Jekyll and Hyde DH

[Shouldhavedonesomethingbefore]

Most of the time I get 'good' DH. Interesting, funny, good with DCs.

But sometimes 'bad' DH turns up. And I have no idea what will trigger him. He's never violent. He just overreacts to the smallest things.

He shouts and swears - but it's the tone and mood that's worst, and somehow it's my fault - whatever it is. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells.

Funny thing is it’s never outside of the home... Friends and people at work only see good, reasonable DH.

Last Saturday we had bad DH - not the worst time but it led to a big heart to heart on Sunday where he accepted how difficult he could be and suggested talking to someone about his anger issues.

I think what's got to me is he did that before - when it first happened 20 years ago. And we had couple counselling a few years ago too. So how will it change anything this time? (He's not talked about it again though - just about doing some 'breathing exercises'...)

I don't know if this is making any sense. I'm so tired. I have felt terrible all week - can't sleep and finding it hard to function. He's been behaving like it never happened.

I've been here before, so many times. Last week was a really small example. I think it's because it showed me it won't ever end.

DCs have important exams this year and next. It would be so disruptive if I did anything to break up our life. I don't feel like I can talk to my friends - they've heard it so many times before.

Sorry, this is long and rambling. And maybe I am at fault - he thinks I overreact, and I do close off because I don't know when he's going to be horrible. I just don't know what to do.

so you endured this for more than a decade?

OP, it won't be you 'breaking up their lives' -that's on him. He has agency, he is able to regulate his emotions when he decides it matters. He just gives himself permission to let it all hang out within the walls of the family home.
If you take steps to end the relationship, it's simply because you are responding reasonably and rationally to what he is doing.

This is such an awful situation to be in and I really, really feel for you and your DC.

I would add that, when your DC asks whether you are OK following one of your DH's stunts, please be straight with them. They're asking because they know you're not: in their small, helpless way they're showing you they know and that they care. It's a brave show of solidarity from someone who has very little control over the circumstances in which they're living. Validate their courage by acknowledging their observation. You don't have to go into detail ‐that would be inappropriate- but a

"Thank you for asking, (acknowledgement)
you're right, it upset me (validation)
but I'll be OK." (reassurance: you will be)

If we brush off DC who try to make sense of their experiences of parental aggression, abusive behaviour and those awful walking-on-egg-shells dynamics ("Oh that? It was nothing / Dad was just stressed from work / Don't worry.") we're effectively gaslighting them and undermining their own developing sense of boundaries.

Abused partners are not responsible for parental alienation. Abusive, aggressive, bullying, moody, sweary, manipulative spouses are. DC observe such behaviours and draw their own conclusions ‐you are not responsible for compensating for or papering over or mediating DH's transgressions in any way. He's showing them who he really is, they've figured him out. That's also on him.

@lovepets "before assuming he's abusive". Abuse is a set of behaviours which an individual may display. If OP's DH displays such behaviours, he is being abusive. This is true irrespective of underlying factors such as depression, a difficult childhood, a mood or personality disorder, poor sleep, stress at work, recent bereavement, chronic illness: abusive behaviours amount to just that, abuse. As adults, we have agency -we can choose how we interact with the people we live with and encounter in our everyday lives. If we choose to not mitigate the effect of work-related stress and instead take it out on our DC, or not seek help for ailing mental health but rather dump on our spouses, then chances are we're straying into abusive territory. A spouse of a man or woman displaying abusive behavious has every right to "assume s/he is being abusive" because they are.

Sounds to me like your h is abusive @lovepets

Sorry.

The op's most definitely is abusive.

I hear you all.

@AttilaTheMeerkat my dad's moods dominated the house and DM didn't challenge him. I've done that at least. My background did affect me though. For years I thought it was me. I now know it’s him taking his insecurities out on us.

But a lot of the time I promise he IS fine - a good partner and dad. It would have been easier to leave if he wasn't.

He's fine until he isn't. That is what abusers do. They behave ok. When they feel like it. And when they don't, you and the DCs suffer.

Weird, isn't it, how he can behave well in public all the time?

Your marriage now is a repeat of your parents; they taught you a shedload of damaging lessons and in turn your H and you are now doing the self same with your own children. You subconsciously chose someone like your dad because it was familiar to you.

Did you ever wish as a child that your parents got divorced?. You likely heard a lot of shouting from downstairs whilst you were upstairs. They failed you and present day your H and you are both now failing your children. Feeling insecure is no excuse nor justification for the abuse he metes out and abuse is nothing to do with insecurity in any event. He is angry because he is abusive, not because he is angry.

He, like your own father, feel completely entitled to act like this towards the wives in their lives. Such men hate women too, all of them.

Women in poor relationships often write the good dad comment when they can think of nothing else positive to write about their man. As indeed you have done.

And get this straight too. He is neither a good partner nor dad to his children because of his abuse towards you. Your relationship to him should be over, it's over really because of the abuse he metes out to you (and in turn your kids who get very mixed messages). It will mess them up going forward too particularly if you choose to stay with your abuser. You clinging on for your own reasons does your children and you no favours at all. Better also to be from a so called broken home than to remain in one.

What he has continued to show you is the nice/nasty cycle of abuse and that is a continuous one.

Do not use exams as an excuse to stay with your abuser. It does not stand up to any sort of scrutiny and your kids will likely call you daft for staying with him. They could certainly accuse you of putting him before them (as your mother did with you; she put her H first for her own reasons and threw you as her daughter under the bus in the process).

Your kids need a calm and emotionally safe environment for them to study for their exams effectively. They do not have this in their house and it is not the sanctuary it should be for them or you. Exams too can be retaken; it is not the be all and end all.

One day also your kids will leave home and sooner rather than later. They could well not want to return home to see either of you very often if at all. What then for you?.

He sees your challenges to him merely as an additional challenge for him to put you down. He likes you doing that; it gives him yet more power over you because he can then say that you are unreasonable etc.

You have a choice re this man and your children do not. Nothing will change for you or they until you have yourself decided no more to being abused.

I recently had an interesting conversation with my nextdoor neighbour. In both our cases our then husbands walked out at around the time our children were sitting important exams.
So if you are going to break up I wouldn't cling on for a few months, now might be better than later.

OP, you sound like a very tired worn out woman.

I mean it kindly but please don't lie to yourself.

Your children know well what their father is like, just like you did, and they will carry it for the rest of their lives.

You never forget being raised by an angry moody man, it seeps into your bones.

It invariably results in anxiety and low level depression, that best case scenario is helped with counselling, and medication.

The key thing in this is that when you are reared in such a home, you learn very early on that the world is not a safe place.

It is an unsafe, scary and confusing place at times, because of this angry man who dictates the mood and atmosphere of your home.

No matter how well educated you are and how much therapy you get to understand it all, it never leaves because it is a part of who you are.

Base case scenario for you and your children is that HE moves out so there is the least disruption for your poor children during their exam years.

Oh and the impact on the education of children in angry abusive homes is very real.
Hadrd to concentrate and commit fully to your studies in a deeply unstable home that can erupt any time.

Time for you to put your children first.
This is not a good man.
Your children deserve better than this.

Oh and no surprise he is a house terrorist and a street angel.

Usual story.🙄

All of us have just been out for lunch. All hunky dory today. I know you're all right, but the 'normal' times make me feel slightly mad.

That is how abusers operate.

Hi OP, you have my sympathy. I'm just another who has come on to say please don't stay with this nasty man for your children's exams! I work in a secondary school, I know everyone thinks exams are life and death but they aren't. School isn't that important mental health is though.
Exams can be re sat and you know what your kids might do better away from their selfish volatile father. I bet they would prefer not to have to live with him.

Indeed. And so the cycle of abuse continues.

The OP won't leave. Because it isn't quite 'bad enough'.

And once the children will have left home - which they'll do as soon as is feasible - he'll focus his efforts on abusing her full time. With just an occasional respite of 'kindness'.

Read Dr Bancroft's book, @Shouldhavedonesomethingbefore .

He isn't a good dad, he isn't "fine" because there is ALWAYS the threat of him becoming angry and no one knows when it will happen or what will set it off. It's honestly absolutely frightening and destabilising for your kids and I would expect they will need some outside support to learn what a healthy and safe home life feels like, to minimise the chances of them ending up in a similar relationship.

The sooner you get them into a calm and predictable environment the better, OP. I know it's hard but you owe it to your kids. And to yourself.

I had an ex husband like this. I didn’t realise just how much the moods had weighed on me till we split and I didn’t have to put up with it anymore. Honestly, I think I was depressed and down for years. Life is so calm now.

I don’t necessarily think men like this are abusive in intent. But the outcome is the same. Wait out your kids exams and leave is my recommendation.

Or whichever kid is the second one due to leave home won't feel able to because they will be worried about their mum alone with their dad, and they'll end up trapped at home missing out on fully fledgling, pretending that everything is fine, as they have learned to do.

Mine is the same. Can be absolutely lovely, kind and can be seen to do almost anything for me and our children. He’s very generous at Christmas and birthdays and does little thoughtful things. Can also switch and be absolutely vile - complete Jekyll and Hyde character. I’ve had name calling, threats, complete character assassination, threats to end his life, he’s punched walls too. It’s so confusing as when he’s nice it’s like all the bad stuff was just a dream? Hard to put the two together.

He’s stopped name calling now after I tried ending the marriage because of it but it still doesn’t erase the past and he tells me to “grow up and get over it”

Look up "intermittent variable reinforcement". It's the type of behaviour most likely to mess with your head, the most addictive type of relationship. Helps explain why it's hard to leave but also why it's important that you do. Very damaging.