marriage crisis point - DH won't help (or get help)

[pixieboots4]

Been with DH a long time (20plus years). If I'm honest, things haven't been great for a while. Difficult few years with bereavements, extended family issues, money worries etc...but while these external circumstances are now improving, our relationship seems to be getting worse and I don't know what to do.

We've got four lovely kids who are pretty easy as kids go, and despite the trying things mentioned above, we actually have a lot of good stuff in our lives. DH has always been prone to dark moods and irritability and they are worsening as he ages. He's never been great at talking about his feelings or managing his temper.

Last night he had an awful row with our 14 year old daughter. She was trying to speak to him calmly about why she was upset and he was shouting back at her with shit like 'I don't care what you think', 'I don't need your opinion', 'you're talking nonsense' etc etc. Really controlling and dismissive. He later calmed down, apologised, and told her that he loved her - at least that's something, I suppose, but it's not okay and today, despite my attempts to speak to him about it, he's stonewalling and refusing to discuss it with me.

The whole thing has left me extremely shaken. We've had scenes like this before and his temper and vile authoritarian attitude when he gets into one of these moods is unacceptable. I know he/we need counselling as to how he can manage his emotions and anger levels but he hates discussing his feelings, and it's not going to be an easy process getting him there. Plus I don't know if it will even work.

Sorry this is long. I guess I'm asking if anyone has experienced similar, and if therapy truly did make a difference to your relationship dynamics? Any advice would be so appreciated. Thank you.

I would ask him what sort of time frame he is going to put in it. So if he says a couple of weeks for example say to him okay I wont mention this again as king as there is no blow ups for the next 2 weeks after that I will find a counsellor. I think you need to be firm and like you say not just let it slide now he has apologised. Kids love their parents abusive or not but it sounds like your DD stepped in as you didnt. Dont let that happen she shouldn't be the one standing up for her siblings. Back him up if you think the kids are out of line and come down hard in front of them if not.

Psychodynamic therapy involves looking at what is behind the behaviour, specifically what he may have learned and experienced in childhood, with a view to understanding the impact it had on him and how that relates to who he is today. CBT tends to be short term and to look at strategies to manage the behaviour, rather than the underlying cause

He should see his GP about the depression as well. It is very common in men for depression to present as irritability and low level anger rather than tears and sadness or numbness the way it does for many women.

Therapy can help with the emotions but it may not resolve the depression. He may need medication to help with that.

He needs a proper assessment first before you decide what type of therapy will be effective for him. It also depends on him and what type of therapy he would engage with the most and how much of the depression is exogenous vs endogenous.

Anger management help.
teenager parenting course ( churches run these in a secular way )
tell him next time he is out of control you will be planning to stay away for the next school holiday , at friends , relatives, camp site , whatever. And will repeat each time till you leave for good . Protect your kids . They may resent you for not doing so .Protect your kids .

DM had anger issues stemming from her awful childhood and we were often at the brunt of her rages.

When I was a teen she sat us down and acknowledged her behaviour had been unacceptable and that she was going to see a therapist and deal with it.

It didn't fix things over night but it was such a relief to hear her taking responsibility for it and I think its why we still have a good relationship now.

I think your DH needs to take responsibility to your children and apologise in a similar way. It will also act as a form of accountability and hopefully start to heal rifts.

@MerryMarigold - thank you. That's a really good point that he needs to know that he cannot just continue to let it slide etc...

CBT and psychodynamic therapy are really aimed at different things.

CBT is helping him to have strategies to manage his rage and depression. It deals with thoughts and how you can think in a different way. In involves learning rather in the way that you learn at school - your CBT therapist will be a kind of teacher who shares strategies with you, and you have tasks/homework to complete. It can be helpful in managing an immediate problem.

Psychodynamic/psychoanalytic therapies work differently. They work through the relationship between the patient and the therapist and that is not "teacher, pupil".

The therapist makes a safe space, and the patient has to bring stuff into it.

The therapist keeps their own stuff "out of the room" in order to see what idea of him/her the patient creates (the relationship the patient creates will be full of elements of past significant relationships). This is called the "transference relationship". The transference relationship can be very intense indeed, you can develop extremely powerful feelings about your analyst/therapist.

Then the therapist talks to the patient about the figure that he has created, so that the patient can come to know what internal figures populate his mental and emotional world and his feelings and thoughts in relation to them, plus the psychological defences he employs to cope with the difficult and painful feelings so created.

After a while when the patient understands more about the way his internal emotional world is populated and is more in tune with a fuller range of his own emotional experience, the therapy can move onto seeing how there can sometimes be a big gap between external reality and this internal world of the patient. And hopefully that gap begins to close.

I expect in your DH's case with the early emotional deprivation of boarding school, there will be very painful feelings indeed of rage and abandonment that he is very, very well defended against. How do you cope with the idea that you rage against and hate someone that you also love? Maybe you cope by trying not to feel too much at all.

The problem is that the defences do themselves cause problems - as you are now experiencing.

Thank you all for the extremely helpful advice. I think DH has a long way to go, but I'm hoping that he follows through on this. I have to do the school run now for my youngest son, but thank you again. xx

In terms of starting psychodynamic therapy, it always starts with 2 or three assessments, where you can talk together with the therapist and they can decide if you might be able to use the therapy, or not.

Good indications are that someone thinks there is a problem and that they have a part to play in it, that they believe it could be helpful to think together with another person/mind, and that between the consultations the patient seems to have taken in some of the experience of the first consultation, been curious and wanted to develop that in the next consultations.

Poor indications are that the person is only here for assessment because their partner has made them, that they think their problems are all entirely due to external factors outside their control, and poor curiosity and poor capacity to take in anything the therapist has said and do something with it.

If he is interested in psychodynamic therapy then the gold standard is the BPC www.bpc.org.uk. All the therapists registered here have done at least 4 or five years of rigorous training and have had a good deal of their own personal therapy.

Hey OP, I'm glad he apologised. But echoing what others said, it's easy to apologise and cry. It has a big impact and it makes the person into a sort of victim in a way.

Imagine if he had come, not crying, apologised and said he'd already made an appointment with a therapist. Then went to the kids and said the same.

Those are two v different scenarios.

Until he does the actions of the second, do not assume he's actually taking responsibility for his actions.

Sounds harsh, but it's the truth I'm afraid.

I think you need to go back to him and tell him to keep you updated on his progress in finding a therapist.

You can't just cross your fingers and hope for the best here.

This is the only childhood and adolescence your children will experience.

Please look up the cycle of abuse. No abuser is a raging tyrant all the time. It would expend far too much energy. Also, abuse works effectively if it's cyclical. In fact, it works even better if it's cyclical because the victims buy into the idea that they did something to cause the abusive part of the cycle to go away, and then something they did caused the next eruption.

When you say, "However, he's not like this all the time..." you're describing the cycle of abuse.

What mathanxiety wrote.

I hope he sees a therapist but it would not surprise me if he did not. He's done this before now and has not followed through on it. And it's not your job to find someone for him either. Do not keep on acting as some sort of rehab centre to this man.

His nice/nasty cycle towards you all is just that; abusive. He also does not treat people in the outside world like this either.

How can you be helped into leaving him?. I doubt actually that your children will be devastated if you two were to part and would probably feel more relieved.

💐 place marking for info on therapy

Hi pixieboots

re your comment to me in quotemarks
""@AttilaTheMeerkat - you are right of course. I've made the point to him that he doesn't speak to colleagues and friends the way he speaks to us"".

And what was his response?

" I have issued ultimatums in the past but haven't really followed them through, and it's getting worse"

As I mentioned before repeated ultimatums lose all their power and are not worth issuing. Why have you not followed through yourself previously?

" Of course, I am not perfect, and the kids aren't perfect".
No-one is perfect and even if we humans were, it's still no justification for the verbal abuse your H is meting out to you and in turn your children also.

"But I've had therapy in the past - and the kids are smart, switched on young people who know what is and isn't right when it comes to communication."

Abuse is not about communication, it's about power and control. That is what they are seeing between you and their dad. Its not their fault nor yours he has embarked on his private based war against you. These types of men hate women and all of them. I am not surprised at all your 14 year old DD got the brunt of his words the other day.

You are communicating your needs and wants just fine to him; the problem here is that he is refusing yet again to take responsibility for his actions and his apology really is meaningless. The fact too he does not behave like this to and around outsiders again is quite damming. What are your kids seeing at home; they are in a damaging atmosphere which they could well go onto replicate themselves in their own adult relationships. I would also add that whilst you are all living under the same roof, protecting yourself and your kids from him is an impossible task. What are they learning about relationships here; what are the two of you currently teaching them?. You clearly did not get the memo that the only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none.

I agree with everyone who has said there needs to be a timeline for him to start therapy. He should not be allowed to fob you off with delaying tactics.

Hoping, hoping, hoping..,

@AttilaTheMeerkat has made some excellent points, particularly the final paragraph of her most recent post.

Children only have one childhood and we as parents only have one chance to get it right. This man should have been kept at a distance from them many years ago. He sounds like a monster. I feel very sorry for your teenage DD.

Hello Im a dad and currently working with a therapist on anger related issues as detailed in another thread. My rage is something I really dont like and while its not as you describe its deeply unpleasant for my family to experience. I dont shout at my kids like you have described. What I have found in therapy is that I never experienced safely expressing anger as a kid, I was never allowed to go there so frustration grew after suppression until there was an explosion. Thats been my pattern and I want to change it.
We have explored why anger happens, when is anger right, how to express anger healthily and also to watch how I build to anger. Its been invaluable especially the stuff around seeing where anger is building in my body. Big changes in terms of how I see myself and hopegully I will take on board new ways of being upset.

I think thats a great post above OP. My therapist was clear that I have to do the work. I really want to do the work and accept that its my issue. Its very easy to say that it would not happen if people did what you said, didn't provoke you etc but thats implying control for your anger lies with other people. I know most of my anger lies in how I was parented but I want to change that and thats my responsiblity. From re reading your posts I think your husband is really way off the scale and shouting close up to your daughters face is abusive. All rage like that is unpleasant and your kids should not have to deal with it.
My rage is usually at myself but that creates horrible situations where my family gets upset. It happens very rarely but now even less as I can see it starting and head it off. I think Id try to get him to think about therapy but he has to lead on that not you.

I’ve recently had some therapy that I found really helpful (from @Bumpsadaisie s checklist I can see I was an excellent candidate). I did struggle to commit to finding someone and getting started but DH held me to account (I’d said I would, then vacillated). I found it very helpful in formalising some rough ideas I had about myself and finding ways to change

But my solo therapy also helped me understand DH and where he was coming from, which meant I could communicate and work with him more effectively. Sadly I couldn’t persuade him to have therapy - he knows it would mean acknowledging that his parents weren’t perfect and that his slavish belief in their ‘rules’ for the early part of his life was damaging. But I’m going to keep trying.

The other day his DM (who loves him dearly and worries about him) asked me if he needed more counselling relating to his army experiences. I had to bite my tongue - his upbringing has so much to do with his anxiety, but her and PILs upbringings were both pretty rough and they genuinely did the best they could and loved their children in very difficult circumstances.

Counselling is so accessible now with online he has no excuse. If he doesn’t want to trash his relationships then he has to do it and as a matter of priority. He sounds like he has a lot to work through awful parents. Boarding school etc. it will surely make him happier too.

But she can't get away from him.

If counselling doesn't help and quickly you need to get her away.
He might apologise but you don't want your kids walking on eggshells.
You don't want her to think this is ok in a relationship.

Deadlines needed. Actions, no more words.