does your dh swear at you during arguments?

[brandnewname]

have name changed for this one and have cross posted to AIBU as I am getting pretty desparate and am struggling to work out whether it is me or him that has the problem - probably both I guess - please do not all just say "leave him" as I do not want to. (That is why I did not post here originally)

I just want to know what is normal for other couples (ie there is a big spectrum and I want to know what is on it IYSWIM).

When we argue (often - at the moment several times a week as are both working stupid hours and not getting much sleep) dh will often shout fck off, fck off" many times and/or call me an f*cking bitch. He also sometimes invades my personal space whilst making very aggresive facial expressions. He has never actually hit me but did once (about a year ago) say that he wanted to "push a glass in my face".

Sometimes I can see that I do provoke him (ie I am far from perfect :) ) but other times he will lose it because I do something wrong (eg bump the car or get a parking ticket etc - he will shout that I have "s*it for brains" and get really cross (we do not have financial problems so it is not the money - more my falability that he gets angry with - he will shout and shout about my being careless/not thinking/not caring about (my) car etc etc.

He does keep promising to stop but appears (after 15 years) still unable to. Have bought him various books on anger management but he doesn't like what he refers to as psycobabble. Also I dont' want to drive him to a heart attack by making him "bottle it all up" too much.

Anyway I just wanted to know if anyone else has a similar partner - how normal is this?

When he is calm and neither of you are stressed say to him firmly that you will not tolerate name calling, you find it degrading, frightening and completely out of order. Say you also do not think it is appropriate to be threateened or blamed for things that are genuine mistakes. Do it in parent to teenager style or teacher to pupil - not treating him as inferior but drawing a firm line on what you will tolerate. Then leave it and walk away. No referral to it again, just calm, still, deep breathing, resolute.
The off chance is that you are both stressed, but if he is an abuser then you have set a boundary and have made it clear that it is not to be crossed. Then take from there ... an abuser will do more of the same, someone who is stressed may take a while to reflect, think about your wishes and agree to address his issues and the issues between you.

I can remember going through this and posting on here and shaking when someone mentioned abuse to me. We do not like to see ourselves as victims. The thing that caused me to change and demand that dp also changed was the realisation that I took this shit because I had seen my mother take it. My own dd was not watching a man treat her mother like shit and therefore she would repeat my mistakes.

Well OP, it's your life, and you get to choose, but is this job you love worth the abuse you get and your children witness at home?

What options are there to change your job? Work in a different place, different setup, different hours, to end your reliance on him.

I'm sorry, but staying with someone just because it allows you to do your job isn't fair to anyone. He's supposed to be your husband, your life partner, the love of your life. Not childcare who hurls abuse at you.

My ex husband used to act exactly like this. Note - EX.

Its not normal and I realise this now Im on my own and have a lovely OH who I have never rowed with.

For the last year I was with him, I was completely worn down, in the end he left me for a neighbour. After we split up all my friends told me how they hated to see the way he spoke to me (he used to treat me like that in public as well).

If any man even attempted to treat me like this again, he would be out the door. As someone else said - it would be a deal breaker.

Let me put it another way. His behaviour is entirely 'normal' for a man who is on the receiving end of a non molestation order or is facing his children being taken into care.

I am sorry. I know it is very frightening to think about being on your own. But I don't understand why people so often post about serious relationship problems and say 'but don't tell me to leave because I wont'.

So he can't change and you won't leave. There aren't any other options but to stay and putup with it.

Is it normal to never row though? Rows don't have to be yelling abuse and slamming doors. Surely people disagree.

Yes, disagreeing is fine

Not respecting your partner is not fine

Abusing them verbally is something else again

Disagreeing is fine and healthy. It is how you disagree that matters.

Would he deal with some one at work in the way he deals with you? No, because he would get sacked and possibly arrested.

No, not normal.

Yes I agree with that anyfucker and spero.

I have told him that I do not like it and that it is unreasonable but yes my job/life is worth it - I am very well qualified and love my work but had to give up work in order to be with dh - had to make the career/family desision as we could not find work in the same city (what I do is v specalised) and biological clock was ticking pretty loudly :)
So now I am trying to re-establish myself is career land which is very hard as my already specialised area has been heavily hit by spending cuts so did very well to get the unsocial hours work. There is only one employer who pays people to do what I do and they have a recruitment ban on. Retraining is not an option as I am too well qualified (so ELQ kicks in and I'd need thousands to retrain and cannot get a loan (yes have tried)) so am pretty stuck really.

I had a similar husband.

He called me a stupid fucking bitch, invaded my space and made intimidating gestures. It escalated. First punching walls. Then throwing and breaking things. Then pinning me against walls to shout in my face. Then the threats -- threats to hit me, to make my life hell, and finally to kill me.

It was always "my fault" for making him angry.

Your husband is abusive. He is doing all this on purpose. He won't change, because he doesn't want to change: he chooses to do all this to you.

The only person you can act on is yourself. So the question is: do you choose to stay with him?

it would appear so

I feel for her children, that she would put a job before their welfare

that is very concerning

If your job is well paid could you not get a live in au pair to look after the children while you worked? What's he like with the children when they make mistakes, have accidents etc? How long before he treats them the same as he treats you?

Thing is, he seems to be escalating and you're now feeling scared. So what happens if it continues to worsen? How much abuse will you put up with to keep working?

Have you looked at what tax credits/childcare you could get as a single parent? There's the 'entitled to' website that you can calculate likely outcomes?

...I feel for her children, that she would put a job before their welfare...

that doesn't feel very helpful or supportive anyfucker. I am not feeling good - either about myself or my life at present and I posted here partly because I am struggling to work out what is reasonable and partly for some support.

dh is not hitting me and dc do not appear to be suffering - and I suspect that out there/here in the real world many, many children witness far worse. Yes I could leave and drag them through a custody battle which he may or may not win. He'd at the very least end up with unsupervised access. dc would have to leave their schools as I could no longer afford to live in the catchment area (or even close) and could not afford to drive them to the schools. They would end up at some of the worst in the country (yes I have done the research). dd is already being bullied at her school (she has minor SNs - but is too bright to get any help) but at least the kids at her school are on the whole pretty nice - I've seen exactly what life is like in the schools they would end up at and do not think that dd could cope at all.

The childcare does not exist as my hours are unsociable - I'd need a live in nanny to cover my work as I work evenings with a long commute and so often am not back until midnight. I am not well paid by anyones definition.

dh is not hitting me and never has. He also does not hit the children. I just asked a question as I need to assess my grip on normality. I do think that I am in an abusive relationship and I suspect that being in one does affect one's perception of what is normal which is why I asked the question so that I could decide whether I was over reacting or whether I should persevere with trying to get dh to get help.

dh tlls me often enough that I am a bad parent. I do not need to be told that I am by anyone else :)

And it is not just a "job" to me - other than the children (who will one day leave home) it is all I have that is me.

My DH and I have been married just over ten years. Once, early on, he said he sometimes feels like hitting me. He's said some other pretty mean things over the years, although he hates swearing so he never does that (slightly skewed priorities ).

The post about the H who said the car crash was all her fault - I could imagine my DH using exactly that "logic". He's done it many times before, without me really even following what he was saying.

But if he starts belittling me, I now walk away. And in my situation (and yours could be entirely different, I don't know), that's enough of a wake-up call to him that he'll usually come and apologise a bit later. I don't stand there and take it and I tell him each time that I'm not taking that.

I think (but I'm only talking from my experience), that just because you stay with a man in a situation like this, it doesn't mean that you have to be a bad role model for your children. If you can behave with dignity, doesn't it make the dad look a fool, in the end?

BUT - I have no fears that he'd hit me or harm the children. That would be much more serious.

so there are children who suffer "worse" ?

and that makes it ok ?

FWIW, your H will only seek help if he feels like he is doing wrong...has he given you any indication of that ?

no, he continues to verbally abuse you instead, and frighten you

you say your kids aren't affected

you are in denial

a frightened mother will affect her children...give them more credit than that

I am sure you don't find my posts "helpful" in the slightest

you see, I refuse to collude with anyone who would make their kids live in a an abusive home

you have a choice..do they ?

I have every sympathy with you, of course I do

but you don't want sympathy...you want people to tell you it's ok to stay

and it isn't

OP, sounds like you have a very similar relationship to mine. DH and I have been together 13 years, and when life gets stressful he can behave very nastily toward me - your example of the bin bag breaking is a perfect example of the things my DH will lose his temper over. I have always just tended to ignore it and stay out of his way until he is calmer. However, after having our DCs I couldnt bear the thought of him swearing at me in front of them, slamming doors, throwing things etc.

After one shouting episode in front of the DCs, I told him in no uncertain terms that if it continued, I would be gone and he would lose everything we had together. I may have put up with it when it was just the two of us, but I was older and wiser now and would put the children first. We had a pretty serious talk about it and things have improved dramatically.

It can be very easy to shout "leave him!" but in every other way our relationship is great. I wouldn't want to be without him. We have both come from the starting point of pretty messed up families, and so we have both had to learn how to behave in a "normal" relationship. I think my drawing a line and saying I had had enough has helped move us forward. I have warned him though that if he starts the same crap on the kids as they get older, he won't get a second chance. I'm not sure how it will turn out, but we are going the right way.

OP, I think the point of my post is that you need to find out if your DH thinks he is doing anything wrong, and if he wants to change. If he does you have a starting point I think; if not, you need to think about getting out.

I am sorry but I have rearead your op again and seen that he has said that "he felt like putting a glass in your face" Again I speak as someone who has dealt with emotional abuse in her own relationship, that would make me walk. Not least because it is so specific. He didn't just say "sometimes you make meso angry I could hit you" which would also be wrong. But he knew exactly what he could do and it is extreme violence.

I have had mumsnetters tell me that I need to leave or make a change for the sake of my own child and it was the one thing that made both of us sort it out.

Children suffer in an abusive home even when no blows are struck.

You give so many reasons why you won't leave. Can you start listing the reasons and researching the means to leave? It might help you look at the problem differently.

I asked the question so that I could decide whether I was over reacting or whether I should persevere with trying to get dh to get help.

Common pitfall. Understandable: all of us who have stayed too long in abusive relationships hang on to the notion that we can help, that we can help them to help themselves...

But you can't. Only he can choose whether he gets help or not. You can't make him get help, and you can't make him want to get help.

I repeat: the only person you can act on is yourself. So: what are you going to do?

Are you frightened? I've just reread and can't see where you've said that. (Nodded my head at recognition of the binbag scenario, though.)

Are you getting support in RL, OP? I mean, do you see enough of sane friends and family that you believe it's he who has the problem? Or do you hear enough of his brainwashing sort of spin on things that you wonder if he's got a point?

He does scare me though sometimes now but I don't know if that is me over reacting

OP's 18:38 post

Post at 18.38, lostinafrica:
"He does scare me though sometimes now but I don't know if that is me over reacting - he has always been like this but it is only in the last 6 months or so that I have started to feel scared."

Oops, x-posted.