I just want to know what everyone else thinks about this. Because I am being told that what I did was very hurtful and deliberately trouble-making, and I just don't get it.
My husband likes a drink. I think he drinks too much--anything between 80 and 150 units a week, although he denies that he drinks that much. When he drinks he gets obstreperous. He has anger issues, although again, he denies this: he's had letters from clients saying he's been abusive, letters from employees saying he "violently lost his temper and screamed down the phone" at them. He has a horrible temper, to the extent where I feel like I can't ask him anything without risking an outburst.
We had a horrible weekend where he got falling-down drunk on the friday night, shouted at me at length, calling me names, just because I mentioned that I was taking the cats to the vet the next day, then the next day he had no recollection of having shouted and said I was making it all up.
Then on the sunday I asked him what was happening with a business we own--it's heavy machinery which before Christmas 2018 he moved from our outbuildings into an industrial unit 30 miles away. It turns out that they've not yet been installed so aren't usable, so we've lost six months of income and grants from the installation, which we have now spent over £300,000 on and had no return on. He said that I was criticising him because I said he should have sorted it out by now; then he turned it all back onto me and told me I am not prepared to take responsibility for anything, that I am lazy, that I am interfering in his work, and so on. It was awful.
So on the monday I got up, really unhappy; realised I couldn't cope alone with his drinking and anger any more, and went to see his parents, desperate for help. I told them about how much he drinks, I told them about how he is abusive to me, and so angry so much of the time; and I told them how I'd discovered last year that he'd committed a fraud (to do with the machinery he moved but hasn't yet installed), and implicated me and our children in that fraud. I said I couldn't cope with his awful behaviour any more, and I needed their support to try to get him to get the help he needs.
They reacted by telling me I was making it all up, that he's a lovely man and would never lose his temper or drink to excess (despite his mother having told me years ago that he's a nasty drunk). They started to shout at me (I can see where he gets it from) so I left, came home, by which time they'd phoned him, told him all.
He came racing home, packed a bag, reduced our son to tears, and left, all without speaking to me.
That was a month ago. He has pretty much ignored me ever since, refusing to engage with me in any way. He's told me he left "because of your actions", which I assume means that I told his parents the truth about how he treats me, his drinking, and the fraud, all of which he of course denies.
Oh, and after he left I phoned his parents as I'd promised I would, and his mother said I should watch my back because she was coming after me. It was all just so dysfunctional and horrible. I understand that he doesn't want people to know about his drinking and his abuse and his fraud, and that it must have been difficult for his parents to hear: and I am relieved not to have him here any more, being angry and threatening and drunk.
But he and his family seem so convinced that it was wrong of me to speak to his parents as I did, and I wonder if it really was as bad as all that. I wasn't bitching about him, I was honestly desperate and thought that even though they don't like me much, they love him, and would want to help. With hindsight I can see that it was foolish of me to expect them to help; but I didn't intend it maliciously. Was it really that bad?