Moody DH is like a teenager

[RoseRose217]

Hi, this is my first post on here just looking to get some opinions fro others as I'm not sure that I trust my judgement and I don't want to talk to friends about this.

My DP and I have been together around 2 years and live together. He has always been a little huffy and he says his dad is like this also but much much worse. I have noticed his dad be a little huffy at times but nothing too bad, although perhaps he is on his best behaviour around me

Neither of us are perfect and we get into a fair few arguments but most of the time we are generally happy, we want the same things and are a pretty good match for each other. We both love each other very much.

One of my DPs shortcomings is his temper and his moods. He gets frustrated and angry very easily. I am not used to seeing a man react like this, and it makes me scared, which he says is silly. E.g. Today he was watching TV and drinking tea on the sofa, while holding the remote. He spilt his (warm, not hot) tea on himself and the sofa. Most people would be annoyed with themselves for this but these things happen. He exclaimed a profanity and then slammed the TV remote down on to a glass coaster very loudly, I'm surprised it didn't shatter into a thousand pieces. This then put him in a bad mood for perhaps 45 mins. If i try to speak to him in this time I get met with sarcasm, generally huffiness and unhappiness.

In this example he is annoyed st himself rather than me, but I find the outburst scary and out of proportion. The sulkiness afterwards also seems extreme.

We don't have kids now but i worry that when they come along and accidents and spills happen more often that he will be a nightmare.

Other times it is more directed at me. If I ask him something when he is busy or tired or ill or has a sniffle, I get a moody sarcastic response that reminds me of the teenagers from Kevin and Perry. Tonight he was snoring so I went to sleep in the guest room, he woke up 5 mins later and sent me a text asking why I had left our bedroom, I went through and calmly said it was because he was snoring (he has a cold just now). Usually he argues with me and says he doesn't snore or that he hasn't been asleep yet and that I'm making it up, so I recorded a sound clip on my phone to play him in case he didnt believe me. I said to him calmly the snoring was very loud and that I recorded it in case he didn't believe me. He got extremely huffy, jumped out of bed, exhaled in a huffy teenage way, shouted something like 'for f*ks sake!', stomped to the spare room and angrily told me he would be sleeping in the spare room. I got annoyed and asked him to go back to bed, he wouldn't, so I snapped (I've had a whole day of his bad mood because he is tired and has a cold, these are just 2 examples out of about 10 huffy incidents today) and told him to 'pss off back to bed'. He then went back to bed.

I'm now in the spare room and wide awake

I should add that when he is not acting like a teenager he is very loving and would do anything for me - makes cuppas on demand, will drive to the shops to get me anything, cooks me breakfast, when I was ill last week he took time off work to drive me to docs and look after me (e.g. Cups of tea in bed). However I can never be sure when 'the teenager' will emerge, sometimes it's once a week, but on bad days like today it is about 10 times a day.

I'm just looking to get some input from others - anyone else got a DH like this? How do you cope with the moods? Any advice would be very appreciated.

Also am I being unreasonable to expect him to address and try to improve this behaviour? Should I just accept that it is who he is?

I get what you are saying but no one is perfect, everyone has their flaws. Sure I could leave him and meet someone else, but they also won't be perfect. They might not have the same issue but they will have some sort of issue. What do i do then, leave them too?

I lived with one of these guys. It's exhausting to deal with and really made me doubt myself. To a certain extent, I tolerated it because my mum had the same sort of temper, and I thought it was normal.

A few months after we broke up, I was with a new boyfriend in his kitchen, making breakfast. I squeezed the ketchup bottle and it went everywhere. He thought it was hilarious, but I was standing there, frozen, just waiting for the angry strop. He hugged me and told me not to worry about it and we cleaned it up. He was really concerned because apparently I looked terrified! With him it was just no big deal. No day of strops and silent treatment. That is how normal people react.

OP, if you have children with this man you risk them either turning into him, or having shitty relationships their entire lives because they don't know what's normal. You also deserve so much better than this man.

This isnt about not bein perfect. It is about being frightening when they lose control of their emotions. That will get far worse with a baby. Leave op.

My ex was like this, and slowly over time the moods became worse, and he'd escalate to breaking things when shit didn't go his way (mostly my things, funnily enough). Then occasionally he'd get directly aggressive with me, call me names, shout in my face, and 'accidentally' throw things at me if I tried to leave the room when he was yelling. He even dragged me out of bed at 4am once and told me he was going to break my ankles (I'd been fast asleep at the time, but apparently it was my fault for being a selfish bitch and not wanting to stay up and party when I had work at 7am).

None of this was ever his fault though - I made him angry and I was just being too sensitive and should just tolerate it. I believed him for a long time.

Now I wouldnt touch a moody fucker like that with a barge pole. There are plenty of men out there that don't have a temper, and will put your needs first (and a good night's sleep is a very basic need) without ranting and raving (and without you even having to ask).

You have yourself a selfish entitled man-child, dump the fucker and find someone who behaves like an adult.

My DH is like this. Even down to the snoring. They only get worse. If that little voice is talking to you listen. Honestly. Just listen.

Thanks for your messages.

Yep I think I said DH earlier but we are not married, we do own a house together.

He never slams doors or anything like that it's mostly the huffing and loud exhales, and the sarcastic comments. Immediately after he does something like if he drops something he will slam something or make a sort of roar sound, both of which I find put me on edge.

Sure, no one is perfect. We all have our faults. Some of those might make us difficult to live with, in which case, most people would try to work on their faults, so that their family did not have to live with them. We care enough about our families to try to change.

Life with your husband sounds like a constant drama. What if a real drama happens, like you have a child, and they become very ill? Or one of you loses your job, and money becomes tight? Or even something much smaller like you decide to do up the bathroom, and discover halfway through that it's a much bigger job than you had anticipated? Will you have the necessary spare reserves of energy to deal with these dramas?

Re-read MrsKoala's post - the bit about her FIL. Her MIL was so worried about pandering to her husband's moods that she died of something that need not have been fatal.

Anyway, maybe you are happy to have a relationship where you are constantly walking on eggshells. You are happy to accept that for yourself - fine. If you have children, they don't get to choose. If you want children, you are not just choosing your partner for however long you are prepared to put up with him, but their father for the rest of their lives.

Sure everybody has faults, but is this particular fault something you can live with? Something your children should live with? People are different, for some it probably wouldn't matter and they would strop and huff in return just as well. But you say this scares you, and this is a major issue in my book. That's one thing your partner should never make you feel, scared of them.

Rose, please listen to what everyone is saying to you. You are not being unreasonable he is.

He sounds exactly like my EXH almost to the letter. My EXH at least pretended to be a decent person until we got married and had two children in very quick succession. Your partner is not even pretending.

My DD only lived with her father until she was one and I left when pregnant with my DS so he never even lived with him at all. My EXH still caused havoc.

My DC are now late teens and if you knew the hell that they had been through with him you would run a mile from him and I am begging you to run.

My teenage DD is currently in a psychiatric ward and her Psychotherapist had said her issues were caused by her father's behaviour. My son exhibited anger tendencies which fortunately were addressed by anger management and he seems to be coping well in his life at the moment.

My DD's recovery, if it happens, will be very slow. Don't do this to yourself or any future children.

It doesn't necessarily follow that the next person you meet will have issues like your partner.

Please read the responses again and don't let yourself be treated they way you are being treated. He is not a nice person and things will get significantly worse. You really deserve better.

The huffing used to drive me insane.

This sounds just like my dp. He gets incredibly huffy over the most stupid things, and after living together 8 years I now longer walk on eggshells for him, I just tell him to bloody well shut up and take it elsewhere. He's prone to bouts of depression but he never goes to the doctors for it, so my patience definately wears thin with it. I have two young children, I definately don't need to parent a grown man. Prime example was last night, ds has a tummy bug and we were running low on nappies (we're normally well stocked but he's gotten through a lot) and I asked him to go up the shop, and he replied with 'for fuck sake I'm trying to watch this film, I really hate having kids sometimes, why can't I just be left alone!' I didn't even offer to go myself because I was just like nah, wrong attitude when your kid is ill mate.

Think about how he makes you feel
Then imagine being a tiny child and feeling that way
Then grow the hell up and acknowledge that you can't have a child with this man, whatever you choose about your own living circumstances

OP: IHBU?
Everyone: HIBU.
OP: but reasons!
Everyone: HIBU
OP: exits, stage left

Fuck, no. No. Just no.

He thinks his behaviour is fine, he's not going to change, and he says you're making up the snoring. Because that's obviously something that someone completely WOULD do, just to have the sheer fun of playing musical beds in the middle of the night

Leave. Leave now. Don't have children with the mardy twat. You are worth more than this. Your future children are worth more than this.

Well you seem very resigned to a mediocre life. Very poor choice. But it's yours to make.

No one is perfect but that doesn't mean you should settle for inadequate either.

I feel sad for you op. Unless he changed or you change you and any dc you have will be messed up by this just as myself and others on this thread with a similar patent were. If I could go baxk in time and shake my mother and get her to get a clue I would but like you, her standards were far far too low.

Two years is a fairly new relationship. This is the best it's ever going to be. Think on that for a moment. And then run, run for your life

I get what you are saying but no one is perfect, everyone has their flaws.

Yes but some are abusive and some are not. It is up to you whether you choose to excuse the abusive ones.

This is his technique I think, to refuse to admit any fault and to try to convince me that the problems are mine.

Quite apart from the huffing, you know this is all kinds of bad, right? This is called gas lighting and it's a form of abuse. How on earth do you visualise discussing important decisions that you disagree over if this is his standard m.o?

Also the sleeping next to him while he snores is really controlling. Why would he want you to be sleep deprived and miserable just so you are next to him while he is sleeping? Or does he just not care as long as he gets his way. MrK is a bad snorer but happily takes himself off to other beds/sofas/floors if his snoring is keeping me awake AND he apologises for disturbing me.

My dh's flaws are that he's too tolerant, and he gets upset when others are putting pressure on him. He also snores, he has not once expected me to lie next to him snoring his head off and is incredibly apologetic.

Your dp sounds very hard work

"This is the best it's ever going to be"

Yes

Run.

If you have kids together just think how you'll feel when he takes huffy sulks with them. How do you explain to a toddler that their daddy isn't speaking to them because they spilt something? Think of all the happy family times ruined by his ridiculous moods.

Do you want to live like this? He's not going to change because he thinks he's always right.

Better to be single and happy.