DH has annoyed me - AIBU? (Warning: trivial)

[Silverthorns]

I'm a bit stressed and fed up and am wondering if am just being irritable or have a genuine gripe - as I say in the title it's fairly trivial! If your DH read your FB over your shoulder, had a good rant about your use of the internet, talked over you and refused to listen to you, leaned over a table whilst you were having lunch with guests and wiped something off your apron whilst muttering about "if you won't do it I will", would you find this acceptable behaviour?

So as not to drip feed here's the back story - DH is getting on my wick at the moment; he has these moods every few months (always has had) where he just withdraws and virtually stops communicating for a week or so. I find it fairly annoying but am pretty much used to it now. During this time he gets really narky about me using FB/Twitter/MN, whereas I think that if he's not going to communicate with me I'll talk to other people that way. I work from home and we moved a year ago and don't really know many people so a lot of the time the internet is a lifeline for keeping in touch with people.

Anyway, yesterday we were out on the beach, the kids were happily playing and I quickly had a look at FB on my phone. DH comes up behind me and starts reading over my shoulder - which annoyed me in itself. Asked him what he was doing and he starts ranting about "what's so interesting on FB" and he "doesn't understand why people feel the need to go on FB/Twitter etc etc". I started to answer him and he just totally shouted me down and wouldn't listen. It started off being the reading over my shoulder thing but it escalated; he's currently in one of his not speaking modes and is acting a bit oddly. I just think it's a strange thing for him to suddenly do, but then to be so arrogant as to shout me down and not even let me talk really pissed me off. Last week we were having lunch with MIL and when I sat down I had a speck of food on my apron from cooking. He pointed it out and when I didn't instantly jump to remove it he leaned diagonally over the table and wipes it off muttering about how if I'm not going to do it he will. I'm aware typing this that it sounds ridiculous, but I wouldn't dream of leaning over and wiping his face/clothes while we were having lunch with guests, it struck me as a strange, patronising thing to do and made me feel like I was one of the children. Individually these are pretty insignificant things really, but I just feel at the moment like he's doing a lot of things that I think are quite rude/weird, but when I say so he tells me I'm being weird and oversensitive and there's nothing in any of it.

And now we're back to not communicating at all and I'm just pretty fed up about the whole bloody thing. AIBU? I'm aware it sounds a bit odd, maybe it's me being odd?

I don't think you are being overly sensitive at all actually (which is unusual for me, because most of the time I read about people's disgreements with their DHs and think 'oh for goodness sake, everyone gets on each other's nerves!).

My DH hates facebook etc, and sometimes when he sees me on the computer he is all 'what a waste of time' but its all fairly good natured - I could say the same about his love of Playstation or whatever.

But being patronised and made to feel a small in front of people is not nice for you, and being constantly criticised will grind anyone down.

What is he like the rest of the time? Is he generally a decent guy?

IMO YANBU. He is being very odd.
Does he have a diagnosed MI? given the history of withdrawing it sounds like something is going on.
It can't be good for your DC to see this.

Phew, Treacle - I had to re-edit while I was typing because I thought I just sounded a bit pathetic!

Yeah, most of the time he's fine, a bit of a stresshead but generally a good guy. His dad died last year and I know he's struggling with it a bit (it's probably the cause of the current silent patch) but I do get a bit fed up of having to put up with him being silent/moody/bad-tempered because of it. We were all desperately sad about his dad dying, but I now feel like I have to put up with crap from him, and deal with some pretty stressful stuff in my own life without any support at all.

The moody stuff I'm used to but the business at lunch I thought was quite humiliating - he doesn't see the problem. And the reading over my shoulder thing I personally think is thoroughly obnoxious. He doesn't. So now he's in a bigger strop because he thinks am being stupid.

rips - what is MI?

Have you tried looking him straight in the eye and doing the "Did you mean to be so rude just then?" thing?
I did it once when DH did something small but twatty and incredibly annoying and it stopped him in his tracks - he just hadn't even considered the possibility that he was being rude/annoying/driving me mad.
Just because your DH does this every so often doesn't make it alright, and you "being used to it" doesn't make it any easier or less annoying to have to put up with.

I did ask him (lunch incident) what he thought he was doing, but he just brushed it off, and his mum was there who always backs him up and loves it if she thinks she can criticise me about something. (She stayed last week and wouldn't say a single good thing about our new house, or any of the food we made, and she looks constantly for things she can point out that we are doing wrong, or might not have thought of that she thinks might cause a problem, which she would LOVE. Sorry, that's a whole seperate whinge.)

Silverthorns I think MI is mental illness.

Maybe he is depressed? He has obviously had a rough time with the death of his father, and you're saying you have some 'stuff going on' too, and don't feel you're getting any support from him. Maybe he is feeling a bit useless and lost. Not that it would excuse being unpleasant to you, of course.

As I said in my first post, I quite often read these things on MN and people suggest depression and I think 'hmm, no, actually, he sounds horrible, not depressed' but with the background you have given us, and the fact that you say he is generally a decent husband, I'm inclined to wonder if maybe he is struggling a bit.

Regardless, I don't think you are being unreasonable at all, or oversensitive. And what PomBear said is true too - the 'did you mean to be rude?' might just give him a wee shock if he genuinely doesn't realise that he is being an arse.

Mental illness, although having just read what your wrote about your MiL, it sounds as if he has learned a lot of his behaviour.

yes, I X-posted with you before I read about your MIL too. Her behaviour sounds difficult, to say the least.

It's actually been quite interesting spending time with MIL because suddenly lots of things add up. DH gets a bit twitchy if we have plans, which then suddenly change, or get slightly modified - which I've seen happen with his mum last week. She seems to like to put you in a situation where the is no wiggle room/way out - DS2 wee'd in his car seat last year when we were staying at her house. She wouldn't let us use her washing machine while she wasn't there, but she wouldn't let us go to a launderette or wash it in the bath. When FIL was in hospital last year I spent a fortune buying food and cooking for all of us so it would be one thing she didn't have to think about - she complained that I'd bought too much and was stupid for not checking the best before dates on things. On DS's birthday just before FIL died she wanted us all out of the way so I said I'd take the kids to the park. It was raining and despite having a 2 year old DS who won't walk anywhere she said if I took the pushchair she wouldn't let us bring it back in the house because it would be muddy. She is very rude and difficult, and fortunately DH doesn't seem to have inherited all of her lovely traits but I can see where a lot of his behaviour comes from...

MIL sounds very controlling, verging on completely bonkers re the washing machine incident. Not being able to use the machine unsupervised - WTF?
Agree with you - reading over someone's shoulder is thoroughly obnoxious. Good advice here from Treacle and Pom Bear.

(Apparently there's a knack to the washing machine that we could in no way understand?)

Am very grateful for the advice (and because I don't feel like I'm just being an arse now.) I am struggling to know how to deal with this though - I can rise above the no-communication thing for a bit but his behaviour has pissed me off as has his refusal to discuss/acknowledge and noe I feel like I don't want to talk to him. Which isn't very mature, but I'm struggling to move this forward.

Blimey OP like mother like son huh. Put your foot down and don't accept you DH's childish behaviour. No way should he be allowed to "get into bad moods".

"he has these moods every few months (always has had) where he just withdraws and virtually stops communicating for a week or so. "
Have you discussed this with him at all when he in not in that mood? How does he account for his behaviour during the mood, and does he acknowledge it affects you?

My husband hates me being on fb & mn. Tough really,I'm at home with ds so would go a bit mad without them.
He looks at utter crap on tv/online,so we all have different tastes.
The shutting off/ mood thing my dh does too every now & then,he is an odd bugger from time to time.
Up to you if the rest of the time he is ok. If he is moody more than not then look at your options.

not using the ashing machine.. well it is possible that it could be akward... but not letting you go to the launderette wash it somewhere else is odd.

him wiping your apron is very patronising and odd. it seems like he was treating you as a small child.

do you think he acted like that in front of your MIL to sort of gain her approval by acting in the way she might?

WhereYouLeftIt afterwards he'll be apologetic. He says he just goes through times where he's fed up - I read "Men are from Mars..." and it seems to fit with that whole "men withdrawing into cave" gubbins. He will acknowledge it afterwards but it always happens again. I'd say a couple of times a year.

Icelolly Reassuring it's not just mine. how do you cope with it when he goes off on one? The rest of the time he's fine, seems I just have to accept these blips as part of who he is. Fucking annoying though.

I ignore it if it's a temporary blip,if he's tired or stressed.
If it goes on,I sometimes say that I want our life to be nice & he is making it shit. Sometimes we row,no magic formula though I'm afraid!

susan and cuddly I did feel slightly infantilised and wondered why he'd just chosen to do that in front of his mother. He react to her in an odd way, he'll justify her behaviour, and when I said to him that she had come in and totally dissed our new house (kitchen too small, is that the only radiator in that room, well it's different to your last house - it's actually a shit site better than where we were before, why would it kill her to say that?!) he said "she didn't mean anything by it" although the next day when I said I didn't want to go through a whole week of her being snide and him justifying it, he said he'd been upset by it as well? Bizarre....

If the moods come every few months is there any trigger you can think of, e.g. something building up over time, a regular deadline at work? Alternatively, it could be cyclothymic depression (think that's how you spell it). Either way, I don't think that's on. Being ignored for a week is really very unpleasant. Easy for a complete stranger to say, but I would tackle it rather than rise above it.

As for the rest, he doesn't have to understand it, but he really ought to accept your boundaries, physical or otherwise. His may be different, but you are entitled to set your own.

It sounds as though your MIL simply pronounces rules or engages in behaviours that the rest of the family have to accept without question and your DH is following suit.

Does your husband use childish bad behaviour "his moods" to keep you in your place?

I think it's fine to be in a mood, but it's definitely not fine to take it out on others. I told DH early on our relationship that snapping at me, not talking to me or any other rude behaviour is simply not acceptable. He would sometimes be a right pig when he had a bad headache. I can sympathise with him being in pain but I still think it's no excuse to behave like an arse. If he does snap (as we all do from time to time) I expect him to apologise straight away and make an effort not to do it again.

In my book, if you're in a relationship you are duty-bound to treat your partner with respect. No amount of bad moods is a get-out clause for using your partner as an emotional punching bag - if you wouldn't do it to your boss or your best friend then you shouldn't do it to your partner.

Perhaps you could sit down with him and have a non-confrontational talk about his moods. You say he acknowledges them, so perhaps you could agree that the next time he gets like that you will say an specific, pre-determined thing to him, such as "DH you are behaving unreasonably," and he will agree to do something about it - either apologise, or leave the room to get a grip or something. It's good that he recognises that his moods are bad, but now he has to go a step further and do something about it when it's actually happening.

His mother sounds like an utter witch. I can't imagine growing up with her did your DH much good.

cyclothymic depression sounds interesting - but he doesn't seem to have the bursts of mania, he'll just go back to his normal self afterwards...

I don't think he does it to keep me in my place as such, I think it's more to do with complete self absorption with no thought for how it affects either me or the children. Perhaps it's worth telling him to get to the drs about it. I'll be having a chat with him at lunchtime about this whole thing I think.

Wow. I emailed him a link to some info re cyclothymic depression, which he said has really got him thinking and that he identifies with a lot of it. Had a chat to him at lunchtime and he's already using his new mental illness as a justification for crappy behaviour.

Am even more pissed off with him that I was before.