My DP is lovely, and by and large a quiet, peaceful person. However, he does let himself get wound up by little things and is not very good at controlling his frustrations - he needs to let them out verbally, or by stomping about, banging doors etc. This makes me incredibly tense - I grew up around a lot of arguing and tension and I am ridiculously sensitive to it, I also feel personally responsible when people around me get angry or upset and like I have to 'fix' everything for everyone (another by product of my upbringing, or possibly just my nature, I don't know). We often unintentionally wind each other up with this - he just needs to tut and hide and let it out, I can't handle it so get involved trying to solve the problems or cheer him up which gets on his nerves as he feels like he can't express any negative emotion without me jumping on him, etc etc. I am trying to work on not being so disturbed by perfectly normal frustration and to not get involved unless clearly needed or wanted. It's tough, but I try to just go to another part of the flat or concentrate on something else (much easier now we have a very demanding 6 month old baby!).
However, he does get disproportionately wound up when driving. He HATES delays, traffic, getting blocked in, lane hogs etc. Every journey upwards of 30 mins we've ever had has involved him getting angry and upset. And in the car I can't get away or focus on something else. Anything I try to solve the problem (suggesting alternative routes, telling him to calm down as it's not that big a deal, trying to distract him with other topics) makes no difference it makes it worse - he spends the whole journey trying, groaning, swearing under his breath, or shouting, snapping at me for anything I say - my whole nervous system is raw by the time we get wherever we were going, and even before we go now I'm tense as I know what's coming.
I have suggested we don't take the car unless absolutely necessary, and just travel by train instead, but he hates that too because he has no control of things go wrong, annoying people come and sit near him, worries about missing connections, etc etc. Basically he really likes to be in control of his environment. But if you want to travel, you can't realistically do that - he just can't seem to accept it and put up with it! The only times he has ever been incredibly rude to me is when we're in the car, and he never apologises unless I make a massive thing of it as he thinks I should just know he gets stressed out in the dark and not to take it seriously.
The problem is now worse as we have a little girl - she is a very high needs baby and cries a lot unless she is constantly entertained. If the car stops moving is the worst, she gets really ratty and it's hard to stop her crying - so getting stuck in traffic is now doubly awful.
We were on a 3 hour journey yesterday and were stuck in traffic - DP wasn't getting more and more annoyed and baby was crying louder and louder. He suddenly turned to her and shouted "Just SHUT UP!" really loudly, it startled her and made her jump.
I went fucking MENTAL at him, and told him to never ever speak to her like that ever again. But I really don't think he understands why that is just UTTERLY not on - it's one thing him being rude to me, I don't like it but I can stand up for myself - but she's just a tiny baby! I know how frustrating it can be when she won't stop crying, I'm at home with her all day at the moment and it's hard going, I get angry and upset but I don't let it out because it's not really her fault, she's too young to regulate her emotions.
AIBU to really hate this and never want to get in a car with him again? It makes me worry about ever leaving her with him too - it's not that I think he'd do her any harm, but if his frustration threshold is so low he would shout at her for crying on a three hour journey, how could he possibly handle a whole day of her being difficult without getting angry and shouting?
WIBU to refuse to get in a car with him and baby with him driving again? He is by far the better driver of the two of us - I only passed my test in December, have a visual impairment, and am very nervous on the road (never done motorway) but I feel like I should insist on driving us from now on or I can't complain about how he gets when he's driving...
I feel like a bit of an idiot for having a baby with him sometimes - obviously I didn't know I was going to get such a high needs child, but it was a possibility and at the moment I don't feel like I have a co-parent I can trust to give her the love and patience she needs :(