ANOTHER weekend of bickering, rows and tears

[lucyellenmum]

Every weekend is the same, DP and i argue terribly, I end up in tears, DD ends up in tears. DP says he will leave, he doesn't, because i tell him i will change. He says i am making him into a Jekyll and Hyde and making him say horrible things to me. He has said some vile things to me this weekend and says that i am making him "lose it" and if i carry on he is worried about what he might do :( I hate seeing him like this but i try to explain to him that everyone argues but it is not normal to talk about splitting up every time we do it. We have been through so much and i thought we were coming through it. I don't want to split up, i really can't imagine my life without him but this cannot go on, its affecting our DD and i lived in a war zone i don't want this for DD. DD does play up when things are tense and of course this causes further tension between me and DP. It is such a vicious circle, tomorrow, everything will be fine and he will be telling me how i am his soul mate and he could never leave me. People have advised me to talk about it when things are calm but he says "why do you keep bringing it up, its done now" etc, but i can't talk to him when all hell is breaking lose and im trying to calm things down for DDs sake.

How can i make this right? I dont want to lose him, i have thought that we might be happier apart but aside from anything else we just can't afford to do so. I don't work, DP is self employed and barely earns enough to cover things (i am looking for work, have interview on tuesday, i wont hold my breath, i have a LOT of interviews!). The trouble is i just cannot hold my tongue when im pissed off, this morning it all kicked off because we were late for DDs activity, i was "nagging" him to hurry up - he was cleaning his teeth five minutes after we should have left, it could have waited FFS, so queue me being called all the names under the sun, in front of DD AND on the street DD joins in too, it breaks my heart.

thankyou fluffy, i really want to make things work, i know i need to bite my tongue, both arguments this weekend were caused by me running my mouth off. This morning i think DP had more blame but yesterday was definately my fault, i was stressed about something, DP offered to help and i gave it to him with both barrels.

It has to stop though, for my DDs sake, all of this is so so bad for her, that is one thing we both agree on. Like my DP said, these things were over such trivial things, was it worth it? If im honest i can't remember even what really sparked yesterdays row off.

How the hell did we get to this? :(

I know it's hard when you are feeling stressed about things to take it out on your partner(we all do it at times), but I really think your relationship is not strong enough at the moment to take it.

When you feel like this, maybe you could take a step back, take some deep breaths, and make a better decision about how the situation should go.

Sounds to me like you have a choice here. You can continue to pick arguements and take out your stress on dp which then leads to awful rows and provokes unacceptable behaviour in him, and is really upsetting for you and DD, OR you can think about what is really important, and not let things get to that stage.

Maybe you need to back off a little, and see how things go. If you feel the need to have a go at him over something, then stop and ask yourself if your reationship is really worth saving, because if it is, chances are it's not worth causing anothrer row.

It sounds like he's being a bully and because you're accepting his behaviour and taking the blame, your daughter believes that that's your 'place or role' horrible as it sounds. But if she sees her dad walking over her mum, she obviously thinks 'well if i act the same I can get whatever I want too'.

Tbh it sounds like unless you put up and shut up-no nagging, taking all the shit from both of them and allowing yourself to be bullied- then thngs won't change and this will always happen. In fact even if you do all that, the chances are someone of his type-controlling, bullying and manippulative- will find something else to screw you on.

Look at it like this. Would you want your daughter with a partner like your husband? Would you like her to find a man like her dad and go through what you are? Or do you think deep down that to see her in a relationship like this would be wrong and toxic?

Read the 'signs' of being in an emotionally abusive relationship, this (brief as it is) ticks a few flags:

www.helpguide.org/mental/domestic_violence_abuse_types_signs_causes_effects.htm

Your dd is being exposed to an abusive relationship. Put your kid first and get out of it. It's her I feel sorry for. You sound like you are both being incredibly selfish by arguing around her.

THANKYOU to everyone who has been kind to me here.

Things sort of came to a bit of a head last night, DP came down from putting D to bed looking as white as a sheet, held his head in his hands and said that we have to stop arguing. DD had told him that she liked it when we were on holiday but now everyone is always stressed :( i felt sick to my stomach. We didn't talk much last night, we were both tired but we cuddled on the sofa together, it was nice.

Today DD has gone to the stables, we had a chat on the way back in the car (its a half hour journey!) and i told him that i cannot bear the name calling, he is mortified about this and promised me it would stop now. To be fair, this is a recent thing and i don't know why he started doing it. He doesn't know either. He is frustrated because whilst we have actually sorted our finances out (its tight, it always will be until i get a job) etc that we are still arguing every weekend. He thinks its habit, I guess he could be right, its like the weekend comes and we feel uptight. He wants me to be less stressy at DD and I want him to back me up more, so we have to meet in the middle there i think.

We have both promised to stop and think what we are doing - which is ironic because it is what one of my sheets from my CBT says, so i might show him that later.

We both know that thhis cannot be allowed to continue for our DD's sake so its pretty much make or break. Neither of us wants to split, but we have both agreed that if we can't make it work then we will, amicably.

So thats where i am, i said to dp that his is a cycle and we have to stop it.
Like he said, we have been through so much together and got through it, so why are we at each others throats now?? There is no need for it.

What i am hoping is that be both realise that we are almost at the point of no return and that it will have to end if we don't make the effort, grow the fuck up and be the loving parents that our DD deserves. That is one thing we do share, we adore DD and feel so lucky that we have such a lovely caring little girl. She deserves loving caring parents but that means we have to be loving and caring to each other.

I know many of you think i should just leave but i think we have a chance, i will NOT tolerate the name calling i wont, he said himself that it made him sound like something off of shameless - yep, that about sums it up, i told him he was right. I also told him that i know that is not who he is, just as i am not really a whinging pathetic woman who needs reassurance every two minutes.

I hope it works.