Will this ever stop?

[Blankettents]

I need advice. I'm in a marriage which can be amazing. The majority of the time we spend all of our spare time together. We have the same hobbies and outlook on life. When we are content, it's bliss. This I'd around 90% of the time.
We've been together around 17 years and married most of that. Four children are grown up and only one older teen left at home.
The problem is that when my husband perceives anything I've done as a slight or dig at him it's as though I've killed someone. His personality changes in an instant and he shouts, swears and raises his voice. If I stay silent it winds him up and he gets angrier and talks himself into all sorts of ideas that are untrue. If I try to argue back (always in a quiet voice) then this irritates him too and he uses this to call me a liar and start name calling. He can get vicious with his words. In these instances he tries to gain power by threatening to leave the house overnight. I always tell him that if he does this there will most certainly be consequences. However, he uses me saying this to say that I'm controlling.

We split up previously because of this type of behaviour. During the time we split up he also did a lot of things that are not right and I'm struggling to forget or forgive. The reason for that is even although he'd split up, we were still trying to make it work most of the time and it means there were a lot of lies.

Since moving back in he's been an open book. There hasn't been any behaviour I'm suspicious of in thay respect. But, the angry outbursts where he calls me names and makes threats happen whenever we have an argument. I find I avoid arguments at all costs because I know I can never win them. Even if I make a very valid point he will shout over me or change the subject to make a different point that suits him and instead puts me in a bad light.
I dint think this site of him will ever go away. My fear is that when my fourth child leaves, I'll be aline with him and he'll be able to shout at me more and treat me however he likes and I'll be trapped.

Oh sweetheart!

No. Nothing will change. In fact it will get worse. This behavior works for him, and that’s why he does it. And he will excuse himself by thinking that if he was THAT bad then you’d be the one leaving.

And the stuff he did when you split up should have been maybe one night on a massive bender with his best mate and then the rest of the time climbing every wall, thinking how to get back in your good graces and repair his family. By the sound of it he did the opposite.

Get out of this partnership. End it. Get out and stay out. Your youngest need not be the reason you stay in the relationship. Make concrete plans for how your life will be, things you will do and enjoy, all in the knowledge that you never ever have to feel like this again.

This is awful sorry you are going through this. You are in an abusive marriage. You possibly don’t really appreciate it, but I bet you walk on eggshells so you don’t upset him.

I am not surprised you dread your last child leaving home. Perhaps that is the time to sell up and go your separate ways. It would certainly make for a happier life for you.

why don’t you do some planning and see a solicitor to understand your financial situation?

Your marriage is only blissful when you are not challenging him in any way. This is an abusive dynamic and it will not change. Life is too short to tiptoe around waiting for the next explosion.

I agree with @Pensionableperil I lived in a marriage like this and it was emotionally abusive. It definitely ramped up when my child left home - they don’t like witnesses.

It’s all about control - as long as things are how he wants - you get rewarded with the smiles and laughs. As soon as you disagree or say anything that they perceive to be critical of them - they rage and blame you.

He has achieved his purpose - you stay quiet and don’t challenge him just to keep the peace. The next step will be to convince you that you are in fact always to blame and there lies madness.

Go for solo therapy so you can understand this is abuse and control, not the behaviour of a loving and caring partner.

It was the best thing I ever did and I am of course now divorced.

I contemplate buying my own place all the time. The problem is I have no family or support. But, I can stand on my own two feet and and could at least afford a small house.
The sadness is that we are very close apart from when this happens. He is always all over me and tries to make me happy so I'd miss this and our life together. It just seems that there is a very extreme version of him beneath the surface that I know will surface at least once a month. When it does it's so bad that it feels as though everything else must be an alternate universe I'm living in. Even after all these years he sends me loving texts every day and buys me flowers. I then fall into the trap of fellling secure and that we can be natural together. But at some point, I'll say something he doesn't like which starts him off in an intense and often long mood. He never is the one to come to me and apologise.
This morning, I feel empty after last night and the things he said.

It’s abuse. Instead of raising his hand to you, he does this.

Have a look at some online reading about the cycle of abuse.

You deserve a better existence than this.

Thank you, everyone. I do often wonder how others would see this. He knows I have nobody to speak to and even more so because I took him back it would be humiliating to admit the same things are happening.

This sounds just like my last relationship. I kept saying to him I’m not okay with the
shouty swearing stuff, even though it’s great in between… Providing all of your needs are consistently being met that is! he said to me initially he would work on it, et cetera, et cetera and we use strategies. It didn’t change even though there was once a full year without any verbal abuse it would always make its way back.

All it seemed to take was him being dyregulated about something - could be something small, food, anything - and I would cop it. it wasn’t necessarily calling me names, but he would say f you almost out of the blue and then he would rant at me for ages and ages kind of circular talking word salad ranting.

It would get me completely and utterly overwhelmed and I would want to run for the hills. usually he would follow me around until he’d got it out of his system. Then I started going away for a bit if he was doing it too much. Especially because I didn’t want the kids to see it.

That made him threaten to do the same, but I didn’t care. I just thought fine. I’ll do anything just not to be under this reign of words.

Then we would have a nice period of peace again, everything would seem like it was fine and he was the most normal reasonable person in the world.

We split up. I spent two years completely out of relationships just recovering my equilibrium and working out which way was up.
I’m now with somebody who’s not rude to me and I realise there was nothing normal about it even though he tried to convince me it was just normal for people to get angry sometimes. Well yes of course we all have angry feelings, but do we all show them in that way? The person I’m with now wouldn’t dream of raising his voice or saying something hurtful to me. Completely different kettle of fish. I am so glad and I can say that although I thought I would never love anyone else again it is entirely possible! Good luck to you XX

Just add, my family live a long way away and I got out of it myself. It was not easy, but it was absolutely worth it.

If you were my mate telling me this? Once we had had a big hug and a cry, we would make a plan, involving probably solicitors, removers, prohibitive steps orders, wine, my spare room, logistics, that sort of thing.

And if I’d met you on a train and you told me all this? Pretty much the same.

Abusers isolate their victims. Reach out. Tell people. Shine lights on HIS behaviour. It’s him not you.

I don't know if he ever really intentionally isolated me or through deaths and family moving away etc it just happened. I do sense that he doesn't like me having friendships though. He doesn't stop it but there's something uncomfortable about how he questions me after I maybe meet a friend fir a coffee. I may see someone once every few months. He's probably worries i could seek female advice. But deep down, I am sure he is confident that what happens to me stays between us as I would be humiliated to admit it.
He knows he can't control his temper and blames it on a certain condition he was diagnosed with much later in life. To me, that makes little difference. When you're in the receiving end of someone's temper yiu just want the earth to open up. I often just completely dissociate and go back to a memory with one of my parents. Try to remember who I am.
Writing this today I can really see that I am lost.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. It's really appreciated, a lot.

It’s very subtle isn’t it, to make sure that you know that you will be questioned if you go out with a friend, and also that HE has concluded as though it’s empirical fact that you would feel humiliated if you shared this in real life. All of this plays to his power doesn’t it?

You’ve shared on this thread; I am reading this, a real live woman, and listening. Do you feel humiliated? Or better for opening up?

I feel pathetic, truth be told. I almost don't recognise that person I am when this happens. I need to stop seeing it as a small fraction of my marriage and realise it's a far more destructive element to our overall relationship and its impact even just on my general happiness and outlook on life. On days like this, if I didn't have children, I would end it all. My life felt like it was over when I lost my second parent and last family member and I've no doubt been hanging onto my marriage as the only stable thing I have. Men like him probably pick weak women like me. The problem is that if you go back to a man after the first mistreatment they have no reason to ever stop. Its just a part of their behaviour and personality that they know you will put up with.
I think I need help before it's too late.
Thank you all. You are all right and I'm ashamed when I hear what you would all do in my shoes.

Please please let go of shame/humiliation/embarrassment. None of that is serving you any good. You’ve done well to post this and everyone that has ever been in a bad relationship knows how incredibly hard it is to leave. It took me years to see what you have seen and more time again to put anything into action about it. I was consumed with guilt about letting everyone down somehow. I now realise that anyone who had the slightest regard for me wanted better for me.

please please go and tell your GP what you’ve posted here. Or even print the thread or hand them the phone and show them. This can get better. You deserve better.

And keep talking. We are still listening.

It’s coercive control . I have been there OP and it’s awful. I believe my ex genuinely could not see what he was doing .Thats not to excuse or defend him - I just think his mind was that warped that he believed his behaviour is normal.

It wont change but it may get worse. You need to put yourself first now. Chocolates flowers and apologies are not what love is about.

Please start to plan your separation

Oh and you are NOT weak. I felt like you did and I know Im not a weak person. But it’s like being trapped in quicksand . It drags you down .

I felt shame when I realised I was in an abusive relationship. It took me a while to accept that and get over the shame. My XH was nice... but only when things were going his way. One day I realised that's not being nice. Quite the opposite.
You say it's a small part of your relationship, but it's not. It's looming over your head all the time: you said it takes you a long time to relax, which means the abuse is there, at the back of your mind, all the time.