To want to vent? DH obviously thinks so.

[ziggiestardust]

Sometimes, when things get to me I have a bit of a 'raaaahhh!' few minutes where I let off steam and vent and say my feelings out loud. It might be something at work, or DS has annoyed me for whatever reason, or something silly has happened that's irritated me. It doesn't happen that often, but when it does and I get cross, I tell DH what has annoyed me, why and what I feel. Probably about 5 minutes and I'm finished.

But when I do, recently DH has been quite moody about it and gets cross at me for being cross. He can be quite short with me and tbh, it's upsetting me.

When he needs to vent, or to talk something through, I am there for him to chat about it as long as he likes. If someone at work has annoyed him, I talk it through with him and give rational steps forward and talk with him as often as he needs.

It doesn't really feel like he returns the favour. We are under pressure at the minute with DH working away quite a bit, we are moving to be closer in 2 weeks (big move). I'm having a new job, big changes etc. it's probably linked, but I'm always there for him to talk to. He seems to just get frustrated.

Like the other week I was saying how work was annoying me, just a petty little thing but I'd just got in and was wound up. First of all he was joking around about it, and then suddenly about 2 minutes in he snapped and went 'well I obviously can't help you, so I won't fucking bother. Shall we even bother going out to dinner tonight if you're just in a huge mood?' Seriously, I have never and would never do that to him.

DS was irritating me today and I texted DH, he rang me (on his break and nothing on at work so it's ok) and I said what had gone wrong, he listened for about a minute and then went 'right I've got to go then', just hung up and didn't say 'love you' or anything.

I texted him to say I was sorry I'd upset him and now he's bombarding me with jokey messages and said he was just busy with work suddenly and of course I can always talk to him... Except I can't, can I?

I'm just feeling a bit let down, if I'm honest. AIBU? What shall I do? It's not something that crops up very often (I'm not that angry!) but when it does, I need him and I don't feel like he comes through for me. And it hurts.

Every night.

Sometimes we just chat about what we will do at the weekend, wedding anniversary etc. Or we walk the garden and pretend to be gardeners But we always use the time to chill before we go inside and start 'home time'.

It quickly became that time when we slow thinking, heart rate etc and just chill.

If you text him about things like your son irritating you I can see he gets annoyed. To you it might be a little venting but to the person receiving it, it might be very different. Do you often rant about little things?

You are telling him about problems he can do nothing about, apart from joking about it in order to try and cheer you up. He thinks the only reason to talk about a problem is to solve it, if he can't do anything about it then (a) you are making him unnecessarily feel shit by sharing the misery when no good can come from the sharing, and (b) you are making him feel stressed and a failure by giving him a problem he can't solve.

I know because I am him (not literally, I mean I'm a man.) Having said that, I can listen to DD (age 3.5) witter on for hours without even understanding half of what she's say, just occasionally repeating something in a sympathetic manner to give her the impression I'm taking it in. So it's not that I lack the required skills, it just doesn't occur to me to apply them to DW. Explain to him what's required.

Would you do 'time outs' if your DW asked, FraidyCat?

I am interested as I have no idea if what we do is unusual or odd.

OP, in answer to your question, DH is a SAHP. When I get in from work we greet each other, and the child and the dog, ask "how was your day" etc. if either of us has had a crappy day we normally talk about after dinner in a non-ranty way.

Exercise, music, deep breathing, thinking happy thoughts, all better ways of dealing with life's petty frustrations than shouting in the general direction of a loved one.

So you can be an arsey moany whingy cow, but he cant be off with you?

rightio

I love Nomama's time out system and wish my ex and I had done something similar. He's a lovely man but, my god, he would phone me everyday and spend ages going over and over the same life shit as he did the day before (unless there was some new crisis to share, in which case he'd add that too!) I was sympathetic for about a year before it dawned on me that he was getting caught in cycles of regurgitating life shit. It became very waring and I had to tell him that a problem shared is a problem halved for him, but just added to my life shit when I was repeatedly on the receiving end. A time limit for venting would've been brilliant.