I’d really appreciate some outside perspectives because I’m struggling to know whether I’m being unreasonable or whether this is part of a bigger pattern.
My siblings had come to our house unexpectedly because they had an emergency. They had clearly asked to come to ours, but my husband kept suggesting alternatives, like whether they could go to someone else’s house instead.
I eventually became frustrated and said, “You just don’t want them to come, anything to avoid people from coming”.
He raised his voice and said something along the lines of, “If that’s what you think, you can fuck off upstairs.” He then called me a “dickhead”, said “screw you”, and said that what I had said to him was a dick thing to say.
I’ll be honest that afterwards I did interrupt him while he was speaking, and he responded by telling me to “Shut up, shut up, shut up as I kept interrupting to say my piece before he had finished talking.
He also said that I shouldn’t come to him with anything involving my relatives if I don’t want his opinion. I was on the phone at this point offering my siblings a cab as they had to walk to our house and it had started to rain (my husband didn’t offer a lift and I didn’t want to ask as he was already angry).
The reason this upset me is because there is some history here. A few years ago, when my family were coming to our house for things like an occasion or a favour which I was willing to help with, he asked whether they had to come and suggested whether they could go to someone else’s instead. Granted these were last year and the year before.
Because of that history, when he was suggesting alternatives this time, it honestly felt to me like he didn’t want them there. There’s no animosity that I know of, siblings are teenagers. And DH is fine when his own family come although they don’t much. He’s generally ok once people are actually here but it’s more before they arrive he’s like this.
He says he doesn’t feel that way anymore and that he has improved a lot since then. He said that bringing up things from the past and using them in this argument was hurtful because he feels he has changed and that he was just trying to offer helpful solutions that made more sense to him at the time. He also said he didn’t think to offer a lift and didn’t realise it was still raining.
I do understand that if he genuinely has changed, it must be frustrating to feel like past mistakes are being held over him. However, from my perspective, the reason I brought it up was because it was how his behaviour looked to me in that moment.
I also want to be fair and say that he has improved in some ways. He has been calmer recently about people coming. For example, I mentioned that some family may be staying overnight for a few days soon and he was completely fine with it. He has also said that going forward he won’t make suggestions about sending my family elsewhere and will just support me if they need help, and that he loves when people visit me as I am at home a lot.
After things calmed down, he apologised and said he was sorry and that he understands why I was hurt. He has agreed that I don’t deserve to be shouted at or sworn at and has agreed to take steps to sort it out.
I’m confused because I don’t think he is the same person he was years ago, but I also don’t think being spoken to like that is okay.
I’m wondering:
- Am I being unfair by bringing up past examples when he feels he has changed?
- Is it reasonable that I interpreted his suggestions as him not wanting my loved ones there, given the history?
- Has anyone else experienced a partner being anxious about their family visiting but not having the same issue with their own family?
Thanks for reading