DH just apologised

[TheBells]

For something that happened over a year ago. The apology came up during a discussion which brought back memories of 'the incident', and honestly, for the entire time from then until today I've been wondering whether or not I was just being too sensitive. Tonight, he told me that he was entirely in the wrong. I'm interested to know who the MN jury would deem as guilty in this case. (Name changed to avoid any bias).

So around December 2018 DH had severe stomach pain, called 111 and was advised to go to A&E. He was anxious, and asked if I would go with him. We have twins, who at the time were five and a bit months old. Normally I wouldn't mention my twins for fear of being called a troll but I believe it's relevant in this context. MIL had been staying with us for Christmas. DH asked me to come with him to the hospital and leave DTs with MIL. Now she's not the worst person in the world, but she is on many medications and prone to epileptic seizures. Despite this, for some crazy reason, I decided to answer DH's plea for help and left sleeping DTs with her. It was quite late at night so I hoped they would just sleep through, and in fairness, they did.

DH became very grumpy when we were waiting at the hospital. I was trying to engage him in playing silly games on the phone or to chat about shit to take his mind off things. Yet, he said I had a face like a slapped arse. He was annoyed whenever I asked him to check in with his mother to see if the babies were okay. He told me he wished he never asked me to come, because I'd been so anxious the whole time and not focused on him as much as he would have wanted. After being diagnosed with kidney stones, I drove him back home in the early hours, babies were fine, I was exhausted, end of story. But since then, I felt bad for 'behaving' that way at the hospital.

Tonight, during a discussion, he recalled that time, and told me that he was sorry for being such a dick. That he should have understood that I was anxious about my young babies, and that he was lucky I stayed with him not just in A&E but in general after the fact.

What's the verdict? Should I have LTB? Did he need to apologise or did I? Were we both in the wrong? One thing I do know for sure is that if I was ever put in the same position again, I would choose to stay with my babies.

Poor concussed chicken

I read the whole thread and I still think that the situation in the hospital was not unusual except that the OP was over anxious about leaving the kids and wouldn't text MIL herself.

I don't understand the deliberate drip feeding but I'm pleased for OP that she's getting out of an unhappy / abusive relationship.

@tearstainedbakes because abusive relationships mess with your head and make you doubt and question everything. So when he apologised out of the blue, it made her wonder why, and if in fact she had been to blame.

When you are to blame for everything, when you love walking on egg shells and constantly managing someone else's emotions in case they lose it with you, you lose sense of what is normal.

tbh op I think you were being a bit of a dick

your dh is in pain and not well so you take him to a&e and then send the whole time concentrating on checking up on his mother looking after the twins - id be stressed more by you and added to the pain want you to go away..

okay... further information not read, so he's abusive ltb

[quote BreathlessCommotion]@tearstainedbakes because abusive relationships mess with your head and make you doubt and question everything. So when he apologised out of the blue, it made her wonder why, and if in fact she had been to blame.

When you are to blame for everything, when you love walking on egg shells and constantly managing someone else's emotions in case they lose it with you, you lose sense of what is normal.[/quote]
Oh I get that, I've lived it. I just don't understand the logic of hiding part of the story from posters and drip feeding deliberately.

If I'd mentioned the abuse in my OP, posters would have no doubt factored it in to their opinions and responses. I just wanted a plain and simple review of the situation with no bias.

Well I suppose the point has been proven because anyone commenting on your OP has been firmly told to RTFT so that their minds would be changed. Interesting.

Best of luck with your plans

I do understand the impulse to take one little bit out of the picture and say "okay but is this bit abusive?", especially when you're trying to convince yourself it's not. I have been there myself.

But I think there is still a lot about the situation which is very clearly getting in the way of your ability to see it, or even present it for others to see it. Mainly that you mentioned the part where he went on at you for months about it as an afterthought, as though it wasn't really the main issue, when to most people a one-off argument when one person was in pain would be understandable but months of berating afterwards would be an entirely different thing. And that berating being not about "you kept trying to distract me/get me to phone MIL when I was in pain" as many posters interpreted it, but actually "you weren't devoting 100% of your attention to me because you were worried about the babies," takes it up yet another level.

Like I said I really do understand the impulse to take one little bit and break off all the extra, messy background so it doesn't look that bad, and present it to people without that context so maybe mayyyyybe they'll say he's not so bad after all. I think many of us have been there. But it didn't give me any useful information about the situation I was actually in, and I don't think it will do for you either.

@GoldenOmber that made so much sense and I know exactly what you mean. That's the thing I haven't been able to put my finger on. Thank you, so much.

To everybody else, I apologise for the drip feeding. It was intentional, but the intention was wrong and I probably could have found a better way to ask what I needed to ask.

Thanks all.

@TheBells

If I'd mentioned the abuse in my OP, posters would have no doubt factored it in to their opinions and responses. I just wanted a plain and simple review of the situation with no bias.

But we need the background to accurately assess. ❤️

"I'm not asking if I should be upset that he was grumpy. I'm asking if anybody else would have taken kindly to those kinds of accusations when you're doing your best in a difficult situation. And not just on the night. He went on about it for months afterwards. I was doing the best I could. I missed my babies and I was worried about my husband. Thankfully, all was well in the end."

It's the going-on-about-it part that's the problem - not his behaviour on the night. If it was only on the night, I'd say (given it was kidney stones) that pretty much any kind of poor behaviour was understandable.

But I can't see how going on and on about it for months afterwards is excusable. He sounds more like someone trying to exploit an unfortunate situation to get leverage than someone who is genuinely trying to work through a legitimate grievance and get to a better place.

Haha this is how my DH talks to me if he's a bit tired.

I know your half joking but honestly you can't really think he was unreasonable to snap when he was very poorly. Do you expect perfectionism all the time?

Omg I think I might have just posted without reading the fill thread. I hate people who do that. So sorry OP, I will.not rtft

A further apology as I now have full context. I don't know what to say really, abusive men are often charming and it seems he's in a charming phase.

What is he having therapy for?

@CutToChase PTSD and depression. I was treated for PTSD with EMDR, and that was tough, so I know it's not an easy road to recovery. I've always been on his side and tried my best to be supportive. But I've gotten to the point now where I can't blame his condition for the way he treats me and DC. And despite that seeming so obvious, it actually took a lot of sessions with my CBT therapist to accept that.

My husband has depression, a emotionally neglectful childhood and possibly ASD. These factors do explain some of his behaviours towards me over the years, however whatever the cause or the reason, the impact on me was still abusive. And the fact that he only "realised" and was willing to apologise and change when I said I was leaving.

Maybe it is depression and PTSD contributing, but the effect on you is the same. And over time that behaviour changes your feelings and responses to that person. For me, no matter how much dh apologises or changes, I will always be scared of him, always be waiting for him to turn back into the old him. And that's no way to live in a relationship.

THE MENTALLY ILL OR ADDICTED ABUSER

This last category is not actually separate from the others; an abusive man of any of the aforementioned styles can also have psychiatric or substance-abuse problems, although the majority do not. Even when mental illness or addiction is a factor, it is not the cause of a man's abuse of his partner, but it can contribute to the severity of his problem and his resistance to change. When these additional problems are present, it is important to be aware of the following points:

1. Certain mental illnesses can increase the chance that an abuser will be dangerous and use physical violence. These include paranoia, severe depression, delusions or hallucinations (psychosis), obsessive-compulsive disorder, and antisocial personality disorder known as psychopathy or sociopathy). These psychiatric conditions also make it next to impossible for an abuser to change, at least until the mental illness has been brought under control through therapy and/or medication, which can take years. Even if the mental illness is properly treated, his abusiveness won't necessarily change.

1. An abuser's reactions to going on or off medication are unpredictable. A woman should take extra precautions for her safety at such a time. Abusers tend to go off medication before long—I have had few clients who were consistent and responsible about taking their meds in the long term. They don't like the side effects, and they are too selfish to care about the implications of the mental illness for their partners or children.

1. The potential danger of a mentally ill abuser has to be assessed by looking at the severity of his psychiatric symptoms in combination with the severity of his abuse characteristics. Looking at his psychiatric symptoms alone can lead to underestimating how dangerous he is.

1. Antisocial personality disorder is present in only a small percentage of abusers but can be important. Those who suffer from this condition lack a conscience and thus are repeatedly involved in behaviors that are harmful to others. Some signs of this condition include: (a) He started getting into illegal behavior when he was still a teenager; (b) his dishonest or aggressive behavior involves situations unrelated to his partner, rather than being restricted to her; (c) he periodically gets into trouble at workplaces or in other contexts for stealing, threatening, or refusing to follow instructions and is likely to have a considerable criminal record by about age thirty, though the offenses may be largely minor ones; (d) he is severely and chronically irresponsible in a way that disrupts the lives of others or creates danger; and (e) he tends to cheat on women a lot, turn them against each other, and maintain shallow relationships with them. The psychopath's physical violence is not necessarily severe, contrary to the popular image, but he may be very dangerous nonetheless. Antisocial personality disorder is very difficult to change through therapy, and there is no effective medication for treating it. It is highly compatible with abusiveness toward women.

1. Those who suffer from narcissistic personality disorder have a highly distorted self-image. They are unable to accept that they might have faults and therefore are unable to imagine how other people perceive them. This condition is highly compatible with abusiveness, though it is present in only a small percentage of abusive men. Clues to the presence of this disorder include: (a) Your partner's self-centeredness is severe, and it carries over into situations that don't involve you; (b) he seems to relate everything back to himself; and (c) he is outraged whenever anyone criticizes him and is incapable of considering that he could ever be anything other than kind and generous. This disorder is highly resistant to therapy and is not treatable with medication. The abuser with this disorder is not able to change substantially through an abuser program either, although he sometimes makes some minor improvements.

1. Many abusers who are not mentally ill want women to think that they are, in order to avoid responsibility for their attitudes and behavior.

Substance abuse, like mental illness, does not cause partner abuse but can increase the risk of violence. Like the mentally ill abuser, the addicted abuser doesn't change unless he deals with his addiction, and even that is only the first step. Chapter 8 examines the role that substances play in partner abuse.

The attitudes driving the mentally ill or addicted batterer are the same as those of other abusers and will likely follow the pattern of one of the nine styles described above. In addition, the following attitudes tend to be present:

• I am not responsible for my actions because of my psychological or substance problems.

• If you challenge me about my abusiveness, you are being mean to me, considering these other problems I have. It also shows that you don't understand my other problems.

• I'm not abusive, I'm just———(alcoholic, drug addicted, manic-depressive, an adult child of alcoholics, or whatever his condition may be).

• If you challenge me, it will trigger my addiction or mental illness, and you'll be responsible for what I do.

---

From "Why does he do that?" by Lundy Bancroft
(Copied and pasted from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/2268977-The-Abuser-Profiles)

Going to hospital with DH was a good decision. DH was in severe pain and not yet diagnosed. DC were well, sleeping and you had adequate emergency childcare with MiL.

IMO your behaviour at the time was poor: trying to distract DH with silly crap online when he was in pain; not managing your anxious thoughts about the (low) risks to your DC, disturbing MIL unnecessarily and asking DH to text instead of doing so yourself. Not surprising DH got pissed off!

Sorry, had missed the last few pages. so the problem is that your H is abusive.

PTSD from what exactly?

@CutToChase an incident that happened a few years ago which left him severely injured.

@AnotherEmma thank you for the information and the link. I can already see a lot of relevant information in the part you posted.