Please respond, don't know what to do about this.

[marmajam]

Namechanged.
It is with a heavy heart that I say the following, but I really need advice.
Things have not been right between dh and myself for a while (no dc's as yet).
I realise that my behaviour has not been exactly great, but I am questioning what happened last night.
Trying to be as neutral as I can.
Dh has been trying to talk to me about the state of our relationship for days, he had a bit too much to drink and sat next to me on sofa. He tried to get me to converse with him, I would not. He kept going on and on. So I raised my right hand (he was to the right of me) as if to say 'enough'. I was in a bit of a temper myself, I admit as I was sick of him going on. He grabbed it and proceeded to hit himself across the face with it, saying' You are hurting me everyday like this'. He then let go of my hand and smashed a glass against his forehead. I just got up and left the room and stayed there until now.
Please I am not out for sensationalism and not a troll.
He has always had a hot temper but has not laid a finger on me before. I have been with him for 14 years. I feel a corner has been turned here. Please help.

OP - my DP stonewalls me when we have an argument. He just will not engage - i try to sort out the problem, he refuses to engae and I end up ranting and raving. he then does the whole 'I can't live like this the rest of my life, why do you have to rant and rave like that?' thing. It drives me mad.

i can see where he's coming from. Your relationship won't improve unless you actually engage

marmajam - in a relationship, the thing that frustrates me the most is when the other person will not talk/discuss. I find it worse than the actual problem that needs to be discussed. I am not suprised your DH hit himself with your hand and smashed a glass on himself. I would actually say that he is pretty restrained given the frustration which he clearly suffers when you don't communicate. He didn't hit you, he didn't damage anything other than a glass and the only person he endangered was himself. He was really upset and frustrated and if you are the kind of person who doesn't like to talk, then please believe me that some people find this terribly upsetting.

It is far easier to end a marriage when there are no children involved. Depending on what the actual issues are in the relationship, you might want to consider getting divorced.

OP - do you always focus on perceived slights that are not relevant to the main issue when you hear things you don't want to hear? You are now focusing on two posters who haven't been particularly awful and are allowing yourself to get worked up over them, while not listening to any of the advice.

Looking at things objectively, I suppose he always likes to plan everything to the nth degree, I am far more laid back.
I suppose that everything I do more or less gets questioned by him, perhaps not in a bad way, IYSWIM, but everything has to be analysed and justified and it has always been this way. I have tried to ask him why he does this and, apparently, it is a family trait.
I don't know if this is anything to do with the way I feel, though, and I feel unconfident a lot of the time. Don't feel as I can do much at all. It's not that I don't want to do anything, just that I don't feel that I can.

In many ways he is a good person: kind, honest, and gentle.

Focusing on the negative is also a depressive symptom. I have to watch it in myself.

Erm he sounds an all right chap really. He just questions you on the detail of stuff and wants to know all the ins and outs.

Could be a mildly annoying quirk of personality I suppose, but you're still coming off worse here.

Have you heard any of us mention that you sound depressed and very hard to live with because you refuse to communicate and stonewall and seem to take no joy from life?

OP your husband is clearly in considerable distress. I remember feeling like that when I couldn't get through to my ex. He's not being abusive, he's failing out in his pain because his DW has cut herself off from him

Thanks for your post at 10:49, marmajam :) So, okay, he IS controlling. Maybe not to extremes, but being 'planned' into compliance and constantly examined would drive me absolutely insane! Perhaps you simply are incompatible, I sure would be with someone like that.

Wit the Talk he wanted to have about your relationship ... Did you feel he was going to tell you a bunch of stuff about what YOU do wrong? Is that why you avoided it, do you think?

OK, this is where I am going to get accused of drip-feeding, but I am only human and I can't put everything in at the start.
Something similar has happened before, I ended up in casualty because he threw a candlestick behind my head (again, I was on the sofa- that sofa, eh?). It hit a picture and the glass shattered behind me and I think I got some shards of glass in my eye.
Oh hell, I've started so I'll finish: he has also been in communication with other women online- I read an e-mail where he arranged to meet one of them. He swears that he has not done so and only did so out of frustration.

I actually do believe that he has not met up with any of them, but it still hurts like hell.

You will be pleased to hear I'm leaving now.

Good luck!

So WHY won't you talk to him when you have so many issues to discuss?

marmajam- you need some help from your GP

you say you feel scared? only you know what your relationship is like, but bear in mind, mners on relationships are very keen to jump in and say leave when there is a hint of violence. No-one has said that here.
He took your hand and hit his own face with it.
Everyone can see how frustrated he is.
You need to sit down and talk to him openly, it sounds like you can't do that because of your own depression/mental state.

Don't focus on the 2 posters here who are going for the tough love approach!
There are a lot of other people telling you how to sort it out

Hully I'd back away slowly if I was you. Dont make any sudden moves.

I've got to say - no wonder you're depressed!

Don't worry about drip-feeding, this is Relationships. It's always hard to talk about problems to begin with.

I'd still say go to your doctor, because depression makes it impossible to see the wood for the trees - and makes you physically ill in the end; you don't need that. If you get some antidepressants to help shore up your system, you'll feel better able to deal with things.

How do you feel about going home this evening?

If these anti-depressants work, I will gladly take them. But won't they alter my mind and what if I make bad decisions on them?

marmajam- yes obviously that's drip feeding.
you are concerned at the escalating violence, and yes that is a very early indicator, but once again, he didn't touch you.
"I think I got some shards of glass in my eye" what did the hospital say?

there is no excuse for on-line dating or arranging to meet another woman, that hurts a lot, I've been through that and yes he should be focussing on sorting our your marriage, but it sounds like he is trying to sort it out and you aren't interested.

why are you staying in this relationship? It's not nourishing (for either of you) and adding to the sum of misery in the world, not its joy.

You have no children: there is no earthly reason why either of you have to suffer and "make it work".

when you are both dead, there will be nothing and no-one standing by your graves, commending you for wading through misery like this.

Sorry if that sounds harsh to your ears but it is true. I don't mean it to be harsh - it's just that it is such a waste of your life to do this.

There is absolutely, completely and utterly no point to this. Even staying to try and work out who is "at fault" and "responsible" for all this misery is pointless.

Really. Sometimes it is just best to shake hands, say "We tried. Let's try again, with other people." - and leave.

And yes, I too think you sound depressed. The thing to do is to go to the GP, get started on sorting that out, and then, when you are in a better place, reflect on what went wrong, and gather some life lessons from it.

redrollers, luckily, I did not. But, with respect, that is not the point: I could have done and I was so shocked and taken aback that I did not know if I had or not. I had to get it checked out, though.

I don't want to talk to him because I know it will be a non-stop tirade from him about how shit I am, without there being any acknowledgement from him about all the shitty things he has done.
The online chats, the throwing of things, the threats to inform my employer that I am not fit to do my job. The threats to beat up members of my family.

You see, your depression could be your response to what you recognise as his aggression. It's hard to tell at this distance (from the other side of the laptop). It might be something else - it might be that you are both unhappy people. But the longer you stay in this relationship, trying to sort out the cause, the longer you are staying in a relationship that is just not good.

One life, marmajam - sometimes the obvious solutions (ie just calling it quits) have a lot going for them.

I get the feeling that you want some kind of acknowledgment that he is "the baddie" and that acknowledgement is what you are staying for.

Don't bother waiting for that. If it's going wrong at this stage, it's just going to go wronger the longer you stay. i.m.o.

No, these days you get SSRIs which gradually readjust the balance of neurotransmitters in your body. They don't have drastic effects.

Your doc should tell you they might make you feel a bit odd (nervy or spacey) for the first 10 days. But it's not a major problem, it's more like the feelings you have when you're tired.

Assuming yours work for you, you'll start feeling able to make better decisions after 2-3 weeks; they carry on gently improving your state of mind for about 4-6 months, then you reach your stable position for that prescription.

It sounds to me as if there are serious problems in your relationship, and not all your fault by any means. But I do feel your own health is the most crucial thing right now.

There is no reason for him to tell my employer that I am not fit to do my job, I must make that clear. It is said to scare me.