Was it that serious?

[SandwichMaker]

Last night my partner and I were going to bed, and his breath was smelling quite strong. I asked him if he had brushed his teeth (sometimes he doesn’t brush them before bed which I personally find pretty gross but I asked him politely) so he got in a bit of a huff but went to brush them. Whilst he was in the bathroom I was reading an article on my phone. He lay next to me and I was finishing the article when he started shouting and swearing at me because I was ignoring him, and because I am rude by telling him his breath is bad. I didn’t want to argue so I stayed calm and asked him to stop shouting and swearing, and he just mocked me. He kept shouting at me and then he decided he was leaving. The whole time I just lay quietly in bed. After he left I felt upset and in a bit of shock. It felt like an extreme reaction to what I actually did, but AIBU? Would you be that upset by somebody asking if you had brushed your teeth? He has on occasion told me if my breath is bad or something like that and I just laugh it off or go brush my teeth! I just feel like I can’t do anything right in his eyes, he’s always annoyed about something or other. I even said to him last week that it seems like he doesn’t even like me anymore so why does he want to be with me?

You say you get anxious after you haven’t seen him for a while. I would work on this. There’s something pulling you toward him and it’s not good for you. Make this the last time you end the relationship.

He may have been embarrased,but his actions on the other hand need sorting .
Personally i would get rid,he won`t improve.

What a ridiculous overreaction. I would much prefer somene told me my breath stank instead of just leaving it tbh. He sounds awful in a few ways though really.

@Sadhoot

Toilenstripes

I think telling someone they have bad breath is really shaming.

What??

Sorry, do you not understand that you’re shaming someone when you tell them they have bad breath? Is this news to you?

She didn't do it in front of anyone else, she didn't swear or yell or mock him. Just informed him of a fact. Are you seriously saying you'd rather noone told you if your breath smelt bad when it's do easily fixable?

I wish OPs would put the whole story in their opening post, otherwise the replies aren't relevant..

@Toilenstripes should the OP have said nothing then submitted to the sex he wanted and the bad breath along with it?

My OH occasionally likes a morning fumble but has really bad breath despite always brushing his teeth. He never takes offence when I ask him to brush his teeth before we start anything... who said romance was dead?!

I think your OH’s reaction was extreme and perhaps there’s more of an underlying issue?

[quote IndieTara]@Toilenstripes should the OP have said nothing then submitted to the sex he wanted and the bad breath along with it?[/quote]
Uh, no. Did I imply that? You don’t ‘submit’ to sex anyway. But if you want to argue, I’m here.

Not here, rather.

Don't be absurd. Pointing out your breath stinks and you haven't brushed your teeth is not "shaming"!

If anything, he SHOULD be ashamed that he hasn't taken care of basic personal hygiene.

At least you're not living together at the moment, so hopefully even though there are kids involved it will be relatively straightforward.

You can do so much better than this.

Thank you for the advice.

Yes practically speaking it will be easy to separate, that’s lucky really. It’s harder to let go emotionally. I know deep down that this isn’t right, and it’s not a healthy relationship. But then we have good times and it makes me want to try harder. Like he gives me enough to make me hope but it always goes to shit again. And because he’s been telling me for so many years that I need to change this or that, I keep trying but it’s never enough so I’m starting to realise it’s not me. I could be a model wife but he’ll still find something to pick a fight over and I’m tired of living like that. And as the kids get older they’re going to notice more and more, and I don’t want them to think this what relationships should be like.

Last time we split up I was determined that that was it, but after time my resolve faded and I felt bad and wanted to give it another chance.

So, he hoovers you back in when you split up?

www.healthline.com/health/hoovering#ignoring-the-past

It's all looking like fairly routine narcissism.

Is he picking a fight & leaving so he can have an excuse to get out of the house ? My close friends partner suddenly started picking fights over stuff he'd not give a toss about before. Turned out he was cheating & looking for excuses to leave the house & see the OW. Or does he just get annoyed over basic hygiene requests ? Which is grim.

Wow, sounds like my ex. It will only get worse, not worth it at all.

Yes it does seem like hoovering. I’d never heard that term before. He doesn’t threaten to harm himself. But he might say something like he had a dream about me, or he will start a conversation about the kids and suck me in.

I don’t think he was trying to find a reason to leave and go cheat, because he wasn’t even supposed to be here last night. He decided to come down in the evening. A couple of days before that he had left because he was annoyed at me but wouldn’t tell me why for ages. Eventually he said it was because I wasn’t making any effort. I asked what he meant by that because I had made him food, drinks, showed affection, made conversation etc. Whereas he sometimes ignores me when I talk to him or looks the other way. So I felt like I had made more effort than he had. But eventually all he gave as a reason was that I was just wearing leggings and a jumper, not dressed smart. Bear in mind I was at home, we weren’t going anywhere.

He sounds awful.

Does any of this ring true for you?

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/toxic-relationships/201709/how-spot-narcissistic-abuse

Yes it does ring true. I wonder if he might be a narcissist. He definitely used to gaslight me a lot, but I called him out on it and wouldn’t back down. He does that less now, but at one point he really had me questioning my sanity because he repeatedly told me I was mad and that things didn’t happen the way I thought, or didn’t happen at all!

What I find so difficult is that there’s no talking to him. Anything I say, he turns it back on me or changes the subject to keep putting me down. So if I raised an issue or I wasn’t happy about something, he would find something, anything, to say that I do worse. Even something from the past that’s totally irrelevant to the conversation. And if I point out what he’s doing then he tells me I’m just playing the victim. I’ve honestly tried so many different things, talking calmly, arguing back, ignoring, walking away, etc. But he still finds a way to create conflict.

Have you been abused before you were with him? By a parent? Or did your parents abuse each other, perhaps? There's a reason you stay. It's not because you want to, and it's not for the kids, because you know that being in this environment is bad for them.

There'll be something in you that tells you to silence yourself. Something old, probably from when you were a kid, and you were taught that your feelings didn't matter.

Does that ring true..?

Yes my father was physically and emotionally abusive towards my mother and myself. So I suppose as a child I saw this kind of behaviour and learned that it was normal. But I know logically that it’s not right, it’s very frustrating. How do I change something so ingrained??

Freedom Programme is meant to be eye opening. Prioritise that as a single woman.

All you have to do is start to let that voice inside you tell you what to do. Instead of letting somebody else tell you that the voice is wrong.

The voice is not wrong. You've been raised silencing it, so at the moment, it's just a niggling discomfort that makes you post threads about tiffs about bad breath. You know the voice I mean, don't you? The one that raises one eyebrow and says to you 'Surely not everybody is living like this? This isn't normal, is it??'

You can can hear that voice, can't you?

Yes I do have those exact thoughts. But then I squash them down. I want to make our marriage work so badly because we made a commitment to each other and I want to feel that I gave it my all and tried everything. But I think I’m at a loss now as to what I can do to improve things, nothing seems to work. And I also have the fear that if I eventually start a new relationship one day then it could be the same anyway. He’s told me so many times that I’m the reason for the issues that I second guess everything I do now.