Can a man have a temper without it being 'abuse'?

[Polaris]

Can a man have a bad temper without his temper being abusive?

My DH has one. I suppose it is abusive because it's only ever aimed at me. But, he's not manipulative or controlling, so it's just a temper then, isn't it?

Polaris, whether you stay or go, make sure you slam on the brake every time he does something like the humiliating scene in the restaurant.

A self respecting person would not put up with that.

It doesn't mean you need to divorce right now right here. But you need to tell him in a situation like that that his behaviour is unacceptable, and ask him to leave for a day, or something like that.

If he gets away with it, he will never stop doing it, will he?!

You have to be very clear where you draw the line.

If my DH would humiliate me in public, I would tell him this sort of behaviour would be reason for me to leave him, and mean it. You can love somebody, and still not being able to live with them.

Whatever you do, promise yourself to not put up with that sort of stuff ever again.

I just wanted to pick up on a couple of things in your post.

"He isn't doing it on purpose" - He is.

"he just can't stop his adreneline pumping when he feels threatened" - He can

"He can't stop being the way he his" - He doesn't want to.

Do you still love him?

If you do will he go back to Relate with you?
You can't continue to tread on eggshells and adapt to his mood swings.
You need to sit down and tell him once and for all you need to talk, without him shouting and going off in a huff like a child, because your future depends on it. Then tell him you feel he bullies you and you are very unhappy.

Everything seems to be about him and how he feels and you keep going round in circles. Only you can decide whether to go on like this. Good luck.

I reiterate, read Lundy Bancroft. He really dispels the myth of "oh poor man, he doesn't realize! He can't help it!" By occasionally unleashing his intimidating side, your H gets his own way a lot of the time, doesn't he? Ultimately it's about a sense of entitlement (he should get his way and have you eternally trying to placate him and, by your own admission, smooth things over). Someone on here has a great phrase -he's not losing his temper, he's using his temper.

Chandon, I have time and time again said 'this is the last time' and 'if you ever do this again' etc. but it just then becomes part of the enactment.

He's then nice for a while - maybe even months - and then we'll be at a party of something, he'll have too much to drink and then he'll become a liability.

His antics mean I have fallen out of love with him. It's so easy now for me to move on that I feel guilty. A sense of 'duty' - installed in me from my DM - overwhelms me.

My mum will make me feel like a failure. She's actually part of the problem. I'll be made to think that I'm a selfish princess that puts her own needs first - over the DCs and I can't bear that badge of failing as a mum.

This will make you smile - my db and dm always say they think of me when they watch the daughter on the Royle Family. They laugh at the way she's always happy to sit there on her arse and give out instructions.

I can categorically tell you, joking aside, that I'm NOTHING like that at all.

It's that stigma I can't stand. That I'm one of these 'I'm worth it' types that can't bear not to have it all her own way.

The trouble is I'm getting it from more than one side. There is a huge responsibility put on my shoulders to make it all work.

I know the expectation is fucking me up. I know this marriage is a disaster. I just don't want to live in a legacy that I've failed my children by not sticking to my vowes.

On other threads, there are MNers blaming the break up of their parents as the root cause of their problems. I just don't want to end up happy in ten years time and then feel another load of guilt because my children resent me for booting out their father in order to get it. My happiness at their expense.

It'd be easy if he really was a mallicious twat - the decision would be made for me. I just think he is a a bit dim and spoilt and doesn't know how to handle a relationship. It just happens that this ignorance translates to controlling behaviour.

If there was no guilt I'd leave. Knowing for sure that this is a toxic relationship that can't be fixed - and that I've done everything that I can to change things - will help alleviate that guilt and then I can make a move.

I've got to know that putting up and shutting up is undermining my self-confidence. I've got to know that my leaving would stand up in court.

I need reassurance and I'm not getting it from anyone around me.

Please bear with me - I know this must be frustrating some of you to bits. It's just a process I need you to help me go through.

Thanks, xx

Of course he can bloody well control himself. During the restaurant incident he didn't scream abuse at the waitress, his mate, or anyone else around the table, did he? No. He reserves it for you. He knows exactly what he's doing.

I understand that you need validation, because you're not getting it from anyone around you. Your DB and DM are trying to control you through mockery and accusations. Your DH is controlling you by the constant threat of aggression - and when he's not acting aggressive, you're meekly grateful to him for being nice.

I wish you could have conducted a poll of the customers and staff in that restaurant where he humiliated you. I bet that no one single person would have said you should stay. Even if he's not like that always, being like that sometimes is still reason enough to leave.

If you can't do it for yourself, do it for your dcs. If you can't see that you deserve better (you will, in time), know at least that they deserve better. Imagine having this conversation with your daughter in 20 years time...

Thanks Nickname, that's just about right.

I'm making some progress. I know what's right for me now, I just need to know what is right for the DCs.

Thank you for your post ten minutes ago, Polaris. The way you've outlined the FOG (fear; obligation; guilt) you're in paints the picture of a woman trapped by other people's criticisms ... and a desperate desire to finally gain their approval.

It is a trap, because your critics allow you think "It'd all be okay if ..." but they keep moving the goalposts. As long as you keep buying into the lie, they keep you where they want you - down, so they can feel better. Your husband, mother and brother are all tinpot dictators. As you know, you can step out of this and into a more sensible world, where your actions bring logical consequences instead of made-up ones imposed by nutcases.

Have you seen Susan Forward's book, "Emotional Blackmail"?

About your DCs. My dad was one of those who wanted us to achieve our best - and dictated what our 'best' should be. If I got five As and one B, he'd ignore the As and give me weeks of hell for only getting a B. If I got six As, I was a useless waster for not getting seven. My sibs and I all gave up studying, because no achievement was good enough.

Can you imagine what this does to a teenager's confidence, to be always wrong; always not good enough? Do you think our lives may have turned out easier if we'd not been scared to even sit our exams?

Do you think your H will do this to your DCs?
I do.

POLARIS - every time you say he "can't" do this thator the other and substitue it with "won't" ---what was his childhood like - controlling men have usually learned this behaviour from a controlling/demanding parent (usually a father)and like all children we have to survive in our family because we are chidren. Children with controlling parents almost always end up with the same characteristics - I know thi smight plug into your thing of "he can't help it" - thing is he CAN help it - he only behaves likes this with you.

You seem to have a lot of guilt and he is (as we all do) re-enacting his childhood and you need some good quality therapy to sort out these issues.

He gets a bit shouty when you want to talk because deep down he probably knows he is out of order and so uses an attacking mode to dsitract from the discussion you want to have e..g the milk or peg or whatever.

Just remember as so many others have said that your children when grown will be re-enacting their childhood anxieties. Take a look at the mental health threads and see how many posters are suffering serious mental health problems because of their childhood experiences. It does depend on the child because some are more resilient than others, but you don't know how your children are going to be affected until they are adult.

Anyway glad to know you are m-o-v-i-n-g that's good news and at the end of the day we are all anonymous people on a screen and the decision will be yours of course.

Can you try writing him a letter, telling him how you feel - just a thought.

Thanks MNers - this is really supportive and helpful.

Nana - I have written him a letter in the past. I just don't think he understands. He's not capable of having a progressive relationship with someone. He can't understand, so won't understand.

He's a very one dimensional character. He's not equipped to see the errors of his ways.

Dittany - what you say is very insightful. I actually had a moment not long ago when I thought 'what if I just stop listening to these people - what if they don't have a clue what they are talking about.'

Trying to please other people is making a huge rod for my own back.

The facts are that I am very unhappy in my marriage - the problems are out of my control - I've tried to sort things out and persevere - Nothing is working - something needs to change.

What I'm going to do is speak to DH tonight and just lay these facts on the table. Just because I don't know what to do next doesn't mean the problems don't exist. Just because there is not an easy solution, it doesn't mean there can't be a positive outcome.

I'm going to lay it all on the table. I've never stuck to my guns when I've broached the subject of my unhappiness. I've tried to tell him, but always cave in when he looks upset.

Not wanting to hurt him doesn't mean to say we should stay together does it?

Well, I can see you need to try to talk to him (even if I'm a bit cynical about the outcome myself). But try to keep a little bit of you apart to be the observer. Watch the dynamic. Does he really listen and agree to make a change and then actually follow up? Or does he turn the conversation round to his hurt and how that's the super important special thing that has to be avoided at all costs?

Abuse often isn't about sadism or malice - it's about a profound sense of selfishness. How dare you have needs of your own! You should be focusing all your attention on my needs, goddamnit! Me! Me! Now!

i have come to the conclusion it's like th ursery rhyme - "when eh is good eh is very very good but when he is abd he is horrid".

now it's ok and you can laugh if it is a child - because you feel you can shape their behaviour for the future, apply super nanny techniques etc.

with some aprtners - same mgiht apply - as you cahnge your reactions to their behviour

(eg you walk out of the restaurent, calmly make a stand, let everyone know you dont accept that behaviour etc)

which may lead them to see the error of their ways...

but more likely it is so ingrained that you are always always going to get teh horrid buit.

and that jsut isnt worth it.

whatever the impact of his toxicity on your DC - by separating you can mitigate it in some way, give them some secure safe space. it is hard and a long slog.

but three years after leaving - while exP is STILL trying every which way to get at me - and we STILL, obliquely suffer his ups and downs as it impacts on contact....

but i know that the children are happy and feel safe and secure in tehir day to day lives and are doing fantastic at school and are so much happier than when we lived in fear of the next episode and had nowhere to run...

ugh cr&p typing

when he is good he is very very good but when he is bad he is horrid

I've just looked at www.verbalabuse.com and can recognise myself in just about all of it.

This two day relationships analysis session is helping me face up to some realities. How many articles do I need to read before I accept that they authors know what they are talking about? And that they aren't being a teeny weeny bit hysterical.

How long will it take before I face up to the fact that his behaviour IS worth leaving him over.

I'm very deeply conditioned, I know that. I absolutely cannot see how the evidence that is staring me in the face applies to me. That I am a classic case.

I see that all of the denial is all just part of the process.

I'm dreading talking to him tonight because I'm not comfortable talking about intimate things with him at all. Because I don't feel close to him, it almost seems like an intrusion.

But, I have to tell him how it is and maybe we can work out a way of amicably moving forward.

"the problems are out of my control "

they are...but you do ahve some control over your life.

you can choose which road to go down.

you can get help for yourself - call womens aid, talk it hrough with a RL counsellor etc.

there are things you DO have control over here and you need to sit and think which ones they are.... it isnt always immediately clear.... but some good ideas in the posts above

make a list of what you CAN change and can control

Thanks Dittany,

you are right - he won't agree to separation. I'm going to tell him what I feel once and for all and say how I feel is irriversible.

I don't want my mind changed, I don't want new hope reinstalled. I don't want it becuase it's futile. He's not going to change and so I'll continue to be miserable.

I won't talk practicalities though - we have to work that out over time.

I just want him to see that I'm at the end of the road. He's had enough warnings. This time it's the final nail.

We need to begin to start the break up - whatever form that takes.

dittany is right - i naively thought - well ok he clearly doesnt like me, i am the one causing him grief, i am the one he constantly criticises, i dont match his expectations etc etc - so if i jsut say look the relationship is broken down he will agree and we agree to separate, he sees the kids regularly and all fine and lovely

...but it isnt like that with an abuser.

he wont want you to go

he will do the tears etc.

my exP threatened me with "kramer vs kramer" style court battles "is that what you want? kramer vs kramer" (quite why he chose that reference i dont know - showing our age here!!)

What would be a good outcome for you of having this discussion with him?