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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Moody DH is like a teenager

133 replies

RoseRose217 · 30/10/2016 02:59

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?

OP posts:

GahBuggerit · 30/10/2016 14:31

My DP is like this. i dread the key turning in the lock, when hes not here i am so chilled and happy and i find the ferals (kids) are not so feral.

ive spent 16 years like tjis, believe me love it just gets worse. im just biding my time now, putting savings away and hopefullg one day will have the courage to pack his bags.

i envy you, you can get out.

GahBuggerit · 30/10/2016 14:36

and agree re gaslighting, whenever i have had the courage to bring things up with him that we need to discuss like money etc (takes me days to pluck up the courage), he turns it on me, says things then denies them point blank and says im losing my mind and need to see someone.......im terrified of how nasty he can be which is why im waiting as im scared hell turn the kidsagainst me.

all started out with me thinking after about a year of heing together "blimey hes a bit of a moody cow"......shouldve known tbh

ElspethFlashman · 30/10/2016 14:43

You've only been with him + have already bought a house with him?

You move fast.

What was he like in the first year?

lizzieoak · 30/10/2016 15:00

I don't think I've read a single response where someone says their partner or father improved over time.

It never dawned on me that my ex would do this to our tiny, beautiful children. But he did. DS was 3, for example, was carrying an ice cream cone through the kitchen, tripped and lost the blob of ice cream. My immediate response was to feel sorry for him, get a cloth to clean it, want to reassure him & replace the ice cream. Exh's immediate response was to call 3 year old a "bloody idiot". Just one of hundreds of possible example. Him moving out just improved our lives about a thousand fold.

He'd also, heaven forbid anyone had a bit of food go down the wrong way, berate them in annoyed/derisive/angry voice for "eating too fast" vs just being concerned. I still have to reassure the kids that it happens to everyone.

Life's too short. It's not cultural - I'm sure most of these men were British born (my exh is white English).

GratuitousSaxandViolins · 30/10/2016 15:02

Just to put a different slant on it from everyone else on here, my DH was very much like this. He used to swear embarrassingly loudly sometimes if he hurt himself in public (eg. he hit his head getting on an aeroplane ) and used to get into rages and throw things across the room like the remote. He hit a hole in the wall once. It sounds awful and yes it did put you on edge but all the good stuff made up for it and I actually worked with him and he got counselling and is ALOT better now (it was linked alot to his childhood and to depression). We have had 2 kids since. I never felt scared or abused because I wasn't. He is a great Dad too. I just knew he had issues and we worked through them. It wasn't plain sailing and I walked out several times.

I suppose the OP has to work out whether he can actually work through his issues (difficult if he doesn't even realise he has them) and whether it is worth the effort to fix.

If the good times outweigh the bad then have a think about how you can work through this. Talk to him and tell him how you feel when he is in a good mood. He has to be willing to admit he has anger issues though and see how it makes you feel.

timelytess · 30/10/2016 15:07

Run.

EmzDisco · 30/10/2016 15:12

It's not about finding someone perfect, but you could aim for someone that doesn't make you feel scared/anxious around them just because they spilt some tea and who at least thinks you deserve a good nights sleep, not to have to lay awake listening to their snoring.

septembersunshine · 30/10/2016 15:21

I don't think he sounds nice at all. Maybe he will explode if pushed and physically hurt you or future children. To be honest op I would really think about if you can trust him. If you can't then I would end the relationship. He sounds really unbalanced and difficult. Can you honestly be happy with someone like that?

AnnaleeP · 30/10/2016 15:35

It all sounds very worrying if I'm honest. You say 90% of the time he's lovely yet that huffy, angry man makes an appearance unpredictably and sometimes scares you. He dismisses your feelings as 'silly' and so now you're posting here because you don't trust your judgement.

Your judgement is fine and I think you know what his behaviour means but you don't yet want to accept it. How about keeping a diary of his outbursts, that way you've got documentary evidence that you're not being unreasonable and when you manage to sit him down and talk calmly about this you've got evidence to back you up. Ultimately if he doesn't accept that he needs to change his ways you're the one that's going to have to be brave and end it.

Original poster

RoseRose217 · 30/10/2016 15:55

We ended up having a massive argument when he came back from his walk about his moods. He acknowledged his moods are not normal or ok and has said he will get counselling to see if he can improve on it. I'm not expecting it to vanish or go away overnight but if he can improve it and continues to try then I'd be happy with that.

OP posts:

ElspethFlashman · 30/10/2016 16:05

I won't hold my breath for the counselling appointment, tbh.

pinkiponk · 30/10/2016 16:10

You haven't been together long and no kids- get out now. You only get one life, don't spend it with an energy sapping child.

Pollyanna9 · 30/10/2016 16:10

Yes, you could try talking to him again but it sounds like you have tried that before.

You could leave him - but you might feel that's a premature decision to be made.

Then there's counselling. There could be some reasons from his childhood for why he gets so overly upset when a day to day run of the mill accident or inconvenience happens could be related to how little errors or 'calamities' were dealt with in his family when he was little. Did they overreact and go off on one or did he have a parent who was super nervy and had a right old panic every time anything happened? Did that make him feel unsafe or anxious when he was little and that happened? Is the anger actually a secondary emotion to the core one which is anxiety from those earlier experiences? Only counselling would figure that out.

I think you've got to pick your time when you talk to him and explain that he may not find it upsetting but you feel you're walking on eggshells, you find it quite upsetting and intimidating and that you find most of these reactions when they do occur to be really excessive in nature based on what has happened each time. Tell him you cannot go on with the relationship like this as it's making you really fed up and that it's even the case that if you were thinking of having kids you'd be worried because of this behaviour. That you love him and you appreciate how he cares for you and treats you at other times but that you absolutely CANNOT tolerate this behaviour any more.

Being an anxiety sufferer since about the age of 8, it took me YEARS to realise why some of my behaviours occurred and why I reacted to things in certain ways - it was all anxiety related. I'm not saying this is the case with your DP, but it could be. I think he'd need to understand more about it for himself, safe in the knowledge that you are there to support him but that it's also a time limited offer - it needs addressing, it needs sorting, talking about it is not enough. You love him and you want him to take this time for himself so that HE feels happier too (because if it is anxiety I would guarantee he's not feeling to happy either and probably finds the outbursts distressing himself).

Ultimately if change can't be made then you revisit how your relationship stands at that point.

CalleighDoodle · 30/10/2016 16:10

Me neither. And i ry do think there has to he a time limitmon how long you wait for him to book them. It has to come from him. If he hadnt done it by the end of this week, he really has no intention of doing so.

pinkiponk · 30/10/2016 16:13

fucksakesusan

Pollyanna9 · 30/10/2016 16:14

lizzieoak you make some really good points/give some really good examples. This sounds like my relationship with DP which was about 5 years long altogether. Example: He turns on the cold tap in the kitchen, it turns on super fast and blasts an arc directly only DD. She screeches (perfectly understandable) and he has a dippy fit. All could have been handled calmly.

Just what an anxious person wants around them, with kids, is someone like this!!

Shudder. Took a while but I've been free of that BS for 5 years now and would NEVER go back to anything like that again.

Offer support, offer help, spell out the consequences of failure and make the offer have a clear deadline because if they can't change, or won't change, nothing will ever get better.

Pollyanna9 · 30/10/2016 16:19

RoseRose - by all means support him but can I reiterate, and this is from bitter, bitter experience. Put a time limit on it. Make it clear it's real not an idle threat that if it doesn't improve you leave.

In the mean time start figuring out HOW you would do that if you had to do it because, sadly, he might not be able to change.

I was 40 when I met DP. I was with him for nearly 5 years. We had some great laughs and we also had some awful times when I should have left him but didn't. At 45 I dumped him but looking back, he had no intention of genuinely addressing the problems he had. It was he's trying, he's gone back to how he was before, he's trying, he's gone back to how he was before, he's trying, he's gone back to how he was before, he's trying, he's gone back to how he was before, he's trying, he's gone back to how he was before, - get the picture, for 5 YEARS.

That's 5 years of my life I'll never get back!

TotallyOuting · 30/10/2016 16:28

He is so not going to go to counselling.

Sniv · 30/10/2016 16:42

I wouldn't stay with someone who scared me. I think feeling safe with your partner in your own home is a minimum requirement - especially if you want children. If you're afraid of him now, imagine how a child would feel.

Adnerb95 · 30/10/2016 16:55

OP: AIBU to think this behaviours is not acceptable and should change?
Most PP: LTB
OP: Are there any other options?

[Answer - yes, it depends on how willing he is to change!]

Good luck OP - hope it gets sorted. You deserve to have all the good bits without this stuff alongside. Both you and he will be so much happier.

Adnerb95 · 30/10/2016 16:56

*behaviour!

EmeraldIsle100 · 30/10/2016 18:41

Rose, your last post was so sad. It is very unlikely that he will go to counselling and if by some miracle he does he will know more than the counsellor and will just continue to be his abusive self. He is not a moody teenager, he is a grown man who is abusing your kind nature.

Don't see owning a home with him as a barrier to ending this relationship, just leave him and find someone who loves you and who would never make you feel scared or worried. His behaviour is not normal, he is a bully and you are his victim. Having cultural differences is not an excuse for being abusive.

I was you a long time ago. I left and it took me a while with counselling and support to realise that his behaviour wasn't my fault and there was nothing I could do to change him.

I know it is scary and you have invested in this relationship but it isn't for you. When I was in your shoes I contacted Women's Aid who told me over and over again that it wasn't my fault and I could not fix it. I saw a counsellor in Women's Aid and I realised that I wasn't alone and it wasn't normal and I got away from my EXH.

Please ring Women's Aid for advice. You are truly not alone, there are so many women in your situation. You don't have to be married with children to contact Women's Aid they offer support to all women in abusive relationships and make no mistake you are in an abusive relationship.

You sound like a lovely person and you deserve to be with someone who is kind and loving. After years of being single by choice I met someone who is so kind it is crazy. He is funny, kind and loving and a great dad to his adult children. He always puts me first. He can be annoying and he is not perfect but he cares about me and never ever scares me.

Please don't make the mistake I made and have children with him. I said in my previous post that his behaviour damaged my children. Most posters have said the same. Listen to them they know what they are talking about. You won't be the exception. You only have one life and don't let him ruin yours. You can be happy.

EmeraldIsle100 · 30/10/2016 18:41

I was you a long time ago. I left and it took me a while with counselling and support to realise that his behaviour wasn't my fault and there was nothing I could do to change him.

EmeraldIsle100 · 30/10/2016 18:43

Apols for posting twice but maybe it will help in some way!

Original poster

RoseRose217 · 30/10/2016 18:56

Thanks for all the nice messages and support.

OP posts:

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