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?

You're being abused

Get rid asap

Don't have any children with him
Kids are unpredictable and annoying he won't cope

I sadly don't think the op is ready to hear it. Hopefully she will be one day.

I think that it can be easy w the hindsight of hard-won experience to say ltb, but when you're in that situation it is not usually likely an Internet board is going to cause an overnight conversion. She loves him, she's stressed, he's been manipulating her w his insistence that it's not a problem, he doesn't snore, she's choosing to be upset etc. Give her time to let all the input settle. And even then we can only look on & say we hope she's okay.

You are right Lizzie. It is just awful to watch someone being treated so badly. I wish more than anything that MN had existed when I was going through something very similar to OP. I would loved to have had easy access to advice back then as I know now with hindsight that leaving an abusive relationship is the best option and can be done.

Like you say it is up to the OP to make the decision but hopefully she will realise that other women know what she is going through and that leaving is a possibility.

My first husband was like this. One of the reasons we were only married for 15 months. Honestly, I left and felt like I could fly, it was so lightening to have left all those moods and aggression.
My second husband really isn't like that.

Rose are the vast majority of messages that say you will have a hell of a life if you stay with this abusive man not "nice" ?

If you have kids with this man, you'll be back asking why he's so vile and grumpy with them all the time.

@anyfucker - I was thanking those that responded to my question.

All I was asking for today was AIBU to request that he tries to address it. Thank you to the posters who have answered my question and helped me talk it through and organise my thoughts.

You will completely ignore anything that does not fall within the strict parameters of your "question" then ?

That would be a mistake

Hmm.. feeling a little judgemental today?

Whenever I read threads like this I always want to ask whether the dp in question behaves like this at work.

Rose... anyfucker is one of the wisest posters on mn.

It's horrible living with someone who is moody, aggressive and either currently or potentially abusive. Read lundys types of male abusers, there's a sticky in relationships. Why should you live your life putting up with these kinds of moods?

Hills. And run. I've had to do it. Unfortunately with kids,much better without. All the best

I am judging your partner, yes. And you are doing the "fingers in the ears, la la la" thing. Everybody who has warned you about his behaviour has learned these lessons the hard way. Are they being "judgemental" too ?

Anyfucker may not mince her words, but I haven't seen a post from her that was wrong yet. She (and others on here) helped me turn my life around. OP I have been where you were and felt defensive like you are now but think about it awhile, maybe your dp will get counselling, maybe he won't, maybe he'll go and come back, say it was rubbish and he's fine and doesn't need to go anymore. We will still be here when you come back, sadly I'm sure you will come back, but in the meantime don't even consider starting a family with this man until there has been some change in his behaviour

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?

The best advice my mother gave me (and she gave me great advice) was marry a man whose faults you can live with.

So can you?

Can you live with the huffing and puffing and putting himself first and expecting you to go without sleep because he snores but likes you in his bed? (that is literally what he said to you - "I snore, I want you in my bed, I don't care if you can't sleep, you don't deserve a nights' sleep if it affects what I want". My dh says "I'm so sorry" when he snores)

Can you really?

If you can, great. go for it. Although you might want to reflect on the posts of people whose FATHERS were like your partner before bringing children into the mix.

My dh has his flaws, as do I. His flaws don't make me ignore my needs and wants. His flaws don't make him think he is number 1 and I am number "do what number 1 wants". Because that is what you are.

so I should just accept the snoring and learn to go to sleep with it since he doesn't want me sleeping in another room

The snoring thing you described is the worst thing you have said imo. He basically has said you don't matter. Your sleep doesn't matter. What matters is that he sleeps, he snores and he has a woman in his bed. He is telling you who he is.

My dh is very like this. He'll stub his toe and be slamming cupboards for an hour and sulking about it. His uni room had a hole in the wall where he'd punched it in frustration at something. He doesn't see it as a problem. We had a couple of incidents when our baby was first born. The first time he was tired and the baby was refusing to sleep except on one of us, mainly me as i was off work and breastfeeding and trying to preserve his sleep as he had to go out to work. It was the middle of the night and I put baby down on the next2me to use the loo and baby started crying. I heard him talking trying to soothe the baby but walked in too see him slam his hand on the mattress by her saying just shut up ok? I calmly picked her up and told him it was unacceptable and he needed to get sorted as I wouldn't stick around for that. The second time she was wiggling and fighting not to go to sleep and managed to head butt him in the nose. He yelled and punched the headboard. After that I took her off him and yelled at him to get out which he did. When we had all calmed and she was asleep I then opened a calm conversation and explained to him he'd scared her and did he want to be ' that dad'? He at first refused to admit there was a problem and then went quiet and said no he didn't want her to be scared of him. I told him that it was 3 strikes and you're out and that he was on his second. Since then he has been great, in front of her at least. Kids can change people. Though I wouldn't suggest trying that one to make him change....

rosea

If anyone laid one finger on my baby they would be out never mind three strikes and you're out!

He never touched her. And never would. And you are right, if he had done that would have been it.

My stepdad is like this. He is a good and kind man in lots of ways, but his moods, overreactions, huffs and outbursts have (over the years) turned my mum into an overanxious mess and alienated all but a few of their friends. One of the things I find very difficult is that he chooses to act this way with certain people and not others - fine to be shitty with mum and her family but never with my stepsister, or certain friends.

I'd think very carefully OP about whether you want to live that way. My mum has quite a strong, fun personality- she won't tolerate his attempts to be controlling, but she definitely moderates her behaviour and walks on eggshells all the time. We visit them very rarely as last time we were there he started getting snappy and shitty with my 3 year old which I won't tolerate. He has sulked and huffed and ruined numerous family occasions for my poor mum.

I just think your DP's behaviour is going to get worse, not better. Try pulling him up on it every time - his reaction will be telling, I'll bet.

Try to open your eyes to it and think about how you are responding to him and how it's making you feel. Life is too short to be unhappy.

Rosa, I hope his "3rd strike" doesn't hurt your baby, even "accidentally"

Punching objects near a baby is putting that child at risk. The rebound could roll her off the bed. It could topple a bedside lamp onto her face. He could mistime and punch her instead

You are far too tolerant of your husband's violence. You may live to regret that

Emerald, I wish this had been here for me, too, back in the day. But I also know that I was so rattled by my ex's strops, shouting, gaslighting, etc, that I would not have been able to change from figuring out if it was him or me being unreasonable to saying 'MN is right, I must ltb'.

I just worry we'll put her off & if she feels too judged she might scarper.

I'll bet this is sinking in, she just needs to granted time to process.

My ex husband was like yours. Very huffy and puffy....in the end it makes you feel very anxious and that is a horrible way to live.
Thankfully we broke up before we had kids,it's heartbreaking to think of kids living in that situation. Trying not to make Daddy cross etc.

Get him to read "the chimp paradox"

My Dp is exactly like this been with him 1 year, i ask him to close a door and he gets angry becuase he is clearly on the phone and so wouldn't be able to, even though he can do a million other things onthe phone, but it wasnt his idea so he gets angry. He isn't a morning person either and it's always my fault for trying to wake him up to go to work, all i did was say the time once, but i was mithering and its my fault he is in a mood. He is violent too, every bin in the house is dented because of his moods, he has broke things that i have had for years and goes through a pair of headphones every month. He was always threatening to leave too and sometimes i said he should but then he says he would never leave because he loves me so much.

This is why social services have removed me from the household, because i had a baby 2 months ago the midwife came round just after an incident and i was crying, all these stories spilled out, she confirmed it was emotional abuse - i would never have had a child with him if i knew what he was like( i got pregnant as soon as the relationship started, but thats another story) the longer i am at my mums house the more i realise how bad it was, i was crying every day because of his moodiness.

Everytime i take baby to see him he manages to blame me for the situation and tells me how hard it is to not see her and makes me feel bad but he insists that he wants me back even though he feels i have treated him so horribly, i have pointed out his unreasonable behaviour in many discussions and he keeps insisting that he will change but he never lets go of the past and we have the same discussion over and over again about how hard it was to live together, him saying it was my fault for him being so stressed because the house was never tidy, and i point out that it was never tidy because we never took the time and he would insist on going out somewhere rather than actually take the time to tidy.

We met at work and he is the same way there and has come so close to losing his job several times over it.

Please see that it is no way to live and you need to leave.