Feel strange asking this to this forum - but I’ve very prone to doubt and it gets in the way of standing my ground. Some reassurance would be helpful.
I love my husband and I want to stay together. However his temper has always been a problem. He lashes out and talks down to me, around once a month, sometimes in front of our three year old. Sometimes he apologies and sometimes he doesn’t.
It hangs over me. I’ve another baby on the way and I want to do what I can to stop this - for my daughter’s sake. What I’ve done is tell him this is unacceptable (again), but this time I’ve called his behavior abusive, Ive asked him to come back to me at the end of the week with what he thinks he can do about it and what he needs from me to support that change.
Ive also asked him to leave during this week while he thinks this over. I’ve reiterated I love him and so much want him to engage with this and for our relationship to work.
But of course now I’ve put this to him and he’s gone, I’m churning over whether I should have used the word abusive in case I inflamed the situation, whether asking him to leave inflames it and whether I’m just a really difficult person. I have a lot of baggage around these issues due to volatile parents that didn’t like being called out on their and often find myself u-turning.