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.

But would you, in response to similar, John, then go ahead and cancel a family holiday? Do you feel that reaction is proportional to the email in terms of distress caused?

suggesting they enjoy being sexually assaulted is plain bullying.

Stranger did not suggest you enjoyed being sexually assaulted. Do read her post.
And she said your advice was worthless, not you.

Thumb, the response may be proportional if the tone of the email is recurrent. The OP may even think her blow ups are now only 3-4 times a year, but she may still talk to him in similar tones, just not with the blow up. Who knows.

OP, if you are still there, I hope you manage to talk this through with your OH.

Lwej with all due respect I would not continue in any kind of dialogue with you or stranger in rl. Don't like bullys. Anything you or stranger say from here in will be considered in the knowledge of your bullying tendency.

:)
Just because I pointed out how you had misread Stranger's post?

I certainly wouldn't want to be your OH if this is how you carry out arguments at home.

Hopefully the OP now has a full range of views to contemplate.
[pollyanna]

Good luck OP.
shout if I can help at all.

Don't shout ;)

Massive own goal...

Calling someone's opinion worthless is over the line on mumsnet I think. One persons opinion here has no more and no less intrinsic "worth" than anyone else's. Some things may resonate more with each of us due to our own personalities, backgrounds, etc but no ones input is worthless even if we don't agree with it. At the very least an opinion we disagree with has worth as it gives an input into how other people think which is always useful in understanding and getting along with people in real life.

I don't happen to live my life the way rainbowsmiles describes but I know people who do. For example a friend of mine from Cuba and her partner are seemingly forever shouting at and arguing with each other. She tells me it's cultural for them. Well, that may well be the case, but even between people of the same culture there are obviously clear differences in the amount of arguing and fighting that's acceptable.

The point of the thread I think has to be not on whose style is right or wrong bit whether the OP wants to save her marriage. If so then a serious attempt to get into counselling with her husband is I think the only chance. The husband has at least one foot out the door and while we sit around arguing who is right or wrong (and the OP debates the same in her head) he will have already bolted!

Lwej why are you continuing to insult me. I don't respect or like your opinion. I consider your reading of strangers post to be wrong albeit unsurprising.

I have offered my opinion. I am sorry you consider it worthless but find it strange you want to engage and seek any more of my thoughts. Most confusing.

Enjoy the rest of your day. I hope the OP has been helped by the various views and discussions.

I'm with LoonvanBoom and Fatnotfit. There are a number of red flags here are they are all on the DH's side. The sulking, stonewalling, cancelling the holiday, the belittling. The OP has said she doesn't belittle or name call or is particularly verbally abusive. And the examples she has given lends credence to that.

He sounds like someone who doesn't want to be disagreed with. She sounds like someone reacting to abuse.

I also didn't say your opinion was worthless, I just pointed out that it was what Stranger had said.

From previous reports, considering someone's opinion's worthless is not against MN regulations. Personally, I wouldn't say anything like this. I actually don't think people's opinions are worthless.

What I didn't like, Rainbow, was the way you were changing what people actually had said. If we are to discuss a subject, it is important that we actually refer to what has been said.

But I did agree and will point out again that just because you or anyone else thinks something is normal to them and someone else should just get on with it, it doesn't mean that it has to apply to all.
We cannot judge the OH's reaction without knowing the background. And cannot expect him to be the better person and not expect it from the OP as well.

For all the victims of abuse out there, it is important that we don't say that they just have to put up with nasty outbursts. That they have to react appropriately and be the bigger person. Even if the recipient of the outburst is a man.
(this in no way says that the OP is abusing her OH)

She sounds like someone reacting to abuse.

What was the abuse that led to the e-mail?

He didn't call you abusive from just one email, this type of thing has happened before and your behaviour must be quite bad if you've had to seek counselling for it. It's the accumulation of outbursts and how you talk to him that is the issue.

Well I guess that was a bit of a last straw for her too Lweji. A build up of family coming off second best. Or is he the only one allowed to have a last straw? He seems to be allowed to go off in a sulk for days and threaten to cancel holidays as part of his last straw and she isn't allowed a snippy email?

But she doesn't talk to him badly even when she loses her temper VeryStressedMum

But it is his work that requires him to be away and admittedly he can't control it.
The OP herself didn't say he could chose not to go on those trips.

But she doesn't talk to him badly even when she loses her temper

What do you class as talking badly? Only name calling? Or using swear words?

It doesn't seem like he does either.

The OP got hurt when he said she had been the cause of most of his unhappiness. Is that talking badly?

Going on holidays can be stressing at the best of times. With someone you are hurt with can be horrible.

He is belittling. She isn't.

Just because it's work that takes him away it doesn't make it any less frustrating and their DD couldn't care less what the excuse is.

However this, as the OP says is not about one email. It is a pattern of behaviour. From him as well as her.

And why threaten to cancel the entire holiday instead of just taking himself out of the equation. I can totally understand not wanting to go on holiday with someone you are angry with. But that, the stonewalling, the sulking (a pattern of behaviour outlined by the OP) just smacks of him wanting to punish her.

i'd like to understand further what conclusions the counsellor came to and how her husband reacted - whether it was more anger and dismissal like the time the OP has described.

i think part of the level of personal emotional defensiveness on this thread may be coming from people who have to be away from home a lot for work therefore are immediately identifying with the husband and defending him maybe through defensiveness over their own choices.

and for all we know - which is very, very little actually - this is an affair script.

It could be a number of things, yes.

But about emotional defensiveness, I think this thread is full of it in all directions.
Not sure about travelling, but I may come from one where unfounded and unjust accusations were bandied about, and apologies, if they came, were late and too little, considering the background.

I can see how the OH could be abusive himself, though.

I just hope they have sorted it out meanwhile.