To be annoyed or need to calm down

[Redlorryyellowcar]

I’m really really annoyed right now and I think I need to vent before I speak to my husband. I can’t tell if I’m tired and hangry or NBU

DC4 wanted to do a little family for my birthday (blow up some balloons, have a special drink and dance to the radio). My birthday was the other day and he’s been dying to have this party every day.

DH and DC bought some juice the other day for this. At 5pm DH comes down from WFH. I make the juice into a ‘cocktail’ with DC (fizzy water, straw, juice). DH lying on the sofa, I go over and pass him his drink, he meekly almost puts his arm out but then immediately puts it back to draping it almost on the floor and I say I’m passing you your drink and he says yes pass it to my hand (inches from the floor) and I’m like no put your arm out like a normal person. He refuses so I put it on the side table. DC tried to keep the peace and says here daddy and passes his drink right to his hand.
DH has form for this all the time, he says pass me the car keys and I put my arm out to him with the keys and he refuses to move his arm from next to his body and insists I pass the keys completely to his hand next to his thigh (no effort). Whenever I question this he says don’t be lazy. It’s the WEIRDEST thing. I hate it. It’s never changed.
anyway I said why are you being like this? Stop ruining the party?!
he ignores me. I say cheers to DC and DH and DH blanks me out and just cheers our son and completely freezes me out of the room.
I then lose my temper and say why are you always like this, why are you so rude and weird?!
and he’s saying stop losing your temper with me in front of our child, you’re upsetting our child.

he then goes upstairs and I have the ‘party’ with DC within DH and DC getting intermittently upset that daddy is missing the party and I scared him away.

I probably should have said nothing both times but it fcks me off that DH treats me this way in front of DC. Like I have to serve him drinks on my knees and also be completely happy to be frozen out of conversation.

i really think we need counselling.

anyway before I’ve posted this, DH came down to say sorry and I just got annoyed again and said why do you treat me like this and he had no real answer and he’s got fed up and walked off again and said there’s no point talking to me

Autism, or MH problems, or a bad childhood, none are excuses for abusive behaviour, nor are they free passes from having respect and consideration for the people around us. The problem here isn't whether he's ND or not, it's the way he's choosing to treat you and the behaviour he's choosing to model to your DC.

There's so much he could be doing to improve the situation and manage his behaviour so you and DC aren't affected and the fact that he isn't even trying speaks volumes to me. I'm autistic and do everything I can to not let it affect the people close to me in a negative way, because that's what you do when you're not an arsehole.

In your position I would be putting a back up plan in place so that leaving would be possible if need be and then having a serious 'come to Jesus' type chat about what needs to change to make you stay. Please don't be put off by the thought of DC having to spend time with him alone if you split, ime kids are always better off if they have at least one stable, abuse-free home and parent to go back to than being stuck witnessing the abuse full time.

What an absolute arsehole. Being deliberately disrespectful as some kind of power play!

I hope he’s receptive to counselling, he needs it.

Thanks everyone.

so when we talked he’s said sorry and he was just tired and didn’t have the energy to lift his arm. He’s said he’s sorry he wasn’t able to react fast enough for my liking. I pointed out when had a discussion in which he refused to raise his arm.

tbh I wouldn’t have minded if it was the first time, it’s the fact it’s a repeat of many times before.

FFS why can’t he just be normal like he can be other times

He’s said he’s sorry he wasn’t able to react fast enough for my liking

Not actually an apology though, is it?

See if he improves now you've had a talk to him about it.

This is very difficult to deal with and he seems to utterly lack insight into it. I couldn’t live with this. If he had a smidgen if insight and a sense of humor, if he could laugh at himself a bit, it would be tolerable. But he can’t. He is a ball of infantile rage.

Yes thank you.

sometimes in jest he does say he’s a difficult person to live with and realises I put up with a lot. But that’s normally in good times and not acknowledged in bad times

The “in jest he is a difficult person to live with” is not poking fun at himself ir acknowledging the reality, its just a typical narcissistic/abusive dodge that evades responsibility. It puts you on the back foot and forces you to laugh and say “oh its not that bad” or “no problem.” Just like his non apology to you about ruining the child’s parry (which sounded adorable btw). If he was really that tired he wouldn’t have had the energy to storm off.

You might look at the long running thread here “married to someone with autism”. I think that it might be helpful to read other people’s experience. Because the central marital issue is that he won’t change. Not because of the autism (if any) but because of his personality and the way he thinks of the relationship. He thinks you must conform to him, serve him, orient around his needs. He will not reciprocate.

How can you and your son live healthily and happily tied down in service to so many quirks and demands? If you lived alone or had a supportive and loving partner you could stop spending every minute navigating through the rocky shoals of his odd preferences and rigidity and hostility.

The pass to the hand thing sounds awful.

The other things do suggest autistm, however I actually relate to a lot of them.

I struggle with DP being too close / in the same room as me (usually the kitchen) if I am doing something. I feel claustrophobic in my house quite a lot, I just feel like he is crowding me. However I recognise that this is my problem, so I will just leave the room and wait for him to finish and then go back in.

I also struggle with loud noises, they can panic me and just generally stress me out.

Also the questions. I can feel "overwhelmed" by just one question. But I'm aware that that is not normal so I don't show it or react. But I don't like, for example, when he asks how my day was the moment I get home from work. I also get flustered when he asks me a question that can't be answered by a yes or no. I feel I have to answer totally truthfully and that requires a lot of effort / words and I just can't be bothered.

I will add though, that I had none of the above issues before having kids. Having kids has completely burnt me out which is why I now have these reactions to the above.

All this to say, I am having a lot of same issues as him, but the way I deal with them is different. I recognise that it's me that has the issue, whereas he seems to be taking it out on you.

I do find the "pass it to my hand" the strangest and most disrespectful of his actions though - I can't understand why he would do that. Power? Just start dropping whatever it is on the floor and he can pick it up himself if he wants it.

'FFS woman, why don't you just do everything I say! If you didn't stand up for yourself all the time and just did what I want without complaint there would literally be no issue. Know your place!'

I think it would be very much worth you reading Lundy Bancroft "Why does he do that?". It goes into whether abuse is "caused" by mental health, ND etc and says while it often coexists, it is not the cause (this is what he has found from speaking to many abusive men). My takeaway from it was very much that they DO know what they're doing, it's not accidental. I think it's a book everyone should read. The confusion you're feeling and desperation to fix it with counselling or uncover the reason - MH issues etc are also things that Bancroft mentions as really common among abused women.

It does seem like he's latched onto this "pass it to my hand" with a variety of excuses such as being too tired (too tired to hold a drink?? FFS!) as a way to exert power over you and wind you up. I would actually be very interested to see what would happen if you started grey rocking that one by avoiding situations where you pass him something so for example with the drink, put it down on the table and say "there's your cocktail! DC made it specially" or with the car keys "oh, it's fine I'll drive". I wonder if he'll find something else to use.

I’m horrified at the sandwich on the floor in public thing. That’s deliberate and vindictive and nasty. He can argue that he couldn’t lift a finger out of ‘tiredness’ (though that’s bullshit), but the sandwich thing was premeditatedly unkind. He’s deliberately being nasty.

he was just tired and didn’t have the energy to lift his arm.

This is all pathetic on his part. Why be with someone who spends so much time upsetting you on purpose.

Agree with this. It’s nasty behaviour, not autism. He may be a narcissist or whatever but essentially he enjoys being rude and horrible to you and your poor DC is not only witnessing this, but feeling like he has to step in and referee you two. At four years old. Actually making me a bit teary to think about that.

Please show your darling boy that this isn’t ok behaviour and that he can enjoy dance parties and being lovely to his mum without his shitty dad ruining it.

I agree with this. This is blaming you for your reaction, instead of taking some accountability for his own behaviour

I think you’re taking far too much responsibility and shame for blowing up, instead of being able to have a conversation where he actually takes some responsibility for how he is acting.
Everyone gets tired.
He should be using his words then
Didnt want to take a drink from you -
“thanks dear, if you just sit it at the side I will get it in a bit”

He is really needing to take some action on how he deals with his overwhelm. That can’t be to the detriment of family life, such as meals gets made. There’s more than him in the family. And your little one isn’t responsible for making sure his parents get along, so id be nipping that one in the bud

Ask yourself

1. was he always like this
2. is he like this with everyone or just you
3. is he like this in public towards you in view of others?

I agree the sandwich on floor functioned to humiliate you and is nothing to with ND of any kind

You could even argue that your reactions are normal given the provocation- but stepping back from and the patterns that have been pointed out to you

I dare say you are no where near the awful guilty person you think you are at times.

This plays out in front of your kids….

If he happens to be autistic then I don't believe this is the cause of his actions towards you, he's being purposely nasty and then criticising you for daring to react to his ridiculous actions.

Obssessive Compulsive Personality Disorder? (Different from OCD)

Yes this was s a good guess. Its awful to deal with.

🙏💐

my ex was emotionally abusive, coercive control etc.
This was one of his tactics for trying to make me the bad guy.
Does he have form for doing other things to get a reaction? Don’t you find you have fallings out just before meeting company? Or does he refuse to listen to your concerns about his behaviours unless you can give him exact specifics (like date & time etc)?

it might just be that he’s an immature petty arse hole but it could be and indicator of more to consider x

• having just read your other responses he is 100% just emotionally abusive. Please don’t stay with a man like that, he will wear you down until you feel worthless and it’ll teach your child the same x

What a piece of shit. This made me shiver reading this. I know you don’t want people saying LTB but honestly sometimes there is just no other sensible answer. This is more than neurodiversity. Sure, that might be going on, but this pure nasty behaviour is more than that, it’s abusive.

Your child is already being caught up in this and blaming you for upsetting dad. It’s a survival mechanism. It feels safer for him to align himself with dad but it’s incredibly harmful for his emotional development and future attitude to abuse and to women. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh but it’s true.
You feel like keeping a log of all this will just be dismissed, but it won’t. People on here are seeing his behaviour for what it is and so will agencies like Women’s Aid. In fact if you showed your list to a worker there, they’d call it what it is too and you’d hopefully feel validated. Emotional abuse is harder to get a criminal conviction for, that’s true, but if you make his behaviour known to as many people as possible especially professionals they WILL help you and they will be on your side. That might help with the worry you have about 50/50 if you leave. They might be able to help you make the case for a lower level of access or no access.
Start making your plans now, please.

You’ve said pretty much everything I was going to say myself (about myself). Now our boy is older I’m coping a lot better, I’m not as burnt out as he doesn’t need me quite so much. I’m also kinda PDA, I really really struggle with requests/questions & can be confrontational without meaning too, it just ALWAYS feels like a personal attack even when I KNOW it isn’t. It took a hell of a lot work from my side on this but I was only able to recognise that once I found out my other son is autistic & did a hell of a lot of learning & realising that I’m also autistic. It was like such a light bulb moment. I still struggle now but I manage my own behaviours as much as I can but my husband also now knows my ‘triggers’ I guess you could call it & as he’s learnt so much about autism too it’s almost second nature to us both now.

The main thing is though that you (OP) can’t sort this all out yourself, it needs to be your husband that acknowledges his issues/triggers etc etc & does something about it, and you both working through it too. You can’t do it without him doing the work & you shouldn’t have to do all the accommodating if he is autistic. I hope things improve

@Redlorryyellowcar This has been on-going and you're still trying to appease him, adjust your own behaviour and figure him out. He gaslights you. He manipulates your dc's emotions and perceptions in front of you. Your dc is mirroring him now.
At what point will you say enough? He's rude to/in front of his family. Your family obv think he's a dick.
Yet you still wanna know if your own feelings are ott.
Sounds like he is grinding you down and you don't even trust your own eye and ears. Why on earth would you stay with him? So your dc can learn even more from him and have even less respect for you?
What about you and your child????

He sounds like a sociopathic narcissist to me. Get your ducks in a tight row and get out. Wouldn't worry to much about him getting 50/50 with your child tbh as these sort generally can't be bothered with looking after a child. Just don't show your hand too much there and you should be good.