To stay or go?

[funkyfeet]

Hello, I'm new here and would really appreciate an outsider's perspective on this, although I fully understand that I'm only giving one side of the story.

I've been with S for 5.5 years, living together for the last 3 years. As soon as we moved in there were problems but I put it down to the adjustment period. The last 2 years have been unbearable at times and I'm at the stage now where I need to make the difficult decision of whether to stay or go.
This will probably be long so oull up a chair!

Money - S earns the money, and earns very well, K80 a year. We have seperate bank accounts, his decision, and he gives me £6600 per year for food (there are 6 of us to feed) and nothing more. If I need more money I have to ask him and if I need clothes/haircut, etc I have to ask him for it. I've told him I don't like doing this as it makes me feel unequal to him, I've told him I'd like us to have a joint account but it just doesn't happen. Once he told me to go and open it, but how can I open an account for him?
He makes all the financial decisions, last year I wanted the garden doing so the kids had somewhere to play, he wanted a brick wall rebuilt out the front. We got the brick wall without any discussion. I've been asking him for 2 years to get someone in to fix the dishwasher or replace it, no. If something of his stops working he goes out straight away and replaces it.
Basically he has full say over what does and doesn't happen. I want to decorate but can't as I don't have the funds and he won't do anything about it so it stays a mess.

Holidays - He, with my blessing most of the time, goes away to see his family (they're Irish, I'm English) several times a year, for at least 5 days at a time, usually at huge cost. Last year we decided to take a holiday as a family, I wanted somewhere warm/fun for the kids, he wanted Ireland to visit his family. We went to Ireland. He promised me we'd have a 'family holiday' in January, it never happened.
Last year I took the kids camping for 2 days, using some of the food money to pay for it. He moaned at me for spending the money and told me I would have to use my son's birthday money for food and he'd pay me back later. He never did.

Quality time - Doesn't exist. A typical week for him, apart from work, consists of: Monday, get home, watch telly, put baby to bed, watch telly, go to bed himself at 8.30pm to watch TV until 10.30pm. If I say I want an early night he moans that he wants to watch the telly up there.
Tues: same as Monday
Wed: home from work, dinner, telly, pub at 5.30pm till 11.30pm (he won't go to a local pub so gets a train 20 miles to his old local which is why he has to leave so early)
Thurs: same as Monday
Fri: home, dinner, telly, about 8pm he will start drinking, usually 3 or 4 cans of beer and half a bottle of wine before going to bed at midnight ish.
Saturday: same as Friday
Sunday: same as Wednesday

If I go on the computor he starts getting digs in about how it's all I ever do and can't I watch telly with him (weekends) and have a drink with him. (I'm not much of a drinker and don't want to spend my weekend with a hangover to please him)

We never go out together, apart from the very odd occassion that I arrange it. He has suggested going out once in the last 3 years.

Sex - doesn't exist. He stopped wanting sex when our baby was born nearly 2 years ago. (I have 3 other children from a previous marriage) he blamed me, said he didn't find me attractive cos I was always miserable and never smiling.
In the last 3 months he's started to show some interest again but I'm not longer interested due to feeling so hurt by him.

Nitpicking - this stuff is not really a deal breaker but still bugs me. I do 95% of the housework, 98% of the childcare, he doesn't even put his washing in the basket, he leaves it on the bedroom floor most of the time then makes comments about not having clean clothes.
I constantly tidy and put away, he goes behind me and messes it again. For example, the cupboard under the stairs he throws his shoes into, to the point that it overflows. Every few weeks I take them all back upstairs and ask him to just have 1 pair downstairs at a time. Within days it's back to normal and overflowing.
Utility room he piles up with tools, junk, etc to go to the garage yet never takes it. I move it all when I'm fed up of tripping over it.

Children - he doesn't particularly like my son, if my son is home he'll go to bed even earlier to avoid him. He calls him names (to me, rarely to him) and tells me how I should and shouldn't be around my son.
My daughters he's ok with, except he's constantly nagging them for higs and when they refuse he gets a bit sulky, says he's sick of them rejecting him.
Our daughter together - he smothers her. Constantly wanting cuddles/kisses from her yet really shouts at her if she hits/scratches which is fairly normal toddler behaviour. He does very little with her other than try and make her sit on his lap while he watches telly yet moans that she's not into him.

Whenever we attempt to talk about our problems he dismisses anything I say. He calls me a psycho, says I'm oversensitive and paranoid. Tonight he asked about the sex, I told him I didn't feel attracted to someone that treated me this way, he said I was immature. I told him that he didn't fancy me when I wasn't smiling and surely that's the same kind of thing, he refused to see it and said that me smiling is about my personality which is why he didn't fancy me.
He shouts at me often, sometimes to the point where he gets so angry he hits a wall or hits himself round the head then says it's my fault cos I frustate him, and never listen to what he has to say. Her often says, 'I've said it 5 times, I'll say it again and maybe this time you'll get it.' Really talks down to me. He claims I'm a bully and a control freak and hardwork and yet I think the same of him.

On a plus side, he's a 'happy happy' type of man, always dancing, smiling, singing, cracking jokes (sometimes at my expense though) everyone thinks he's great which makes me wonder if the problem is me, which is what he has said before.
On the whole he seems to have the kids best interests at heart.
When he's not being off he can be a great bloke. Things weren't always like this, but I really don't know if it's worth continuing and despite everything, I kind of still have feelings for him. At least I think I do.

I'm almost embarrassed to press the post button cos I know how this looks when it's all written down in black and white but like I said, I'm not giving his point of view - his being that I'm negative and paranoid and that practically all of this is in my head and I'm blowing it up out of proportion.

The thing is that something has kept me here for the past couple of years that it's been really difficult and I don't know what other than the worry that he could be right. What if I am paranoid, etc. I also worry that I'm behaving like my parents and giving up at the first hurdle, seeing the worst in him and not looking for the good stuff, in which case he would be right in calling me negative.

What do you think?

[LoveHurts09]

hmm, seems like he's not offering u enough support, £6.6k for 6 people is not enough by a long way and u have every right to seem negative as it sounds like he is being unfair to you as much as you may be unfair to him.
Looks completely like a "stay together for the kids" syndrome.

I imagine you have gone some way to tell him this before and that's why he tells u u are negative and paranoid? he sounds like a controller but maybe he really is just selfish.

You have basically said u want to move out even if u still think ur unsure u really have made that choice and u will IF u decide u can do it, now the hard part is what u do next obviously.... afterall u have 4 kids and he isnt going to look after ur three even if he did want to keep his 2 y.o. (he doesnt seem like he could cope with a 2 y.o. on his own)

[kate_spencer]

This is hard.. you don't even know if you're wrong for feeling that way, paranoid or negative as your husband says..
But I think you're not, you're just worried for you relationship with him and him and your children..
Maybe you could discuss this to him, he have to know how he makes you feel, and so you could get his side too.. so you could discuss, then think of better solutions for all of you in your family.