My husband is much better at arguing than I am, which always results in me being the one shouting and him being smug about me "being emotional" or "not well".
I am not stupid, I know that many things he does would qualify as emotional abuse. I just need ways of handling it. I don´t want to leave right now as it is not all the time (it comes in waves) and I´d like to give my kids some more years as a family. Splitting up now is therefore really not an option.
An example. He wants something. He goes on about it day and night. I don´t want it (it concerns buying something expensive). He emails me lists of "options" but I know that if I choose the we-don´t-buy-it-option he behaves like a prick for eternity. He does this mostly when we are with other people: so we see acquaintances and he makes this sad face saying I want this so dearly but my wife is against it. She only wants to buy stuff that she likes. When my family visits I like to keep them out of our ´internal business´ but he enjoys putting me on the spot she doesn´t let me buy this. I asked him to be normal over X-mas when my family came round but instead for four days he badgered them over not closing the right doors/opening doors to often/not doing the dishes correctly/leaving the light on etc. It were all things that indeed, it would be better done differently, but with people being your guests I always feel that there needs to be some tolerance and acceptance. When his family comes over they also do a 100 things that slightly annoy me but I would feel embarrassed to make a point of every little thing. He clearly does not feel embarrassed at all. Then when I was serving X-mas dinner, which took me about 2 hours to prepare, he didn´t come to the table when asked. He was loitering in the kitchen pretending to clean something (unnecessarily). So we had 10 people waiting and he just didn´t come. I then started serving everyone and after asking him again (in vain), I served myself. He then shows us at the table asking me to serve him. I refuse as I am already eating and then he goes into a huge strop about not being served. This he continued for the next days, all the time pretending that it was my fault for causing the argument (by not serving him). He brought it up with every meal, leaving my family uncomfortable (let´s see if I get any food today, as she would serve me yesterday). I tried not to escalate the situation as we had guests, but again it left me feeling so down. If I have friends over, he will always make little comments like "oh, you have such a small car" or "oh you didn´t go to university" etc. With his friends I am always welcoming and interested. I think his comments are insults and I also think my friends perceive them as such. He thinks they are just innocent comments.
Back to the arguments: no matter how hard I try, I never get him to accept my point of view. So he comes up with his proposal again. I say I am not taking any of his options and then he says that I am unwilling to discuss anything. I know that if I do not give him his way, he will be difficult at every future outing with my kids and family. I proposed to separate our finances so he can buy it on his own, but he won´t accept that either. I know he won´t change, so I am desperately looking for some tools to help me cope.