To start thinking about splitting over this

[Playdoughy]

My husband has become incredibly rude towards other people. This was a gradual change over the past few years.
While I was trying to understand his reactions in the beginning, as he would be right about the things that annoyed him - this has now escalated into him expecting that everyone shares the same manners and values and what not, or else...

To put things into perspective, I couldn't wait for us to move home because he managed to get into arguments with pretty much all the neighbours in our building and we ended up not speaking to people that I met on daily basis.
Yes - A was occasionally slamming the doors, but was it worth reporting him to his landlord, shouting at him and having 3 separate arguments over this. And so on... But at least those relationships deteriorated over a number of years.
At the new place it took him 3 weeks for the entire building to stop talking to us (yes me too, because people assume you are the one and the same). He lost it over abandoned post in the common area and a disagreement around a fence (that is not even remotely relevant for our garden).
I am an introvert and it's not like I depend on having people around for a smalltalk but tomorrow he will be like this with parents in our DC's class or teachers... He already has parents he 'hates' in the nursery and wants me to refuse playdates that DS gets invited to 'because B's dad is just full of it'.
We literally have noone left to socialise with. All the friend groups I had mingled with in past - he drove away by showing clear lack of interest for anything they talked about, refusing any couples activities together, refusing to visit them...

I just don't think I am comfortable with this being the new normal both for me and the kids in future. He is dispising anyone who wants to communicate with us or spend time with us.
At the same time he reaches out to somewhat incompatible people (e.g. a couple in their sixties both early retirement spending time between ski and geach holidays and thinking about extending an already impressive house - at the same time our little family crammed in a flat and buried in 9-5 jobs and a mortgage). Than he gets disappointed they don't reciprocate back with an invite from their side...
I grew up with my parents surrounded by extended family, friends all in similar circumstances- plenty of kids around too. He had similar upbringing but he just changed after covid and lost any interest in maintaining contacts...
I tried talking about this but he just says he doesn't care and that people are idiots or just annoy him...

Because any sudden or extreme change in normal behaviour can signal that something is wrong OP. Dementia is just one of the things we should be vigilant about, but to me it sounds as though he is depressed. Does he show signs of anxiety at all ? Does he lose his temper easily ? It sounds as though he struggled during Covid and he needs some help to sort out his feelings. The fact that he hasn’t engaged properly with therapists isn’t good. Can you persuade him to see his GP for a referral for something like CBT, which may be helpful in getting him to understand how he’s changed and why ?

It's worth mentioning that Covid can cause brain damage. The subsequent effects of the pandemic are not all about depression and/or reactions to lockdowns or bereavements - the infection left organ damage, including to the brain.

In short, it may genuinely have altered his personality.

I think it would be reasonable to look towards ending your marriage, I'm afraid. It's not good for anyone to live with a belligerent misanthrope, especially children who will absorb his worldview as normal and correct, probably including a very negative view of themselves.

Is it not possible that he'd prefer living quietly by himself, only seeing his children by appointment?

I also know a couple of people who this happened to, op. Sudden change in personality, usually resulting in them becoming angry, picking fights, falling out with everyone. Ended up being some form of dementia. Younger people, too.

It depends on personal experiences. DH and I were shielded, and we hated the whole saga.

Despite being shielded for a long time, vaccinated etc., he died of Covid in 2023.

My Dad died alone, in a nursing home, when patients were sent there without testing.

I have never caught it. 🤷‍♀️

So, yes, it affected my mental health. Being widowed does that. But, you have to get past it, and 3 years later, I have.

That’s interesting. I hear what you’re saying about wanting to connect but getting it all wrong! When it’s so obvious to you that the other people are put off/giving the side eye. My on/off DP (very possibly also autistic. I am surrounded. lol!) does exactly the same. Tries to connect. Just doesn’t really know how to go about it. I can see people cringing and looking a bit stumped. But he hasn’t a clue. He’s actually funny and gregarious and self deprecating so people tend to overlook his more clumsy attempts to connect, but I can see these behaviours are a bit weird and off putting. I’ve tried to gently suggest that people are not generally impressed by incessant boasting about oneself 😬 but he says he doesn’t care. He doesn’t see why boasting would be a problem and does it all the time shamelessly. I’m embarrassed for him really. But he’s oblivious.

Like you, I didn’t clock for quite a long time that he might be autistic. I could see the boasting was weird but other than that, when we were just friends and even for the first year of our relationship, nothing really pointed to that. It’s only when his DS got diagnosed (they’re so similar in lots of ways) that I started to see it more clearly. He’s outgoing and funny, though often misses the point of other people’s jokes. Or he will
laugh because he can see it’s meant to be funny, but if, say, we’re later talking about the joke someone made earlier, it becomes clear he completely missed the point.

I would say this: my DP’s character did become a big problem. His volatile temper, his refusal to listen to a different (my) point of view. His assumption that I was wrong every time we didn’t agree about something. He would never hear me out. He would never entertain that perhaps he made a mistake about something. It was always “nope, absolutely not. You’re wrong”. It is wearing to never be listened to, to be dismissed and shut down. His behaviour actually became quite abusive at times. Despite being the life and soul on the outside, he would sense criticism in everything. He has a lot of toxicity in the way he deals with people and it is draining to be around this. Often if I didn’t agree with how he handled someone, he would fly off the handle and say I was supporting them and had taken their side. I hadn’t. I just don’t agree with how he had gone about things. He has massive issues with task execution and stalls people to the point where they get annoyed with him. But he can’t stand people being annoyed with him so he flies off the handle and blames them.

I moved out in the end and it’s been very liberating. We still see each other but now he is free to handle his tasks and his relationships as he sees fit. I can step away from it all. I don’t know if you have that option? His behaviour is obviously affecting you. The one thing I would say in my DP’s favour is that he has started to realise his behaviour is a problem. He does now listen to me and he does give me the benefit of the doubt if we don’t agree on something. He will take advice and he will try and improve the way he manages his life. So he has started addressing tasks rather than putting them off. Throwing away stuff instead of hoarding everything. Small changes but which are benefiting him.

My other relative (the one who falls out with people all the time) will never change. She is very defensive so it’s not possible to have a conversation about her behaviour. She assaulted someone a few months ago!! But in her mind they were in the wrong so her reaction was their fault! 🤦‍♀️

I don’t know which camp your DH fits into? Someone who could listen and work on himself for your/his benefit? Or someone who is so fixated on being right that everything else (and everyone else) just goes out the window? If the former then maybe you have something to work with. If the latter then I think it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think about a different life without him in it.

I hope you find peace. It is draining being around someone absorbed with negative thoughts and feelings. Not to mention that it also cuts you off socially and this isn’t what you want. Xx

I have a family member like this who was diagnosed with autism later in life. The similarities are striking.
a diagnosis put things into perspective but didn’t really give direction to improve things. However it seems your husband is higher functioning than my family member.
part of this is simply the brain wiring so he would find some things difficult (impossible) to change. By adulthood we are set in our ways!

i think many of us see people who are not our cup of tea but we just keep civil with them. The problem here is that your husband is essentially ”cancelling” them (sorry to use such an overused term) where he needs to tolerate or simply acknowledge but not actively engage with. Likewise some peopke will simply “cancel” him if they don’t want his negative energy. He can change this dynamic by tolerating and being civil first so the basis of the relationship is purely niceties. It requires being a bit false but in the long term it’s what’s needed for general peace.

its a bit like people with autism who struggle with noise or smell or strong light etc . Your husbands bullsh*t radar is on its highest setting. I don’t doubt lots of these people are insufferable but it just seems their characteristics are felt very strongly by your husbands radar and he struggles with tolerance.

Was coming on to post about this, but fell down a Google rabbithole trying to check whether my thoughts were unfounded.

OP if you feel he has changed in recent years, I would genuinely explore dementia with a GP. And even if it turns out that this IS dementia, you are NOT required to stay with him. Your MH and quality of life is also important. You can live apart or explore other options.

Sorry he will not stick to therapy, has he tried anti-d's?
Has he been to the GP? Local lady here (before my time) became terribly rude and angry, and managed to make people fall out with her on a regular basis. Turned out she had some sort of growth in the brain. Not sinister, but just something affecting a certain area. It was removed and well, she became nice again apparently. I'd only ever met her while well, she's lovely.

For those mentioning autism, it's only just started after covid. Would there not have been signs throughout his life? Forgive me if sound ignorant, I genuinely don't know.

Dump him, let him be a miserable shite on his own.

I would advise a trip to his GP to rule out any organic changes to the brain that could have caused this change in personality.

Not wanting to scare you, but a friend of my mother had a DH who experienced a gradual personality change, it started with slight impatience, getting irritated easily, saying nasty things about anyone who vaguely annoyed him etc. Then progressed over a few years to angry outbursts, was obsessive about things like other people’s bad driving, neighbours making a noise, any mild inconvenience to him resulted in him yelling and shouting. One day he got out of his car and screamed at someone who had got into the wrong lane and wanted to move over. They also got out and pushed him away when he ran at them, he fell to the ground and hit his head. No lasting damage from the incident but when they scanned him they found cancer in the personality part of his brain, it was slow growing but quite advanced, so it’s thought that it was the cause of the changes

Wow! Interested to know your age and socioeconomic background, I cannot fathom how you don’t see the impact of Covid on mental health 🤔

I think the OP is saying there probably were signs, but she didn’t necessarily see them. Perhaps COVID exacerbated certain behaviours that were always there. Certainly I had known my DP many years before it dawned on me his behaviours might be partly due to autism. Once you see something you can’t unsee it, but until then it can be there but not obvious.

"Surrounded by Idiots" is a terrible book. It tells you stuff that sounds good but turns out to be mostly just unfalsifiable Barnum statements about other people. The author (Thomas Erikson) has no qualifications in psychology or any other relevant discipline. Swedish psychologists, in particular (he's Swedish) just do a facepalm gesture whenever this book comes up for discussion. Four-colour models of personality have been debunked dozens of times. Basically, Erikson is the idiot.

Just to say dd's bf is autistic, she is ADHD. DD also teaches in an SEN specialist school. She believes quote strongly that some some people with autism have a nasty side that is inherent and would be there regardless of the autism. Just as aome people who don't have autism are miserable, aggressive, manipulative shits.

@Playdoughy you need to make this about you and the children and focus on happiness and normality fkr them. If that means leaving him let it be so. It might be the catalyst for him to get the suppprt he needs. I'd put the dc first in this situation.

Good luck

He sounds like my BIL who has asbergers. He also sounds like a close family relative who behaved like this, everyone thought it was menopause but a slow growing brain tumour was diagnosed 5 years later. There could be lots of reasons, we all start to lose our tolerance for other people's BS as we get older and the world is generally significantly less tolerant if social media is anything to go by.

All you can do is sit him down and tell him that you are seriously considering your future with him because of his behaviour. It could be depression, it could be other illness so a medical check might help to put your mind at rest. It could be that's he's on the spectrum but I don't know where that leaves you if this behaviour pattern can't be rolled back and how? The thread mentioned might be helpful on coping strategies. But stonewalling you and walking away is going to simply help you make a decision faster and not in his favour.

My dad was like this. He's socially anxious but responds to it poorly. He'd rather not put any effort in to working on himself or figuring out how to navigate relationships with others. It got worse as he got older, as it was a vicious cycle of becoming more isolated and finding people more and more hard work to be around.

Everyone he met would be "weird" or "annoying" or "thick" according to him. He'd behave like a prick to make damn sure that nobody bothered with him. It gave him a petty little bit of control over his (increasingly small) world.

He'd never want to come out with us in public, so whenever he did, he'd stomp and mouth off at people and make an embarrassment of himself - it felt like he was deliberately punishing for "forcing" him to go out.

My mum acted as though she didn't notice, and even contrived to be smug about it at times, but it killed her inside. I was in my teens when it got very bad, and it destroyed me. I lost all respect for him - and my mother for putting up with it - and it never came back.

For what it's worth, I work in mental health now. I still don't have give my dad a 'pass' for what he did. He had the capacity to make changes, and he didn't. He was just too comfy and cozy in his misery. It was so much easier to make it the world's fault, not his. After all, he still had a wife trapped there with him to make his dinners and book his dentist appointments, so why change?

OP, you're not his social worker or mental health nurse. Even if a miracle occurs and he decides to go an a revolutionary journey of self-improvement (unlikely), you don't have to be there for the process. Your life is happening now. Where do you want to spend it?

Can I ask how old he is? I think the environmental factors ( You mention Covid/lockdowns as being a potential trigger for this ) take their toll as you get older and you find it harder to tolerate things that previously may not have bothered you. Other people living in such close proximity seems to be a real problem. What you do in that situation is v. difficult, unless you relocate to a cabin in the woods. But there's going to be an impact on DC if this isn't addressed/resolved/ moderated in some way I think. As you say, some of his frustrations may stem from real grievances but you really can't control other people, all you can do is control how you react to them.

It may be that he started noticing that there was a "reward" to being anti-social, however small, i.e. that people would expect less of him, not challenge him, not ask him to help out, jump up and sort things out for him before he gets stressed out and causes a scene, etc.

This happens to a lot of older men when they've decided that the rewards outbalance the consequences, especially when they presume that 'consequences' will never include losing their partner.

Based on what you said in the original post and some updates, he has many similarities with my ex. I wasn’t the one who left in the end (mostly because I was too scared of ending up with 50:50 custody, which turned out to be a non-issue) but I’m honestly so glad that negativity has gone from my life. The emotional drain of the daily rants about how everyone else at work was an idiot or a knobhead was real. Even at the start of our relationship it was annoying (should have walked away then really!) but by the end I dreaded picking up the phone for the daily ‘on my way home’ rant. And one more thing: my ex never stopped me seeing friends or family, and was always happy for me to do so. However, life was made very difficult for me in other ways if I ever did go out for the day or on a night because I still had to catch up on all the household tasks that weren’t done in my absence. Control can come in many forms.

Your husband sounds awful to be around.
Im surprised you will have any friends left if this carries on.

Sounds a lot like my relative who, I suspect, is on the spectrum. Not the raging anger, but a real sense of superiority and that everybody else in the world is a stupid idiot. He cuts people out of his life for the smallest 'infraction', such as not taking his advice on what laptop to buy (he advised buying a £1500 laptop, but the person bought a £400 one because that was all they could afford).

He's negative all the time; the only thing he knows is how to criticise. I can't remember him ever praising anybody or anything. He also struggles to connect with people and can't see when a conversation is going wrong, even though it's clearly obvious to everyone around him that he's missing the mark or making it weird.

He has no friends, his kids barely contact him, his wife hates him, his colleagues tiptoe around him.

I used to try to explain social cues to him, or encourage him to see the positive, but it was exhausting. After he did one of his "I'm the most reasonable man in the world" tantrums while being an absolute dick to me, I cut contact. You can't save someone like that. They drag you down.

If this were me, I would write him a frank, honest letter to explain the effect his moods are having on the family. A letter means he wouldn't be able to shut down the conversation.

In the letter I'd say something like how you love him and recognise there has been a shift in his mood and behaviour since COVID - that he's externalising his problems when the reality is it's his attitude that needs to change.

I'd also point out (assuming this is true) you are willing to support him whilst he seeks help with this, but if he doesn't give it a good go or continues to be angry and blame the world that you will have to leave for the sake of your own mental health and that of your kids.

Maybe inject some hope into the letter e.g. you see the old him shining through when he plays with the kids.

It sounds like perhaps medication might help him to lift his mood and then he could try therapy again whilst medicated? Could he go to the GP?

You shouldn't put up with this, but I understand the want to help him if it's a recent change!

Yes - that's the saddest thing about it. OP, your husband is making sure that he isolates you along with him. He wants to convince you that the social world is pointless and unappealing, because that suits him.

If you leave, you'll probably find that you're more confident and interested in others than you previously thought.

Leave him and his corrosive, toxic behaviour. This behaviour will have such a negative impact on your child 100% if you allow it to continue.
There's millions more options than that miserable twat you're living with - you and your child deserve better