Vindictive husband?

[MustBeMadness]

NC for this

Had a row with DH this morning. DD5 was acting up...he turned on me and blamed my lack of discipline with her. DD is a lovely, well-behaved child & I rarely need to correct her. So this morning was one of those rare times when she refused to cooperate when getting ready to leave.

I reacted by ranting back at him - not ideal, but my patience wasn't great (AF cramps, painkillers hadn't kicked in).
Anyway, following this row, I hung out the washing, did the school run and went to work.
I'd brought coffee from home - DH always brews a pot in the morning. This morning, my travel mug had already been filled, so I grabbed it as I left. Got to work and took a sip of coffee to realise my cup contained dirty cold water, instead of coffee.
He's never been vindictive towards me before - passive aggressive sometimes, but never anything that would cause me to mistrust him.
AIBU to treat this as a sign of something very wrong in our marriage? Or am I totally overreacting?

Not so sure it was a practical joke, more a reflection of his feelings toward you this morning.
And why is discipline your sole responsibility? Could he not have intervened?

I don't understand how people are so incapable of reading context.

jeez there are some nasty bastards about, why are women attracted to them?

Book for the OP:

www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/217475-why-does-he-do-that-inside-the-minds-of-angry-and-controlling-men

I get pissed off and angry - I argue with my husband. He argues back. He doesn't indulge in some nasty, sly, purile, 'prank' to let me know what he thinks of my having the temerity to argue with him.

YY mbisnz, and on that point I think this passage from Bancroft's book is particularly relevant:

Your abusive partner doesn't have a problem with his anger; he has a problem with your anger. One of the basic human rights he takes away from you is the right to be angry with him. No matter how badly he treats you, he believes that your voice shouldn’t rise and your blood shouldn’t boil. The privilege of rage is reserved for him alone. When your anger does jump out of you—as will happen to any abused woman from time to time—he is likely to try to jam it back down your throat as quickly as he can. Then he uses your anger against you to prove what an irrational person you are. Abuse can make you feel straitjacketed. You may develop physical or emotional reactions to swallowing your anger, such as depression, nightmares, emotional numbing, or eating and sleeping problems, which your partner may use as an excuse to belittle you further or make you feel crazy.

Put sugar in his sandwiches and when he asks why say "you need sweetening up".
Better yet put rubbish in his lunchbox and when he asks why say "you need fucking binning" xx

That sounds like an unwashed cup filled up with cold water. Not going to harm anyone.

Yeah no-one's said he laced her coffee cup with arsenic FFS - he just got a spiteful vindictive little thrill about her going off to work (after all her chores) with what she thought was a pick me up, warm coffee and instead taking a gulp of water and wondering what the fk had happened (and having to go and buy/make a coffee) when she probably already had enough to do in work.

He's a nasty wee dickhead.

If he had apologised on the text or at lunch time would it have made you feel better?

Assuming this is a case of bad judgement on his part, when you are face to face, calmly explain to him how it made you feel. You thought he'd done a nice thing for you, but it turned out to be a mean trick. Ask him to apologise so you can forgive him and end the matter. If he's a normal person who respects you, he will apologise.

Stick to the matter of the cold water, not the other stuff about parenting your daughter - that's a different issue and possibly needs dealing with in a different way.

If you can't speak to him about this without one or both of you getting angry and precipitating another row, you need to go to counselling to learn how to communicate with each other.

Also, consider the wisdom of asking MN to comment on an isolated incident involving somebody none of us has ever met. People are projecting so much of their own experiences onto yours, it's possibly clouding your judgement. One silly mean prank does not make him an unloveable monster.

Assuming this is a case of bad judgement on his part, when you are face to face, calmly explain to him how it made you feel. You thought he'd done a nice thing for you, but it turned out to be a mean trick. Ask him to apologise so you can forgive him and end the matter. If he's a normal person who respects you, he will apologise.

Within the thread, OP explains that they have indeed met face to face. No, he did not apologise. Far from it.

He followed up the mean prank with patronising , belittling, gas lighting, questioning her mental health. Says a lot.

As does his intolerance for some bad behaviour in his mostly v well behaved child.

As does blaming op for it.

You both sound very petty.

*Okay, so I met him at lunchtime. No apology - he just launched into planning for things that need to be done this afternoon. When I aired my disgust and disappointment in his behaviour, he told me to get over it.

He had a go at me again over this mornings argument. Told me to go lie down as I'm clearly not in my right mind to be so annoyed over the coffee incident.

Lots of cross words and he's gone off to work now. I don't normally make a big deal out of things, but this time I'm really angry and an apology would've gone a long way.*

From OP - page 8

Sorry, bold fail.

Punish the bastard!

Remind him occasionally that he's a snidey piece of work.

Have you hidden my keys? I wouldn't put it past you.

I feel unwell - have you been putting something in my food?

Have you spat in this coffee? Just checking.

And so on.

It wasn't a childish prank. It waa done in nastiness. I'm not frothing or saying ltb but given the information posted by the op it sounds like the relationship is in trouble at the very least. Not sure why some of you aren't seeing that. Read the DH's responses. No hint of humour. Also, he asked her to clear the air at lunch but didn't apologise, just had another go.

I think everyone's being a bit dramatic here. .....my oh once pissed me off so I made myself my favourite lunch and boxed him up the raw ingredients.

Waste of food maybe but it amused me all day

People rarely out of character. They have patterns of behaviour 'set' in childhood that they rarely deviate from. If he has form for this type of spiteful act or its on top of existing emotional abuse I'd see it as a red flag.

We've been married for close to 20 years. DD is our youngest. We have older kids too. I was blamed for discipline issues with DD as she did not respond to his approach (so clearly due to her closeness to me as he sees it).

The coffee cup was clean. I expect he didn't fully empty it before filling it with cold water. He doesn't have form for taking arguments to this extreme. He has capacity to be a really good & caring husband and dad.

We sometimes argue about discipline as he thinks I'm too soft and I think he's too harsh. Arguments have never escalated to this level. Usually if he's in the wrong, he will claim to have apologized at the time, but will not have done. We generally just sort things out and move on.

He desperately wants you to forget and move on. He's gaslighting you into thinking that his behaviour was OK and that you are being unreasonable.

Even more reason to punish him with continual reminders that he has form for nastiness.

If you honestly think it's a one off op then you can work it out. I would just be on guard, if he's not usually like this something is amiss. He really should apologise.

You both sound very petty.

Oh fk I missed the part where she went into his lunchbox, took the filling out of the sandwich, and wrapped it back up so she could have a laugh to herself and teach him a lesson for the argument.

Oh, hold on that cause she didn't do that; or anything.

But maybe she's imagining things - after all he questioned her mental state and told her to lie down, she's clearly a hysterical, petty, crazy woman.

If my DH did something like this, and then behaved in the manner your DH did when I told him how upset and angry I was about it, seriously, I'd be wondering whether there had been some sort of medical event for him to behave so out of character. But then, my DH, will apologise when he's in the wrong. Of course, it's one of the Labours of Hercules to get him to see where he was wrong, sometimes. . .

Usually if he's in the wrong, he will claim to have apologized at the time, but will not have done

So he's a liar/gas lighter who can't apologise and take responsibility for his actions.

Too late for FizzyGreenWater's excellent advice but perhaps you can use the sentiment of it to make clear to him that the problem is his expectation of subordination and his anger when he is not obeyed. If he can accept that you are equals, great...but it is not looking promising.

There is a massive difference if roles were reversed here as other posters have suggested: women are the ones at most risk of violence in heterosexual relationships. It isn't 2 men killed by women every week, it's the other way round. I am not a man hater but I think more men hate women than we really admit to. I think this man is one of them.

To the PP who said it's not about the coffee it's about the intent behind it. We DON'T KNOW the intent behind it, everyone just projects based on their own experience and assumptions. Hence the variety of responses, from LTB to that's silly.

We don't even know what he actually said in the original row and what OP replied. We certainly don't know their tone of voice or body language etc.

What a childish cockwomble, the least you deserve is an apology