Worried about my husband

[Alwaysablue]

I’ve found myself in a situation with my husband which occurs maybe 3-4 times a year and is concerning me.

Basically we’ll have a bicker about something small (tonight it was butter!). He then will start shouting aggressively and begin accusing me of things. I get upset, he’ll say I’m being manipulative and trying to make him feel bad. Then he’ll start apologising, getting upset at how he’s acted and begin to sob uncontrollably.

Sometimes I am in the wrong at the start - tonight for example I was calling him a skinflint and cheap for getting horrible margarine instead of the nice butter I like. I’m sorry about that and have apologised. But then he just started shouting and saying he’s sick of me always going on about how cheap he is and we need to worry about money due to me being off work with poor health. Again, I apologised and am sorry. I was in the wrong.

His parents divorced when he was 7 and he freaks out when we argue, and this is why he cries really hard once we’ve finished. It reminds him of their arguments. Should I be getting him some help to deal with this? I feel that he bottles up feelings of annoyance towards me and they just explode eventually.

Sorry this is so long.

So you say nasty things to him, he bottles them up until he snaps and shouts at you?

You both need to learn to communicate better.

Your DH need some counselling to overcome the stress of his parents divorce which is still affecting him.

You should research Complex PTSD which is brought on by childhood trauma and affects people in adulthood.

You can watch videos in YouTube about it. Richard Grannon is good.

You both need to stop pressing Each others buttons , or the relationship will go sour.

I don’t say nasty things to him. For example tonight I said ‘you got the cheap margarine, I hate that stuff’ he replied it was cheaper and all I said was ‘you’re such a skin flint when it’s about something I like, yet you buy tons of expensive cereal for yourself’. He just flipped. I have said before about him being tight. I think he’s got annoyed but not said anything as he’s terrified of arguments due to his mum and dad.

Thanks @lexiepuppy I’ll look into it. It’s definitely affected him. I feel like we can’t have normal bickering arguments. We never resolve anything because he just sobs and I end up comforting him

Just to add, we genuinely have a lovely relationship. He’s amazing and we laugh constantly. It’s just these arguments every now and then which don’t seem normal

Go get counselling to learn how to communicate better.

So when you get upset, you are being manipulative and he gets more angry at you.

And when he cries, he is genuinely upset and you comfort him and get worked about him and post on MN about him.

So your feelings are bad and fake and must be ignored and his are legitimate and good and must be addressed.

Can you see the issue here ?

‘you got the cheap margarine, I hate that stuff’ he replied it was cheaper and all I said was ‘you’re such a skin flint when it’s about something I like, yet you buy tons of expensive cereal for yourself’.

You could change this to “I don’t like this margarine, let’s not buy it again.”
If he says it’s cheaper reply something like “I’m not going to eat it because I don’t like it so next time let’s get ‘brand name’.”

Your response to the cheap butter comment was unnecessary and OTT.
You could have just said "oh that makes sense but let's stick with x going forward because I'd rather pay the extra for nicer butter" rather than going in with a cheap dig.

When you raise an issue calmly with him, does he still shout, name call and sob hysterically ?

Do you think this is his way of never having to deal with issues that concern you ?

What happens when he raises a problem or concern he has with you ? Eg if he said

“ I’d like to cut down on our food shopping costs to save for X. I see that we spend £10 a week on cereal . Can we find a cheaper brand that you like ? “

Would you shout and sob ?

What happens if you say

“ please stop buying margarine for me as I hate it, please buy me butter from Aldi, it only costs 50p a week more than margarine and I will have tea instead of coffee which will save that 50p” ?

I can relate to this, as I had a very abusive childhood and have been diagnosed with complex PTSD. I get triggered when my DH shouts at either me (very rarely) or at our DDs (more often).

However, your DH is also being very manipulative here, especially turning on the 'waterworks'. It's the sort of thing that my DM does to stop us from challenging her about what happened when we were children;especially the SA that she didn't know about. She'll say things like 'Don't spoil my time with my DGDs.' Her parents died when she was 10, and then she was abused by the uncle who had become her guardian, so DSis and I think a part of her is still stuck in that place. She needs therapy, but she's very unlikely to do that, as she's 80 years old now.

I suspect this is probably true of your DH as well. It's understandable but he isn't 7 years old now, he's a grown man who needs to face up to his demons in therapy. He has a choice here.

Your dig about him being 'a skinflint' was unnecessary, but it didn't merit him bursting into floods of tears.

I don't know. If he does buy expensive cereal for himself this sounds like a standard martial row. My ex and and I once had a similar argument about salad.

What is not right is how it resolves afterwards.

It seems a bit OTT to complain about the cheap marge and then moan about the cereal. Life's too short. I wouldn't have said anything, just made a mental note to buy some nice butter next time I went shopping. The cheapo stuff you could use for baking.

@sofato5miles standard marital row? Do you seriously row over butter? Also didn't sound like he was rowing, just like she was having a pop.

I guess you should try to stop the personal insults. Fair enough to ask to get decent butter, but by calling him a skinflint, you are adding an insult. You definitely both need to learn how to communicate, discuss and even disagree without it becoming a massive drama.

@GiveHerHellFromUs and @fishonabicycle I know I was wrong. I was tired and frustrated as I’m housebound and very ill atm. I was out of order and apologised. I took it out on him as people often do when they are low. When you live with someone you do tend to bicker about silly things. This just escalated. As I said, it very rarely gets this dramatic.

@Lizzie0869 I spoke to him this morning and he’s going to look into counselling. He said he gets quite anxious regarding any sort of conflict, even if it’s nothing to do with him (eg at work). Thanks for your input.