To leave my drunk vomiting crying husband to it?

[Whyiseverynameitryinuse]

Husband has been in a grumpy mood (swearing at the sat nav, overreacting to annoyances) all day. This evening he drank a bottle of red wine (minus one half glass I drank) then started on the whisky.

Then he started criticising me. I figured it was mostly the drink and tried not to get drawn, just saying I didn't want to talk about now and leaving the room. Apparently he then drank another half the bottle of whisky.

Next thing I know I hear him crying in the bathroom, so I go up to see if he's ok, and end up patting his back while he throws up. I try to look after him, and then he starts laying into me calling me a 'bitch' etc. I tell him if he doesn't stop attacking me I'll leave. He says that's 'emotional blackmail', then starts insulting me and I leave. The crying starts again, so I go back up. He cries about his (deceased) parents, I hug him,comfort him, he talks about life being too hard and wanting to die. I tell him I love him, and he has lots of friends and family that love him.

Then he starts attacking me again calling me an evil bitch who's ruining his life. I told him to please stop, but he wouldn't, so I said I was leaving but if he needed me to call. He said nobody that loved him could leave him like that and it proved what a horrible person I was.

I'm downstairs but I can hear him being sick and crying. I feel awful, I don't want to leave him suffering, but I don't want to be sworn and shouted at either. I'm terrified he'll hurt himself. Am I being a terrible person staying down here til he becomes less belligerent?

And please don't have kids with him. My ex is just as awful to my dds as he was too me.

00alwaysbusymum, he's a grown up. Just like you are. Being a bloke does not give him a pass on getting drunk and being a dick. If you're happy to live like that, fine for you (actually, I don't think anyone should have to live like that) but just because you're happy to be treated like shit by your "bloke" when he's drunk doesn't mean to say that every (or any) woman should be.

I would run for the hills, but that's not what you want to do and obviously it's your decision.

Don't go to couples counselling with him yet. Let him go to a counsellor alone; you could too, but a different one. Definitely don't go together at this stage.

OP, I know you said you don't have anywhere to go however do you have a support network? Friends, family even work colleagues? If you really have no body to turn to you need to get some sort of emotional support frame in place.

I hope you get control of this situation and nobody knows the ins and outs of your marriage. If you truly believe he may kill himself the I would contact GP on his behalf as if he did that would lie over you forever.
I think he is threatening to do this as a control measure. You are strong enough to come through this and I think you are being very level headed and can understand you not leaving right now but I would have a GO bag incase things turned nasty and you needed to get out quickly. I genuinely hope you are ok and this horrible mess gets sorted out quickly. This is not your fault, you have done nothing wrong and so not let him turn this on you x

What 00always said.
Bloody mumsnet LTB crowd are out in force with pitchforks

Sorry, I'm too late to be much use but for the record, don't feel bad. He will wake up in the morning and feel wretched. Physically and mentally. Personally, after that little show I hope he has the hangover from hell. And if it was a glimpse into his state of mind, you clearly have some stuff to discuss. But you know what Hun, he was probably just being a twunt. And unless you know of any reason which justifies such crappy behaviour, I would suggest kicking his ass. Hard. Hope you are ok x

Not a mumsnetter generally. What is LBT?

He may be making very bad decisions based on something false that he believes to be true.

Just answering this as part of a general awareness campaign!

The above is true of the vast majority of abusers. Only a rarefied few sit down and coldly work out a deliberate plan. Since I've seen this misconception appearing throughout Why's thread, I want to clarify that abuse nearly always is the result of dysfunctional thinking, emotional dysregulation and general stress. Those factors are causes of abuse, not excuses or get-out clauses. They are part and parcel of 'an abuser'.

It's impossible to "love them better". Nice idea, but a partner can't replace the facts of a person's past, or change the configuration of their mind.

Leave The Bastard, Lalakels

This thread is worth a read - some black humour, but lots of good perspective from people who have been through this
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/1954495-If-you-leave-me-Ill-kill-myself It actually came to mind because of another thread, this weekend, but is relevant here, too.

meep! That sounds horrible. These questions above!

Good luck and keep safe.

OP I'm sorry this has happened. He has behaved dreadfully, and he sounds quite unstable.

I had a similar experience with an ex when I was much younger; his drinking increased and one night he was extremely drunk and a complete mess, he hit me in a nightclub and then followed me home swinging randomly between begging forgiveness, verbally abusing me and saying he wanted to die.

I felt responsible for the state he was in and stayed with him to make sure he didn't choke on vomit in the night. In the morning, once he'd cleaned up the mess, he claimed he couldn't remember any of it. When I told him what had happened he said I was making a mountain out of a molehill and because there wasn't much of a mark on my face I was exaggerating, he had never been violent to a woman before so why would he have been to me.

I was young with nowhere else to live so sat quietly on my own for the day thinking about what to do. Some friends came round and laid into him for how he treated me, he then accepted what he'd done and apologised in front of them.

And that was it. No more was said and nothing changed. Another two years went by with more and more drinking and his behaviour becoming increasingly abusive, mostly verbally/emotionally (and financially, to some extent) but sometimes physically too. I'd given him the green light to continue by staying with him that day, by agreeing to say no more about it.

I wish I had walked, gone back to my
Mum or stayed on a friend's sofa, anything really.

I know this sort of situation is really hard, and you need to make your own decisions on how you want to move forwards. I don't think anyone could have realistically convinced me to leave my ex back then. But whatever you do, do something. Don't let him sweep this under the carpet like it didn't happen.

Are people missing the part on here about both his parents dying when he was young? The fact he's cried about this before and told op he's missing them? That hes previously had depression that he needed help for? That hes been stressed about finances and affording a bigger mortgage?The bit where they are struggling to conceive?.That he's never done this before? That he wants to die? That his behaviours erratic and chaotic? That he's paranoid and thinks op is laughing at him? That he went to the bathroom alone away from op and was crying himself? That ops concerned it could be mental health issues?

For fuck sake this man needs help not accusations of being an abuser like "the bloody script"! I'm really saddened that people are so ignorant about the signs of mental health. Yes, he could just suddenly after four years have become abusive but I very much doubt it when he is displaying many signs of having mental health problems.

Op here's a link to a page about having a nervous breakdown, there's also a link on that page to depression and ptsd which your dh could be suffering from due to his parents deaths.

www.professional-counselling.com/nervousbreakdown_panic_attack.html

I wish you both all the best.

Oh and one other sign. That he had told op have drinks a few drinks to help him sleep. So clearly struggles to sleep another sign of depression! Poor guy.

I'd like to applaud your post Exasperated.

'Poor guy' no!!
Poor OP! Read the full thread. She has a defense mechanism for when he 'lays into her.' This is not depression. Alcohol induced psychosis, maybe. He is being abusive.

She is not there to comfort or fix someone who is being abusive! He is asking her for apologies!

OP please confide in family and friends. It's really important; it will help you to see what is real and what is being manipulated in this situation. It will mean you don't start to feel guilty and lie to cover his behaviour. It will also help if you need somewhere to stay for a bit.

If you could, maybe stay with a friend for a week to have a break. I'm sure you need one.

I applaud your post too exasperated

The man needs help. The OP needs help too. It is not easy living with a man in the middle of a break down and she will need all the support she can muster if she wants to stand by him. She is also absolutely right not to accept his nastiness and his attacks. He may be in the throes of a mental breakdown but he still has a choice as to whether to be horrid to the woman he loves. (this is what we were told when we went through something similar).

Support. OP - speak to your GP, the samaritans and every other avenue of support you can find locally. Once you know what support is available you can support your DP. also check what you can access privately - I seem to remember the NHS offered barely any counselling sessions and the waiting list was very very long. Not useful when in a mental health crisis. However there was a crisis team who could come out.

I would also stop buying booze for a while. It always complicates things

good luck and I am so sorry you are going through this. IT is a tough old road.

He also verbally abuses her enough that she has a usual face to use during the abuse

No advice to give, just want to send you hugs.

All the best Why

Zeeka I have read the thread thank you.

One comment about a face she pulls apparently trumps the many, many others she has made that indicates he has mental health problems and instead he is abusive because of the one comment about the face. Okay then. I also pull a specific face when myself and my husband are having a disagreement or arguement. Even none abusive relationships have the occasional argument.

As for all the accusations of being an alcoholic. The op has said he's only been this drunk twice. The rest of the time he will have a few beers and a whiskey or a few whiskey at the weekend (to help him sleep). Certainly not cause for concern or an alcoholic. Goodness there was a thread on here a couple of weeks ago "be honest about how much alcohol you drink" and about sixty percent of the posters drank a hell of a lot more.

Too many people project on here because they have been in an abusive relationship. They zone in on one comment made that apply's to the situation they were in. Not all men are abusive. Not all women are abused. Some men do just need help and are suffering. Not everyone's situation follows "the script".

Iv said my peace and put across what I believe and you have said yours. I'm going to leave it there because I have no interest in being drawn into a disagreement it's not helpful for the op.

Op can't fix him, though, exasperated.

She can support him in his efforts to seek help and outside support, but he's behaving in a way which blocks her from doing that. it's a precarious situation where he's running dangerously close to making her responsible for his happiness and that can never happen in a healthy relationship.

How relevant the ltb posts are depends on what dawns on the OP about events beyond this past weekend and on what her H does from here on.

As has been explained already, poor mental health and abuse are not mutually exclusive. Op cannot fix her husband. She has nothing concrete to apologise for, regarding the past weekend, despite her H's insistence. She is well within her rights to distance herself from him until he seeks treatment for his problems which do not depend on others around him modifying reasonable and understandable behaviour.

When my ex went through this shit, of course he was unwell. The whole bloody wrld was against him and people he worked with were giving him looks and ganging up on him. Apparently. I the goddess, could make it all better again, so long as I did the mystical thing that he never quite managed to articulate to me. it appeared to involve some sort of perfection and benign benevolance, from what I could make out.

Of course, any suggestion that he needed to go back to his (really very good) GP and talk about what he was experiencing was completely poo-poohed.

Not long after those great conspiracies began to extend to the world in general's opinion of me, I quietly got all my shit together and then, after checking that he wasn't at home, in bed, with a hangover, swiftly gathered together all the stuff I'd "tidied up", with the help of some colleagues with big cars and quietly ltb.

I have an ex with an extremely long list of fucking awful things that have happened to him since childhood (emotional, physical, financial) that I wouldn't wish on anyone and that he definitely needed and deserved help with.

He suffered, partly as a result of this, with bipolar disorder and other mental health issues.

He was also an abusive, controlling, manipulative little shit and despite the fact that I am intelligent, strong, educated, and have loving and supportive friends and family, I found myself in an abusive relationship for a number of years. I didn't even know it was abusive for much of it; it's amazing how you can make excuses for things and stick with someone like that because you love them and feel you can help them.

Anyway, my situation is (was) my own and I'm not suggesting it is the ops, but I mention it to point out (again) that mental illness is not a free pass to treat other people like crap. Having bad things happen to you is not a free pass to treat other people like crap. Mental illness and abusive behavior, while sometimes linked, are still two separate issues.

The ops husband may not ever be physically abusive, but he may and it's not unreasonable to think that's a real possibility, and who should live like that? Who should live with the emotional abuse? From what the op had said this is not completely out of the blue.

Like I said before, I think op that you need to look after yourself first and foremost, mostly for your own sake but also because if there is a chance you can help your husband, you'll be no good to him unless you've got yourself in a strong and stable position first. You also need to be in this strong and stable position to truly recognise what's going on with him, and what your next move is.

Good luck x

Exasperated, the comment about her face shows that she is used to being abused. I assume your husband does not use your 'argument face' as a weapon to use against you, or assume he can read your mind and use the thoughts he reads against you? When someone can't even have an honest argument without being accused of thinking thoughts that make the other person angry, then what is happening is abuse - the dominator is trying to silence what he sees as his adversary.

There is a significant difference between a respectful argument and one with an abuser. What the OP described was what happens when you try to argue with an abuser.

You don't have to get drunk regularly or even frequently to be an alcoholic. It is the relationship to alcohol and whether he allows the alcohol to take over when he drinks that matters.

If alcohol use puts your relationships at risk and you are not willing to consider stopping drinking, then you are an alcoholic. This man waited for an apology from his wife for 'her part' in what happened the night she posted. What happened was he allowed whatever narrative he has in his head about her to take over his thought process, spent a day intimidating her with his slow burning tantrum, and then got so drunk he pissed his pants, abused his wife, and locked her out of her own bed.

Not all posts are helpful just because they seek to find some alternative, reasonable, Constable Plod 'nothing to see here folks so go home' approach to what the poster sees as an extreme response, or 'projection'. The truth does not always lie in the middle.

Sometimes it takes people who have trodden a certain path to recognise it when someone else describes it. For that reason I am glad you are bowing out.

And all that about depression?

What she needs to do is call the police if he starts talking about suicide. She is not a mental health professional. She cannot tackle this and she shouldn't even try to talk him into going to a hospital.

He doesn't have a right to make her existence miserable.

I want to repost in its entirety what Garlic said:

GarlicShake Mon 23-May-16 23:12:52
He may be making very bad decisions based on something false that he believes to be true.

Just answering this as part of a general awareness campaign!
The above is true of the vast majority of abusers. Only a rarefied few sit down and coldly work out a deliberate plan. Since I've seen this misconception appearing throughout Why's thread, I want to clarify that abuse nearly always is the result of dysfunctional thinking, emotional dysregulation and general stress. Those factors are causes of abuse, not excuses or get-out clauses. They are part and parcel of 'an abuser'

It's impossible to "love them better". Nice idea, but a partner can't replace the facts of a person's past, or change the configuration of their mind

and I realised that when he starts laying into me my face gets a sort of fixed fake smile while I try to get all 'water off a ducks back' about his insults.

And in case Exasperated is still reading, what part of 'laying into me' and 'his insults' indicate an argument is taking place?

The whole beauty and the beast thing, he's awful but if only she loves him harder she can fix him. Fucking fairy tale.