You never know what goes on behind closed doors…

[Butterscotchcloudstangerine]

Namechanged.

My marriage isn’t in the best place, and this has been the case for some time. One thing I sometimes think about is how we look from the outside and how most people think DH is such a lovely man - generous, kind, funny, outgoing. He can be all of those things to me, sometimes, and it’s largely how he comes across to the outside world.

But behind doors it’s often different. He’s snappy, mean, and critical. He just lost his temper (again) over a very minor thing tonight, and I am sitting here thinking about what friends and colleagues would say if they saw him behaving like such a dick. I’m not just talking about how we ‘let our guard down’ at home btw, it’s worse. He’s not abusive as such, but just behaving like an asshole.

It’s probably getting worse as he ages, and right now I’m questioning our future. I’m not here for advice on whether or not to leave him as such, but I’m more curious as to if anyone has experienced similar, this ‘outside/inside’ behaviour? My closest know I’m not very happy, and once or twice they’ve seen him get snappy or critical - however, they don’t know the full extent. I can’t even bring myself to tell them some of the comments/behaviour, I am not sure why when they are all loving and supportive.

anyone know what I’m talking about?

Street angel, house devil. Very common. These people know what they are doing, but they are careful to trap you in before exposing their real nature. The Lundy Bancroft book is very good in terms of understand what is actually happening and why. It’s much more calculated than it might appear at first.

I think I mostly know.

I know loads of friends with 'lovely' husbands and I think they're dicks.

I expect if you told your friends op they wouldn't be as surprised as you think would.

I am in a fairly similar position. Although my DH doesn’t try to be overly friendly outside the home - unless of course it’s with someone that he wants to earn some respect from - mainly professional people. In other words he’s a social climber / snob. Anyone else he doesn’t care what people think, can happily be rude at times and doesn't care how that reflects on him or me. I’m 100% sure he’s ND but denies this. And inside the home .. omg… he’s critical, sarcastic, rude, speaks with terrible tone and rarely smiles. Spends most of his time WFH and watching telly. Doesn’t even eat with me & the kids, chooses to walk away to another room and eat on his own. Deflects blame for anything and everything. I have been biding my time ( for a long time) but now the kids are through uni and are much more aware of his faults I’m preparing to make the big decision and leave him. If I had done this years ago I’m not sure the kids would have forgiven me and probably blamed me for breaking up the family.

My own sister said that she understood why he was violent towards me (this after I eventually told her what was happening). To this day she maintains that I am an awful person even though I split with him years ago. It is really hard to bear. I may now seem even "weirder" because I tend to isolate and don't give my trust very easily.

You can be and you will. I never thought I'd cope without ex but when I asked him to leave I grew.

Tell yourself you can do it. Just decide it. Only you can stop you. You can do it.

I think our behaviours come from our upbringing and that applies to our partners too. In our house mum was dominant, dad was lovely/genuine/funny but quiet - a lot of the time they 'weren't speaking' it went on for weeks but we never ever saw or heard an argument - dad was always in the doghouse but as far as we knew he did nothing to deserve it. Mum was the controller.

My ex had an abusive father, he drank & came home pissed, used to shout, liked attention & to be heard. His mum brushed it under the carpet and pretended everything was wonderful, I actually stood upto FIL on MIL's behalf and shamed him. He was a bully & she enabled him. I think ex learned these behaviours from his parents as he was growing up & a submissive wife is what he expected - he didn't get one - he has turned into his father in every way but he's worse and I went through absolute hell fighting for my sanity because of their historical DV - it repeats through generations. His son (to an ex) is exactly the same as him so part of it is genetic, thank god we had girls but they were both under 4 when we left - no way were they growing up in the same house as him - we got out when they were too young to remember.

I'm sorry your sister is the way she is. Nobody deserves any levels of violence in a relationship and it's so shitty she can't understand this

You're not weird. You know as well as we all do on this thread you've been abused. It's completely understandable you find it hard to trust. Absolutely normal.

I’m so sorry that so many are going through this. It has made me feel a little less alone. I feel I can’t tell anyone what my husband is like as they genuinely won’t believe me. I’ve become so withdrawn and unconfident over the past few years, that people think I’m a bit weird, and he is great. I’m to blame for all his bad moods and everything is justified apparently. I’ve tried to tell people before and they didn’t really believe I wasn’t exaggerating I think. I’ve spent the weekend fighting tears. It’s awful. I feel like I can’t cope with the behaviour and work full time and parent. I’m not strong enough. But I’m scared that if I stop working to be able to cope and to make things better for my child, I’ll be screwed in the future financially. Horrible choice.
My heart goes out to you all x

Don't stop working. Get rid of your shitty husband. I can assure you that everything else will suddenly seem a lot easier to cope with.

It’s been 35 years for me.

Quora has lots of amazing support, advice and information that may help you on your journey with recovery and may help you understand what has been happening. Hugs

I know how you feel 🩷, for me the despair was there 24/7 and it became my 'normal' - there was no pleasure in anything, my guard was up 24/7 just looking for a glimpse of hope from him. I became an actress, a very unhappy one pretending to be OK - I lived for my children and hoped one day he'd tell me he was having an affair and leaving, when that didn't happen I prayed he wouldn't come home from work one day and I'd get a phone call saying he'd been fatally attacked at work - that didn't happen either. I was no shrinking violet but I was so worn down that it was easier to stay quiet than to tackle him. He never physically harmed me but the one time he threatened me was the first and last time. It was hard to even imagine not being in that marriage, I didn't know how I would get away nor how I would cope but the threat brought me to my senses - if he ended my life, my children would have no parents so it was all down to me to change it. Horrible excuse of a man.