mumsnet probably kept me out of jail, DH being an absolute arsehole (sob)

[briarrose]

Hi everyone, if I didn't have mumsnet I would probably be under arrest for torture and mutilation (of DP) what a complete arsehole.

I lent the car to my stepdad over a week ago because his had died and he couldn't get to work. I'm at uni (don't drive anyway) DP is unemployed so we didn't need it, plus, my step dad has helped us out so much in the past, with money when we are skint etc and I wanted to repay the favour. DP has been on my back about it all week, and it blew up in spectacular fashion today. I got called all the names under the sun, names I don't even want to type here, he followed me round the house all day shouting, swearing, name calling, even when I practically begged me to leave him alone.

I ended up having to call step dad and tell him I couldn't let him have the car any longer, leaving him in the shit and making me feel like shit.

DP has thankfully gone to get the kids, but i'm still shaking, scared of when he gets back.

DGMW he's not physically abusive, he's just got a nasty mouth on him, and he doesn't care what he says in front of the kids.

He hasn't properly worked for 10 years, even though I have worked since DD2 was 6m old, it's times like this when I really resent him for it.

I don't like arguing anyway, so I just shut off, he then follows me around shouting and winding me up, saying that i'm just trying to wind him up by ignoring him. I know he's at the school now telling all to other mums which I hate, he insists on involving others in our arguments, telling me he thinks all my friends should know what i'm "really" like.

I get so upset when he rows, he says such personal insulting stuff, stuff he knows upsets me. Is that what normal couples do? am I just being a baby? cause it's not OK in my book.

At one point today, when I was trying to iginre this tirade I logged onto mumsnet and divided my time between alternately telling him to go away/ignoring him, and answering other people's posts. It made me feel so much calmer, and at times drowned out his voice.
This meant that my planned murder fizzled out to me just throwing my filofax at him (i'm not proud)

grrrrrrrrr

I'm angry and upset, I really don't like this side of him

what i would do?

kick him to the curb. ages ago.

he won't ever grow up or change.

sorry to hear you are living in one kind of misery for so long.

He is verbally and emotionally abusive. You don't have to put up with this shit, nor do your children. Go to the CAB, call Women's Aid and get rid of him.

And I am sorry but you did throw your filofax at him - is that not abuse?

If dh called me a f**ng cnt it would utterly change my relationship with him

and we have been together 16 very happy years

if he repeated it in front of the children he would be out of the door so fast he wouldn't know what had hit him

no matter how long you have been together, no matter how many children you have together, no matter how much crap he has gone through with his family, NO ONE deserves to be treated like this

you cannot want to bring up children in this environment. You cannot think it is okay for your children to be hearing their father use such language about their own mother fgs

you cannot want them to grow up like that

I do agree with you Cappuccino. I can't imagine feeling the same way about DH if he spoke to me like that, either and I certainly wouldn't allow my dc to go on hearing this sort of thing.

I may have got it completely wrong but I do believe people can change (I know because both DH and I have done so) and it just seems to me that if there is genuine love there ie 90% of the time it may be something that could be addressed and resolved. It also seems that Briarrose is admitting she also gives as good as she gets at times - maybe both reenacting some childhood drama stuff to some degree? - in which case they could BOTH take responsibility for the way these blow-ups begin and what is happening.

I guess Briarrose only you know what the true situation is and it may be that you do feel the right thing to do is to leave.

If you say, calmly, to him "I will talk to you about this when you have calmed down. If you shout and swear at me, the conversation is over"

How does he respond to that?

I personally think he needs some time away from you to realise exactly what he has and what he would lose if you left him. I think he is lucky you have stayed with him for this long. I also think you are so used to this sort of behaviour that it only bothers you when it REALLY gets bad. It isn't right to be treated this way. We are all special and all deserve to be treated with respect - including you Briarrose.

Lock him out.

Make sure your Stepdad knows you were made to ask for the car back.

your D?P is a bully.

Yes I did throw my filofax at him pages but TBH he had been following me around the house for 3 hours, called me a slut, a slag, a whore, a cunt, sorry to be so honest, but i'm not proud of snapping, but I want to be clear that I felt ready to just walk out the door and run and run, but obviously I wasn't going to do that. Also, he was standing in front of me telling me he would like to wipe the smile off my face ( i wasn't smiling) and he said he could kill me if he wanted to. I think anyone reasonable would do something unreasonable when under that pressure.

The car is shared and yes I agree that it may not have been the best move. I had already said that to him days before and admittied I had made a mistake, but I really don't think that that justifies his explosion.

He is still blaming me today. I can't talk to him, I just feel sick. I have never felt so bad and isolated in all our relationship. I don't want to split, but i've never ever been so hurt and insulted by anyone. He kept telling me yesterday how much he hated me, he said it over and over. Come on Pages we all make mistakes, and yes I did admit that I have ranted in the past, I have shouted, but never would I say the things he said to anyone, I could understand if I had just done something really bad, but did I really deserve that. I am far from perfect but the argument was so disproportionate. He seemed to get such a kick when he finally reduced me to tears.

I've admitted my mistakes but I really can't see how he can justify reducing me to this state. I'm even shaking now, I just don't know where this is going to go now.

He won't ever move out anyway, he has said that in the past, not that I would want him to, I just want this to stop.

I have said to him that I will talk to him when he is calm, that is what I did yesterday. I don't ignore him if he ever wants to talk rationally, but it starting when he just blew up and began with shouting and swearing. It frightened me and I clammed up. FGS i'm 29 and 5'2" tall, i'm hardly gonna try and match him

Briarrose, I was in some ways playing devils advocate just in case you DID feel the relationship was worth salvaging, but from what you have said, he sounds far worse than I originally thought and I have to say I agree with you (and the others) that you do NOT deserve this and should NOT put up with this sort of treatment. The worst DH or I have ever called each other is "stupid" or an "arsehole" (very rarely) and our occasional flare ups were and are interspersed with lots of loving, thoughtful kindness to each other. Also, if DH ever oversteps the mark he ALWAYS apologises afterwards.

I am so so sorry if I have in any way made this sound like you were to blame, Briarrose. You are NOT. I was judging things by my own experience which is not even in the same ballpark as yours. I have to say from what you have said now I agree with the others that he is an arsehole and you should get shot of him as soon as possible. Sorry

I also didn't realise from what you said previously that he made you physically frightened of you. I really have totally got things wrong and I don't mind saying so.

But maybe that's a good thing because I have pushed you into defending yourself (albeit just on here, to me). I don't need any further convincing. Now I just don't understand why you say you don't want to split.

No, no Pages I can see what you were doing and it was indeed very helpful. Both sides of the argument are always needed. It is just he nature of his attack which really really hurt me. I know I can piss him off, I know I can be a stroppy maggy female, but he took it to real extremes and then tried justifying his actions by my reactions.

We almost talked today but it just got heated and I got upset, I just cannot deal with the way he treated me, he is wanting to discuss the initial issue but I can't get past how I feel. The kids started getting upset then so I had to put a stop to the "discussion". I calmly told him I would discuss it when the kids were in bed. I thought about what you said and made it clear that I was not ignoring him.
Now he says he is going to his mates. I can't decide if that's a good thing or not.

He is behaving in a classically abusive manner, and the 'telling everyone else what you are really like' is the clincher. He's trying to isolate you from other people, which is always the point at which abusers start escalating to becoming dangerous. Hopefully it won't work because more and more people are clued up towards this sort of behaviour and will either ignore him or maybe even tell him to go and sort himself out. But you really do need to contact WOmen's AId.

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Yes, that's it, he is a hard person to live with and to love - at the moment. We have gone through so much together that we take the hard times, usually. I don't think he grew up with a normal family life at all - he thinks me snapping at him when i'm stressed is me treating him badly, he doesn't realise that in a normal household we aren't all angels all the time.

I must admit yesterday and today I did wonder if there was anything left to move on with, and i'm not completely over that thought. If I can get him to realise that his behaviour was never to be repeated we have got a chance - then and only then can the original issue be sorted, and yes I will be able to admit my mistakes, but not while he thinks it's okay to say and do what he did.

Thing is, while he is trying to find work, he is in the house all day every day, and because of that I think it makes him unreasonable, he doesn't have a realistic outlook on life

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what the original row? at school, I would never, ever let them be witness to that,the only time they have ever come close to witnessing anything like that I have taken them out. DP will not stop if they are around, therefore I just have to go and stop it getting worse

Have not read all the threads but one of your responses where you say that if you shout back and call him names will make him stop really rings a bell with me. He has got what he wants when you do that even though he does not know it. Subconsciously he wants you to speak badly and insultingly to him because this is what deep down he feels that he deserves and it was probably done to him frequently as a child. I now know after years of counselling that this is why I used to be verbally vicious until the other person started abusing me back. I had had it all my life from my mother and so it was what I felt comfortable with so I would keep pushing and pushing until I got what I felt was the "norm". People with emotional difficulties will often try to recreate in their relationships what they feel to be "normal" no matter how toxic.

However this is not to say that this type of behaviour is in any way acceptable. Still abusive whatever the reason. He NEEDS counselling and to have some self awareness. Get him a book called The Verbally Abusive relationship by Patricia Evans and ask him to have the courage to read it. I often read excerpts of it to DH before he can get in to his stride. Yes after years of counselling and managing to get over my own problems and horrible childhood I married a man who has much the same issues as I had previously and am now having to deal with it from my end. This book really has helped. I do know how you feel. DH has said things to me that were so hurtful that I felt like I couldnt breathe after he said them and he also does the following around berating me thing. I just keep saying "Bully" quietly under my breath but so he can hear until he stops because being called a bully does not gel with his idea of himself as being a nice guy. The book helps with this also. Thinking about you.

Hi briarose,I can't help thinking when I read the posts that you keep repeating that he never had a normal upbringing/relationship/good role model etc, what about your children, are they? It's classic abuse, history repeating itself, is this the kind of life you want your kids to have. You are defending him, when will he start behaving right, when they are older, adults, left home? By then, the kids are screwed up enough for the cycle to continue. Take some of the power back, you need advice and support from professionals, as others have said Womens Aid is a great place to start. Just ring them and get some advice, if only for your kids sake. Good Luck!

Viggoswife,

"People with emotional difficulties will often try to recreate in their relationships what they feel to be "normal" no matter how toxic."

I think that is what I was trying to get at -that often the whole scenario is part of a dance that you both know the steps to, ie you are both somehow recreating the old childhood drama. My point was simply that unless you figure out and bring it into your awareness what your own role is in all this, there is a chance that you will leave this relationship only to seek out another identical one without realising it.

Briarrose, I hope you manage to get some sort of resolution and a good night's sleep.

You're both right pages and viggoswife, but get this. We managed to get talking, and to my huge relief he admitted that he shouldn't have carried on the way he did, and he did genuinely seem remorseful, also assured me it wouldn't happen again. Phew, I apologised for lending the car, and we made a lot of progress

THEN, he has just told me that he has now offered the car to step dad next week

WHAT??!!!

After all that? He now says that he felt forced to do it because of what I had said (step dad helped us in the past etc)

Think I am just going to go to bed and pretend he never told me that, too much for me to work out tonight.

Interesting point about us both replaying our childhood roles though, so very true but don't know how to break it. Will read those suggestions of books though, they must help somehow.

Had so much advice and support from you all, big thanks ladies
x