NC for anonymity.
I need some perspective on a situation with DH. I am 30 weeks pg, and we have had some difficulties lately, I found out he had been cheating. But we went to Relate and we sorted things out and things were OK.
He has been fairly lovely to me, although he still hasn't been helping me around the house as much as I need him to. We are in the middle of moving house, but he isn't doing his half of the everyday chores, let alone the big packing stuff. He has done a but, but only after constant reminders, things are moving very slowly, and he still spends a lot of time playing computer games. Often he will say he is having a quick 10 minute game, before he helps me out, but it will run away with him for a couple of hours and nothing gets done.
Last night I decided to discuss this with him. I explained that I was feeling exhausted and hopeless, I am trying to look after a toddler all day, whilst packing, cooking, cleaning and doing laundry. I don't really get any down time, he has been trying to help by taking the toddler to bed, but that just opens up time for me to pack, the only time I really rest is when DS falls asleep on my lap and I can't move!
I explained I desperately need his help, we need to move in a couple of weeks and we are nowhere near done. Last week I made him a list of all the tasks he could help me with, he discarded it for a couple of days, then spent a morning doing some stuff, then gave up. He had a week off last week "to help", he did about a day's worth of tasks.
I tried to be non confrontational and just explain what I needed and why I felt I wasn't getting it, what I needed him to do. He started getting really defensive and argumentative and it escalated. When I mentioned the computer gaming he turned around, took the disc out of the console and threw it away across the room. Then he picked up one of DS' toys, looked me in the eye and crushed it in his fist.
I completely freaked, I have been in a (psychologically) abusive relationship before and I found this behaviour really threatening. DH is over 6 foot and nearly 20 stone. I told him to get out, he didn't. I told him I couldn't deal with him behaving like that, what if the next thing he decided to break was me? He told me I was overreacting, he broke that to find an outlet that meant he didn't lose it with me. I don't think this is an acceptable way to manage his anger at all.
He talked me down and I ended up feeling really silly, and like I was overreacting. I think I even apologised for losing my rag with him.
Looking at it today with a clear head (and him not around) I am less convinced. This isn't the first time he has taken his frustration out on an inanimate object. He knows I don't like it, my ex used to shout at inanimate objects and told me I couldn't have a problem with it as he wasn't shouting at me, I found it very scary though, I had a nervous breakdown. DH knows this, he was with me when I was recovering.
He has also previously left the room and hurt himself to make a point. It's not SI, I have a history of self-harm so I know the deal, it's an angry thing, taking it out on himself rather than me.
I'm not sure how to deal with this, I am starting to feel like I can't disagree with him for fear of an outburst, I think he needs to go into some kind of anger management thing at least, I'm still not convinced if he is really losing control, or if he is doing it deliberately to scare me into shutting up.
He hasn't laid a finger on me, he says he never would and I don't really expect him to, but if he really is losing control then what's to stop him? If he could walk out rather than lash out, then why didn't he do that before trashing our child's toy?