H speaking to me in a nasty way, how do I respond?

[sowhythen]

This will be outing.
Never mind I am desperate. Sorry it will be long.

2nd marriage for both of us married 11 years ago.
I’m late 40s. DCs mine and his have left home.

One thing to know H is obsessed with money.

When we met we were both high earners. I was late 30s he was mid 40s. I was energetic enthusiastic and always having a laugh.
He was more serious. He loved his DCs and he was really good with them. There was lots I liked about him.

Lockdown happened. The DCs both left home at the same time it was planned one had bought a house the other was in their final Uni year and stayed there during lockdown. Then got a job also a long way away.
H and I were bereft. Worse we had to stay indoors and sit with it.

Unfortunately H is unable to talk about his feelings. His parents are vicious bullies who speak to him like dirt. According to his adult DC his first wife has a temper which often gets violent. H has never been in a relationship with someone who treats him well.

In 2021 we were excited for the end of lockdown.
Then suddenly I had an accident and I have a brain injury. It could be much worse but I will never be the person I was again. A part of my brain doesn’t work anymore. A small part though as it turns out it was a useful part.
If you saw me on most days I look like a healthy middle aged woman. Then you might try to have a conversation with me and I would say something weird or my speech would be difficult to understand and you would probably find a way to back out of conversation.

I cannot work anymore. H and I are alone. I am no longer independent. I do still laugh which seems to annoy H so I laugh quietly to myself.

H is angry. I understand he thought he was marrying a different person. Though he cannot say that to me because he knows that would be outrageous. Remember that he is obsessed with money and I have not worked since the accident.
The anger is still there. I can feel it emanating from him.

To bring this up to date H’s job is at risk of redundancy. At work he is popular and he has applied for 6 internal jobs. Also he has contacted agencies they are all calling him.

Again H is obsessed with money.
He is terrified about his job though he cannot say that. He is angry frustrated and frightened and he is taking it out on me.
He is not shouting. Instead if I say anything at all his reply is nasty or bitchy or sometimes a disdainful indifference.
Whereas I listen quietly to him talking about his hobby he demeans any attempts I make at conversation.

I am not as strong or as quick as I used to be so I cannot respond with a clever retort.
What can I say to get though to him that I he is making my small life a quiet hell?

If you get this far. Thank you.

To the person who said to record him? I might. When he hears himself he will feel ashamed.

Yes I am entitled to support. I know about the Care Act and I have seen adult social services.

The problem is that we live in a more rural part of a rural area.
Lots of people come here to retire.
The care budget for our Local Authority is stretched beyond all limits.
They asked me what I needed. I said that more than anything I need someone to come for short walks with me. I rarely leave the house and I desperately need to exercise.
As I have fits they would take me out but I would have to be in a wheelchair. I can walk perfectly well.
I am unsure whether there is a word for it. They wanted to make me less able than I already am.
I politely declined. As I had declined that they said there was no more support they could offer and left.

One aspect of my disability is that now I struggle to fill in forms. The lines and boxes move.
Even so I filled out the means testing forms a year ago. At the top of the form I wrote that part of my disability is being terrible at form filling. They sent them back as the forms were incorrectly completed. I filled the forms out again. They sent them back again. I corrected the highlighted mistakes and returned them.
I have heard nothing since.

Of course H recent behaviour would come under safeguarding vulnerable adults.

My disability is weird. I look normal. Sometimes my speech is quite normal. I am well presented. We hold biases. I understand how people would see me as a fraud.
If they could see me 24/7 for a week they would begin to understand it.
I look normal yet my needs are complex.

Then leave him, he wont change do you really think he will?

Onthemaintrunkline your post is kind and empathic. I speak kindly of H because despite the muck spreader that has changed our lives I love him and he loves me.
He is currently a man in a terrible position.
Thank you. You have given me good advice about how to say something to H.

Notmyrealname22 H does not have tantrums.
If I talk to him about our marriage he goes away to think.
When he comes back he reiterates what I said and whether he agrees and why. When he is wrong he apologises.

Thank you for writing I do not deserve to be treated like this. I know.
Post accident I feel very vulnerable.
Words do not come to me as easily as they used to in the moment.
The smallest things can exacerbate my vulnerability it makes me want to curl into a ball until I feel able to cope.

If H is so reasonable why am I asking a group of strangers for help?
As my OP said this seems to be the final straw for H. It is one final problem on a bonfire of problems.
I am very aware of how vulnerable and scared the threat of redundancy is making him. It taps into his most primitive fears. To add to the stress of potential redundancy he has a disabled wife who cannot work.

@sowhythen you sound so compassionate, and you are full of understanding for you DH’s position and what is causing the issue. It sounds like you normally have a great relationship. In the moment maybe just a quick “do you really mean to speak to me like this?” could be what he needs to make him see what is happening. In a calm moment, maybe just have a chat that you understand the pressure the potential redundancy is putting him under on top of everything else and you appreciate everything he does for you, but can he please not take it out on you. Ask is there anything you can do to support him through this?

I wish you the very best, you sound like a really calm and compassionate person.

Someone asked whether I can work.
The short answer is no. Aside from all other considerations their business insurance would not cover me. I would love to be able to work.

There is one possible exception.

YippetyYapYap thank you for suggesting that my writing is good. It is the only job I could potentially do.
The problem would be finding an agent and a publisher.
To anyone wondering I have tried to disguise my writing by not punctuating this thread much.
I am not good at much but I can write and I have plenty of material.

As for respite care as H is at threat of redundancy we would not pay for it.

To those asking H WFH. He goes into the office once a month.

Our DCs have a broad overview.
They are young and building their own lives. Careers relationships what they want to do with their lives?
H and I are in agreement that we want them to have that freedom without the burden of worrying about us.

Airyfairy99 of course H has his own side of the story. That applies equally to any person in any situation.
If he was in a therapeutic environment without me around I can confidently predict what he will say and it would not be bad.

Notmyrealname22 Thank you.
That is such a lovely post to have written.

We do normally have a great relationship. Even post accident.

IMO H is trying to keep the redundancy stuff to himself for fear of making my symptoms worse.
Sadly his frustration is sometimes manifesting as nastiness.
You are correct. A short and to the point response is exactly what I need. I might use yours if that’s ok?

Thank you too for writing that I am kind and compassionate. I am going to keep your post for the days I feel like I am a terrible human being.

I wish you the best too.
shhh do not mention to anyone that I can be calm and compassionate. You will ruin my tough girl image.

you’ve had a lot of good advice.

I do think you need to try and “get out” are there any friends you can go and see?

i would also as a pp suggested record him and play it back. It might shock him

You are probably way beyond this but…

simple responses are
“please don’t speak to me like that”
”please don’t take that tone with me”
”I don’t deserve to be spoken to like that”
”whatever is wrong with you, do not take it out on me”
”I’m not your punching bag. If you frustrated take it out on someone else”
”why are you being so unpleasant/rude/ disrespectful?”
”your tone isn’t okay. You wouldn’t like it if I talked to you this way”

How you speak of him makes him remind me of my Dad. My Dad was a kind wonderful man who was terribly abused as a child and would revert to the mental age of around 2 when stress, angry or upset, He loved us and our Mum but the day we had, especially as young children, very much depended on the mood he woke up in in the morning. Our Mum got very ill with an extremely serious mental illness. My Dad never left, got her private help when the NHS said nothing wrong (mental health in the 80s was a scary place). He was always, always there for us. He was never physically abusive like his family had been but (and I would never have spoken of this when he was alive because I would have been too hurtful for him) but he was emotionally abusive. He would call me useless every time he was even a little bit upset, he could be very cruel and asking fhim for help could result in wonderful help or him raging and ignoring me for days. I have c PTSD from my childhood. It’s easy to explain that as being a result of my Mum’s Psychosis but I think my Dad’s behaviour had an even bigger impact.

In my experience, if someone wants to be mean to you it is extremely hard to stop them. I view it as a game of tennis, they lob a tennis ball of emotion at you. It hits you in the gut and you do your best to lob it back maybe with a bit of emotion of your own to add some spin, back it comes again from them, back and forth until someone loses (it’s the person raging or crying, even if just on the inside, usually). Because of my history and my husband’s (unsurprisingly maybe I ended up with someone with abusive parents - they were not accidentally abusive like mine and did hit him), I found arguing unbearable. I learnt to say nothing back. A game of emotions tennis starts and I just walk off the court mentally. My husband is rubbish at realising he is angry because it wasn’t a safe emotion to have in his house so he can appear calm and think he’s calm but be very angry. I’ve learnt I get a distinct feeling in my tummy when this is starting. As soon as that happens, I mentally visualise wrapping myself in an invisible forcefield and the tennis ball comments hit the forcefield and rebound back.

if you’re going to stay, I would recommend working on a strategy to stop it hitting you like the mental forcefield or with my in-laws we give their comments a rating out of 10 in our heads (ooh they put some thought into that one, ouch that one really hurt). It works really well over time at leaving the behaviour with the person choosing to do it rather than thinking the right words will stop them.

i would also recommend you do reach out for help. You can table it as planning your future if you outlive him, but it also serves to have things in place in case one of you chooses to leave.

if you want the assistance with walks rather than time out in wheeelchair fight for this. A charity I know who works with people with learning difficulties live a normal life advocate for the people they support in these situations to help get the funding for what they want. I think there must be an equivalent charity who could help you. Certainly you should be offered help to fill in the forms - is there a family member who can help you?

Sorry that’s all a bit waffly. All the very best.

I would suggest taking your case back to your local councillor or MP and asking again for help. Ask for a face to face appointment.

For the answer to your question, could you please not say to your husband “ could you please not talk to me like that? It’s hurtful!” ! And walk away? Maybe I it a stop to what you’ve said earlier is very upsetting! I know he’s overwhelmed right now but you have also gone through a massive change too!
while it’s is admirable that you want the DCs to liv e their lives, could one of them not stay over every two weeks for a bit of respite for your H and a bit of company and respite for you too? If they take it in turn that would be once every 2 months for each of them?

No way xan you stay with him just because you need him to look after you. Split up and get carers.

OP another poster here who thinks you write well, I think you should consider writing DH a letter.
He's clearly stressed, he's the sole earner and he's not that young and he's facing redundancy. That's terrifying for many people at the best of times. Apart from that he's your carer.
So he's snappy and horrid because he can't cope with the stress. He definitely needs to speak to someone alone really. A therapist or something. You can't work on a relationship if you need to work on yourself first.

I'd second speaking to charities and I know you said this will open the floodgates but they can provide specialist advice on options, devices, ideas because they really understand and know these disabilities far better than us. I'd really enourage you to take that step.

Good luck OP. In terms of answering back to him I'd agree with PP who suggested simply saying "don't say that it's hurtful" and leave it at that.

Hi OP, this is such a thoughtful and unusual thread, both what you have to say and how many pp have replied.

Just to mention my own experience. I currently have two family members and a very close friend with serious neurological conditions and associated physical disabilities, and in each case everyone closely involved has been deeply affected. You clearly understand and have a great deal of empathy for how your condition affects your DH, and you have great insight into how you feel yourself. That’s brilliant.

This issue of how people talk to each other. I think you are right to focus on how to have the conversation which is about, let’s try really hard not to take it out on each other, and let’s not allow ourselves to get into the habit of letting out the stress by speaking harshly and angrily. In my experience, the key thing in this conversation is the timing, and also that you show the empathy that you’ve expressed here, avoiding blame and focussing on how it affects you. I think you are right to want to stop this in its tracks, because even if it is “just” the stress talking, it’s incredibly corrosive and stressful if it becomes a habit.

You definitely need some support from someone else who isn’t DH and he definitely needs to feel it is not all on him. Someone upthread suggested contacting a charity that specialises in your condition, I think this is really valuable - even a website can really help when you see that other families are having the same experience as you and the suggestions that they make are so much more convincing when you can see they are not just well meaning people who have no idea what it’s really like to be you and DH.

Headway is a good idea too. If you can find a charity that has volunteers, can you get one of them to go for a walk with you? A charity may well be able to help you with form filling.

If you have friends who have offered to help, have you said yes to them, and have you and H then made some concrete suggestions for what they can actually do that would help? Sometimes people offer to help and they don’t really mean it, but some do, and the trick is to find out what they are comfortable doing (how often, how long, and what kind of thing) and then ask them to help with that.

If you don’t go to church but you are open to getting involved, consider going along as people are very welcoming and they will often organise something during the week.

Could you find out if there is a befriending scheme in your area - try contacting the RVS? This could match you with a volunteer who would spend time with you on a regular basis, talking, walking, filling in forms, whatever

Speaking to someone about this sort of thing doesn’t need to add pressure. Done calmly, sticking to the point can actually make things more relaxed for both of you. You are going to achieve nothing by coming up with a quick retort. You need to pick a moment when you are both calm, with nothing else to do that is pressing and calmly explain how you feel when he says those things. What you are asking for here is a bit silly.

I agree with everyone who says you're a good writer and a letter might be the best way to get though to your DH. Perhaps it would help for him to have something to refer back to when his behaviour veers towards the unacceptable. With your writing, I wonder if The Guardian or The Observer might be interested in an article from you about your experience?

Sorry for no updates.

Became worse nothing to do with H. I been in hospital a while.

As redundancy process has gone on H is calmer. He is resigned to the process now and happier for it. He is talking to me again not shutting me out and my DH is back.

Thank you to everyone for your support. Please pray for us or wish luck.

Sending prayers and positive wishes. I am glad you are happier though you sound unwell and your message doesn’t sound like any of the others you’ve sent :(

Sending good wishes @sowhythen

All the best to you, @sowhythen. Sorry to hear you've been in hospital but very glad things are happier at home 💐

He's not abusive because he's angry.

He's angry because he's abusive.

Stop making excuses for him and get out. Never stay with men who treat you with contempt. Life is short and you deserve better.