My Partner Is A Good Dad But A Horrible Husband

My husband works 50+ hours a week, so I can stay home with the kids. More times than not, on his days off, he will take two of the kids to do something fun while I get some alone time with the twin babies. He handles the grocery shopping most of the time as well. He prides himself on keeping his areas in the house nice and tidy.

He’s a phenomenal dad by all accounts. The trouble is, he’s not a good husband.

Well, “not good” is putting it mildly. He’s emotionally abusive toward me, and his ugly snarls somehow raise him up in a way that I do not understand.

For those of you reading and quick to comment something like, “Maybe you should try counseling,” thank you so much for your valid suggestion, I NEVER would’ve thought to do such a thing with relationship problems. [Insert the most dramatic eye roll right here.] Believe me or don’t, but he will not go. It has been suggested (even demanded) and he refuses.

I’m told that I am the one who needs counseling because if I would just change this, this and this, our relationship would be better. He wouldn’t lose his temper if I just fixed myself. Words like cunt, fat-ass, bitch, and shut the fuck up have become common when the kids aren’t around or sleeping.

When I confront him about his vulgar choice of words, he gives me the impression that whatever he says doesn’t matter because he’s not the one who started the fight. And, if he did, he had valid reason to do so. He doesn’t express remorse for berating and degrading me. He feels like I pushed him to that point, and I carry that blame.

I feel like a broken record skipping to the same beat every time I’m met with this monster of a man I did not fall in love with. My pleas never change: please be nicer, please watch your mouth, I’m done being treated like shit. I’m going to take the kids and leave.

Sundays are his only day off, and truth be told, I hate my husband on Sundays. My work assignments are due on Monday nights, and it seems like I cannot get a bloody thing done on Sunday because I’m so emotionally stressed from his angry words. Or I’m trying to avoid his verbal abuse by walking on eggshells all day.

I am never good enough, the house is never good enough, my tone is never good enough. Nothing that I do could ever fully please him.

He wasn’t raised like I was, he wasn’t raised in a home of selfless compassion, so I wonder if he doesn’t know how to give it. We’ve been together for six years, and up until this summer, I’ve never had any health issues or concerns of any type. I had never made a visit to the ER since we had been together, and I never went to the doctor unless I felt like I was dying.

But I woke up at one in the morning on a Wednesday and could not move my right arm due to the pain in my back, which spread down my arm and into my fingers. My fingers were numb, and I couldn’t even get myself out of bed due to the pain. Since my husband wakes up at the ass-crack of dawn, he was less than thrilled to be woken up to my undiagnosed (might as well have been imaginary) ailment. I was sobbing in the living room as he slammed our bedroom door, and I sent him a text to tell him something was definitely wrong and I needed to go to the hospital.

Of course, just as I was about to leave, a baby woke up and my husband was screaming at me for feeling like I needed to go to the hospital. His words were, “WA-WA-WA. You are a fucking baby. You don’t even know true back pain.”

The joke came back to bite him in the ass when he found out one of my cervical discs had herniated and was pinching off fluid to my spinal cord. I had a serious spinal cord injury, and he made me feel like a hypochondriac.

It feels like I can’t even relax in my own home, because I never know if his attitude will be up or down that day. My spine is not healing, because he doesn’t allow me the chance to catch a break and let it heal. If the house isn’t clean, I can’t even tell him I’ve been in excruciating pain all damn day and that’s why it’s not clean. There is no sympathy. He doesn’t care.

When the kids fall down or get a bump and a bruise, he is compassionate beyond compare. He snuggles them at night, reads to them on his days off, and gets on his hands and knees to full-heartedly play in the little moments in between. In those moments, my heart is full for them and so empty for me. I deserve more, and I spend most of my days thinking about leaving.

But the brutal truth is that, right now, I can’t leave my husband — because I can’t afford to leave. And if I’m being truthful, I don’t think my health issues would allow me to take care of all of our little ones by myself. They certainly wouldn’t allow me to work full time.

I know so many other women have it worse, but this isn’t about every other woman out there. Right now, this is about me. No, he doesn’t do drugs, he doesn’t hit me, he’s not an alcoholic, he’s never cheated on me and I’ve never cheated on him, but I don’t have his comfort and care when I need it the most. I can’t bare my soul with him, and it seems that he can’t even hide that he’s not as in love with me anymore as he used to be.

Being a good dad doesn’t automatically make someone a good husband. I am not weak, I recognize the many flaws in our relationship, and I refuse to settle and call them okay when they are not. I deserve more. And no matter how fantastic of a father he is, my kids deserve more too. Because regardless of how good he is with the kids, as long as my husband treats me the way that he does, he can’t be a good dad if he treats their mother this badly.