Angry DH

[InsomniaczK8]

My DH has anger issues. Always has, probably always will. He used to be a lot worse than he is now which led to a very rocky patch during the first six months that we lived together until I gave him the ultimatum get anger management/counselling or I would leave. He went willingly and made loads of progress and has been trying so hard since and although he deals with it better now sometimes he still seems so angry especially when life gets stressful which is when I need him to be calm and supportive the most. At the moment I am 21 weeks pregnant with DD2 and DD1 is 8 months old.

Yesterday he got angry with me and ended up shouting and swearing at me and storming out to work because I had apparently made him late. He works a late shift half of the week and helps out look after DD in the morning by getting up with us, changing her, playing with her and doing her breakfast because otherwise he wouldn't see her as he gets in after her bedtime. He has about 3 hours in the morning before he has to set off so its not exactly rushed. I asked him if he had 5 mins to watch her whilst I put the washing away upstairs and I think I actually took about 10 mins so he lost his temper with me. Later that morning I needed 5 mins to use the loo so put DD in her walker and took myself off. She was happy when I left her but started crying when I was upstairs. Obviously I couldn't respond immediately and as DH was downstairs he went to her but I got shouted at and sworn at again for making him late.

This morning everything was fine, no cross words at all and he seemed quite relaxed. I made the mistake of asking what time he had to be out the door when he does his early shift as I wanted to have a think about how we were going to manage the early mornings together and getting DD ready for nursery when I go back to work in May. He started ranting at me aggressively for trying to make him late by having a discussion with him when he had to get ready for work. I explained that it was only the one question and I didn't want to talk about it in full but he'd already lost his temper by then.I stayed out his way after that but he came upstairs and said he had 10 mins spare so we could chat about morning schedules/nursery, again he seemed calm. At the time I was detatching the baby monitor from our DDs wall to set up In our room as she was napping In our bed and I accidentally pulled out a little metal pin that he'd attached in the wall to the wire to keep in out the way of the cot.His face instantly changed, he shouted and swore at me for pulling the pin out, ranted at me for about 5 mins about how I always make him late and stress him out, said I should just make my own tea tonight as he didn't want to eat with me, would sleep in the spare room and wanted me out the house for the day on Sunday (his day off). When he's like this sometimes I loose my temper but today and yesterday I didn't I stayed quiet whilst he shouted and did my best not to aggravate him further.

I'm so confused and hurt. Its not normal to get so angry about such small things is it? Annoyed yes, I'm sure I am annoying at times just like he is, but angry?! Sometimes I wonder if I have lost all perspective, have i labelled him as angry from how he was in the early days and so expect it now and over react when he looses his temper? Or is this more than normal couples arguments? I hate the way he speaks to me in anger, noone has ever used the language he uses towards me in my whole life. We don't row about big things and we get on really well most of the time. We only ever fall out over little stupid things like the examples I have given and it is so frustrating as other than that our relationship is great. I am always pulling him up on his behaviour when things have calmed down and he agrees its wrong and doesn't want our DD growing up to think that is how you speak to people but it still happens. It makes me sad that he seems to have so much anger in him.

Has anyone else experienced anger issues in a relationship and had a happy ending

This is who he is. An angry man.
Ultimatums and help can put in check for a while, buy he^ will revert to character, particularly when you are at your most vulnerable, such as when pregant.

At some point ultimatums won't work and the anger (or abuse) will creep up again.
Because he doesn't check himself. And he doesn't really care about your feelings.

Anger management counselling clearly hasn't worked, he needs the kind of counselling that will enable him to deal with the issues that caused his behaviour as a child and his current behaviour.

It will take a long time and quite likely be a painfull process. It will only work if he is ready and willing to really commit to it, to open up and tell a stranger all his worst fears and everything from his childhood that may have contributed to his behaviour. Above all, it will only happen if he makes it happen.

You don't have to be living with him, your DCs don't have to hear daddy shouting and swearing at mummy because they have made him angry.

If he can control his anger when dealing with people outside of his home then he can control it in his home, with his family.

That control he has is a facade for the rest of the world. He's a good man, a good husband and father, provides for his family. That's what he wants everyone to see, so that's what he shows. But he doesn't have to put on a show at home, so he let's the real him out. That's want you see, what your DCs see. This aggressive, shouting swearing man is the person he is. And only he can change that.

Certainly talk to him and see if he will seek counseling if you think he will be willing, but don't rely on it happening. And make yourself an exit strategy for if he doesn't.

He doesn't do it to anyone else. He only gives himself permission to do it to YOU. Which shows exactly what he thinks of you, doesn't it?

"If he can control his anger when dealing with people outside of his home then he can control it in his home, with his family. "

This. Exactly this.

OP it sounds like you're falling into the trap of trying to manage his anger for him - trying to ensure that you use strategies to avoid him becoming angry. That is the sign of a dysfunctional relationship with anger, because you are not responsible for managing his anger, he is.

I'm usually one of the LTB brigade simply because I think people have one life and wasting it trying to reconstruct another adult who has no desire to reconstruct themself, is a total waste of that life. However it sounds as though this man has tried to take some responsibility for his anger and has tried to reconstruct himself but for some reason the process has stalled. He needs to understand it's a lifelong, ongoing process, you don't do an anger management course and then you're done, you've ticked the box so you now get a free pass. Sounds like the anger management course didn't actually address his basic beliefs and that is the weakness of many of these courses. A lot of men go to them, pick up a few strategies to manage anger, feel like they've ticked the box and are then entitled to the reward of having their partners put up with shit forever afterwards. But what the courses don't usually do (unless they are exceptionally good ones) is address the basic belief system which has led to these men expressing their anger so violently in the first place and so the danger is always that they fall back into their old ways but this time, they've got the language to justify their behaviour.

Can I recommend Why does he do that? It will give you a better insight into whether this man is one of the many abusers who it is not worth expending time and energy on, or whether he is one of the few who can change himself. The emphasis being on change himself. And you need to remember that you have every right to end any relationship that doesn't fulfill your needs, that harms you, that makes you unhappy or for any other reason whatsoever. He needs to know that too, so that he doesn't get the idea that if he works on his anger, he then gets you putting up with him forever as some kind of just reward.

he has never shouted at her or been rough with her

My dad never shouted at me and he smacked me once in my childhood and the only reason I remember it was because it was so unusual. It didn't stop me being terrified of him due to his violent and aggressive behaviour with my mum.

Children learn what a relationship is supposed to be like from the adults around them. What do you want your child to learn?

I would never allow another adult to shout at me for anything short of me running over their family dog. And certainly not my husband - the man who promised before friends and family to be my support, my partner and to ease my passage through this life, as I promised the same to him.

I would use a very calm but low voice, say "I will not be spoken to like that, please remove yourself from my presence until you are prepared to speak to me calmly and with respect". In the long term, I would say "I will not be spoken to like that, if you continue I will interpret that as you having choosen to end our relationship."

The puts the blame, and the responsibility for change, firmly on him, where it should be.

As others have said, if he controls himself in public then he is choosing to behave this way around you. Make it clear what the consequences of this choice are.

Thank you all for your responses. I have spoken to him, he apologised and he feels terrible, he says he doesn't want to be that angry person, he wants to be the loving husband and good father that he is most of the time and it cuts him up that he takes things out on me the way he does, he hates himself. I told him it was irrelevant how bad he felt when he calmed down (other than if his regret wasn't obvious I would have left him years ago) because the effect on me is the same and it's no consolation.

He has agreed that he has been worse at controlling his anger recently and is going to make an appointment with his GP. I told him that things have to change and fast because our DD will soon be old enough to be aware of whats going on and I won't bring my babies up around it. I told him that I plan to rent the house out so I can leave him to move in with my mum if I don't feel that things start to improve soon. It would be a huge step because my mum lives in a different county so it would mean leaving my job and my friends.

Askbasil - thank you for your recommendation, I will see if I can get it on my Kindle. You are right that I have fallen into the trap of trying to manage his anger myself when it is his responsibility. I said this to him today and he agrees. I think he has fallen off the wagon with regards to managing his anger and it is definitely an ongoing lifelong process. There were years where he was managing so much better but I think the pressures of being a new dad, starting a new job, buying a new house which is a total renovation job and a recent bereavement have aken their tole on his ability to cope. Its no excuse though and he needs to find coping strategies because life is stressful and I can't be his emotional punching bag every time thigns get tough.

I love him and I do believe that our marriage is worth saving. Things have been and could be brilliant but there will come a point that I will have to cut my loses and make the decision to leave if he can't change.

Professor - you are right he is projecting, we both know this but its still awful at the time isn't it?

I have to remind my DH of this occasionally, and the initial blow out when i tell him to back down and stop shouting/growling at me over the slightest thing can be a little heated, but then he'll usually come back and tell me what the real problem is and harmony is restored for a while.

? this usually works for us too when things are going better but recently he has been difficult to reason with him when he has lost it. Definitely a sign that he is in need of a reminder of his anger management techniques from someone outside of the relationship.

My DH has had anger issues, and it's really hard - though we have come through the other side, it was only because he stepped up and 'owned' them. He also had to deal with his fairly abusive childhood and manage how he dealt with stress, with counselling and meditation, which really helped. It was worth it, but it was a long road, and there were points when I think both of us would have bailed without DCs to keep us going.

Our hardest times were when he was was blaming it on me for making him angry, as it sounds like your DH is doing now - and frankly, if your DH persists in seeing things that way, I don't see how you can stick it out.

The biggest thing that the angry person has to acknowledge is that it's not even about who is right or wrong, or whether the issue is big or small, it's that rage is NEVER an appropriate response (to take it to an extreme, it's the same as saying that domestic violence is not okay no matter what the provocation, there are no get-out clauses for saying 'well, she didn't make tea', or even 'well, he just told me he had an affair').

Have you talked to Relate for couples counselling alongside anger management, or to your GP for any type of counselling for you? They've seen it all before, and will help you put it all in perspective and work out how he and you can work through things or alternatively whether you need to start reconsidering whether this is beyond anger to actual abuse (which none of us can tell from a single thread). As a pregnant mother of a small child you should be made a priority.

Congratulations on your pregnancy, and hope your stress is able to stay to a minimum.

Have you talked to Relate for couples counselling alongside anger management

Not a good idea. As it stands, he is abusive. And he's likely to turn any attempts at joint counselling on the OP. She won't feel safe in counselling because he's likely to kick off at home. Even if for "little things", not directly related to the big things.

Sounds like you need a less nuclear plan B than giving up your job and relocating to stay with your mum in another country. You could, for example, look into any benefits you might be able to get, housing options locally, options for your current house other than total renovation.

I don't see why he needs a GP etc.

Surely, whatever he does to stop himself acting on his anger when he's with his boss or whoever - well why can't he do that when he's with you?

Why does she need a copy of Anger Management for Dummies Professor, she's not the one who has a problem with expressing her anger inappropriately and/ or abusively to her partner?

I agree with the PP. The person taking the initiative here should be the DH, doing whatever it takes to control his behaviour. All the OP can usefully do is provide the consequences to no change which I think they are doing by threatening to leave. However, as the bolt-hole (if I read that right) is in another country, how serious is that threat and are you prepared to follow through? If he thinks it isn't serious, it will lose its effect.

The phrase that stuck with me was 'he hates himself'. That is self-indulgent, self-pitying stuff designed to get your sympathy and, sadly, is a feature of emotionally abusive (bullying) relationships. They go too far but the reaction is 'poor me'. It is not really an apology and it is definitely not action or commitment to change. So fine... he hates himself, but your next question must 'what are you actually going to do about it?'

He may recognise all he wants and have all the therapy he wants, but it's still for the OP to decide whether she wants to live with a person with anger problems or not.
Anger impacts negatively on the people around us and they shouldn't have to suffer it. The anger may also make such people dangerous to live with.

The OP may well choose to live apart from him until his anger problems are under control, if they ever are. This is not something children should be exposed to on a daily basis.

And it's certainly not a matter of joint counselling.

Actually a lot of people do understand about the CBT involved in anger management and recognise that it doesn't work with abusive men. Quite often people recommend AM as some kind of panacea which will cure domestic abuse but that is a very dangerous misconception. Lundy Bancroft is very good on this, which is why I recommended that book; he's one of the foremost experts in the world at tackling domestic abusers and he's very clear that AM is very effective for people who have general anger issues, but is actually dangerous for abusers as what it does, is give them the language to carry on abusing while being able to justify it and/ or hide it better. Only the OP can know if her DH is an abuser or someone who actually can be helped by AM and that book is incredibly useful in pointing out the characteristics of an abuser who needs his beliefs changed vs an angry man who simply needs his techniques changed. If it's the latter, then yes, AM would be useful for him, but he's the one responsible for pursuing it, the OP isn't.

Your DH sounds a lot like my ex who I only kicked out a month ago. Always remorseful, always sorry, so so sorry. But when it came down to it his anger and abuse was making mine and DD's life hellish.
I remember the awful things he would say to me in front of DD, the threats he would make, the things he would break. I took me about 18 months to realise that it was in fact abuse, not anger management issues, as he would so often insist it was. I had people on MN telling me for over a year that this was the case, it just took me a long while to figure it out!

What this comes down to is, is he treating you in a manner in which you would treat him? If the answer is no, which I very well expect it is, then he needs to go. Failing that speak to Women's Aid to see if they can give you a more professional opinion on whether it is truly anger management issues or if it is in fact abuse. Good luck OP, my heart goes out to you, it is an awful position to be in.

Yes Professor.

Have you?