Bit of background - have been feeling general low rumbling dissatisfaction with DH, nothing major just a combination of me being ill and not getting out of the house much and him being tired and choosing to sleep/be on computer rather than talk to me. Honestly nothing major, but I'm feeling quite tetchy and tending to blame myself for him not wanting to spend time with me in the evenings when it's probably just that he's tired.
Anyway, this morning he was on fb talking to someone (female) he worked with 2 years ago, she had friended him, was asking how he was, and asked his to sign a goodbye card for someone they used to work with who was quitting. So far so normal, right? This girl who's leaving, my DH never really said they were good friends but took her out to dinner without my knowledge when they were working together 
He also used to do overtime even after the shop should have been closed (most days actually). Said sometimes he was working, sometimes just smoking outside with "the boys". I was at home at the time with a very cranky sleep-rejecting baby and would have welcomed some support, but ended up feeling quite a lot of resentment.
Which I thought Id got over, but clearly not as when he mentioned about signing the leaving card I asked him if that wasn't a bit weird, seeming as he quit 2 years ago, claims to not have had much contact with her, didn't get on with her that well, so why were they chasing him up after 2 years? I told him I wondered if there was more going on, obviously they at least got on better than he said if 2 years has passed and people still think of him when she's leaving, plus a million other irrational lunatic things about what he might have been doing when he said he was working overtime (9am-11pm at least days)
He was understandably furious with me, I said far too much (and he said, and has said in the past, some pretty horrible things about me, one reason I feel a bit insecure I suppose), and I think I was quite irrational, but I know he's lied about things in the past so my heads all over the place. I will apologise to him when he gets home, but he said before he left he can't live with me because of what I said. Why did I get so crazy? Why couldn't I bottle it up?
Sorry for the long post.
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Have just completely over reacted to DH, what is wrong with me?
ThatsNotMySock · 02/04/2013 15:00
He's hugely shocked to discover his insults & threats leave an impression on you. So what does think you were crying about, all those times he was so sympathetic?
Good to see you heard him with s, Sock.
This reply has been deleted
Message withdrawn at poster's request.
Well, I can answer garlic and delias posts..
He's hugely shocked to discover his insults & threats leave an impression on you. So what does think you were crying about, all those times he was so sympathetic
He has said many a time that crying is just manipulation. Me crying is me trying to manipulate him into giving up the fight and he won't be beaten by a mere, unstable, conniving woman dammit 
Does he realise the link between him saying hurtful comments that undermine your confidence and that you behave in a more insecure manner which he then doesn't like
He doesn't seem to. I must have explained it about a thousand times and he looks blank. I ask him if he can imagine how he'd feel in that position and he has no idea, and won't even try to empathise. I ask him how he would feel if someone talked to him like that and he said they never had so he had no idea.
I now know this is utter bullshit as when I was angry with him about the way he spoke to our son, he said that his parents always called him a little idiot, useless etc so he thought it was normal. I asked him how he felt as a kid then, did he have confidence in himself or did he see himself as an idiot. He seemed to have a lightbulb moment where he realised it had really affected him and he had and still has a really negative self image. So that shocked him into stopping talking to our son like that immediately (I'm glad to say, or our local news might have read "Sulking man found stranded in deserted road with mysterious boot shaped mark on buttock")
But he still either can't seem to make the connection between how he talks to me and how insecure I feel. He asks me things like, why does his opinion matter so much to me? Why do I care what he says to me, I should just be confident in my self
When we met he said he loved that I was always happy, smiling and confident. Things which I am very much not now. So if that's what attracted him to me, why does he seem so intent on crushing those bits and turning me into someone (weepy, insecure) he hates?
Oh, interesting thing as well. He has had a fairly close friend for the last 10 years or so. They live quite far apart now but both love the same hobby and often catch up via email/fb. Recently the friend said he was going to stop being an armchair supporter and start playing. H took the piss and said he shouldn't bother, he'd be rubbish, friend said he was serious, he was really excited about it and thought he could manage it. H carried on taking the piss, and this friend has now unfriended him on fb, and despite H emailing to apologise for overstepping the mark, this friend has not responded and seems to have cut him out completely.
Anyone think that he will realise the way he talks to people hurts them and change his ways?
No-one?
Thanks for listening again, and thanks garlicballs for your lovely post 
Oh and unsurprisingly he offered to put the kids to bed tonight, so he could fall asleep on their floor and can avoid talking to me until tomorrow.
for H!
Wow. My armchair psychologist cap has stuck itself to my head and I can't get it off ... ... Telling you what you already know about the inside of your husband's head; it must be a lonely, unforgiving terrain. All rocks and dry, howling winds.
His delightful parents basically taught him he's worthless and doesn't count. Hence his verbal abuse: it's his normal, as he said. Fantastic that he stopped doing it to DS (you both did really well there!) but, while his internal self-talk is all negatives, he'll be unable to 'hear' that it's the wrong way to speak to others. He slags himself off viciously (scripts bestowed on him by mum & dad) and he gets along okay, so why's everyone else complaining?
He won't be able to see that, not only do his words cause pain to others, but he adds to it by dismissing their pain and piling on more abuse. He can't see this because his miserable 'normal' doesn't allow for emotional pain. It's weak and nobody cares anyway. Fucking excellent what mean-spirited parents can do to a child's psyche. A gift for life, that is 
But he does feel emotional pain. Has been feeling it since he was a little boy; it still hurts. Nobody cares. It's weak; he is weak for hurting. He hates being weak, in all the ways his parents 'hated on him' for having feelings being weak. Upset people are despicable. He's despicable; he despises you when you're upset. Take it like a man, can't you?!
It's horrid and, really, I do feel for him - largely because I've had a lot of this in my own head. I remember when Insane Narc Bully Boss yelled that nothing he said seemed to make any difference (to my stupidity & general uselessness), I yelled back that nobody could be harder on me than I was on myself. I didn't see the significance of that until I started therapy, a few years later. That level of therapy is, I've got to say, a long slog and deeply unpleasant in parts. And expensive. You have to be seriously committed to get it working right.
I don't see your H as sociopathically mis-wired in the head, mainly because of the way he understood what you were saying about DS and changed his ways. It seems, too, that he wants to understand what you're saying about the pain he's caused you - but that's the long slog, to really get it. You can't, unfortunately, pop him in a time machine and give him a new childhood - and the one he had didn't teach him about balanced, happy relationships. I'm pretty sure he was attracted to feisty, happy, lovely you because you represent(ed) what's missing in his make-up. Perhaps, on some level, he hoped to 'catch' it off you. Shame it doesn't work like that, eh :(
For all the sympathy I feel, I can't advise you to hang around fixing him. You'll be a worn-out old woman by the time you succeed, drowning in a river of tears. Explain, by all means, and support him to start addressing it in therapy if he wants. But don't try to be his therapist. You need to get away from his rocky desert, run around in sunny meadows and plant lovely flowers for your own psyche Unwittingly or not, he's killing you off. Get yourself back.
Oh dear, that was a bit of a brain fart 
I'm supposed to be alseep.
Hope you can make something out of it!
garlic far from a brain fart, that was some epic psychology! 
It does make a lot of sense about him hating weakness. He said he used to cry all the time until he was a teenager, then promised himself he would never cry again as it was weak and pathetic. So I suppose he just sees all crying as weak and pathetic.
His mindset seems so stubborn though, he's still convinced that it's ok for him to insult me as that's his way. I've explained that in my family my parents insulted each other and fought a lot, and ended up getting divorced. So being insulted makes me very upset and nervous because that's what's happened in my family. But he still thinks I'm the strange one and he shouldn't have to change. If I ask him "But surely you don't want to do anything that hurts someone, if you love them? You love me, and you know it hurts me, so why not stop?" but I can see his brain just short out. He can't answer that, apart from saying, "Because it's just my way, you should understand that and not be upset."
Well, I really could go around in circles with that kind of example, but honestly.. the more I detach the more I can see how ridiculous it is. We tried to talk last night, but if I bought up anything he didn't like, he would start with the insults, then tell me I needed to work on my attitude, tell me I should watch what I say. Before I posted on here, that would have reduced me to tears and had me wondering why he hated me. Now with all the very wise posts here I was able to detach from it and tell him he had no right to talk about my attitude (bringing something up to try and stop the fights) when he was the one calling me stupid, crazy, irritating on a regular basis, that he should be the one watching what he says. He stormed off and told me to stop talking to him. Think that tells me all I need to know, doesn't it. We can't discuss things without him blaming me ("I only insult you because you make me angry!") and storming off every 5 minutes then refusing to talk for the rest of the day.
Given that after he said he wanted to leave on Weds night, in the 24 hours after he never told me that he'd changed his mind but carried on acting normally, apparently that meant that things were now ok between us and there was nothing to discuss. Is it just me, or is that a bit weird?
I asked him to leave last night but he really has nowhere to go. His family are on the other side of the country, his job is here, and we have absolutely no spare budget for a hotel room. He doesn't have any friends who could put him up. My parents live very close by but both in one bedroom houses so no space for me and 2 kids. He slept on the sofa last night and when me and the kids came down this morning I sent him back up to bed, hopefully he'll stay there all day.
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