I’m not asking when he’s going to die!

[Hightidelowtide]

My husband and I don’t have a happy marriage. He can be very verbally abusive. I feel like “good dog/bad dog” all the time. I’m good when I’m not putting undue demands on him - towing the line. If I am angry/ upset/ frustrated/ overwhelmed I invariably end up being called a fucking cunt. His father is gravely unwell and he has been overseas to be with him recently and has said he will have to go again at any point. I have a baby and a small child with special needs who I cannot handle alone and if he goes I will need to hire a nanny . When I have tried to ask him if he has any idea if he thinks he will go he basically accuses me of asking him when his father is going to die. This is NOT what I am doing but my life is very difficult to manage at the moment. I feel that this is emotionally abusive this need of his to make me the bad guy, the heartless bitch who is asking when his father is going to die. Has anyone else been treated similarly. I am getting increasingly distressed by our arguments to the point where I self harm. I want him to leave but I am deeply upset and confused by why he hates me so much. I am also so sorry for my children. I don’t know how to get him to leave when he has nothing and no one outside our family and when his father is dying overseas.

This is a totally toxic relationship, no matter what you need to separate. For you, your husband and your DCs.

Has anyone else been treated similarly

Your husband is so abusive that you are self harming to cope. Your question above is really not important. What's important is that you exit this situation as soon as you possibly can. What can we do to help? What would you need to have in place in order to feel safe to leave?

Yes I was treated like this for over 20 years, hit, kicked, bitten and sworn at. Contact women's aid, turn to your family or friends for support and tell them what you're going through. This is abuse, get out now before it's too late.

Unforgivin2018, my husband has never been physically abusive as you describe apart from once grabbing my wrist extremely hard- do you recognise the vilifying of me? What else is similar? It is so hard for me to see him as an abuser as he is very changeable.

Google "cycle of abuse". Being changeable is a major part of it. You keep thinking he can't be all bad because he was nice the other day, but just when you think you've come to an understanding he's suddenly upset about something else that's never seemed to bother him before. Of course he'll be extra prickly at the moment because he's worried about his father, but that is no excuse to take things out on you. You have ongoing worries and responsibilities with no end in sight. Partners are supposed to support each other, not use each other as emotional punchbags.

Oh, and the absence of physical violence doesn't mean it isn't abuse.

To expand on the changeability thing: if you never know which husband you're going to get, the jolly one or the vicious one, it keeps you constantly on the back foot so you are always worrying about setting him off. You end up tiptoeing round him, either hoping the good mood will last or trying to bring the bad one to an end. It's all about him and never about you. Which is how abusers like it. It's just the techniques that vary.

Anniegetyourgun- he is only bothered by my ‘behaviour’ not by things I do/don’t do. He has objected to me trying to ask him if he is going overseas as to him this translates to my asking him when his father is going to die. This is not what I am doing - I am just trying to find out if he is going there to support his family as I cannot handle my young baby and 3 year old autistic child alone so I will need to get extra help. As it is my life if incredibly difficult at the moment and I have tried to be supportive of him. It was me that told him to go out there a few weeks ago wgrbthings looked really bad and it is incredibly difficult managing the children alone ( up at 5, meltdowns, breastfed baby, autistic sibling). The thing is my husband seems bent on make my ourbthat I am going to be the bad guy in relation to his fathers Illness. I have always been the bad guy in his eyes- in relation to him, his family, even when I tell him about interactions with strangers he seems to need to protect their point of view over mine. I DO want to know if he is going away to try and have some control over my incredibly stressful life at the moment but I am not a nasty person and I am in no way trying to ask him when his father will die? One minute he’s sending me mother’s day flowers and the next he’s telling me I’m a cunt and he hates me? Cunt is his favourite word for me when he’s angry.

I am very worried about the effect of a divorce on my autistic son. I am also worried that my baby daughter will hate me for never having had her father around.

Yeah Im sure she wont hate you at all for making her grow up in a home where her mum is called a cunt every other day.

Your son will grow up thinking that the way his fathervtreats you is the way women should be treated and your daughter will grow up thinking that is the way relationships work. You are being abused and it is incredibly toxic for your children to hear and see the way you are being treated. You cannot change your husband, but you can change your life.
Please realise that you are worth so much more than this and deserve better.

Or they will hate you for keeping him around.
He's abusive.
SS now consider children in an abusive environment as also being abused.
Please contact Womens Aid.
Talk to them.
This is not normal and not good for you or your DC.
Read THIS THREAD
Do some investigation into abuse and the affects it has on children.
You'll soon see that they should not be with him and neither should you.