontroom, I heard my boy (7), presenting my husband's stocking to him (which he had filled with my help the night before), and I heard my husband tell him he didn't want it, couldn't he see he was eating breakfast!!, then, after he had finished and I was up, my son tried again and told him there was something very special inside, and he pushed it away and said, "can't you see I'm watching tv, I don't want it!!" I hurried and got everyone ready to go by 8am because he said he wanted to leave early because of the weather, but he watched tv until 10am, we would have had ample time to do our presents had I known that. After we got home from his brother's house, I confronted him, and asked why he was so upset and cranky, and he said "so you're saying I failed as a family member just because i didn't sit down and open your stupid presents like a good little boy?, I'm not letting anyone force me into thier time frame". When I told him it was his idea to do the presents that night, he said he didn't care, we were trying to force him to be in a typical family situation that he didn't agree with, he said he was too old to go back 20 years to that stage (he's 59). He said that this year he wasn't going to his family reunion, Thanksgiving or Christmas because he didn't want to go through all the s@!% again. How do you handle something like that? My boy was devastated, he's never had a dad before (his dad died when he was 1 year), and he was so thrilled to be able to make a special present for his new dad!<P><BR>I know I've posted before in a different section but, I need more advice/feedback to make a decision, thanks in advance for any info!!!!<BR>I am 41 with 2 children. My first husband died of drug abuse 6 yrs. <BR>ago. I have remarried to a 60 year old who has been married 4x before.<BR>We've now been married 1-1/2 years and it's becoming obvious why he'd<BR>been married so many times before. When we first met/married, he was<BR>very attentive and paid for everything, I tried to pay my share, but<BR>he insisted that that's what a husband is for. Then he suddenly turned<BR>it against me. He now says I need to pay the utilities while he pays<BR>the mortgage, which is ok with me, but he keeps throwing up in my <BR>face how he paid everything the first year and how he paid off my car<BR>(he did it out of our income tax refund saying that because I was <BR>losing my earned income credit by marrying at the end of the year that<BR>he thought he should use our refund to pay off my car), and how he <BR>fixed up a room for my son (it was unlivable from the people who owned<BR>the house before he bought it) and how we should be grateful to him.<BR>He's using it to controll us, won't let the kids have any friends over<BR>because he thinks if we have freinds over they will steal from him <BR>while he's not home, etc. He's still very attentive and such, but it <BR>always has a price to it, if I want to change something around the <BR>house or yard, he says I have no right as it was his house before we <BR>married, etc. He plays head games with my children, setting them up so<BR>that no matter what they do, it's wrong or offensive to him, or he <BR>accuses them of doing something damaging to his property. He buys them<BR>anything they want against my wishes and pays them for household <BR>chores when I think they should do them as a member of the family and<BR>not for pay, then says they are golddiggers and inconsiderate of his<BR>authority and says they should be grateful for him paying for thier <BR>things and paying for thier chores. I don't know how to deal with this.<BR>I had a good job and a nice rental house before I met him, I just <BR>wanted a love in my life. He told me all of his wives left because they<BR>were too protective of thier own children and wouldn't let him<BR>discipline them in his own way. For example, my son had a glass of <BR>kool aid which he set down on a popcorn can that we often used as a<BR>"table" of sorts. My husband told him he shouldn't put it there <BR>because it was unstable. I agreed by saying, "(name), move the glass<BR>to the windowsill." My husband was mad because I didn't "disciplin"<BR>him more, what did he expect? In another instance, my son was eating<BR>in the frontroom (my husband refused to eat at the table, he says he<BR>is retired and has a right to eat wherever he wants to, but the kids<BR>should eat at the table, he says I treat everyone in the family <BR>equally and that's not right because kids are not equal to adults in a<BR>household, anyway, my son was eating on a tv tray and put his hand on<BR>the couch, my husband got mad at him for touching the couch with dirty<BR>hands, I said "(name), go get a napkin and use it", my husband later<BR>told me off for not doing something about what the boy had "done" to<BR>his couch, he said now that the damage is done, it can't be fixed..<BR>what did he want, blood from the kid? I cleaned the couch with<BR>carpet cleaner and it's fine now. With my daughter, he started letting<BR>her mow the lawn for $40. a time (way too much, but he insisted), this<BR>went on for a few weeks, then, when she came home and said she had <BR>gotten into an argument with his neice at school and she didn't like the<BR>way this girl was treating her friends, he got mad and said my daughter<BR>was being snooty, and how his relatives were poor and should be treated<BR>better because they had it rough and now he's cut off her lawn mowing<BR>job because he says she's stuck up toward his family. When she was <BR>learning to drive, he took her right downtown the first day and when<BR>she overshot a red light and had to back-up some, he yelled at her<BR>and said she was going to get him a ticket, so now she doesn't want<BR>to drive with him, and he's mad at her about that. "our" is not in his<BR>vocabulary, only I. If I try to talk to him about problems or when he brings up problems he has with the kids, he always compares them to his other marriages, he says he has to because we are all a product of our past and he also quotes these psycology courses he took and says "you're trying to get me to (whatever his point is) by doing (whatever he says I'm using "against" him). If it's about the kids he says "he/she thinks..." as if he's an expert on what other people are thinking, and it's always something he thinks they are thinking against someone or plotting against someone. When I come home from work, he talks non-stop about<BR>what his day was like, but when I try to talk about my day or things,<BR>he turns up the tv and ignores me. How do you handle such a person?<P>The first 13 months of my second marriage were great, I married a man 18 years my senior who had raised his 3 boys himself and said he was looking for a spouse to fill his days and be his partner in his later life, kids were ok, we discussed it before the marriage. Although he'd been married 4 times before, I took a chance because my new husband was very attentive and kind, we did "everything" together and shared the bills. He was very good to my children and I thought I'd found my partner for life. But on our second Christmas together he suddenly turned cold and cranky, didn't want to participate in any Christmas activities, downright cussed us over it. In January, he dumped all the household bills on my except the mortgage, insisted I get a full time job (I was working part time), separated every household thing-does his own laundry, cooks his own meals, goes shopping separately from us, etc. He won't eat with us anymore, he dominates the frontroom tv and has put tv's in the kids' rooms (I have a boy and girl, 9 and 14). He says he doesn't want to go back 19 years to the way it was then, says I'm trying to change him into someone he's not. He says this is only his house, I have no right to change or decorate anything, doesn't want me to use any of his equipment or do anything in the yard. He says I should be happy to pay the household bills because after all, he pays the mortgage and house insurance and he maintains my car so I don't have to pay to have it done. He says his definition of a spouse is not a love-partner or soul-mate, he says he's not talking about "emotional crap", but a domestic partner who made an official contract, that's his view of a marriage, a government-registered contract. For the past 8 months I've felt like a houseguest in my own "home". Everyone's advice was that this was just "the honeymoon's over" syndrome and it would get better, but I was ready to file, had a trailer picked out to rent and everything. But the past couple of weeks, he's been attentive again and acting like his old self. I wonder now if I should wait it out and see if it stays better....?<P>(I didn't see a forum for "kids" wasn't sure where to post)<BR>My new husband seems to have a problem with my children. <BR>He is very "nice" in front of me, but when I leave the room<BR>he starts chewing them out, the kids used to complain to me<BR>about it and I "wrote it off" as just discipline, but I've <BR>caught him at it several times lately. I don't like the <BR>fact that he waits for me to be "out of earshot" and then <BR>starts in on them. I have two children (10 and 15) and he picks one of <BR>them at a time, as soon as the one he's picking on starts to<BR>"kiss up", he says they are the perfect child and starts to <BR>pick on the other one, using the "good" one as an example. He<BR>also keeps telling them how perfect he was as a child and<BR>how he never would do whatever it is they are doing (such as<BR>eating in the frontroom, he himself is allowed to do that, as<BR>a matter of fact, he won't eat at the table with us, but he<BR>tells me I am wrong because I want to treat everyone in the<BR>family equally.) My question is, my mom says that verbal nastiness<BR>isn't as damaging as physical abuse and "at least" I have a<BR>good husband who doen't beat my kids. Is verbal as bad as<BR>physical? I think so. My dad constantly put me down and I<BR>have always been easily taken advantage of because of it, all <BR>they have to do is say "whatever" is my fault and I try to fix it.<BR>I don't want my kids done that way. What do you folks think?<P><BR>The first 13 months of my second marriage were great, I married a man<BR> 18 years my senior who<BR> had raised his 3 boys himself and said he was looking for a spouse<BR> to fill his days and be his partner in his later life, kids were ok,<BR> we discussed it before the marriage. Although he'd been married 4 <BR>times before, I took a chance because my new husband was very<BR> attentive and kind, we did "everything" together and shared the bills.<BR> He was very good to my children and I thought I'd found my partner for life. But on our second Christmas together he suddenly turned cold and cranky, didn't want to participate in any Christmas activities, downright cussed us over it. In January, he dumped all the household bills on my except the mortgage, insisted I get a full time job (I was working part time), separated every household thing-does his own laundry, cooks his own meals, goes shopping separately from us, etc. He won't eat with us anymore, he dominates the frontroom tv and has put tv's in the kids' rooms (I have a boy and girl, 9 and 14). He says he doesn't want to go back 19 years to the way it was then, says I'm trying to change him into someone he's not. He says this is only his house, I have no right to change or decorate anything, doesn't want me to use any of his equipment or do anything in the yard. He says I should be happy to pay the household bills because after all, he pays the mortgage and house insurance and he maintains my car so I don't have to pay to have it done. He says his definition of a<BR> spouse is not a love-partner or soul-mate, he says he's not talking<BR> about "emotional crap", but a domestic partner who made an official<BR> contract, that's his view of a marriage, a government-registered <BR>contract. For the past 8 months I've felt like a houseguest in my own <BR>"home". Everyone's advice was that this was just "the honeymoon's over"<BR> syndrome and it would get better, but I was ready to file, had a <BR>trailer picked out to rent and everything. But the past couple of<BR> weeks, he's been attentive again and acting like his old self. I <BR>wonder now if I should wait it out and see if it stays better....?
