AIBU ref DH shouting?

[aibuaboutshouting]

Regular poster, NC for obvious reasons.

DH and I married 10 months. Aged 35 and 36. Together 5 years. Best mates for 20 years. Male infertility factors mean no DC or prospect of them.

TL:DR manchild tantrums scare the shit out of me even though they are not directed at me. WWYD? AIBU to be concerned?

He has tantrums. Proper stamping of feet tantrums. Over all sorts of minor things.. Always has done since we were teenagers. His anger control is pathetic and he can go from zero to explosive in a few minutes and winds himself up unnecessarily. He's incapable of calming down once he's off - everything becomes catastrophic.

Example from this week: gets out of bed moaning about how tired he is because of a crap night's sleep in the heat, stubs toe, swears loudly. Drops toothpaste in bathroom. Loud swearing. Knocks shampoo in shower, cue outrage of "its going to be one of those fucking days" and a rant about how nothing in his life goes right. Stomps back into bedroom, moaning loudly about how dreadful his life is and how nothing is gping to go right today. Throws towel on floor, trips on towel, kicks towel, rants and raves more. Dresses in a strop, stomps downstairs, coffee machine overflows, kicks ten bells out of kitchen cupboard door, ranting and raving about how everything is out to get him and how shit everything is. Stamps back up to bedroom, throws towel back in room on to bed next to me and and stamps downstairs again. Makes coffee and toast, goes to work like nothing has happened. Phones me 4 hours later to apologise for his behaviour, interspersed with lots of "buts" but being tired and how nothing ever goes right.

As this happens, dog is left cowering in back garden. I'm sat shaking in bed (I go to work after him).

This sort of thing happens at least once a month.

AIBU that this is not normal? I don't know how to get this across any other way - he doesn't see the issue, as he's "not shouting AT anyone".

OP, please don’t take this the wrong way as I do believe your DH has serious issues and I would not want to live like that, but please please consider rehoming your dog.

You are staying with your DH through choice, and are actually on here because you know his outbursts are not right, your poor dog doesn’t have that same choice or knowledge and if he/she is left cowering in the garden for the duration of one of his tantrums it’s just not right. That poor little dog.

I’m sorry- I’m not trying to have a go, I just really feel for the poor dog in this situation.

I do show him the dog. Every time. I point it out. Every time. As you say perhaps that will hit home quicker. He's a huge animal lover normally, but is still adamant that because he's not yelling AT either of us, we're both over reacting.

Dog isn't good with any raised voices. We think it was from her previous home.

You say this as if your dog used to live in a bad home but not anymore. I've got some news for you - your dog is living in a bad home with an abusive owner RIGHT NOW.

Thing is, you could have children. You could bring them into a lovely home, with a gentle man, if you left and found one. You have about five years of having a reasonable chance of conceiving. Ok, no guarantees but a decent chance.

You sound a bit like you've backed yourself into a corner, via the sunken costs fallacy. It's all 'well given I've already made x, y, z decision, I can now only choose between yz and zz options'. When actually, if you stepped back and re-thought things, you could choose a, b or c.

He's a huge animal lover normally

He's really not.

Thanks ladies. Lots of food for thought. I'm not at home this week as I'm working away, so I need to get my head straight and come up with some plans.

Thanks again.

To put it another way, if you were, in three years time, in a good relationship with someone calm and kind and had a baby together... would you look back and say 'no, I really wish I could set this life aside and go back and dedicate myself to shouty man, for the rest of my life.'

As I say with me it’s not so extreme, it’s usually a couple of things happen and I will snap a bit - maybe shout for fucks sake or something and then i become tearful - not stamping and screaming but similar enough that it could be a stronger version of the same? Not saying it is definitively of course!

And hubby seems okay, he gets frustrated sometimes but we are very open communicators and that helps. The severity is also very different, I came off meds a couple of years ago and was mostly okay but then had a little one and got PND and became even worse (never infront of babe!) but now getting better again

My exhusband was exactly the same, I put up with it to a certain point, but when he screeched at DS1, who was 5 at that point, for ruining his Sunday lunch by crying at the table, he threw his lunch in the bin and had the mother of all tantrums! He would have them about the most ridiculous things, even the kids crying in bed, we have a disabled son and he couldn’t cope with that. I always thought that these trantrums were down to the fact that he was the youngest of three boys, there is a 12 year age gap between him and his oldest brother, he was babied and mollycoddled by his neurotic mother, his older brothers were very very successful in their chosen careers, and he felt inadequate, he was inadequate as a husband and father!

YANBU to suddenly realise that something you thought you could live with is actually something you can't live with. We all make mistakes and some of them are big ones, we just have to face up to them and take the consequences.

I think you might be being unreasonable to frame this as some sort of problem of his rather than yours though. If he's been doing this for at least 20 years and it hasn't escalated or morphed into violent action or become something he aims at people then it sounds like it's a stress relief coping mechanism for him that has been effective. If you aren't able to live with it I think you need to frame it as your problem in not recognising your needs rather than something that's wrong with him.

If you want to keep him you need to insist on anger management classes. Making things worse is how he deals with problems.
He can learn another way if he wants to.
Tell him that he is terrorizing you and the pets. He needs to know that he is making you afraid of him through his extreme reactions to small inconveniences.

My exP was EXACTLY like this and he too was ex army.

He would get so angry at the most ridiculous things. We split 4 years ago and I know he married someone last year.

I had a lucky escape.

@aibuaboutshouting - I think you need to be absolutely clear with this man - tell him that his temper outbursts scare you and upset you a lot. Tell him that you do not accept hit ‘not shouting AT anyone’ excuse, and that you are no longer willing to be his verbal punch bag, and he needs to find a better way to cope with life’s petty irritations, and that, if he can’t, he mustn’t expect you to be willing to carry on as you are for much longer.

Bluntly - give him an ultimatum - he needs to wise up, accept he is hurting you, and decide to change - he needs to seek help with his temper, and learn better ways to deal with irritants - otherwise you will be leaving him.

What happens when you get angry? Or is that not allowed? Is he getting off on the fact that there are no consequences for him for his outbursts, you and the dog cower, he offloads and upsets you, dumps all his anger and emotion on you and then moves on?

If you were to tell him angrily to stop behaving like a toddler, stop spoiling your morning, and that you were taking the dog for a walk because neither of you want to be in the house with him in that mood, what do you think would happen?

My DH is exactly the same OP - although in fairness, the dog completely ignores him, as do our adult DDs. It's just something that happens - a side of him I don't like at all, but it is a very very small part that thankfully makes it liveable with.

I do find that ignoring it is the best way. Next time he does it, grab the dog and get out of the door. Don't talk to him, don't make eye contact and don't engage whatsoever. Once you take the reaction away, you may find it subsides enormously. If he questions you after, you say "I don't need to see the man I love acting like a child, and it is really making me question our relationship". It's all done for attention, and at the moment, you're giving it to him.

Nip this in the bud

It seems to continue flower and reseed. We're well past budding stage.

OP, I would listen to your dog's reactions. You say it's because the dog was badly treated elsewhere but dogs are good at reading our body language and working out our true signals. The dog knows you're scared and I think s/he senses this is justified. I'd get out.

I'm going to go against the flow a bit here- my DH has had form for this type of outburst directed at inanimate objects and prompted by small irritations.

A number of things have occurred to me during our 10+ years together:

• it's very triggering for me when he has a rant. Once I realised this I was able to articulate how it made me feel and that it was irrelevant that it wasn't directed at me.

• I changed the way i responded to the tantrums. Instead of trying to fix things for him I let myself say what I was thinking- which was either 'ffs pull your shit together and stop behaving like a child' or a bit of loudness myself. I did tell him I was going to try out different ways of responding (I've been in therapy, can you tell!) And in fairness to him he understood that we both get to have a reaction- he can't expect passivity from me.

• it was part of a wider issue for him around how to express frustration, sadness, upset etc and depression and anxiety also in the mix. He decided to see a therapist a while a go and I've noticed a marked difference.

So my advice is that your OH needs to hear, at a point when he's calm and rational, what effect his temper has on you. That it doesn't matter that it isn't directed at you. That he may find that you start responding differently when it happens. That he needs to work on dealing with this stuff differently too.

And it's the last one that is the biggest - if he's willing to consider the impact he's having, if he can talk about it without multiple excuses for his behaviour thrown in and he agrees to work to change then you guys could get past this. If he doesn't then only you can decide if you stick around or make the break.

I did realise I missed a lot in my response facepalm but I meant to add that though I internalise more, some of what he says seems similar to what I feel when I have an episode - even though I have an amazing husband, beautiful baby boy, nice home and no money issues... when I have a breakdown everything feels hopeless and like the world is out to get me. It’s completely irrational and all the little things become disproportionate - and even though I know this, even as it happens, I can’t stop myself. And it always starts with a feeling of deep anger, at whatever silly thing happened and then at myself and then I become tearful. But with me the anger is short lived, perhaps not with your other half.

That is why I think it’s worth at least exploring the possibility of depression. If he is generally a loving kind husband then you don’t want to throw it all away if it is to do with his mental illness and could be rectified with the help of a doctor.

Please note, I’m not in anyway condoning the behaviour as it is extreme, just trying to see if my experiences could help in anyway

If he behaved like this in front of his peer group in the army, he would most likely get a serious episode of piss taking or a kicking, if it was really OTT. I would guess he knows this and takes his frustrations out at home. He may be making the lives of more junior armed forces personnel a complete and utter misery and be getting away with it, because like you they are too scared of retribution to challenge or report him.

Does he have a history of PTSD from combat stress? It is a recognised position in the armed forces that men suffering from combat stress often come back home and behave aggressively and violently towards their wives and family. After Afghanistan veterans finished a tour of duty, which was highly stressful, most were taken to Cyprus for a two week debrief. They were marched around to restore military discipline and given lots of physical exercise tempered with "Rest and Recuperation/ sunshine" before coming back to join their wives and children. There were good reasons for this, it is now acknowledged that there are often high levels of domestic violence in armed forces personnel returning from stressful postings.

There may be some help available from the forces. You might talk to the families officer about his behaviour as this should be confidential. This might help to find a route into highlighting concerns to his chain of command, if he is also behaving badly at work.

You need to bear in mind that if he kicks off and becomes physically violent towards you, the consequences might well be serious. He will no doubt be bigger and stronger than you, with experience in close combat. Soldiers are trained to kill, make no mistake.

You need to have a contingency plan in place to get the f* out of your home if there is any indication that a physical attack on you is imminent. Have a bag packed in the car and enough money secreted to pay for a Travel Lodge, take the dog to kennels and just go.

"And it's the last one that is the biggest - if he's willing to consider the impact he's having, if he can talk about it without multiple excuses for his behaviour thrown in and he agrees to work to change then you guys could get past this. If he doesn't then only you can decide if you stick around or make the break."

@Madamswearsalot is right - this is exactly what I was saying - only less clearly and concisely - in my last post.

“He's not been hauled up for insubordination because he keeps enough of a grip of himself to not do anything to piss off a senior officer, I imagine. Men like this can control themselves; they choose not to at times”

This.

Anger management classes will not help. HE doesn’t have problems with his anger , otherwise he would have sought help. It’s YOU who has the problem with his anger. And if you have been putting up with it for 5 years I can’t think why he would change now.

Why are you giving up your changes of motherhood for a man who abuses you ? You have years to meet someone decent and have a baby with them.

Many women who have not TTC before get pregnant very quickly at your age. All the doom and gloom statistics you read are for women who have been TTC for years - the chances of them suddenly getting Pg at 40 are very low. It’s not the same for women who have never TTC and then start trying on their late 30s.

What a bloody awful waste of your life it would be for you to give up your chance to have children in order to be permanently miserable with a man who doesn't give enough of a shit about you to even try changing his behaviour. He doesn't even admit he's wrong - he tells you and that you (and your poor dog) are 'overreacting' - that's the response of an arrogant selfish bastard who expects to behave whatever way he wants and for everyone else to just put up with it. Why would you bother?

My FIL isn't nearly as bad as this but he is a moody fucker who expects to be able to behave as rudely as he wants and for everyone else to just take it. My MIL is nearly 70 and is now facing the end of her life knowing she could have been happy but wasn't because he never let her be. It's just awful. Funnily enough he is on his absolute best behaviour around me because I don't put up with him for one single second - there is no way I would ever cater to a grown man's tantrums - what a fucking arse you have to be to expect anyone to do that!