AIBU to still feel unsafe and want to tell someone?

I think though that you're a bit unusual compared to most men? Can I ask you though, you said - Men who love their wives don't do this shit. Men who want to control and terrify their wives do.

I know this is a strange question to ask a complete stranger on the internet, but do you mean that you think my husband doesn't love me? I think he could be a bit controlling and scary, and also love me? He says he does all the time, every day I think.

Look, honestly, I can't say whether he loves you or not. Noone can, except him. But I can say I don't think he loves you well, or healthily, or enough.

You say I'm unusual, I'd argue strongly that I'm not. I'm not a "good" man. I'm bang on average. I've hurt DP emotionally, as I've hurt past partners.

DP cannot sing. Like, not even badly. DPs singing is possibly the worst I've ever heard. And so I used to take the piss. Not in a cruel way, but gently taking the piss. She takes the piss out of me for stuff I'm bad at too. Then one day, I realised that DP didn't sing any more. I asked her about it, and she just said "No, I don't". And she didn't, for about 5 years. I stopped the woman I love from doing something she enjoyed for years, without even meaning to. I'm not a "good" man.

My Dad isn't a good man either. He cheated on my Mum repeatedly, he has done the same with every woman he's been in a relationship with since. He hurts the people he claims to love.

The difference between us and your husband, is that we're not trying to hurt the person we love. I hurt DP, but that wasn't the aim. It was accidental, I didn't know where the line was and I crossed it. It remains the worst thing I have ever done in my life. I will feel guilty about it until I die.

My Dad doesn't mean to hurt the people he loves either. He just thinks he's cleverer than them. The intention is always to get laid, and for his wife, or girlfriend to never ever find out. He's absolutely crap at it, but that's still the aim. He hurts people, but he's not trying to.

You husband wants to hurt you. He wants you scared, he wants you pliable. He wants you to be a nice, easily controlled woman so that he doesn't have to worry about you being your own person. He's not worried about crossing the line, he doesn't feel guilty about crossing the line, because, as I said in the post days ago, he crossed the line years ago and realised there are no consequences. He's not a good man, he's not even an average man. He's a bad man, and he's making the conscious decision to be that man. Whether or not he loves you doesn't really matter, he'll treat you like shit either way.

OK, thank you everyone for so many helpful replies. I am so grateful that people have taken the time to share how all of this looks to them. I've been thinking over it all for the past few days and have a different view of the whole thing than I did when I first posted. I have some sense of what I'll do next as well. I won't just carry on as before. I don't think I see anything more clearly now, probably less clearly, but I think that's a good thing. Thank you all 🙂

I would agree with this to a point. I think you learnt from your mistake but your father actively chose not to learn from his mistake by repeating it over and over even though it hurt the people he so called loved.

i completely agree it seems OP’s husband wants to keep her scared and under control and that if he genuinely loved and cared for her, he would try everything to be better and gain trust back.

I disagree. My dad learnt a lot from his mistakes. He learnt how better to hide his affairs, how to play the women he was with. And I honestly do believe that part of the reason he learnt those lessons is because he didn't want to hurt those women.

The problem was he never learnt the right lessons, rather than he never learnt any lessons.

My Dad never wanted to hurt anyone, he just wanted to get laid while he wasn't hurting anyone, and he was spectacularly shit at it.

DPs husband on the other hand, wants to hurt her. The abuse, and control is the point. The pain isn't a Side effect, it's the whole idea.

You will never convince me that someone who cheats on their partner loves them fully and doesn’t want to hurt them. I think you’ve mistaken your father’s remorse for getting caught, and the repercussions that follow, for his remorse for hurting them.
You obviously love your father, and therefore are trying to justify
his behaviour. Abuse can be emotional also.

Thank you. Do you mean you were sure what you thought of him and now you’re not so sure? And that’s good because you’ll be looking with an open mind instead of seeing what you would have been telling yourself to see?
Yeah I think that's what I mean. I started the thread thinking everything was fine, except me being fearful, and I just needed to fix that. Now I think everything's not fine, and maybe not even in a stable place either, and I don't know what to do about it but I do want him to stop shouting at me. Like, I think his behaviour does need to change and I didn't really think that before.

Sorry I wasn't clear! I feel like I've become less coherent generally since my earlier posts - honestly the direction the thread went was really unexpected for me and I've had trouble sleeping and had nightmares etc for a couple of weeks now. I'm visiting family, just me and the kids, soon. I think that'll help.

Thank you. Do you mean you were sure what you thought of him and now you’re not so sure? And that’s good because you’ll be looking with an open mind instead of seeing what you would have been telling yourself to see?
Yeah I think that's what I mean. I started the thread thinking everything was fine, except me being fearful, and I just needed to fix that. Now I think everything's not fine, and maybe not even in a stable place either, and I don't know what to do about it but I do want him to stop shouting at me. Like, I think his behaviour does need to change and I didn't really think that before.

Sorry I wasn't clear! I feel like I've become less coherent generally since my earlier posts - honestly the direction the thread went was really unexpected for me and I've had trouble sleeping and had nightmares etc for a couple of weeks now. I'm visiting family, just me and the kids, soon. I think that'll help.

A friend of mine used to do counselling and she told me something really interesting. She used to work with people in various situations that they thought they were stuck in and thought they couldn't change or sometimes thought they didn't want to or didn't need to. She used to say that the biggest thing was to get her client to consider the possibility for change. She said that even if they didn't make the changes while they were with her, that moment of actually considering the possibility was the pivot point. The point that freed them.

OK - sorry - I should have included what he did. So

• he has pushed me a few times or like manhandled me a bit, which was more in early days in our relationship. I don't like that but I wouldn't say he's done that in years.
• he's called me the c word and also a bitch when he's really angry. Maybe that's prudish of me but it really hurts me, I really dislike the words and they feel like they're full of hate at the time tbh
• I was in my baby's bedroom (baby wasn't there) to get away from him during an argument and he kicked the door until it broke to get into me even though the door wasn't locked so he could have just opened it
• he did the same to the bathroom door once, which was the scariest time ever because the door was locked so I knew he wasn't just kicking it in anger but to get into me
• a few times we've been arguing in the car and he'd start driving really angry like really hard accelerating and breaking, screaming at me like actual wordless screams, that kind of thing.
• sometimes angry he has made these sudden jerky moves at me, like you know when a dog lunges at something it's going to bite but he's never hit me or anything like that.

I said I'd update after I spoke to SIL - in case anyone is reading who's in a similar situation. And also just for anyone who spent ages replying to me and is wondering (I obv don't expect that, but don't want to seem ungrateful).

I'm not getting into specifics about what I did/ who I spoke to/ what happened, as they definitely won't be relevant to pretty much anyone else, but I first re-read this thread like 3 times, and I do feel a bit like I've come out of a fog or something. I can't unsee lots of stuff now about how my relationship has become and how Ive become in it. And I have a clearer sense of where my family can and would help (and where they wouldn't!)

Even just this clearer sight - and a couple of other things I did as a result of this thread that I won't go into - have genuinely improved things for me. So just if you're reading and need help and wondering if you could post about your own circumstances, it definitely was a really good thing for me. Really hard to read at times, but I'm safer than I was and even feel a bit safer too. And thank you so much to everyone who took time to respond to me, especially the people who kept coming back even though I know it would have been really frustrating. Husband has had a bit of a transformation, I would say, and it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't got all this time and advice and patience (and impatience) on here.

Just for full disclosure, we have three children and have been together nearly 20 years.

I can't leave for many reasons. I'd have to give reasons to him and our family and friends. Even if I told them what I've said here that wouldn't be considered good reasons to leave a good man who's sacrificed a huge amount for me. My family (who I love) would think I was doing a terrible thing, leaving him, breaking up our family, etc.

Hi and thank you for asking @Morninginesa I was actually re-reading the thread (again!) last night. I'll update again because I used to scroll threads like this & maybe someone else is reading this one in the same sort of situation. It's also kind of helpful for me tbh. I don't expect any replies or anything at all - v grateful for all the input I've had here.

I read the start of the Lundy Bancroft book and recognised my husband pretty clearly in one of the "types". That was pretty unsettling.

So thank you very much to the people who mentioned that book. I would def recommend it if you're in the same sort of situation (obv read in secret though as it's pretty obvious what it's about)

I also spoke to my husband pretty directly: told him his behaviour was breaking our relationship and he knew as well as I did that I couldn't leave, but that didn't mean it was going to endure as a relationship. I have to stay, but I can't make myself love him if that dies because of how scared I am. And all the anger will be harming our kids and he had to make amends to them as well as me every time he lost it with me.

That approach would obv be very risky for most women, I get that, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for anyone else. There are many reasons I was able to do that, which likely don't apply to many others who might be reading. But in my case, in our situation, it's had a big impact I think.