I'm unsure if this is abusive behaviour.

[sherhi]

Last night the neighbours opposite were having a party playing really loud music until 1am. My dh went over to ask them to turn music down. They got a bit stroppy, 'I've a degree in law. We've done nothing wrong'. I shouted -perhaps wrongly- 'Oh do shuttup, you idiots!! Have you seen the time?'

They did be quiet. That's not the issue, though.

But when we got back to our house, my dh got really funny. 'I told you to stay inside.' 'I instructed you to stay inside.' 'You don't speak in a situation like that again.'

His tone was quite chilling to me. His 'excuse' is that he was scared that things may have developed into violence and my behaviour -shouting and being 'aggressive' may have caused that.

erm. initially i thought, twat for telling you off, so to speak. then i thought, maybe he was scared right at the moment you shouted that something was going to happen to kick it off. That he would get beaten up or something, or they would retaliate to you.
Who knows what pissed, pissed off people will do in that situation.

Was his tone usual for him? Has he apologized for his tone, have you TOLD him you did not like being spoken to like that op?

Your dh was probably scared shitless that your shouting would result in a full on confrontation that he would most likely of ended up bearing the brunt of! Not sure I would class it as abuse.

It was his tone. 'You do NOT' etc.

If he doesnt normally speak like that then i bet he was probably scared something was going to happen.

I wouldn't appreciate that tone either but as long as its not a normal occurrence and you feel able to discuss the situation and let him know that you didnt like it, then I would be inclined to put it down to tiredness and fear.

"I instructed you"?? Not an appropriate way for him to speak to you.

No I wouldn't see that as abusive.

Tbh I think you shouldn't have shouted at them like that either as it is confrontational so I'm not surprised your dh was angry with you.

I would have a problem with being 'instructed'. You are not a dog. Have there been other incidents like this?

I don't like the sound of his tone either.

It's not that unusual for men to want to play down a potentially dangerous situation, where women will be confident because on some level they think their man will keep them safe (which he can't necessarily).

However, a more normal response is 'sweetheart, please try to quiet down if we get in a situation like that again, it doesn't help and may endanger you ' - just as you might say to him in similar circumstances.

You described his actual words as chilling, and tbh I agree.

If her husband had spoken to the op like that this morning hours after the event then yes I wouldn't be happy, but he said it as a knee jerk reaction moments after the incident when he most likely was running on adrenaline and fear, so as I've said no I wouldn't class this as abusive.

Had he been shaking, and said, 'for god's sake, don't do that again!' I wouldn't have minded. I was just sitting on the sofa and he was pacing the room and in a sort of calm, patronising voice lecturing me and all this 'You DO not. I instructed you' stuff.

I don't blame him for being peed off IYSWIM.

If he's generally lovely in other ways then I perhaps wouldn't read too much into this. But keep an eye out...

It's a terrible thing that situations like this can escalate and I can see where he was coming from but, as everyone agrees, his tone was shitty.

I've been out with a bf and strongly felt I should keep my trap shut (to keep from saying something perfectly reasonable) as I could see that we had inadvertently got into a situation where someone else was clearly prepared to be aggressive. If I'd said anything my bf would have had to deal with any violent fallout. It's NOT the way a sane person want the 'world to work' but there's little accounting for other people being awful.

Depends on the relationship in general. If he talks to you like that regularly, then it's a big problem. If it was a one off caused by fear and stress then you need to calmly state that you don't find it acceptable to be spoken to like that.

As an isolated incident? No it isn't abusive at all. He sounds like he was very stressed and trying to keep you safe - albeit rudely.

Doesn't sound at all abusive to me. He was upset at what you'd done/said and was expressing that. We are human with emotions, not robots, and we can't keep a neutral calm tone at all times.

Actually I think there is clearly something very wrong in the way he spoke to you as you feel it was wrong and have had to seek clarification about it.

Personally I would be telling him in the same tone of voice 'you do not talk to me in that tone of voice' and 'you do not instruct me in anything'.

Tell him that if he wanted to ask you to do something he could ask you reasonably next time.

Xales, your response to a tone of voice that you object to is to use the same tone of voice in response? Fighting fire with fire is rarely effective.

It sounds to me that he was scared and running on adrenaline and reacted. As others have said, if its unusual behaviour then I'd let it go.