How to deal with irrationality

[RedSpatula]

DH has mental health problems, and spirals into irrational behaviour catastrophising tiny arguments into huge disasters.

When he eventually apologises, he apologises for his initial argument, and I'll apologise for over reacting and getting upset. But should I just let the rest of it drop - or should I try and get him to see how irrational he subsequently became and ask him to apologise for that too?

I just don't know how to get past the ridiculous arguments over nothing that turn into him acting like the world is going to end.

To answer your question, you eventually become too tired to confront the behaviour/fight the good fight. It’s not that you accept it. You just can’t do it anymore. I lived with a master doomsayer who was also the inventor of circular reasoning… and chronically confrontational. He was lots of other things too! 🙄I’m sure if you MRI’d my brain now, it would resemble desiccated coconut. Pure powder. I’m going to take a while to recover.

At a certain point you have to stop expecting him to read the room. You leave the room. The problem is, lots of other things in the relationship stop growing because a) you’re more broken than you realise and b) it’s just an intimacy killer and I’m not talking about sex but intimacy across the board. It’s extremely challenging to maintain love for a combative person who approaches you with weapons of blame/mistrust. It’s rotten for your own mental health and you don’t quite realise how tormented you are.
I come from a place of being out of that marriage. So personally, in your shoes, I’d be gone. But if you want to survive this marriage, he has to take responsibility for his mental health and do the hard work. You have to learn to walk away, leave the room, meditate (I’m alive because of this! I swear), and just disengage from the chaos. YOU have to survive.

Leave this relationship. If he is accusing you of things and being nasty, this is abusive. Anxiety or no anxiety. You can’t help him. He will pull you into the vortex of his paranoia and control. Please get out.