Hi everyone!

I love reading these kind of stories and I cannot believe I am writing one myself. There is so much to this story I don’t even know where to start. Apologies in advance, it’s probably going to be a long one. I really don’t have anyone else I could ask this since all the people in my life are also his friends or his family.

Background:

I (32 female) have been married to my husband (32 male) for 3 years, in a relationship for 8 almost 9 years. We have two kids ( one and five). Before I start this I have to say that I love what we have and my life 80% of the time. He runs his own very successful company which gave us a wonderful life and allows for me to be full time home with the kids. We have full filled most all of the things we dreamed of when we first got together. And I truly am so grateful every day. Especially considering where I came from. I have no contact with my parents for good reason. Let’s just say they gave me a lot of extra baggage to carry, that I am still trying to unload up until this day. I know that I can be a frustrating person to be around and I am definitely not implying that I have no fault in our arguments.

But for this specific situation I am so confused, because it seems so crystal clear to me what is going on. His friend has a gender reveal party soon and all of his friends are going to be there. These are old high school friends and even though they live completely different lives then we do ( not married, no kids, going out to party a lot, drugs etc. ) they keep coming back around every so often. One of these friends, we could call him his “ best friend “ comes around a bit more than the others. When I first met my husband he was part of that crew as well but obviously when you grow up and settle with someone the priorities change. Well the priorities for his friends have never changed. They still do all the same things they did 9 years ago. Here is the problem when he does hang out with him, he seems to lose all sense of responsibility and seems to revert back into his old 9 year ago self. He doesn’t do the things he tells me he will, and honestly I can’t think back and remember an event where he did not drink much more then he said he will or go to other places then he told me he would or stay out much longer then he told me he would. I know I know, “why won’t you let him have fun” I get it. But here is deal ,it’s not about him going out with them. It’s him telling me they are going out for dinner and that he will be back home between 10-11pm and then he stopped replying to me at 11 and did not come home until 3am while letting someone else drive his truck home. He said they (the driver) did not drink but I find that hard to believe.

It’s him getting absolutely waisted at someone’s birthday party while we were there with our two kids ,which one of them was a newborn at the time ,and him having to be escorted to the car.

It’s him knowing that we have a sitter sitting at home waiting for us to get home but still letting his friend come ask me if he can just get an uber home and I go home by myself. ( that one is not that big of a deal. Besides two things,

1.why can’t he just ask himself? He told me that he told him “no” but he can go ask me if he wanted too?! 🤷🏼‍♀️ and 2. I was just generally annoyed that time because I was thinking “this is so nice we are hanging out with them without some crazy sh** happening” and then this happened. Like, yea of course you have to go party with him. They were both drunk already at that time) His friends seem to be stuck in 9 years ago and want him to do the same thing basically. Again they are not around that much but when they are, something goes on for sure.

So now one of his friends has a baby shower coming up. And all of the friends are going to be there. Which automatically gave me anxiety because I expected something to happen. The kids were going to be there but that did not hold him back before ,so why would it now? I tried to bring it up to him and of course he got offended. Saying that I always expect the worst of him and that I am just the Nagy wife who is not grateful for what she has. He tends to wonder off topic quite a lot and tell me he makes all the money and provides me with this cushiony life. And that I am just being so ungrateful and he will say I make his life hell and that I am a bad wife. I don’t work but I do take care of the paperwork for his business. I am trying to start my own little side business (which he doesn’t really take serious but it’s for me more then we need it I really want to have my own income but it’s very difficult being home with the 1 year old) and I take care of all the house managing tasks. He does help with chores and kids at night! And while those are very rude things to say to me I know that sometimes I really am grinding on his nerves. But here is the thing. I personally feel like it is completely normal to expect the same thing to happen that happened a bunch of times before. How stupid would I be to think “oh no this time it will be different”. Here is the problem, I talk to process. So when I am worried or just processing something or trying to figure something out I talk about it. So I did end up bringing it up a few more times. And he of course got super annoyed at me. Which I understand. So today I tried to explain to him where this is coming from aka the other 100 times sh*t went down no matter what he told me. And obviously that did not go well. He got mad, said I should not live in the past, I am nagging him with that, all the old tape plus a few insults in between. So he was pouting outside, I had asked him to hang with the kids so I could cook dinner in peace and that was I guess also too much to ask at that point.

So here I would usually just get really frustrated and angry and irrational. ( I have my own baggage and it gets hard for me to manage my emotional reaction at times). So after our last argument a while go I started some remote therapy to work through some things. I don’t think he actually knows this. I did not tell him because I think he might use it against me in a fight. He has done that before in a way where he will say “even you admitted that you have problems. You are broken. That’s the problem” when I had told him before about some revelation I had about how my family may have impacted my life.

Anyway, instead of freaking out I thought about it, and I was like “you know what I should have not talked about it so much. That probably was really annoying.” So like I learned in therapy I walked outside and I told him “ hey I am sorry for bringing it up so many times. I understand that that must have really bugged you. But I am wondering if you can maybe see why I feel this way considering the past. “ instead of having a conversation with me it basically just restarted the whole argument. He said he did not care about my apology and he was pissed and I was making his life hell and he brought a couple other things up that he was mad about that I did not know about. And honestly I kind of lost my cool a bit and I told him “if he wants to fight I can give him one”. We texted back and forth a couple times while was getting dinner for the kids. but it was just the same arguments thrown back and forth. He fell asleep on the sofa and I am so confused. I know that reaction was not the best. But it kind of seemed like if I can’t even get him to have a conversation with me when I am approaching him calmly, how can I even do any better than that to resolve an argument. Because when I used to get mad at stuff like this he would use that against me and say I am some crazy bitch or something. So what now? Even my best try is not good enough. Even admitting my mistake is not enough. It feels like he WANTS the fight. It’s hard to really fight it out infront of the kids but honestly after they went to bed he was talking to me like nothing ever happened and I am not having that…. Like he did doesn’t understand how he made me feel?

So am I the asshole?

Ad on: The 80/20 is because the “going out” doesn’t happen that often anymore. This only ever happens when he is with these specific people. Other than that he is completely responsible and does everything you expect from a husband and father. That’s not regular anymore but everytime it does happen something always goes on in one way or another.