dh- sudden violence

[underachiever]

My dh and I have been together for 18 happy years but yesterday we were discussing our building project that is currently underway (it is behind schedule and a bit stressful. I admit to often ranting about the builder and it really stresses dh out) he warned me to shut up because he was getting really mad but I didn't and he reached across the table and grabbed me round the neck with both hands and shook me hard.
I locked myself in the toilet and cried for a bit.

When I came out he had typed this on my computer:
You are killing me, you are driving me nuts- I have to suffer your constant ranting- no one else gets the hassle- it is sooooo frustrating for me and you have driven me to do something awful. But I feel as if Im acting under diminished responsibility as you are messing with my mind- I snapped totally because Im haunted by your nastiness and the stress you are creating over this. I am TRYING MY BEST to sort this out- to make you happy- but you criticise everything and Im stuck in the middle. ITS NOT FAIR- I want to scream!! YOU are causing this enormous stress by your response and the worst thing is that you just can't see it- which makes me worry for the future. None of it really matters- I just want to run away now and not come back.
Please help me.

I know I have been ranting about the builder a lot, and I know he is doubly stressed trying to deal with the builder and putting up with me getting cross about it too, but it's not the most stressful thing in the world is it? He worries for the future as he says because if I get worse with my ranting I might provoke him to do something worse.

We have been together for 18 years and have always been very happy together, but from time to time I do feel uncomfortable particularly with the way he reacts when the children misbehave. Sometimes he will grab them quite roughly and he is 6'4 and they are 5yo & 7yo. Sometimes he will grab our ds and hold him up against the wall (high up with his feet dangling) and shout at him. I tell him it's inappropriate but he tells me I'm over-reacting.

This sounds absolutely terrible when I write it down but 99.9% of the time he is totally lovely and loads of fun, a great dad and really romantic and thoughtful but just from time to time the red mist descends.

We talked a little about yesterday's incident, he explained how much I wound him up and I've tried to put it out of my mind as a once in a lifetime abberation. But, tonight dd was being giddy and not listening to him so he went over and grabbed her by the head and shouted loudly in her ear.

He's gone to his spinning class now. Luckily my cousin (who is a massive bloke) is arriving in a bit and stopping the night so we won't be alone with him but I'm not sure what to do next.

Op tell your partner to get help, make him a doctors appointment, anger management should help him.

"let him be the master"??!!! Jesus fucking Christ

OP please get out, even if it's just for a few days. This man is dangerous and a bully and is building up to something terrible. You need to get you and your kids somewhere safe. Talk to someone in RL urgently and create some head space for you to figure out what to do.

Protect yourself and your kids as your absolute priority OP. Your H sounds unhinged.

I've been a victim of domestic violence, was so bad for me that I had to tell my children I had been mugged, I looked like I'd been in a car accident.

Im erring on the side of the OP here because it's been 18 years, abusers do it from early on and they continue to do it.

This is not an abuser, I know how they act and how they behave. This is a man at the end of his tether through stress.

He needs help via anger management, and he probably should take valium.

come back op, you ok?

anger management cant always be acessed by someone who has already been violent,and rarely works either

My views are based on what the OP has said about where she wants this relationship to go, she does not want to leave.

My mental health issues have nothing to do with my responses. I suffer from depression which has been in remission for over six months. I've BPD but I'm high functioning if you saw me socially you would never know.

My issues only come to the fore in a relationship.

My views are somewhat scewed because my emotional age is young, however at 46 having lived, I do speak from experience.

What the OPs husband did is in excuseable, however there are underlying reasons as to why he reacted the way he did. 18 years good behaviour should not be sniffed at for one mistake or even two.

Circumstances make people do things out of character change the circumstances the situation won't arise again.

fabby,first you say he has MH issues,then he is stressed and now,he needs valium!

you are posting rubbish! do you know him??

Fabby - My Mum has always said that 'no matter what, a couple should stay together if they have children and 'work' at things.' Although she knows nothing about my ongoing situation she now says 'What I used to say about staying together is total crap......it was what I was taught when I was growing up.' I have tried every way to 'help'my husband. I now find myself frustrated, angry and very resentful of the fact that I feel I have wasted my entire adult life.' My husband is now approaching 60 years old - I have four wonderful sons - the only good thing to come out of this lifetime of shite.

Fabby, you don't know that and you can't diagnose him online.

OP said that he sometimes grabs the children and from time to time she feels uncomfortable with the way he behaves - not that he'd done it today for the first time ever. It may well have been going on for years - she didn't say it had never happened before.

Sounds like it could be stress and from what you said about how he deals with DCs, he isn't very good at managing it anyway. It could be start of a huge breakdown. Those two things you can be sympathetic to but only from a distance and when he seeks help from GP initially.
You need to draw line and say, perhaps to him on his own, but when your cousin is there in the house to intervene if things get nasty, that he is behaving unacceptably and you don't think it is appropriate for you all to be together in the same house while he sorts himself out. You and the DCs are becoming the punchbags in various ways for his stress, which is wrong and unacceptable.
He may continue to deny and blame you for a while until he begins to address his problems, so you need to be safe.
If he denies it all/refuses to address problems then you need to be apart permanently.
Men do get angry/violent when depressed or stressed but the humane ones will eventually breakdown and properly address their problems. They you can rebuild slowly. The ones that don't/can't face what they've done and seek help are the really dangerous ones. You need time and space to work out which one he is.

But it's not an 18 yrs unblemished record!! Read what the op says about how he reacts to the children! He reacts this way when the children misbehave!!! Mine misbehave every bloody day but they don't get that! I shudder to think how often he has been violent to the kids let alone to op. for gawd's sake woman.

its more than once in 18 years fabby!!! read the op!

Fabby with respect, you are talking bull. When I read your first post on this thread I thought it was a sick joke but apparently not. I am really sad for you if you believe what you are saying.

Please OP get away from this situation, even just temporarily so you can get some perspective on it. Call Womens Aid and talk to somebody. Don't accept this behaviour as something you have to put up with in your life.

whatever the cause is is irrelevant - this man sounds ready to snap.

OP you must do something about this - i think you are in a dangerous situation as are your children.

phone womens aid - they are there for this, they have experience and can advise you. you must act.

Call the police DV unit and report what happened and ask how soon an officer can come to support you when you tell him to leave. Women's Aid will be able to help if your local DV unit is closed at weekends or whatever. Even if his behaviour is because he is having a breakdown or developing a psychotic illness, that doesn't mean you OR THE CHILDREN should have to accept it.
The fact that he is already violent towards the children is extremely worrying - he sees his whole family as objects he can do what he likes with. I think you and your children may be in serious danger. FWIW you can take the DC and leave the house, go into a refuge in the short term and get a court order to have the man removed from the house and forbidden to return - you don't forfeit your legal right to the house by leaving temporarily because it's too dangerous for you to stay when a violent man is there.

Men who leave notes like that and who have a track record of physically abusing their DC as well as their partners are often the sort of men who decide to kill the whole family and burn the house down. You need to get away from him as soon as possible.

But he HAS displayed violent tendencies before. If the strangling incident was a one off then yes mental health could be a consideration. But it sounds like he's been aggressive towards the children for some time. We all get stressed out as parents but most of us know that whatever a child could do, holding them up against a wall or holding their head and shouting in their ear is way out of proportion and massively inappropriate. These children are under seven years old.

If I knew something was about to explode I wouldn't just not light a match, I'd run the hell away, as fast as was safe without disturbing the exploding thing too much. (stretching the metaphor here but I think it fits) I know it's not that simple to just up and leave in a real life situation but I am very glad OP has her cousin there tonight, whether she feels able to tell him about what has happened, or not.

(Oh crap, this was meant in response to Fabby's post of 22:16, thread has moved on a bit, but I still think it's worth saying.)

I agree SGB, serious danger. Bloody awful. Be careful OP

notsorted 'men do get angry/violent when depressed or stressed'. Not all men do, only the fucked up ones. Thank god IME there are plenty of men out there who would never become angry and violent towards the people they are supposed to love, no matter what stress they are under.

its not just about the op and her 18 year marriage and the building work the fact she loves him.......there are young children being abused here

Fabby if you think that an 11 and a 7 year old can prevent their father being violent to them by being "good and nice to Daddy" , while, meanwhile, this grown man cannot prevent himself, you really need to think again.