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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Is this rude behaviour?

72 replies

FlutterButter · 16/05/2021 09:21

My husband is a sulker. He’s always found it hard I communicate but I’m finding his behaviour lately rude and disrespectful. I’m made to feel I’m making a fuss about nothing when I try and approach it. Examples of his behaviour are:

  • ignoring me when I’m talking to him. I quite often have to repeat my question to get a response.
  • when I do get a response, it’s a brief response like he really can’t be bothered
  • rolling his eyes or looking away if I try and push a conversation when he can’t be bothered to talk
  • muttering under his breath at me when he’s fed up with me about something
  • sulking off after an argument and giving me the silent treatment. Happened again last night when I picked him up on being rude to me again. He’ll hide away in the spare room and waits for me to go to bed before going downstairs so he doesn’t have to talk to me

These are regular things and it makes me feel so worthless.

He’s so passive aggressive. He’d been out all day yesterday with my son. He normally does the food shop and cooks and hadn’t told me he was only going to cook food last night for him and my son. But rather than telling me, he comes home and says ‘I’m assuming you’ve both eaten’. When I said no because I didn’t know he was only getting food for them both, he starts scoffing and muttering under his breath. Feels like I’m constantly having to read his mind. If he’d called to say, I would have gone ahead and eaten.

So am I making a fuss about nothing? Feel like I’m going mad :(

OP posts:
AttilaTheMeerkat · 16/05/2021 10:52

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?. They are seeing and hearing far more here than perhaps either of you care to realise.

IND1A · 16/05/2021 10:54

In answer to your OP - yes it’s rude if he’s 15 and it happens occasionally.

If it’s repeated behaviour from an adult partner - it’s abuse and you need to leave him.

I know it’s not that easy in RL but it’s who he is now, he won’t change and your life won’t get better until you split up.

shivermetimbers77 · 16/05/2021 10:55

I could have written your post OP. My ex is exactly the same :we split but still share a home for childcare reasons. Hopefully not forever.. it’s better than it was (I give much less of a shit about his sulking now he’s me ex) but it’s still a pain. You have my sympathy! It’s no life.

Mollymalone123 · 16/05/2021 11:00

It’s not normal- it’s rude and emotionally abusive behaviour and honestly just because someone has depression doesn’t give them a right to treat you like something he trod in.he should be in therapy not you! I would leave- life is too short and someone who loves you does not treat you this way

loobylou10 · 16/05/2021 11:05

Someone who ignores and/or rolls their eyes when I'm asking questions is not someone I'd be spending my life with. What a total lack of respect, don't allow him to treat you like this.

StationView · 16/05/2021 11:13

Stonewalling, sulking and ignoring are emotional abuse - google them. He is trying to train you to behave in a certain way. I put up with this from my XH for far too long - in fact, I marvel at the shit I put up with. It was ingrained behaviour in him that he had learned from his mother. Note that he is an XH.

The hills are that way >>>

Original poster
FlutterButter · 16/05/2021 12:24

Thank you everyone. I feel a bit better just hearing that you don’t think I’m making a fuss about nothing. When it eats away at you for so long, it’s hard to work out what’s normal and what’s not! Especially when he seems content with this type of relationship.

OP posts:
KinseyWinsey · 16/05/2021 12:27

How lovely. You earn more than him. You can manage perfectly well without it him. You don't have to live like this. Brilliant news.

Kick him to the kerb.

Saltedhero · 16/05/2021 14:21

Sympathise..my partner can at times be the same with the sulking until we nearly split up over it & I told him i wasn't putting up with it anymore, that it wasn't acceptable behaviour. In his defence he has totally improved & thing's have got better..sulking causes such an impact and drives a wedge in a marriage. Really made me miserable. Flowers

pinkyredrose · 16/05/2021 14:29

He's treating you with contempt. Do you really want your kids to learn that this is how relationships are?

bigbaggyeyes · 16/05/2021 14:36

It's abusive and controlling behaviour on his part. I know you might think 'well it's only sulking' but sulking is one of the tools in an abusers arsenal.

It's an awful thing to do to anyone, let alone your partner. Does he sulk and treat his work colleagues like this? If not then he can control it and he 'chooses' to treat you this way.

Being depressed is not a 'get out of jail free card' to treat people badly

In your shoes I'd seriously consider leaving. Life is way too short to live with someone who seems to disrespect, dislike and abuse you.

Sssloou · 16/05/2021 14:44

He holds deep contempt for you.

He deploys this emotional violence quietly - he doesn’t rant and rage - but it’s the silent sneering, degrading, death by a 1000% cuts. It’s the same impact - an eroding of your core self on three fronts - him withdrawing and not proactively engaging in a mutual balanced RS with you, then devaluing anything and everything you do and say with his deliberate PA behaviors which leave you confused so that you then doubt yourself.

He sounds like he is living 100% of his life in an agitated hungover mood. How much is he drinking? His parents marriage is his normal standard of how to relate.

It sounds suffocating.

These men get worse as they get older.

Your DCs don’t need to see their DM as a shell of herself.

Your home and their childhood sounds miserable with this oppressive mood hanging with him drinking and not accessing help for his “MH” and you also drained. They deserve at least one attuned emotionally functional parent in order to develop their own healthy emotional state. Kick him out, take away the black cloud, relieve the burden so that you can bring some lightness, joy and comfort to all your lives. Your DC will have sensed, absorbed and internalised this dysfunctional behaviour and it will impact them in different ways.

I am glad you are having therapy.

ScabbyHorse · 16/05/2021 16:28

Yes it is. He is full of contempt for you.

Sunflower1970 · 16/05/2021 18:20

Get rid

Alonelonelylonersbadidea · 16/05/2021 19:07

This was my ex. I now have zero tolerance of this deeply shitty behaviour and won't indulge people who do it, even less live with it.

Furthermore this is not the relationship blueprint you want for your kids. LTB

Original poster
FlutterButter · 17/05/2021 12:55

Now on day 3 of being on the receiving end of the silent treatment.

For those who have gone through this, how did you decide enough is enough?

OP posts:
KinseyWinsey · 17/05/2021 13:33

That's up to you, op.

Haven't you had a gutful of this nonsense by now?

Colourmeclear · 17/05/2021 13:35

OP, what do YOU feel? Do you feel you've had enough? Can you face more years of this?

I didn't so much decide as my body started screaming it. My stomach dropped when he arrived home from work, I shook with fear whenever I spoke to him. I would speak really quickly because if I spoke for too long he would just walk away so I ended up breathless just trying to be heard. I was exhausted from not sleeping because I just kept thinking about what he was doing and what I had done or could have done to prevent it. I ignored everything I felt because my head told me there must be some rationalisation for what he was doing, it wasn't that bad etc etc. What do you feel OP.

Lookafteryourself · 17/05/2021 13:41

My partner is like this if we row or I’m in one of my moods as he puts it he will ignore me for days, it’s quite draining.

GeorgiaGirl52 · 17/05/2021 14:14

Stick it out for 5 more years. Then your son will be about 16 and he will behave toward you just the way he learned from your husband. He will ignore you, roll his eyes, sulk, mutter under his breath, and then do exactly what he wants to do. OR
get yourself and your children out of there. Stop being a doormat and start being an adult. Parent your children with an emphasis on respectful behavior toward others. Maybe you can undo some of the damage before its too late.

Sssloou · 17/05/2021 14:20

3 long days 24/7 of silent, menacing, controlling abuse ..... make it 365 - this is no way to live. It will get worse and worse.

Your DCs don’t need this as a blueprint for a RS or to have their childhood hijacked by his controlling dark moods. Do it for them even if you can’t do it for yourself.

bigbaggyeyes · 17/05/2021 16:33

I just did. After yet another sulking exercise, i remember thinking that I didn't want to get old and realise I'd spent my best years with an abusive arsehole rather than living my life to its fullest.

I had 10 years living on my own and absolutely loved every second of it! I then met my now dh who couldn't be more different and I'm actually looking forward to retiring with I'm and spending more time with him.

When I thought about spending more time with my ex I would dread it.

bigbaggyeyes · 17/05/2021 16:35

Stick it out for 5 more years. Then your son will be about 16 and he will behave toward you just the way he learned from your husband

I agree with this, or there's a higher chance your ds will act like this towards his wife (would that make you proud) or he will be in abusive relationship like yourself. Children model themselves on what they see, your relationship with your dh is what your ds will consider a normal relationship.

Alonelonelylonersbadidea · 18/05/2021 08:30

Please make plans now OP.
Life is too short to suffer unnecessarily and you don't deserve this.
For me it wasn't a sudden realisation, so much as finally 20 years later looking at myself in the mirror and not recognising me anymore. I was a shell.
Just go. Run. Leave. Please.

pinkyredrose · 19/05/2021 07:57

How are you today OP? Please don't waste your life sharing it with someone who treats you like crap.