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?

He's admitted it was childish, wants to clear the air and has asked me to come home for lunch and a proper cup of coffee. I feel like punching him in the face right now (jk)

Vindictive is the word. The fact that he didn't even regret it later and message you to warn you. The fact that he hasn't apologised. That is not the way you treat someone you love.

@Gruzinkerbell isn’t it just !

I think him giving you a dressing down over parenting your child in front of her is way out of line. I’d be more likely to leave someone over that, as it is his way of a) deliberately or subconsciously delegating one of the hardest parts of parenting and b) it is actively disrespectful.

The coffee thing is utterly pathetic.
I personally would have said nothing about it, unless upon him owning up to kicking his arse.

Don’t look at yourself for why he is like this. You won’t find any answers there.

Wonder what he has planned for the dd who was misbehaving (in his eyes)?

Oh,I like the text reply to you. I would find that quite funny.! I would say it's just a storm in a teacup !!

What are you going to do? I honestly don’t know how I’d move past that

Talk to him. You’ve now lost trust in his capacity to care for you. I’ve been furious with DP countless times and yet have never felt the need to mess with any food or drink I prepared for him. Wouldn’t cross my mind as I still loved him, I was just angry at his behaviour.

1forAll74.

I'm not sure a mug of cold water calls for a divorce and to lable someone sinister 😳

Go home and have lunch with him and see what he says. Ifthis is out of character and he realises it was completely out of order and is apologetic then move on from it. Maybe he was trying to be funny but missed the mark.

Are you going to meet him for lunch? I'd probably wait until you calm down a bit.

Childish yes but also mean and sly.

So it WAS on purpose? Vile. Just vile. Don't meet him for lunch.

He’s admitted it was childish but has he actually said sorry to you yet?

I wouldn't meet him.

What's the rest of your relationship like? If this is the tip of the iceberg then it's serious. As a one off, he needs to know how totally unacceptable it was and that you will not stand for that shit.

No, I wouldn't be going home for lunch or anything else with him.

I'd send a text along the following lines:

'I'm not sure there is really any air to be cleared here to be honest, and I certainly don't feel like spending time together at the moment. I think I might be better off doing some thinking by myself for now, and maybe the same goes for you.

What you did this morning was pretty disturbing. If someone described that to me I would have said, before today, that you wouldn't be capable of doing something so pointlessly vindictive and nasty. The fact that you did something like this to 'punish' me for having the temerity to disagree with you over a situation is nothing short of controlling and abusive. I'll leave aside for now the sheer creepiness of knowing you have a partner in your home who would cross this kind of line. I never thought I would have to watch my back in my own home. What a surprise.

Oh and finally. Our DD's behaviour is great. Utterly great. She's a lovely child and I'm proud of the way I'm bringing her up. The fact that she occasionally has a temper tantrum and disobeys means that she's a normal 5 year old. Whether her father's behaviour can now be called normal for a middle aged man is something else again.

Don't call me. I'll be doing my thinking on my own today.'

Imagine what he's doing to your stuff that you don't know about.

This is what I thought too.

So he had no tolerance for a child who's generally very well behaved acting up, he blames you immediately for it,.and in spite of you going on and doing chores etc before going to work where you'd be perked up and comforted by the hit coffee you expected, he spitefully filled it with cold water so you'd think it had been filled with coffee, get an unpleasant and disappointing shock drinking it later, and presumably went away quite smug and happy with himself. He didn't even feel sorry when you asked him, just essentially bsaid you were at fault, you deserved it (presumably cause you dared to talk back when he attached your parenting when he couldn't take an occasional bit of acting up from his daughter) ....

He might be being more conciliatory now, but his actions all round make him look like a bit of a nasty c*nt.

• attacked

Horrified

But even if he didn’t do it on purpose and it was a complete accident, the very fact that you think your husband is capable of such nasty awful behaviour speaks volumes about the state of your marriage

So it was kind of orangey, and it tasted faintly of coffee. It wasn’t scooped up out of the toilet after he’d done a piss was it? I’d put a tenner on it being pissy bog water OP. I really don’t like the sound of it either way. I also don’t like the thought of being married to a malicious little twat who puts pissy toilet water in my coffee cup because I objected to him having a pop. Sounds like a right catch.

It's not a great thing to do, and I would be pissed off about it in the best of times, let alone when suffering with AF cramps etc. Not sure however, without further context / history of PA behaviour, whether it can be labelled sinister, or be grounds for divorce / leaving for a few days.

This is one of those things that could escalate IF you don't communicate properly. Go home for lunch, talk about it, explain how you're feeling, and that it's not ok for him to discipline YOU over YOUR discipline (or what he thinks is a lack thereof). If he engages in the conversation then hopefully you can put it behind you and move forward. If he tries to make excuses / justifies his behaviour / doesn't admit any wrongdoing at all, you may have bigger problems.

Please do not send a novel of a text message.

Maybe he was trying to be funny but missed the mark.

No he wasn't. He was being spiteful.

A hard working mum, pressed with shitloads to do in the morning,braking what she thinks is a comforting, energising coffee with her to work and getting a mouthful of manky cold water instead - is not funny, not really in any universe. And the fact that the "prank" happened on the back of an argument ... No.

• taking

the very fact that you think your husband is capable of such nasty awful behaviour speaks volumes about the state of your marriage

Well no, it speaks volumes about the character of her husband. The state of the marriage is a related issue. Even if their marriage were in a bad state, this wouldn't have happened if her husband's character wasn't spiteful, immature, nasty etc.