Hi, I’ve been wanting to write this for a long time but never got the courage. My husband isn’t very nice to me sometimes but can also be really nice at times, he switches. His anger goes for 0-100000 in a matter of seconds & let’s just say he’s very easily triggered. He yells and calls me horrible names when he’s angry. Tells me to ‘shut the fuck up’ and to ‘stop running your mouth at me’ if I happen to have an opposing opinion or try to explain why I’ve said or done something. He called the food I made him the other night ‘shit’. I didn’t bite back so then he went on to ask me if that’s something I’d eaten growing up as if to infer that he suspected I hadn’t so why the hell was I feeding it to him. I do all of the housework, majority of the child care, meal planning, food shopping, bill paying, school organisation, cooking and I work. Mine is the only income. He’s had the odd job on and off but they always seem to be jobs where money is paid out (by me) then it all gets lost when he decides he no longer wants that job. I can’t have a conversation with him about contributing financially or to the household work/chores because he just gets very aggressively & angrily defensive. He says that he’ll help when he wants to help and I should be grateful for whatever he does. Once when we were on the way to a funeral I popped into a petrol station to get a snack for the kids. I didn’t think to get him anything. My mind was elsewhere, given the circumstances. He literally screamed & yelled at me the entire 2 hour journey because I didn’t get him anything. I apologised & explained that my head wasn’t all there but he still carried on, he was so angry. He doesn’t come anywhere with me socially, I’ve given up asking over the years and the bulk of the trips out with the kids are me organising & facilitating. In fact he never suggests a trip out. I’d love him to take charge & organise a fun day out but he never does & I have asked him to! When he’s angry with me, which can be over anything from me daring to defend myself against one of his tirades to I’ve got ‘a shitty look on my face’ he can stonewall me for days. One of his pet names for me is ‘little shit’ or ‘little shit of my life’. I’ve asked him not to as I find it quite insulting but he’s the kind of person who does & says as he pleases. He blew up at me once because he offered me a lift to a friend’s house (one he doesn’t like) & I said ‘oh yes, if you’re offering, that would be great’. Suddenly he was super angry & asking me whether there would be men there, insulting my friend, I’d given him a stupid answer to the lift question and on and on and on’. In fact, come to think of it, each time before I go out he acts annoyed with me. I do still go out but there’s a horrible niggly feeling in my tummy that I’ll be in trouble with him so I can’t always enjoy myself 100%. He also insults my parents, saying really mean things. If I dare stick up for them I get a whole tirade of anger about why I don’t agree with him. There’s so much more but no time to write it all down. I just feel so sad, sad that the person who’s supposed to love me treats me like this & sad that I’m not strong enough to walk away. Trouble is there are kids involved & he’s not British so he could take them away from me abroad if I tried to leave so it’s not a simple situation. I know people will tell me to leave him & why am I putting up with it. I guess I’m just writing on here as a form of therapy. I’ve never told anyone about it & I don’t really think there’s a solution other than just to wait it out because I can’t and won’t lose my kids. I just don’t really know what to do. I can’t talk to friends as I’m too embarrassed & I do think they’d think less of me. I’m just really sad. I find myself wondering what it must be like to have a husband who’s kind, doesn’t expect me to do everything & then turn on me when I’m not perfect or dare to have a bad day. Whenever I’m upset or anything, he never asks me kindly if I’m okay. He just asks ‘what’s your problem?’ which really gets my back up. It’s as if I’m inconveniencing him by not being 100% perfect or happy. If he can’t find something it’s ‘where did you put it’ in a really menacing tone so that my belly tightens. Some things he says we so disconnected from the situation I don’t know what the he’ll is going on! He says he only buys presents from the kids as he didn’t grow up with this, that and the other. Makes me feel like he doesn’t want to be buying me anything. I give him a massive allowance but out of mine I buy all the groceries, kids stuff etc. If I try to broach the subject with him he just gets, you guessed it, super angry at me or just dismissed it altogether. Sorry for long post, just had to get it all out.