Husband swearing and sulking

[WhoCaresAnywayTM]

Just that really. Often. In front of my parents (who hate swearing and rudeness) and kids (whom I am TRYING, with a good degree of success despite this, to bring up to value politeness and consideration).
He gets snappy over stupid trivial things. Seemingly no inhibitions about doing so. Tetchy. Childish in that he sulks. Makes me tense every time we see my parents in particular. Why?
Great in many other ways.
Tried so often to talk to him about it. No difference.
Has anyone else has this problem and what helped? Don’t want to split.

when he sulks etc give him a dummy ?

Tell him to make himself scarce if he can’t act like a normal human being.
how is he around his own family?

Your kids will be affected unfortunately, no matter how hard you try to protect them or guide them.

His own family live abroad, so visits are once a year roughly. His mum is very controlling and he has always had to manage her moods. His dad (who sadly died a year ago) was always the calm one who let things wash over him - he was very fond of his dad. His brother is a bit right-wing so we both often end up skirting around certain topics to avoid unpleasantness, but my husband is fond of him nonetheless. He is always more careful around his family. I don’t think I’ve seen him act like this around them. I think he gets bored around my family. Someone recently asked if he’d been diagnosed with adhd. He is a bit of a livewire at times, and impulsive in general.

Does he actually acknowledge that he does it and that it’s a problem, because if he thinks it’s fine and doesn’t want to change you won’t make him.

No, he doesn’t. I don’t know how to make him see it. The only thing I can think of is that if one of his friends witnessed it they’d be surprised and shocked, because all his friends are decent, sweet people who wouldn’t do this as far as I know. Wondering if I can get one of them to say something, but I don’t know most of them that well.

Without wishing to go all psychobabble, he’s probably got some unresolved issues, possibly based on his childhood/relationships with his family, that are triggered when he’s with your more pleasant sounding family, in contrast with his dysfunctional parents. If he’s great in other contexts then he’s probably stressed /tense himself for whatever reason, causing him to act out of character. But sounds like he’s in denial, does he have the ability/maturity to reflect and change? I suppose if you engineer a situation where a friend witnesses it then a third party opinion might help him see the light, but then again might he also control himself in their presence?

Thanks to everyone for your replies. Some very good points raised. Am grateful for the “psychobabble” ideas - I’ve been thinking along the same lines.

I’ve had a couple of brief talks with him over the past couple of days. It’s always hard to talk to him like this as his first instinct is to go on the defensive. But I think he has taken it in.

I asked if he felt uncomfortable with my parents and he said no. They are totally different from his parents though. His grandparents had a pretty nice relationship at least, though his grandpa, who was very sweet in his old age, could be bad-tempered and demanding too apparently when younger - same genes! So my husband’s childhood role models when it came to relationships were a bit mixed.

My parents are coming this weekend (we were at theirs last weekend - we don’t normally see them this often!), so we shall see if he behaves more like an adult this time! He has been a lot more mellow since I spoke to him. He’s been worrying about money lately so that’s probably part of it too.

Thanks to everyone, and have a great week!