AIBU to think this is more him than me?

[Autumn29]

So i have told a friend about my relationship and they suggested that maybe i was misunderstanding my partner and causing his behaviour.

I believe he is mildly abusive, he calls me a fat cow, bitch, selfish when annoyed at me, he looks on my phone (laptop-history) finding excuses to get onto it and has thrown it at me twice cos i had been confiding in my mom about arguments with him and his behaviour. If i do something he doesn't like i feel im punished by taking the kids out but refuses to say where if i ask or when he will bring them bk. He has also put his fist into my face like he was going to hit me and growled whilst we was arguing, he said he wasn't going to hit me, but i felt like he lost it and was going to but caught himself. He talks negative about my family but wont hear of his family in any negative way.....
the thing is i know i can be difficult to i like to have furniture in the house i like, and i expect a compromise to find something we both like, rather than sometimes excepting things in the house that he likes and i don't. I ask him to do things and make snide comments when he is being lazy. I am used to doing everything for the kids and i hate when he comes home and start interfering. I haven't felt comfortable in a long time to initiate sex with him and i think this maybe why he only initiates it once a year at the same time.

Do you think i could be causing his behaviour because he is insecure and i am not being considerate of that? and it could be worked on? He wants to work on things and it would be the easier option, but i have been planning on leaving as i don't think i can fall bk in love with him. Anyway sorry for waffling but i just keep going around in circles and cud use any advice.

No you're not causing this - he's an abusive piece of shit, and I'd be throwing him out, or leaving myself.

I'm OK thank u. He is being nice atm which is really confusing me. I have made a list of things he has done in the passed to try and understand things better. I keep sweeping between gating him for how he has treated me to thinking I've overreacted and blaming myself xx

OP, if he can put a fist near your face, then he will one day follow through and punch you. Please don't be there to let that happen.

Can you imagine the freedom of buying whatever you want for your house without abuse from him? You can have that. Or being in your house without someone calling you a fat cow, bitch, selfish, lazy? You can have that.

I don't think he wud hit tho cos his family is like it and they've not hit their partner. These events are spaced over four three years so I feel like I'm overreacting. I thjnk I feel so guilty cos I want to leave anyway even if he became lovely, at our best we were always just OK and the thoughts of all those things like having my own space where I can be with my dc and be myself fills me with excitement. I just need to figure out where I cud live when I leave.

Even if you had a crystal ball, and could be sure he would never hit you, he is still abusive and you have every reason to leave.

Let me just run through the things in your OP that leapt out at me (and no doubt others on the thread):

He insults you and calls you demeaning names. More telling, he uses mysoginist terms when insulting you which is very telling of his attitude towards women generally.

He checks up on your messages and online activity. He feels entitled to know everything you're doing and has no respect for your privacy or your rights as an individual.

He tries to isolate you from your family.

He uses anger and threats of violence to remind you of his physical superiority and potential for violence when he feels he needs to bring you back under his control.

He uses the kids to punish and hurt you.

What all that boils down to is that he is, without any doubt in my mind, a controlling abuser. OK he hasn't hit you (and may never) but the line between healthy relationship and abusive relationship is not based on the presence of physical violence. The damage caused to the victim in an abusive relationship is not lessened by the absence of physical violence. The real harm that abusers cause, and that you are currently enduring, is destruction of your self-esteem and confidence and ultimitely denying you the fundamental right to be happy.

You are not happy, very far from it, and he is the cause. You deserve to be happy. Your DCs deserve to have a happy mum. You cannot change him and he will not change because he does not see that he is the problem.

You have two choices:

1. Stay in a relationship with him and do everything you can to be subservient, to appease him, to abdicate all decisions and expectations to him, to become nothing more than an empty shell who's only purpose is to please him and pander to his unjustified sense of entitlement.

1. Break free from him and give yourself a chance at happiness.