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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Torrent of abuse from DH, did I deserve it?

78 replies

wandymum · 28/11/2011 10:35

This should probably be an AIBU but it's about relationships and I want a serious answer.

Yesterday evening I suggested to DH that we get a takeaway (tough weekeend, 2 ill toddlers, thought it would be nice for us as a treat). Instead of just saying no, he started shaking his head and swearing under his breath whilst shouting 'really, oh fine then" before storming off in a strop.

As it obviously wasn't fine I said not to worry and just told him that there was no need to get angry he could just say no. Then he lost it totally and started shouting at me. I left him ranting in the kitchen as I wanted to avoid making things worse and while I was watching TV next door he cooked some pasta for us both but refused to talk to me while we ate it.

When we went up to bed he started again and, after being called a 'twat' and all manner of other unpleasant things, I spent the night on the floor in DD's room to get out of his way.

He's unapologetic today and still obviously very angry with me. I really am at a bit of a loss as to why?

He's quite old fashioned re husband/wife split on domestic duties. I don't have dinner waiting for him every night and do ask him to cook fairly regularly but then I have a 2 year old and 3 year old to chase around all day and work part time from home too.

I had PND after DD was born (and probably beforehand too) and it was during the time when I was really struggling with it that this all seemed to surface. I know he is disappointed with me as a wife but can't work out how to deal with it. What worries me most is that instead of telling me what is bothering him he builds up this resentment against me and then has these odd explosions.

Sorry, this has got longer than I intended. I really would welcome your thoughts - am I being mad or is he?

OP posts:
StewieGriffinsMom · 28/11/2011 16:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

yummytummy · 28/11/2011 17:14

hi just wanted to say this is exactly how my husband acts almost exactly the same. once i also suggested a takeaway and almost exactly the same response word for word. if i wait few days and raise the issue same response. i too would love for him not to do this but feel its too late. he wont do counselling either. but just to say you are not alone at all. i have just posted about my situation too.

AnyFucker · 28/11/2011 17:40

what is "too late" YT

too late for him ? I hope that's what you mean, because it certainly is not too late for you

UnlikelyAmazonian · 28/11/2011 20:05

What "French villa"? Where?

Why can't the soulless twerp arrange something more 21st century like Glamping (french villas are passe) and why for only "his side of the family?"

He sounds like a big public school boy bully who can't keep his breeches up without mummy's help and can't afford to play the French Villa monopoly game any longer - now he is weighed down with responsibilities (poor love) and is mightily peeved about it

...and so blaming you. (yawn)

I would breezily ignore him, adopt an orphan in Nicaragua (genuinely, not as a wheeze) tell him you are going to work in a soup kitchen over Christmas and could he please organise a delivery turkey with all trimmings to go to your MIL and her diamond-drop-earrings-clad family.

If he spits the dummy, cue the bloody gorgeous eton-educated escort, plug on your costume-glittery brooch, swing into your crimson startling high choos, ask twat knobber to lend you a monkey (500 quid) and remind him to have fucked off by the time you and Farquar von Schweinitz return.

knobber.

yummytummy · 28/11/2011 20:54

af, i mean too late for him to see sense and act like a normal human being. not for me, no!

ThereGoesTheFear · 28/11/2011 21:06

Don't have joint counselling with this guy. Not recommended where there's been abuse (and this is certainly emotional abuse). I ignored that same advice to my eternal regret. By all means get counselling on your own, and work out what ultimatum you want to give to him that you're sure you can carry out.

AnyFucker · 28/11/2011 21:06

Glad to hear it, YT Smile

LadyEatsCrispsALot · 28/11/2011 23:37

Yep I have posted about exactly the same thing! Weirdly this episode of DH ranting, instead of sobbing weeping etc. I have just thought bollocks. I don't deserve this any more. marriage is supposed to be supportive and caring. This is not.
Goodbye.....

LadyEatsCrispsALot · 28/11/2011 23:38

The episodes have been going on for a few years now so....enough is enough isn't it....thinking of you xxxx

Jux · 28/11/2011 23:48

What happened, ThereGoes?

LadyEatsCrisps, good on you.

YummyTummy, you're not alone,and you can do it.

Wandymum, good luck.

ThereGoesTheFear · 29/11/2011 19:40

Jux we had to each look at ways that we contribute to the problems we were facing in our relationship, and look for solutions. I was just handing him more bullets. He wasn't going to accept that he had to change, and focused on what we identified as my failings to further justify his abuse. I was being controlled subtly during the sessions, we even discussed his abuse, and the counsellor didn't pick up on it.

My experience went like this:

  1. My H was Mr Nice Guy to everyone else but me. Especially charming to the counsellor, who seemed to be taken in.
  2. H lied and lied in counselling to make him look better/me worse. I didn't recognise the relationship he described and some stuff he raised was pure invention.
  3. H used any comment by the counsellor as a stick to beat me with (for years afterwards).
  4. Some comments he made were veiled references to his usual tirades, and I would get upset and end up looking histrionic.
  5. I was pretty ground down by the abuse and dealt with superficial issues for the first 4 sessions. I'm still not sure why but I couldn't seem to start talking about his mistreatment of me, so we focused on what I was doing wrong - mainly my nagging of him - a focus I was pretty used to at home.
  6. On the 5th and final session I finally blurted out that he had done some things to really upset me. I described a time a few months previously when he'd physically assaulted me. He was drunk, I was heavily pregnant, it was a sustained and pretty awful assault. The counsellor's response was: "But he's stopped drinking now, and that was months ago and there's been nothing like it since, so what do we have to do to move on and for you to forgive him?" The organisation's guidelines said that they wouldn't counsel a couple where there was abuse. I was hoping that she would stop the session and say that this was not on. She didn't say that it was abuse, and it left me feeling like I'd made a big deal over nothing, and I should just get over it. I scrabbled around in my brain and said "er, I'd like him to apologise". So he did, and that was supposedly the end of it. It seems odd, but I had needed someone to tell me I was being abused.

When I look back many many more abusive behaviours were raised, but not picked up by the counsellor. She was a nice person, but dangerously inexperienced. (We were her first ever clients.)

So I stayed for another 2 1/2 years, until I asked on AIBU about bloody housework or something and was told he's an abusive twat. I then had individual counselling, left him and never looked back. I'm free now (yay!) and I just wish I'd done the individual counselling instead of the couples counselling in the first place. I wouldn't have wasted 2 1/2 years, and subjected my children to 2 1/2 years of that environment.

AnyFucker · 29/11/2011 20:25

Could you please repost that whne joint couselling is suggested for relationships where there is abuse

I am sorry you had to experience that Sad

ThereGoesTheFear · 29/11/2011 22:17

Anything for you AnyFucker; you were one of the people who posted on my AIBU thread last year, the one that made me realise that he was an abusive bastard. If it weren't for that I think we'd still be there.

PontyMython · 29/11/2011 22:26

he is impeccably polite and very charming. Friends and family wouldn't believe him capable of it if I told them. He only gets angry like this with me.

Classic sign of a verbal/emotional abuser :(

AnyFucker · 29/11/2011 23:05

Blimey TGTF

The power of MN, eh ? Smile

PosiesOfPoinsettia · 29/11/2011 23:37

Power of MN fueled by Anyfucker unleaded!

AnyFucker · 29/11/2011 23:44

I wish MN had been around when I was going through kind of shit

AnyFucker · 29/11/2011 23:45

through this kind of shit

Bossybritches22 · 29/11/2011 23:46

Power of MN fueled by Anyfucker unleaded!

Love it...quote of the week potential methinks.

OP- you've had some good advice on here, please think about it & look after yourself, as I don't think your not-so DH will.

MidnightHag · 30/11/2011 09:13

ThereGoesTheFear, I remember your thread and it's great to hear that things are still going well for you AND you're using your experiences to advise others. I LOVE MN Smile.

Jux · 30/11/2011 13:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Jux · 30/11/2011 15:24

That msg which I had withdrawn was because it was mainly useless maundering about myself, off the point and unhelpful, but nothing objectionable or unkind or anything like that.

What I was going to say was

Thank you ThereGoes, for posting that. I think that was a brave thing to do, and will be very helpful to others in the situation you were in.

AnyFucker · 30/11/2011 15:33

I did wonder if you had countered those lovely comments about Yours Truly, Jux Smile

you ok ?

ParsleyTheLioness · 30/11/2011 18:52

Theregoes is very generous, as a many wise women of MN.

Jux · 30/11/2011 20:30

Yes, I'm sorry AF. It was remarkably thoughtless of me, and I had only meant to click preview knowing how counter-productive I had been, but needed to see it before I dumped it. hey presto! Clicked the wrong bloody button!

Parsley, thank you for asking. I'm fine.

To everyone else, sorry for deflecting the thread.