Is this email abusive/ am I abusive?

[mayapapaya]

I am a regular poster but have changed my name for this. I am at a very difficult place in my marriage for many reasons. Some of the reasons are to do with job and family stress, and are beyond my control at the moment. The primary reason is that my husband thinks I am emotionally abusive.

The latest dispute is about whether this mail below is abusive. A bit of context. He had to unexpectedly travel for work and missed a v important event in DD's life. This is not the first time this has happened. I sent him this email because she was upset, and that got me upset:

"Can you pl arrange things with your boss so that you can DEFINITELY be here for the next event? FIX THIS. I'm sick of this."

I apologised for this "shouty" email later, but he says this is part of a longstanding pattern of abuse, which I can't recognise. I don't see that this email is all that terrible, though I recognise I should not have sent it because there is not much he can do abt the demands of the job at the moment.

I am the first to admit that I have a short temper. I have gone to counselling to try and fix it. I think I have now got my outbursts down to say three or four times a year. I try very hard, but sometimes the stress from other parts of our life spills over. My husband says I should find other ways of coping and not take it out on him. I agree. I find this easier said than done though. When I say I get angry, there is no namecalling/ no fighting in front of the children/no physical abuse. Just me losing my temper like above/sometimes speaking in a nasty tone, and so on.

My idea of marriage is that if one person occasionally blows up, the other person should forgive them if they apologise. I'd do the same with him. However, he is the type of person who stays mostly calm and then has a big blowup once a year or so. I should also mention that he hates confrontation in most areas of his life. He likes pleasant interactions everywhere; but this is something I find unviable in family life.

He is now so furious that he wants to cancel our family holiday because he does not want to go anywhere with me. He has also said really hurtful things, such as "You have been the cause of most of my unhappiness in the past few years." I really don't know what to do now. I have apologised, but he won't accept an apology. Please help.

Pag Your post immediately above is excellent. It is the long term toll that one partner can exact upon another without realising it that can be so damaging.

But there is a difference between a DH who stoically bears the brunt and is eroded (which is where my DH was going) and one who weathers the storm but stashes the experience away until a point where he can exact retribution. It is hard to tell from the OPs posts what the full dynamic of the relationship is - only the two of them can work it out.

So I think she is doing the right thing by reflecting and taking ownership of her actions and the effect those actions have on those around her. But equally, she does need to be cautious that she isn't being subtly maneuvered into being The One In The Wrong.

I think it's that line 'FIX IT' that would have done it for me- it's like he's some underling or servant you're not getting proper service from. And I wouldn't particularly want to go on holiday with someone like that, either. No matter how 'controlling' that might appear....

OP Logg1E My mom, to some extent, I suppose, and whom I love dearly. It's only the people I love which is twisted, I know.

I don't think it means you're twisted at all! But I do think it shows that you are quite capable of handling your temper in a way that isn't aggressive or nasty or with contempt when you choose.

But equally, she does need to be cautious that she isn't being subtly maneuvered into being The One In The Wrong.

Completely agree - this sounds like a very real possibility in the context OP has described.

I'm sure your dh would rather have been at your dds event rather than work. Your email to him is awful if he had no choice in the work commitments.

My dh used to go through stages of being snappy when he was stressed at work. I can tell you that it makes home life so horrible and does cause a lot of unhappiness.
If you don't talk to your friends or colleagues in this way, you shouldn't be constantly like this with your dh.

Obviously, we don't see the whole picture but you say your dh is calm mostly. It sounds to me like he could be at the end of his tether.

LoonvanBoon, I don't think my DH is controlling, or not intentionally. However, thinking back, he does come from a family where his mom is horrible to his father. He loves her dearly, but he left home at 16. I may be raking bad memories up.Or he is at the end of his tether. I have been trying harder lately, but maybe too little, too late. This does make it sound like we are always rowing, but honestly, we are not.

Oh god, family life is so tough. I sometimes feel like I am juggling a hundred balls, and any of them could fall at any time, and have fallen, I suppose.

I'm not on medication Maya - not just now.
I had some counselling a few years back which made me see my behaviour from the outside, as it were.
To me, in my head, my emotions had seemed totally logical and expressing them seemed logical too. I couldn't, I was so anxious I literally coukdn't see it from any others point of view.
I used to feel quite hurt actually that DH would be taking a 'calm down, its fine' approach. I found it patronising. In retrospect I was lucky he didn't leave me a home with the dogs

My counsellor helped me with 'what if' so, when my nameless faceless anxiety was rampaging I had to stop and follow it through 'so what if we miss the train? Well, I can check the time of the next one. Do we have enough cash to get a cab. What really is the downside of being late?'

It made me stop and process rather than just reacting. It has helped.
Also dealing with DS2 who has asd and severe anxiety made me feel exactly what it is like being on the end of it. He gets home fom school and has to complain, in some distress, about the bad things that happened at school often shouting or crying. I comfort him and I know it is not his fault but part of me feels a bit broken, part of me is just sitting there thinking 'but I didn't do that. I'm just sitting here loving you and yet you are shouting at me'

I will go back to the Doctor if it stops improving but or now excercise and a bit of meditation is helping hugely.

That's very about me isn't it but I hope it resonates a bit

For now I have apologised many times for the mail, said I shd have counted to 20 before sending it, ( and not sent it all) and promised to try harder. He is travelling at the moment ( again) and not taking my calls. Not sure what else I can do. Maybe leave him be for a bit.

It's back to counselling for me on Monday.

LoonVanBoon, agreed.

Occasionally I lose my temper with DH. Occasionally he loses his temper with me. Usually, the other responds by losing their temper back, and then one or other (whoever has fucked up, or at least fucked up most) will apologise, and then the other will in turn apologise for the temper loss. Then we work it through, reach some sort of solution, and forget about it. It's not a big deal, because neither of us is scared by it or dwells on it afterwards.

A lot of what has been described here sounds like incompatibility rather than abuse per se, because losing your temper with your spouse a handful of times a year is fairly normal, I think, for many people. Agreed, we don't know how horrible the OP can be, and maybe her H is just at the end of his rope. But as has been said, we don't know she's not been gaslighted over normal levels of frustration, either.

I'm in agreement logg1e.

OP my husband used to be bad tempered and snappy. He also suffers from severe anxiety.
I eventually walked out with the kids in tow, as I refused point blank to be his emotional punching bag any more. He use to sound just like you in your posts here today. He really didn't accept that his behaviour was as damaging and aggressive...not to mention disrespectful and hurtful as it actually was for me. I felt utterly wretched by his temper and negativity, and the way in which he seemed to just expect me to tolerate it, because he 'only snapped' and it 'wasn't THAT bad' and how I would 'let it fester to bring up at another time'.
There was also this idea whereby he felt quite entitled to behave in an angry manner around us if it wasn't directed at anyone in particular.
"What's the problem? I'm not angry at YOU!"
The problem was that it was still unpleasant and intimidating to be around, whether it was directed at me or not. He expected me to just flick it off like a fly...but I couldn't. It soured the atmosphere of the house and made everyone feel on edge regardless.

I'm a tough old boot by the way...not a sensitive little flower...but being subject to such rudeness, lack of respect and aggression as a matter of course, crushed me.

Anyway, a few weeks on his ownsome with no one to take his shit out on were enough to cure him of it. He wouldn't dare treat me like that now, and in four years of being back together he has managed not to.
Like I said to him at the time...if you can contain it for everyone else, you can damn well show the same respect to me.
It's not difficult.

I'm slightly confused. Is there a particular reason why you sent him an e mail, instead of discussing it with him in person?

If I got that e mail, especially at work, I wouldn't be at all impressed.

However, thinking back, he does come from a family where his mom is horrible to his father. He loves her dearly, but he left home at 16. I may be raking bad memories up.

Okay, that would be horrible.

And interestingly, both my parents are vile and aggressive when they lose their tempers, and I can't take that kind of venom either. DH and I lose our tempers cleanly, if that makes any sense. There's no huge sense of threat to it and no naked contempt - just frustrated crossness. I suppose how you are when you're angry matters, too? The pointed, narrowed-eyed, hissed venomous spite of my mother and serious levels of aggression of my father can raise my heartrate even in memory.

OP maybe give him a bit of space? I know when I'm annoyed with dh, I don't want to speak to him at all for a while. When is he back?

Pag, do you think it's genetic? My father was a very anxious man ( not to blame any of this on him) My daughter is v anxious too; she cries over everything. Yes, it's wearing being with them. Your posts are hugely helpful. I don't cry certainly, but I moan.

My Dh thinks I have not made any effort, but I can't tell you how much of an effort it is to bite my tongue these days as he leisurely gets ready to leave for the airport. Left to me, I would have left hours earlier. A few months ago, we almost missed an early morning flight. I didn't say a word. When we were first married, I wouldn't have shut up about it. :)

These seem like little things to him and perhaps many on this thread who are more sensible than I am, but honestly, it's tough to do.

Pictish, thanks for your mail. I see your point.

I thoughtATM He was overseas, I could not get him on the phone, and I just shot off that mail in a burst of fury. Bad idea.

perfectstorm To some extent, I do feel held to ransom. No doubt he feels worse.

I don't see this as insurmountable OP. We lived to tell the tale, and are very happily married these days.

I don't know what efforts your dh should be putting in to rectify this cycle of misery you have got yourselves into repeating, but I can see where you are going wrong, and that is what I feel able to comment on.

I hope for your own sake, you are able to see that your snappy and bad tempered behaviour is incredibly wearing for those who end up having to absorb it.

Don't try to control it. Just control it.

Pictish Thks again. I do see it. Possibly it is not a good idea to begin with what efforts my DH shd be putting in, but to begin wt myself.

I am struggling to cope with the idea that I don't have to tell him everything I am thinking.:)

PleasenoScar I do love him. Very much. And I might add that he often says that I am the best thing that ever happened to him. But then he also says exactly the opposite at times like these.

On a serious point though, children who grow up in homes with conflict do suffer anxiety more frequently than those who don't

OP said in her first post that there's been no fighting in front of the children.

There's always going to be conflict in some form, at some time, in pretty much every situation where people are together. Surely it's how it's handled that's the important thing.

Modelling healthy, assertive ways of dealing with conflict is IMO more useful for children than deciding that any hint of conflict is to be suppressed.

There was a recent thread about this very issue, & while those posters who had grown up in conflict-ridden families said it definitely affected them adversely, so did those posters whose families "banned" open conflict as it led them to believe that every kind of disagreement was terrifying & apocalyptic in proportion.

i feel like i'm reading a different thread to some.

so the counsellor expressed that you had been through loads (deaths job losses etc in a short time) and described it and you shared that with your dh and he got cross and seemingly belittling?

i'm not buying the direction this thread has been turned in and that OP is passively being led on - i think that in itself is indicative.

I need to go now, but thank you all for your helpful responses.

I'm concerned too, numpty, though the OP has said that her DH is not controlling.

It certainly seems to me that OP is very willing to take all the blame on herself for what would seem, to many people, to be a reasonably normal level of occasional anger / grumpiness. Not saying it's ideal to snap at people, just that most of the people I know have marriages more similar to the situation described above by perfectstorm. I do.

OP appears to be feeling now that this is all her fault & that it's totally down to her to improve things. I worry that if that really isn't the situation then it lays her open to potential emotional abuse.

exactly.

and the fact she has so willingly said oh, ok then to criticism and 'all your fault'ism on this thread indicates to me she is likely conditioned to doing the same in real life.

this may be the one time she's reached out and said, hang on, maybe he's not right, maybe i'm not some freakish monster.

That was it, thanks Logg1e, the double standards.

And of course threatening to cancel the holiday is silly-he could just not go!

But it might be an indication of how strongly he feels.

It reads to me as if it's all on your terms, OP.

You, "blow up", he should take it & then accept your apology!

No ones said its all your fault to the op.

What has been said is that To communicate with a loved one like in that email is for many of us pretty hurtful and, if I was getting ranted at like yhat every few months then it would chip away at the relationship.