AIBU or is my husband unsupportive?

[frenchpress]

I genuinely don’t know if I’ve lost perspective on this situation and I’m so angry today that I need a third party to input. I’ll try and be brief but April has been an absolute shit show of a month. I had a pretty scary health scare at the start of the month which took about 10days to resolve, and then pretty quickly everything at my workplace has suddenly fallen apart. Without being outing there has been a round of redundancies among very close colleagues, with more to come, and the whole process has been really poorly handled with very little information being given to remaining staff. Everyone is in the dark and finding out what’s going on through gossip and ominous comments made by our senior leadership team - it’s just been an awful few days and very distressing, and is still ongoing with no sign of any resolution on the horizon.

Yesterday when I got home my husband asked how my day had been, and I said something along the lines of “not very good” and made a face. I was feeling drained and miserable after a long day and wasn’t in a good place. I asked him how his day had been and we chatted a bit before I said I was going to go up for a shower. Then he got very huffy and stormed off into the living room, slamming the door. When I followed and asked what the hell was going on, he said “it’s always something, I’m just a bit sick of it. I don’t really care about what’s going on with your work and I’m sick of you being a misery.” I was so incensed I just left him and spent the evening upstairs. He didn’t attempt to come and speak to me and he hasn’t done so today either (we’re WFH).

I haven’t even spent much time talking to him about the work situation as I know that he won’t be able to help or make me feel better so it’s not like he’s been supporting me. I just can’t believe I’m getting it in the neck at home when all I’m doing is coming home from a horrible work day without a smile on my face. The amount of times I’ve listened to him complain about his job - days of my life lost to that!!! I’m just so angry with him. The least he could do is not be making my day worse. AIBU to completely ignore him until he apologises to me?

YANBU overall, he's not being supportive. It can be drag if a partner is always miserable, but part of being in a relationship is being there for each other.

On your specific question, "AIBU to completely ignore him until he apologises to me?", reacting by giving the silent treatment isn't an effective or mature way of dealing with relationship difficulties. Let things cool off a few hours or a day, and then have a mature conversation about it.

YAANBU !

Wanker ! Sending hugs & hope things get better soon

I voted yabu but not because I think your DH has been supportive. He obviously hasnt been.He has behaved badly. Especially when he knows you have had health issues recently.

Support should be a 2 way thing and partners should help their other halves through a difficult patch.

What I think is unreasonable is just ignoring him. I don't see how that is helpful and will just fuel your resentment.
Surely discussing with him how you feel about his lack of support would be a better way to improve things.

yanbu - He should be the person that you can turn to if things outside of your home life are a bit shit. He is letting you down with no support of any description.

I don't think ignoring him is the way to go

Me too.

I understand you've got things going on but if you are being miserable every day and sulking around that will be having such a negative effect on others. He is wrong to get in a huff, and you are wrong to be huffing around. Talking about things like grown ups is always the best option.

Ha - almost immediately after I posted this I tried to talk to him and it escalated into an argument. Currently booking myself into a hotel for the night, I refuse to be bullied in my own home. Maintaining the silent treatment would have been cheaper and easier.

Has this just suddenly come from nowhere? It seems odd for someone to suddenly have an outburst like this if he doesn't typically act like like a complete prick.

It all sounds quite dramatic between you - slamming doors, booking yourself into a hotel etc. Is that typical of you both?

We occasionally have fairly dramatic rows but they’re usually resolved very quickly. I’ve never left the house before and nor has he. I think I just don’t have the patience for this right now. He says he’s not happy out of nowhere, fine. I’ll leave him alone.

Maybe this is the script I’ve read about!

Is everything ok now?

Maybe he just doesn’t get it? It sounds like you need to find an effective way to communicate although you’re right that that may come best with the benefit of a bit of space and time first (like a night in a hotel). If he’s normally pretty understanding and reasonable as a person then maybe you need to either text out a message explaining, or write him a letter, or meet up somewhere neutral where you’re less likely to argue like a cafe, and set it out like you have above. Maybe then he’ll understand and be a bit more supportive of you. Hope you’re ok OP.

Maybe you never needed much emotional support before so it wasn’t so obvious that he is only there to be supported. He’s an immature dick who thought your role was to support him and it doesn’t go both ways because he’s special.

YaNBU but It must have been something when you "chatted for a bit".....after asking about him did you bring it back to your work?

How do your rows usually get resolved? Does he ever admit fault?

This kind of reminds me of a lightbulb moment I had, realising that some people see it as everyone else’s responsibility to bring happiness and comfort to their lives. It happened when I saw a flurry of facebook posts a la ‘hands up if you agree that the best thing is to purge all the toxic people from your life etc etc’. I think this might apply to your OH. He doesn’t realise that happiness is something you can create, rather than just wait for and receive. I also see similar in romantic relationships, where some expect love to sort of ‘grow’ like it’s a magical process, rather than something they can nurture.

So, my theory is that if your husband had the above realisation, and then realised that he’s not getting a ‘raw deal’ in a wife who doesn’t constantly bring him happiness, he would be more amenable to suggesting you both do something enjoyable together, to give you both something to laugh about. This would help you to get through the bad times.

I think possibly couple’s therapy might help