fed up of grumpy dh

[thepixiefrog]

Just that really. When he's tired he is so grumpy, has no patience with the DC or me, and if we do have a disagreement he is rude and dismissive of me.

This morning ds1 was having a tantrum about his cereal (he asked for it then changed his mind once it was in front of him). Dh managed to keep his cool for about 5 minutes then lost his rag and started using his loud authoritarian voice, which is full of menace and anger. He sounds aggressive and bullying when he does this, I hate it. He eventually controlled himself and ds went into another room. Then dh and I had a minor disagreement about something that dh forgot to do. I was annoyed, but I didn't raise my voice, interrupt or say anything unreasonable. Dh did all of the above with much eye rolling and face pulling (he screws his face up into this horrible look of disgust and contempt and I feel like I could hit him, I NEVER would but I feel this flash of rage when he does it).

When he gets home tonight he will apologise and say it was because he was stressed from his encounter with D's, and blah blah blah.
He ALWAYS says sorry and looks sheepish and says he will work on his anger management, but it's been 10 fucking years and I don't believe him anymore!

Our 2 DC's speak to me the way he does when they are angry and it distresses me massively to see the negative effects our dysfunctional relationship has on them.

I want to be treated with respect ALL the time, even when when dh is tired or annoyed. I don't want to deny his feelings, we all feel angry at times, but the way he expresses it is unacceptable.

Sorry to rant, I just needed to get it all out.

I do hear you and this is all very uncomfortable for you understandably. Please be careful when you bring all this up with him. It may not go at all well and you may come off worse. I would be doing you a disservice not to state that.

What do you think of the ideas of power and control being at the heart of his actions?. What do you think is at the heart of his actions towards you, he is choosing to behave like this towards you and by turn your children.

People generally speaking can both minimise and downplay abuse in marriage and their own childhood experiences can play a part in that. I did not crow at all when I read of your own childhood experiences, I felt bloody sad actually, but you learnt a lot of damaging stuff about relationships from your parents and all that can get carried forward into future relationships. That's what I meant, nothing else.

Woudl you want to accept that your H learnt a lot of damaging stuff about relationships from his own parents?.

Keep safe, you and your children are your number 1 priority. Not he. I mean that most sincerely.

Think you. I'm sorry to have questioned your motivations and interest in this thread.

((((((((((((((((thepixiefrog)))))))))))))))). No worries.

I saw my dearest friend go through not too dissimilar with her own H and it took her a long time to get out. Years infact. I could only advise her similarly to what I have told you and she went back and forth. She ultimately made the decision to leave him when she saw what effects this was having first on her child, and then on her own self. I only gave her the tools and maintained the same counsel throughout.

Keep you and your children safe thepixiefrog. Am rooting for you!!.

Hi pixie,

Sorry you're getting this crap from your DH. This sounds like my marriage. And I'm with Attilla and Cogito on this one. I was terribly upset when the Relate counsellor told me (when I was there without H) that counselling was 'difficult in an abusive relationship.' I was horrified that he meant my relationship. But he was right. I wished he'd actually named the abuse in front of my H because I wanted him to know that what he was doing was absolutely wrong.

My H's weapons ranged from grumpiness, monosyllables, no smiling, no affection to the general 'always in the air' threat that he would erupt with anger over something petty at any moment. That possibility - and the sneer, the contempt, the air of menace - was enough to keep me down and almost submissive. We had two small children, I bent over backwards not to have any nasty confrontations in front of them - so he had me by my short and curlies. He knew that I would do pretty much anything to avoid scaring them. That said, he still shouted at me in a terrifying way in front of them. How heartbreaking is it to hear your three year old daughter screaming "Daddy stop shouting at mummy'. The classic 'eggshells'.

So it's been '10 fucking years' and you don't believe him anymore. No, I wouldn't either. He has got you on a string whichever way you slice it, whether you classify it as abuse or just downright offensive. He has been offensive for 10 years... to some extent you are institutionalised and you implicitly allow it. Stand up to him. You need to give him an ultimatum and you need to be able to stand by it. From the effect, you describe, that it is having on your children this has gone on long enough.

And no, divorce is not easy. It is awful. I'm going through it now. I never wanted it, I wanted a happy family life with two equal, loving parents and he destroyed that for me. I hate having had to do it, but I would hate it even more if I couldn't divorce his miserable fucking arse.

You do not deserve to be treated like this and his excuses are pathetic. Just creeps up on him does it? And the rest. It doesn't creep up on him anywhere else, just at home where he chooses to terrorise you and your lovely children. It makes me really, really angry to hear that he does this to you.

All the best,

Poppy

Whoops cross-posted on the whole exchange with Attila - me likewise. Please don't think I'm jumping on the 'abuse' bandwagon. I am hearing you and care for you and the children is the priority. Your description of dh's anger and the sense that he holds the whole house to ransom, reminds me very much of what I went through. At first I thought he had an anger problem, but that just didn't add up... what it betrayed really was a total lack of respect, which I found very difficult to accept. On one level, it was easier dealing with the worst symptom because at least that could be contained as 'an anger problem.'

I understand if labels and shorthand I tend to use are not useful to you.

As before, all the best....

thepixiefrog. How often does he have these, and I shall call them "zones".
And how long do they go on for?

Attila, are you married?

Poppy you sound lovely, thanks for the kind words.

Amillion, he is grumpy every few days or so. If I point out that he could be less grumpy he will normally say 'you're right, i'm sorry' and then he pulls himself together. I am never afraid to point it out, so I'm not 'living on eggshells' as such.

Every so often, once a month or every couple of months we argue and he behaves how I have described. The event is always followed by an acknowledgement of his unreasonable behaviour, and an apology and promises to try not to do it again. He is frequently impatient with ds1 who is nearly 5 but has heaps of patience for ds2 who is 2. Ds1 is hard work and ds2 is mellow and laid back, but dh should treat them with equal amounts of patience and understanding.

His moods are fleeting, and he doesn't sulk. He used to years ago but the couples counsellor gave him a bollocking for being passive aggressive and childish, it shamed him into altering that behaviour.

I heard a while ago, on the radio, a person say that there are nearly always patterns to rows.
I didnt think that it was true, but I have found that it can be true.
I started writing it down about my own DH, and it only took a couple of weeks to discover that it was true of my own DH.

You have discovered that if your DH is tired, he can be grumpy and short tempered.
You may, or may not also discover the same when he is hungry.

We have discussed the problem and I've asked him to leave and get help. He acknowledged his ill treatment of me and the dc and promises to work on it. He is devastated at the prospect of being away from the DC, and keeps begging to be allowed to sleep on the sofa. He's sobbing uncontrollably in the bedroom. I've never seen him like this, it's shock as much as anything, he didn't see anything like this coming and it's hit him like a ton of bricks

I feel numb and detached.

With respect,and I appreciate it is up to you, I dont think you have made the right choice or decision here.

Amillionyears, he's an adult who is perfectly capable of feeding himself and controlling himself. He chooses to treat his family like shite.

Pixie, well done on standing up for yourself and your babies. Funny how he's crying now his life is inconvenienced, not when he emotionally crushes the people he's meant to protect and love most in the world.

When a woman has PMT, what is her behaviour sometimes like?
Perfect?

thepixiefrog hope you are okay, stay strong. Both of you are in shock, I guess, but are dealing with it differently. Take care of yourself.

amillionyears. I totally get what you mean about low blood sugar. My DP, my DS and to a certain extent, I all suffer from it. It's like we go through a personality transplant but luckily, DP and I recognise the triggers straight away and help each other deal with it.

He has calmed down and we talked. He's going to the gp in the morning to find out about counselling/therapy. He takes full responsibility for the fact that he could have done something about it years ago and chose not to. He doesn't think it has anything to do with lack of respect for me, he thinks he respects me hugely and is merely repeating the bad behaviours his parents exhibited when he was young.

I'm not convinced of his reasoning for the unreasonable behaviour, but I am convinced that he is sorry and determined to do something about it. He says he is ashamed that he hasn't done anything before now. He is terrified of losing me and the DC and hopefully he will now make a real effort to change his behaviour.

We'll see how the next few days go I suppose. I'm soooo glad I did this, thanks for the support everyone.

Amillion - I don't see the point in telling someone that you don't approve of they have done. I can't take it back or unsay it so what's the reason for it? What is your comment designed to do?

Of what they have done

Hi Pixie,

This is a good night message, hoping you get some sleep.

Try to stay collected. I'm sure it is hard seeing your DH distressed. But I suppose it shows that he needed to be brought up pretty short. All your reasonable requests were completely ignored (or sort of acknowledged but then no action ever taken to address his behaviour properly). So far he seems to have operated some sort of override button which mean that he did not respond humanely to your distress over the years.

He needs to know how serious this is, and that YOU are serious. Stay strong and maybe you can convert this situation into a positive one. He needs to do most of the hard work though, not you. Don't feel guilty about bringing this to a head. He needs to know what the consequences could be for him. Maybe a few nights in a Travelodge might help him come up with a list of what he is going to do about his problem, which he has been so carelessly inflicting on you and the children.

At least he appears to be contrite. Don't let it put you off your main aim, which is actual, proper change. I never got any sort of apology/admission/sobbing etc from my tosspot of a STBXH - so you're ahead of me there already!
Stay strong,
Poppy

cross-posted with you this time. Well done Pixie You're doing great.

I didnt mean for the comment to sound like it was a telling off.
Far from it.
At the point when I made it, you had just told you DH to leave the house and your marriage.
People can make mistakes, and I didnt want you to come to bitterly regret what you had done.

I am very glad indeed that your DH is going to try and resolve the situation.

I didn't ask him to leave the marriage, just the house until he did something about getting help. I just don't see the point in saying 'I don't think you should have done that' without offering an alternative course of action, or a way in which to recover the situation if that is what's needed.

Anyway, I appreciate we all have different opinions and approaches and I respect yours. Thank you for your input. :-)

I think you have done the right thing and he knows he has done wrong. Sadly some people, often men, are brought up to think they are very important and have the right to expect to get their own way or behave in any way they like when things get tough.
Basically putting their own requirements before their children's and not controlling themselves, in fact behaving badly to get their own way or more attention.
He needs to learn to control himself and behave well within the family unit.
Good luck x

A million
There are lots of things that make us all grumpy and irritable.. I can be quite irritable when exhausted or ill. But I don't think infantilising men is helpful in that it starts to excuse bad behaviour based on being hungry, tired etc.
Yes we have to have some understanding of people's moods and there is a degree of compromise but pandering to low blood sugar levels etc as a reason for bad behaviour is not acceptable and just encourages lack of responsibility for behaviour.

Cogito, for this: "He needs to feel the clammy cold hand of loss around his grubby neck before he will even start to think about changing his behaviour." I love you.

:)

A bit of an update - dh spent last night looking for numbers of therapists and looking for information on anger management online. At no point did I use the words 'abusive' during our talk, but he has come to the realisation that he is emotionally abusive whilst reading about anger management and relationships on reddit. I got an email from him with a heart broken admission of guilt and an apology.

He acknowledges that he needs to do something about it whether or not our relationship is salvageable, and this morning has made appointments with 2 therapists for later this week.

he is determined to stop bullying ds1 and listed in his email the things he did the constituted abusive behaviour (shouting when he doesn't get his way, trying to control us, being dismissive and treating us with contempt during disagreements etc.) He knew that stuff wasn't on but he didn't realise that it was actually abusive until reading about it last night. His parents functioned like this so it was his 'normal'. The knowledge of just how serious it is has floored him.

I am really pleased with how seriously he's taking it as it means as a father he will improve and the DC will get the respect they deserve. I'm not sure about the marriage though. I'm still numb, and I have so much to deal with during my own therapy sessions that I really cannot say if I have the will or the energy to work on the marriage. He says he understands and respects this, and doesn't ask for anything from me.

Anyway, thank you all again for your support. It means a lot that you have taken the time to offer your advice and kind words.