I have namechanged to avoid being outed, and may have to fudge some personal details for the same reason.
My DH has become very unpleasant to be around - not all the time, but when he feels stressed or put upon, which seems to be rather a lot of the time. He works full time; I am a SAHM but I have an illness which leaves me feeling drained, exhausted and in pain all the time. As a result, DH does loads around the house, far more than his fair share. He is very vocal about how much he doesn't like this, and I spend a lot of time feeling guilty and trying to assure him that I appreciate every load of laundry he does, or when he takes out the bins, etc.
We also have 4 young children, who are obviously demanding and hard work in their own ways.
My big problem is how he copes - or rather doesn't - with the pressure of 4 children and a poorly wife. He is very short-tempered, stomps around the house, yells at the children if they ask him for something like a drink while he's doing something. When I try to talk to him about this and ask if he ever remembers his parents speaking to him like that, he shouts at me and storms off. On occasions when I've been bedridden through illness, I have gone for hours without eating or drinking because I daren't interrupt whatever he's doing to ask for something. I can deal with him giving ME grief, but when he screams "get out of my way!" at my 9 year old ds, all I want to do is bundle up the kids and leave.
Despite all that, he is really not a bad person. He does masses around the house and caring for our children, but I feel he gets so caught up with the practical things that he forgets to be kind to us. When he is relaxed and in a good mood he's wonderful, but those good moods are gradually being outnumbered by the bad moods.
I've tried doing all the housework myself but that lands me back in bed for at least two days. I'm on medication to manage my illness but it has limited efficacy. I have offered to hire a cleaner but we can't afford it. So, so many times I've tried talking to him in different ways so he can see that we're on eggshells around him much of the time. He just gets angry and defensive and storms off.
I've looked into leaving with the children, because I know he would be a wonderful patient dad if he didn't have this constant stress, but I have no hope of affording a home round here and I just cannot move out of the area because of the children's school. I feel completely stuck, totally miserable and guilty as hell for being a rubbish wife for not doing more around the house, and a terrible mother for exposing my children to being yelled at so much.
I will try to reply to any responses quickly but I'm really poorly and only able to cope with typing on my phone for short periods. It took me a couple of hours to write this much!