Is it an overreaction to leave in these circumstances?

[SomePerspectivePlease]

I need to know if I'm overreacting here and would like some perspective from others please.

My husband and I have a very rocky marriage, and it is mostly my fault. Not affairs/drugs/drink/debt or anything like that. It's issues with my personality and the unhealthy way I think. It's taken me a long time to see the truth about what I'm like, and the damage I've done.

We argue a lot, and things have been particularly bad this year. My husband has also had a lot of additional, work-related stress that is completely separate to our relationship, but has really taken a toll on him.

What I need help with is what's happened tonight. We had a argument. He is, quite rightly, angry with me about many things. In this instance I don't think I was in the wrong, and it was getting out of hand.

Regardless - our baby was asleep in her nursery. He was shouting, and I asked him repeatedly to please stop in case he woke her. He refused. Our baby has been ill this week with vomiting and a fever, and has been awake a lot the last three nights, so she's unwell and very tired. At the height of our argument, and amidst me begging him to lower his voice, he went and kicked her bedroom door to wake her on purpose, then said "That's a taste of your own medicine for you."

Now, I take full responsibility for the problems in our marriage. He has every right to be angry with me, and if/when we break up, it will be my fault.

But what he did tonight is, I think, unforgivable. He intentionally did something cruel and spiteful towards our baby to get back at me. He has form for being petty, and straying into the milder forms of physical abuse (if there is such a thing) when angry, but never directed at our DD. I can't quite believe he did it, really. He will say that it shows how far I have pushed him.

Is it a complete overreaction to leave him over this? Even though almost all of our problems are down to me?

He has fought for our relationship the entire time we've been together, and his willingness to give me chance after chance that I didn't deserve to fix our problems has been the only thing keeping us together for years. I have not worked hard enough to sort these things out, and he's right on the edge of saying enough's enough. I don't blame him, and wouldn't have stayed this long if our positions were reversed.

But I don't know if I can continue in a marriage where I know that he has it in him to do something cruel to our DD to upset me, even when his anger is my fault.

I'd appreciate your thoughts.

He sounds like a very nasty, controlling and abusive man. He's nothing new. He is utterly typical of them. He's not exceptional. He is just like every single abusive twat out there. As these predictable bellends are so utterly unimaginative, I can tell you how this story will go as they all follow the same old pattern. They're not unique or special, even in their abuse.

Yeah, their main motives tend to follow these 3;

1. Have a partner who'll never leave or cheat, who believes they're undateable, will never find anyone else, are flawed and are lucky he's with them. And/or whomis scared to leave. If there's ever any cheating or leaving, it'll be him, if abd when he wants to, on his terms.

1. Have a partner who's insecure, submissive, deferential, unassertive, unequal, trying to please, trying to prove themselves. He is the king in his kingdom, their household & is not a democracy, it is an autocracy.

1. Have a partner on whom he can take out his aggression, dominance, irritation, wanting to feel superior, malevolence etc. A whipping boy and emotional and verbal (and sometimes physical) punch bag.

Yes to all three.

Many years ago now, I left an abusive relationship. It was only after I had left that I realised that I didn't even recognise myself anymore. My friends had tried to help but I couldn't see it myself. I was broken, downtrodden and full of fear. He had taken my whole being and my very essence until I was almost nothing. Before I met him I was confident, outgoing, full of life, the life and soul of the party. When I eventually left, I was like a beaten dog, cowering in fear, completely convinced of my shortcomings and completely convinced that I was a failure.

It took a few attempts for me to buy a one way ticket. When I finally bought that ticket though, the relief was immense.

I have put myself back together again. I am me again. An even better me (even if I do say so myself 😊).

At this point in time it doesn't matter who is at fault.
This is an unhealthy and toxic relationship.

Its time to get out.

Once you are out spend sometime on yourself (and baby) and then reflect figure out who is in the wrong.
If, as you say, you have issues, you can then work on them until you are ready to date again.

It was really upsetting to read your list of 'faults', OP.
I want to give you a hug.
It read like a script coming from your DH, you have probably been told those things so often the words are imprinted on your mind.
No, my dear, he is controlling and abusing you.
The saddest one (close contest sadly) was that you are 'oversensitive'. So he should just be able to say any hurtful, wounding thing he likes to you and you should be able to just take it without getting upset? That is not normal! You are bound to get upset when someone says something hateful to you! Especially when they are supposed to love you!
I very much hope that you can use this thread and the support on here to gradually muster your strength to get away from him. It's never easy and it can take a while. Please, please escape with your precious DD.

You sound like me and my exH - everything was my fault including how I react to things (excuse me for not being his clone). When we had marriage counselling, afterwards he’d say it’s doesn’t matter what they said it was me not him that was wrong blah blah blah, he’d lecture me and the kids for ages on what we did wrong and completely lose his point by lecturing for hours.

At no point, no matter what you have done or probably didn’t do - you have never responded to him by trying to hurt/disrupt a BABY

He wasn't fighting for his marriage, he was fighting to control you.

I want to echo everything @Alcemeg said!

This is such an eloquent post and has deep insight into what is actually happening to you OP. I know I can identify myself in this. And it's lovely to see that there is hope and light at the end of the tunnel.

Read it over and over again OP.

Oh dear @SomePerspectivePlease You have definitely been brainwashed. There is nothing on your list of awful behaviours that justifies your DH's criticism. He truly is gaslighting you and you should get out now before your DD becomes subject to his abusive ways.

Thank you so much. If you recognise a situation that you're still in, I hope you will read it and re-read it too, and I wish you all the energy and hope you need to extricate yourself. It is incredibly difficult but to say that it's worth it is an understatement!

I just wanted to add, in case I gave the impression that my now-DH puts me on a pedestral and just agrees with my every whim: it's not like that, but we tend to agree with each other anyway because we see things the same way. Sometimes he explains something to me and I accept his version. But you know what? I accept his version because it makes perfect sense to me, not because I dread what happens next if I don't capitulate.

OP your version of reality has been obliterated by his, which makes no sense at all. This is why you don't "follow through" on promises you've made. Those promises are worthless because your heart wasn't in them (your heart is carefully stored in bubble wrap, in a double-lined box, locked in a secret cupboard somewhere deep inside you, where it can be retrieved one day when it is safe for you to do so). Think of those promises as having pretty much the same worth as forced confessions from someone who has been sleep deprived and tortured. Not sticking to them does not make you a useless human being. It shows you still have a glimmer of understanding that he has not yet managed to extinguish. But he is working on that.

This man has been abusing you for years and now he has started on your daughter - he needs to go.

My ex actually went onto a Mums website of which I was a member at the time to seek advice for how to deal with me. Oh his glee when every woman (with the exception of a handful) told him how utterly awful I was and what a saint among men that he was. He had painted himself as a martyr. This was used against me as further proof that I was a waste of space. I think that was actually one of the moments where I realised exactly what he was doing. He was cutting off every support network I had. "See - even you friends online agree that you're lazy and that I should leave you". He had done it more subtly with family and my real life friends (but I didn't have any real proof of that), but that one backfired on him though, as seeing it in writing, reading the lies, reading the manipulation of peoples' perspective of me was eye opening and it was the beginning of me accepting that he was trying to destroy me.

The bizarre thing about these men is that they tend to destroy the traits in you which attracted them to you in the first place. Do I know why? No. I suspect it's some sort of twisted possessiveness. They don't want anyone else to have you so they break what is brilliant about you.

👏👏👏for @Alcemeg 's post. I too lived with this kind of treatment, believed of myself the "terrible" flaws you've listed, and believed my then H was a kind patient man I was unworthy of who just wanted me to reach my potential. When I left, I spent six years single, healing, and an now married to someone who is just like the Freedom Programme's good man (infographic from earlier, I think).

One question which bothered me towards the end was why was my self esteem lower after years of marriage to then H than it had been when we met?

And why was it always time to listen to him, put him first, try to change for him, but he seemed to dodge doing the same for me?

Two important things I also want to say:

1. Protect your baby. The rest of the conversation here is secondary to this. Your instincts are good: you should leave because of this.

1. Do NOT be talked into couple's counselling. Individual counselling if you want it, sure. But not with your H.

@Alcemeg
After 24 years, I have asked him to move out.
I was having a wobble because he's changing his behaviour and being nice. A cycle which has been repeated many times before and because we have kids, mortgage together and don't want to uproot and change the dynamics I just get sucked back in.

Your post just reiterated how vile and insidious his actual behaviour is. This is just part of this behaviour.
I'm not expecting to meet someone new because I have quite a lot of baggage. But it's just nice to hear that it is possible to go on to have a healthy relationship.
As someone else said, It doesn't have to be a man, It can be friends and family.

Well done for sticking to your guns and remembering that a leopard doesn't change its spots.

I think it's hard not to keep giving in to "improved behaviour" because you spend so much of your life longing for him to just be nice for a change, that when you finally get it it feels like winning the fucking lottery 😂

Good luck
And never say never, re: future happiness. I'm in my 60s now.

As a small PS to my last message, Let It Go was just played on the radio. Frozen was released about the time I left my XH and my 3yo youngest loved it so we watched it a lot and that song always left me sobbing. Couldn't really explain why, but now, listening to these lines:

Conceal, don't feel
Be the good girl you always have to be
...
I'm never going back
The past is in the past

That idea of finally being free to be who you are, of giving up trying to fit into a mould that others have made for you - powerful stuff! It's one of my freedom songs 😊

It's kind of a shame that song was used in Frozen and played to death, it makes me sob for reasons entirely unconnected to the film

I don't think your list makes much sense. At best you're not suited. At worst you're being abused. Him kicking the baby's door suggests the latter and it does cross a line. I think you need to leave.

Agreeing with everyone that nothing you have written is particularly awful and reading them, I couldn't help thinking inattentive ADHD. I have this and could write what you have said, something to explore maybe. Your husband on the other hand is a cruel shit doing that to a defenceless baby, please get you both out of there. This won't be a one off and hitting objects often escalates to hurting people or babies, he is not safe to have around a baby.

Hi everyone. Thank you very much for all your responses. I'm trying to find the time to read through them all properly.

I keep spotting particular posts or phrases which are chiming with me. I'll try to respond individually.

Thank you particularly to @Alcemeg Your post is very insightful and I think you've picked out some really relevant points.

Your last paragraph here is partly how I feel, yes. Like I'm not doing a very good job of explaining to you all the extent of what I'm like and why it's a problem.

I know that many of these faults are widespread among people generally. But the problem is that I'm all of these things, all of the time. And I continually promise (and mean it) to improve, and then don't. So he's at the end of his tether with me.

😂 I am probably the only adult left who loves it!

Ok, OP, don't let yourself get distracted. The biggest problem at the moment is not your list of perceived faults, but that you have a H who is happy to scare his baby to punish you.

Focus on that and work to get yourself out - and then the rest will fall into place.

I know that many of these faults are widespread among people generally. But the problem is that I'm all of these things, all of the time. And I continually promise (and mean it) to improve, and then don't. So he's at the end of his tether with me

Oh please OP, so many wise women have already written here, but you asked if you should leave him because of his kicking the door to wake your baby up and that is a good enough to leave.

You need to take the Freedom Programme, asap. But I also think you will probably need some serious therapy to help you overcome your negative self-image.

A good partner builds the other person up and does not drag them down, while anyone who indulges in some minor domestic violence has already indulged in some serious emotional abuse.

Thanks everyone. I'm going to look at the links and info you've sent. I think I'll call the GP tomorrow as a starting point.

He’s shown me I have the potential to be great, but am actually being awful.

It still sounds like it's bollox and he's really screwed you up @SomePerspectivePlease . Ok you might not be perfect (none of us are) and might forget a chore sometimes or whatever, but he's convinced you that minor things are in fact you being utterly dreadful as a person. It's so unduly harsh of him that it's abusive.

It's interesting that you then compare yourself to a child/teenager. He's made you feel like you're a child and he's an adult. There's an imbalance of power in the relationship that he's created by how he's talked to you about yourself, and made you believe it.

I hope you split with him and get your confidence back. We're all sinners but we're all redeemable. And the things you describe aren't even sins really, so write them out of your mind completely- they don't matter and aren't what decides your worth as a person.

OP, we can't ALL be wrong. Have you noticed not one person is agreeing that you're the problem? And it's not because you haven't explained enough, it's because we can all see what you can't - he's an abusive, gaslighting arsehole. If him kicking your dd's bedroom door isn't enough for you to see it's not you it's him, what will it take? When he hits her? When he breaks her arm for not obeying him? When gives you a black eye for some other spurious reason?
Sorry to be harsh, but when will enough be enough?

IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S HIM!!

I really hope you see it soon. 💐