I really shouted at DP tonight. Would you have done the same or was I unreasonable?

[justanotherneighinparadise]

We have a fantastic relationship 98% of the time. He is loving and kind. We’ve been together nearly 10 years, two small children. We generally don’t argue. If we fall out it’s normally over him being really snappy with me and it really pisses me off. Particularly because it’s never over something I’ve done personally, it’s always because he’s in a bad mood about something and I’ve dared to ask if he’d like a cup of tea or something equally benign and he’s snapped at me.

Anyway last weekend he was angry with the computer and made Sunday afternoon hell because he was like a bear with a sore head. We were all treading eggshells and it annoyed me. So we had words that evening and he apologised. He did the bloody same thing this afternoon!!! Still trying to fix the bloody computer, getting angrier and angrier, snapping at the kids every time they went in the living room and I suppose my last straw broke. I went to shut the living room door, he barked at me why I was doing that and I just roared at him and left the room. The noise that came out of my mouth was primal 😬

No more words have been spoken and he’s gone to bed. I grew up in a household where we often tiptoed around my fathers moods and now as an adult I have no tolerance for it. He knows this. Do I apologise?

I must go to bed as I have an exciting day of hole schooling tomorrow 😬

Thank you for letting me talk things out. I’ll see how tomorrow plays out and I guess go from there.

Then talk him through that and ask what the best option is. Point out you are not happy feeling like you have to remove yourself and the children from him and he’s exceptionally selfish to expect it. Remind him you love him but if you have to choose the children or him it’s him. And say you want to make boundaries clear to the children so aren’t going to hide this, it will be ‘daddy’s moods are not acceptable, we dont grump at people we love so we will go out.’ To make sure they are building boundaries.

Can anyone else fix the computer if it's causing so much stress?

Sorry, if you have to choose it’s the children of course!

Well if he stomped off upstairs then the rest of you could get back to normal. He can go sit in his room thinking about what he has done until he is ready to come back down and behave in a civil manner, can't he?

I dont think you're unreasonable and when I read the heading of your post I thought you might have been but no. You weren't. It's horrible to be snapped at all the time and it sounds like it was the last straw for you today.

@cherrysoup 'his mother should have trained it out of him.'

Why is it a woman's fault?

I say this with the benefit of hindsight (separated now) but I wish I had taken the ‘WE have a problem’ approach sooner. I did, with some success.

When your DH reacts angrily because the WiFi is down/the shower leaks/the cat peed on the carpet, you have nowhere to go to. He leaves you with no room for a reasonable response. How does he expect you all to live under siege when he has an outburst? Avoiding daddy and not saying the wrong thing?

When my ex would get in a sulk or a fume, all the anger and/or silence was projected on to me. It was ‘me’ who didn’t understand, or ‘me’ who had to ring the plumber, as he couldn’t accept any role in his poor behaviour. It was also ‘me’ who finally said ‘well, if you don’t think think you have a problem, let me tell you, we have a problem. I’m not for kicking.’ (It was too late, too engrained.)

Now, in his single life, when shit goes wrong, he still rants and fumes and blames. He takes it out on his mother. He blames the car for the puncture. He requisitions his girlfriend’s car. He tweets Apple and Microsoft and Sky with furious tirades. He has no sense of (a) stuff breaks and you have to deal with it and find a solution, and (b) you’re a grown-up, mate.

It gets engrained. I had seen his father do the same (I was at his house for Sunday dinner once, I was in my teens, and the dad refused to speak for the evening because there had been insufficient toilet roll in the bathroom when he needed it - ergo, the whole family and guests had to meekly wait until he could restore his temper.)

Don’t apologise.

The thing is hooves you keep saying that you get stressed about tech etc as well, and you can't understand why other people are reacting so strongly to his behaviour... do you get stressed to the extent that your partner is having to walk on eggshells around you, anxious and upset about your behaviour and the effect on the dc? I bet you would do your best to change if you felt you were having an impact like that on your family.

I grew up in a household where we often tiptoed around my fathers moods and now as an adult I have no tolerance for it. He knows this.

I relate to this so much. My dad would just explode for me just being a child. I could no way put up with this!

Cambionome

But once in eight months? Is that worthy of walking on eggshells? If you all think so then I presume you don't get annoyed, frustrated, snappy, any more frequently than every eight months - which I just don't believe.

None of you get annoyed more frequently than once a year? How?

For me, walking on egg shells, tiptoeing around, waiting for him to explode suggest someone who is losing their temper on a frequent basis. I honestly don't equate once every eight months as justifying walking on egg shells. So, is op over reacting based on her experience growing up and her husband is just showing perfectly normal levels of frustration or is op really walking on egg shells meaning that he's blowing up much more frequently than once every eight months?

@TorkTorkBam

Good advice.

I wouldn't dream of apologising.

Well done for really letting him know.

So unhealthy for you to keep in exactly how upsetting his behaviour is.

If my husband took his temper out on my children like that I would have gone through for a short cut.
They are children, they don't understand and it's terribly upsetting for them to be roared at for no reason whatsoever.

As Tork said let him wallow and come up with a solution, but i would be telling him he better get a grip and get the hell out the house the next time he feels like that, because if he snaps at MY children or me again like that he'd better have a weekend bag packed and go stay at his mother's!

I would make it abundantly clear that neither the children nor I will be his emotional punching bag again.

And mean it.

This will make your children nervous and jittery and it will damage their relationship with you both, because they will wonder why you allowed it.

I also would let him know EXACTLY how really pissed off I am with him that his behaviour caused me to roar like that.

He's crossed the line, he needs to know it and sort himself out.

Really? So op.must be sure to not lose her temper once every eight months either or her husband would be justified in saying the same to her too then?

So, we must all remain eternally cheerful and even keeled. Can't even get grumpy once a year because of we do our partners can put us under warning of kicking us out and we risk causing emotional damage to our children? Is that true? Snapping once a year causes emotional damage to children?

@FelicityFlockheart you’re absolutely right, my bad, should have said his parents.

@justanotherneighinparadise No, you're not overreacting, due to your childhood- your experience just lets you see this for what it is, how unpleasant and damaging it is for both you and your children, and you do not want it in your life now you're a grown up and can do something about it.

Other people (maybe from different abusive backgrounds, or having a different response to their childhood abuse of seeing this as normal) might be ok with it but you're not, and that's fine. Everyone's different- I could not be more in agreement with how against the having to tiptoe around someone's moods, walk on eggshells etc you are. It's also very damaging to children, as you know.

I think you are deliberately (?) minimising things here hooves. My df was like that, and tbh it didn't make much difference if it was once a week, once every 6 months or once a year - the sick feeling of worry and anxiety about when it was going to happen next never completely left me. I then chose a man like that as my dh, to my eternal regret; I suppose it was what I knew and what I was used to.

I go back to my previous point: if you knew that you were causing real anxiety, unhappiness and distress to your dp by your behaviour, would you not try to change? Or at least talk to them properly and try to understand how they were feeling?

I think it can go either way as my dad actually mellowed considerably as he aged

Mine mellowed but IDK how much of that is just that we don't have to be with him at all times anymore, so we don't see it as much or maybe he realises he can't do it round us much as, unlike as children, we don't have to be there. I think he did mellow but as you say it was too late.

It's not just that it might effect the kids' relationship with him, my sister and I have been left with anxiety disorders because of it. I'm disabled and unable to work, and I've never married (hooray, I have my own space and can relax.) Nor has my sister for that matter.

It could effect your children's futures in every way.

I have the most intense arguments with my printer. It's the most obstinate asshole I never had the misfortune to meet. I can, however, pause the mutterings of unimaginable suffering I intend to subject it to and talk to my family in a civil manner. Not being able to switch off and tune in to others is a problem.

@PickAChew 🤣🤣

@Cambionome it’s not letting me copy and paste your quote annoyingly so I’ll add it as a screenshot. Very very wise words.

I grew up in a household where we often tiptoed around my fathers moods and now as an adult I have no tolerance for it.

But you do tolerate this from him because the other nice points he has outweigh this in your head. We learn about relationships first and foremost from our parents; what did yours teach you?.

Your mother stayed with such a man and now for the present at least you are doing the same as she did and does. And how did you arrive at this figure of 98% from; this is purely made up on your part. This is not an anger management issue and anger management is no answer to domestic abuse which is what this is.

The only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none.
What do your kids see when he acts like he does towards you along with your reactions to same?. What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?. You want another generation to learn the same damaging crap about relationships as you did and went onto absorb?.

You're allowing his moods to dictate yours so you are in the same position as your mother having married a grumpy irritable man. As your kids get older, they'll be more and more affected by it as well. Don't repeat the pattern

We tiptoed around both parent's moods. My brother is in an abusive marriage now. He married our mum in effect. No surprises he doesn't have the magic cure for his mean wife like he wishes he had and him trying to be perfect hasn't stopped him from being on the receiving end of emotional abuse. At least he has in recent years stopped talking about how we get our mum to be a completely different person. He's still in that space about his wife though. Maybe he has stopped talking about how we can cure mum's fundamental personality because the other siblings and I refuse to even idly discuss it we tell him to just accept what she is.

These things persist through the generations if you don't break the cycle.

Both myself and my husband grew up with angry fathers and that's one of the reasons I fell in love with him, because we both wanted the opposite and for us and our kids not to have that in their lives.

Over time my husband gradually started turning into an angry man, everything irritated him and I've told him a few times now that I'm going to leave him because I won't live with being shouted at (of course he always countered with I was abusing him because I was making him feel bad even though I would say nothing and he was making himself feel bad!).

The last straw was when my toddler started putting cushions around me and when I asked what he was doing he said 'I'm building a fort round you so daddy can't hurt you' :(

That was my absolute line.

We've been having weekly counseling sessions and he's now on antidepressants. Seriously, the last couple of weeks have been so good. Like I got my friend back.

The counselling has been so tough and emotional, but he is so much calmer and rational I'm not walking on eggshells anymore.

It's such early days. And we have a long way to go. But I'm hopeful. Especially as husband agreed he needed help and wasn't coping.

Do you think you could broach this with your husband? Even over text or email? It's so hard, but if you try and it fails then at least you know you've given it everything.

I go back to my previous point: if you knew that you were causing real anxiety, unhappiness and distress to your dp by your behaviour, would you not try to change? Or at least talk to them properly and try to understand how they were feeling?

I honestly don't know. I can't work out what level the op is taking about. The way some of you are taking, that to me sounds like abuse/domestic violence whereas what I'm talking about is general annoyance, feeling grumpy, a bit pissed off - so, if my dh told me that I wasn't ever allowed to be in a bad mood ( like just have the hump and be a bit short with him) then no, I wouldn't be changing and I'd think he was unreasonable for suggesting that my normal fluctuations in mood were causing him anxiety. Who is constantly on an emotional even keel, unless they're on medication no one I knows is like that. As I say though, I can't work out really what the op.is suggesting.