Is my husband being unreasonable or am I?

[bighair21]

A couple of months ago, dh and I nearly split up due to his unreasonable behaviour (he admitted it too). Very controlling and judgmental and punishing. Things have been better recently but he's now moved to a different job within the same organisation and he's becoming a nightmare again. This has been the pattern for years - he has job stress, everything at home goes pear shaped. Two days ago, I took dd for a kidney scan and was really worried about it - she has history of constipation and urine infections. She then had her first haircut and taster afternoon at her new school. Big day for all. Scan was fine and I left message on his phone to let him know. At lunch time, he arrived home and I said to hime "do you notice anything different about dd?" He snapped back, "just tell me" and was in a mood so I just ignored him and he left. He got home and still didn't ask about the day so I asked him what was going on at lunch time. He said that he was in the middle of his working day and couldn't talk to me at all - not for a second and I was unreasonable to expect a reasonable two minute exchange with him. He's now really stressed and flipped out at me and screamed at me within an inch of my face. I ran away upstairs and next morning I thought he would apologise - no he wouldn't - said I deserved it for nagging him. He's now said I don't give him support and I am to leave him alone and the only way I can help him is to do what he asks me to do. I asked him what he meant by this and he said he didn't know. It's basically back to the same old crap when he gets stressed at work I become a single parent again and have my very small needs ignored until he snaps out of it - which has taken years before.

Am I not being supportive enough maybe and is it reasonable for him to back off from his family like this?

Please help - really confused.

I am 40 know and it's taken me 30 years and 3 marriages until I finally got it right.
I realised after my second abusive h and a good talking to from a truly wonderful friend that I had been in the position of being the "victim" for all of my life, from my mother to every relationship I placed any value in, I was the one that did!! I was the one that needed acceptance and approval because all the relationships I'd ever had I was the one that was put upon and made to feel not good enough, when the reality is that WE are the ones that keep THEM together. Have you ever thought how strong YOU are because you cope with SO much?
Please don't be scared about moving on, I decided when I was 28 as my boys sat in the hospital watching me having my thigh stitched up that I was never, ever going back to that life, I owed my boys so much more and that the only one who could stop this cycle was me, so when I left the hospital I went straight to a battered wives shelter and I never, ever went back. Don't get me wrong, it sounds like I just decided in that instance that I was going to take action but my situation had been leading up to this moment for a while and I have to say it was the most scary and severe thing I have ever done in my whole life but it had to be done, I had to get away, or I'd have another generation of abusers on my hands.
They were brilliant, there was a real sense of support and everyone kept watch for everyone else. Ex's were not allowed to know where you were and if they found out they were not permitted entry. I was only in there for 3 weeks but I sorted my head out enough to be able to get a privately rented house, with the help of Lesley, a woman I met in the shelter who worked at a letting agency. She didn't take a deposit of me and let me pay the rent when my housing benefit came through.
During my 18 months by myself I learnt to value myself and to a certain extent put myself first. For the first time in my life I was just happy being me and I still am (apart from I could do with being a bit thinner, but that's another thread in the future.... lol) and don't be scared about having another failed marriage/relationship, if my 2nd marriage hadn't failed I wouldn't have met dh and he makes up for all the w@nkers in the first 30 years.

bighair

You have been given some very wise counsel here and I would urge you to take heed. Your daughter is learning an awful lot of damaging stuff here from both of you; stuff that she may well carry through to her own adult relationships if you do not address this now for your sake as well as hers.

I would suggest you read "Why does he do that?" written by Lundy Bancroft. He's an expert on controlling relationships.

My friend is now on her second emotionally abusive marriage. She is not relishing the prospect of a second failed marriage behind her. But she's looking outwards now and realises that she can have a good life beyond him.

I think there is an awful lot in what newlifenewname says amongst others. If its one thing I've learnt its this - you cannot act as a rescuer and or saviours in relationships - it just does not work.

Bighair

I would also add that my friend's abusive husband has also refused counselling and or treatment for his many issues.

Notice a pattern here?.

Think these men read a manual of some sort; however, these types are also difficult because they also appear to be very plausible to almost everyone outside their own family unit.

You must leave for the sake of you and your daughter. He will end up destroying you both emotionally otherwise. I've seen at first hand the emotional damage done to my friend - she is a shadow of her former self. The damage done to her daughter is not yet beyond repair but she also needs to get out and fast.

If it's just a temporary blip and his work will sort out then fine but it sounds like it's constant.

This post below was a bit like me. You sometimes don't realise when you're in those kinds of relationships that they aren't normal and it's not acceptable to be treated like that (as my ex husband did to me).

"If you want the perspective of somebody who has been in an emotionally abusive relationship that ended up becoming violent and scary then please CAT me. I left and suddenly I got to see what normal was like. Yes, normal means a wide range of type of relationship, but it does NOT mean shouting, screaming, ignoring, undermining, devaluing, demeaning and frightening you. "

He's a big child. A big petulant child. So don't play his game anymore pick up the ball and tell him to go away. Kick his arse on his way out

i'm sure if he feels stressed at work he wouldn't dream of talking to anyone like that, so why should he do it to you?

he is being childish

even if he does snap, he should at least apologise and try to find a way of not doing it again

you are not his verbal punch bag

He sounds exactly like my ex-husband was. After we split up (which was not easy!), I discovered what real life was really like and that I didn't have to live life treading on egg shells. I could be myself and find out who I really was. He never really knew me and accused me of all sorts of things that were totally unfounded. After 8 years of emotional, mental and sometimes physical abuse, I climbed my way out of the relationship with the support of my family and (strangely) his family too! I still see him to drop the kids off with him and I get the impression he has changed but I reckon he'll always be the same deep down.

You don't deserve any of this, nobody does. We can tell you all of this until we're blue in the face but you need to come to that conclusion on your own for yourself. Only then can you do anything about it. When that time comes, mn is here to help you through it and I hope you've got friends and family in rl too. You are stronger than you think you are - I was truly exhausted at the time but somehow got through it all. I now have a loving DH and although we have our problems, we are fairly balanced and have a good marriage where I feel valued and loved.

I do hope you find a way through this and soon.

PLP xx

You are not be unreasonalble!!!!

PLP, same here. You wonder if you say something how it will be treated. You're always in the wrong. Everything is your fault. Yet when you're in that you don't always realise how abnormal it is.

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Beelliesebub you could be me, 3 marriages the first one very violent the second he had constant affairs, I got out, built a new life for myself and DS, it was a lot of hard work, sometimes I felt like giving up, but I had DS so I had to do it. Finally I was in a place that I was happy, and then I met DH, who is so the opposite of previous husbands. We had to kiss a lot of frogs before we met our princes, so for you that are now in the position we are in, yes its scary out their on your own, yes it is bloody hard work, yes you will feel a failure, but is that any worse than staying with a man that takes what little self esteem you have left and kills it, teaches you children that to belittle and abuse you is normal behaviour.
Take what courage you have left and leave, you will then find that courage growing every day. Good luck to you all, you can make it on your own.

Xenia, yes - I remember that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach either first thing in the morning or on the way home, wondering what mood he was in and therefore what sort of a day it was going to be and dreading it!!!

He kept threatening to move out and one day I just said "ok, move out then"! He didn't know what to say but he found somewhere to live! Turns out that he had been sleeping around over the years too and had taken his guilty conscience out on me.

The splitting up process took about 6 months all told and in that time, he was done for harrassment and assault. He kept ringing me etc. and I've got pages and pages of diaries where I wrote down all the conversations just so I knew I wasn't going crazy. I found it really helped me because he did exactly the same thing by making out I was in the wrong all the time. Took me years to realise that I had been a victim and that I had been completely co-dependent.

Sorry, didn't intend to waffle! xx

My diaries are interesting reading too if I ever am feeling fed up being alone. It's interesting how people can get trapped into those kinds of relationships and not realise it's not normal and not acceptable.

Hi all, haven't been able to get on Mumsnet over the weekend as afraid h might see. Things are a bit calmer at the moment, I think he had a small tinge of guilt!

I hear what all of you are saying and it's interesting and sad to know that there are so many women out there facing these kinds of relationships.

He is trying to improve but to be honest, a lot of damage has been done to my self esteem and feelings already.

About two months ago, he threatened to leave for about the 20th time and I said just go. He did go - for about 2 hours and I was gutted when he came back. I told him that he couldn't mess around with my head like that and asked him to leave. He refused and in fact threatened to kick me and my oldest daughter out (from a previous marriage). He said he paid the mortgage and so should stay in the house. I was appalled and then, in the middle of the night while I was on the sofa, he came down and apologised to me and said he didn't mean those things. Since then, things have been better but he still sinks into this stuff when he's stressed. He has started his first day in his new job today and I am dreading what will happen over the next few months.

I know you're all right about not taking this kind of crap but I really want it to work and so this really is the last shot. Last time, I went to the solicitors for advice and he found out about it - said I had betrayed him and him and his mother have never forgiven me for it. He says it hurt him, which I'm sure it did but I had to do it to look after myself. As a result of this, it seems as though his mother has decided to cut us both out of her will just in case she should die around the time that we get divorced and I get my hands on her family money! FFS, I don't want her money - I'm not interested in that but I do feel hurt by her behaviour when I did nothing wrong. We were quite close and now she says I am too confident which is why I went to the solicitors. Can't cope with the anger I feel about this - disgusting.

Sorry - this has turned into a right old rant.