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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

DH has violent outbursts at himself

167 replies

Anonymous1011 · 16/05/2025 22:35

Name changing for this…
I think my DH of 5 years is pretty bad at emotional regulation.
Once in a while he will get so worked up he starts hitting himself in the head and sometimes will scream at himself too. He often does this when I am close by it seems and it makes me feel very unsafe. My heart starts racing and I feel very anxious.
I have previously been in a relationship with a physically abusive partner and whilst this isn’t the same, it kind of feels too similar.

DH has never physically harmed me and I don’t believe he would, but he seems so out of control in these moments it frightens me all the same.
I suggested he could tell me he is feeling this way and move himself to another room but he says this is unacceptable as what he is doing is self harm. He thinks I should be present and want to support him? But how can I support him if I am feeling scared by his behaviour?

I have suggested he seeks help or counselling but he just won’t. It is pointless me even suggesting it anymore at this stage.
we have no children so it is just me who witnesses these outbursts at least.

What is the right way to handle this, am I being unsupportive? I really don’t mean to be, but the feeling of fear is so palpable. And why is he doing this in the first place?

OP posts:
Oneflightdown · 17/05/2025 14:07

Think of it this way, OP.

Either he is not in control of his actions during these episodes, in which case any sane and caring man would do his absolute utmost to remove himself from your vicinity during his violent outbursts to minimise the risk of you getting hurt. But he insists you must stay with him.

Or he IS in control of his actions and is deliberately and purposely exposing you to regular displays of his violence and strength, which he could actually choose to keep a lid on.

Which of these options do you find least terrifying or most acceptable? NEITHER of them are acceptable. BOTH of them are terrifying. He is abusive. He is able to control you without hitting you. I think he's much worse than your previous partner.

MounjaroMounjaro · 17/05/2025 14:09

ihaterunning111 · 17/05/2025 13:59

Ultimatum needed here. He needs to seek professional help - on Monday he must find a therapist and show active engagement or he must leave. That’s if you want to save the relationship. My first thought was ‘this is abusive and you must leave’. Tbh as I’m typing this, I’m thinking… just leave!

Never give a violent man an ultimatum.

TwelveBlueSocks · 17/05/2025 14:15

Is it possible that he has ASD and/or cPTSD? I have seen behaviour like this in a person who has both, but I'm not sure which condition causes this behaviour or if the struggles of ASD just leads often to people having cPTSD.

I think you should leave tbh. I say that even though I have a very much loved relative with the same condition.

cPTSD:
tinyurl.com/y27n83yj

flyoverstate · 17/05/2025 14:15

You can’t help him because he isn’t prepared to help himself.
You are not a trained mental health professional so why does he think that it is your responsibility to manage this?
Why should you seek mental health support so you can try and support him when he is the person with the uncontrolled behavior.
He is disregulated and seeks to make you the same way, this isn’t a mature action.
Scary or not he needs to seek professional help for his emotions, you are not his emotional punching bag.

uncomfortablydumb60 · 17/05/2025 14:30

He’s doing it a fucking gain!!! Deflecting his( massive) issues onto you!!!!
Honestly tell him you’ve reached breaking point and end it
Trust me, you do not need a man to be happy

Sodthesystem · 17/05/2025 14:36

This is still abuse. The point of it is to scare and intimidate you. Just because theynarent hitting you doesn't make a difference. Hitting walls or themselves near you is to say 'it could be you next'.

It feels the same as your last relationship because it is the same.

Run.

Whatwaswrongwiththatusername · 17/05/2025 14:43

Anonymous1011 · 17/05/2025 13:35

Thank you for the messages and advice.

i spoke to him today and suggested that we could go to the doctors next week together to see if they can support him. He has declined this offer saying he won’t find it helpful, and suggested I might need emotional support from a Doctor instead.
I am giving counselling some serious thought as I have used it in the past and find it really helpful… but it’s rather evading the cause of my needing it at present.
i feel I’m pretty in tune with my emotions and cope well with most things… but I really struggle with his behaviour. I do feel like I walk on eggshells and try to comply and try to choose my words carefully around him.

I’m not sure if he’s genuinely just scared to get help, really doesn’t think he needs it or knows deep down what he’s doing isn’t exactly self harm.
he doesn’t behave like this around anyone else, with the exception that I talked to his parents when things were bad and they said when he was still living at home he did hace a similar pattern with them. I guess it’s whoever you’re closest to.

As you say, he appears to be able to control when and where this happens as he followed you to bed purely so you could see him do it. Yes, he might have some kind of anxiety/depression/MH problems, but his behaviour is about more than this. It isn’t your job to watch so you can support, and nor is it your job to go to a gp to get support to support him doing this! It is all 100% unacceptable of him. Firstly to be even doing this in your presence, secondly by insisting you need to be there for it and finally by insisting it is your job to support him, so much so that you need to go to the gp yourself!

He has clearly refused to get any help for his, which makes me think he is doing it deliberately (to a point, or entirely) and he certainly doesn’t want to change his behaviour or stop. He likes and (seemingly) thrives off your attention. Does he do it if something goes a bit wrong at work? Or around other people? And by his reasoning should you be there watching him if he self harmed by - eg - cutting himself, watching him bleed everywhere, just so you can “support” him? The answer to that is just “no”, and the same goes for his favoured form of “self harm”. I “” it due to feeling quite dubious that it actually is self harm in his case. Maybe it started out that way, who knows, but at this point, the way you tell it, he’s doing it for attention. The fact that he even followed you to bed to do it and prevented you sleeping as you wished/needed, sounds like it really is abusive behaviour by this point.

How (if) you wish to deal with this issue from him on out is entirely your decision. But you are not his emotional support “animal”, you have tried to support him by suggesting him seeing someone, not by encouraging him to keep doing it. BTW, it really shouldn’t be your job to try and get a grown man to go to the doctors anyway. He’s an adult, ffs. But you have tried and you have offered but it has been refused, as that simply doesn’t suit him and his narrative, and he prefers (chooses, remember) to want to control you by this method instead. It would seem tho that he does see your role as that of his emotional support animal. Id just make it clear - every single time he does this - that you are not his support dog/cat/iguana and that if he chooses not to help himself then there’s nothing more you can do and you’re just not interested anymore. Be careful and watchful for any attempts by him to try and ramp up any control, abuse etc, as he sounds as though it really could start once you start ignoring his behaviour.

Personally, this behaviour is a real warning sign, tbh, and once you start to ignore it when he does it, as much as you’re able to, the possibility of further behaviours, directed at you, would be a very real risk waiting to happen, and I would just get away from him permanently. As I say, that is just my own personal opinion of what I would do, I feel that is an extremely valid reason to end the marriage. You’ve given support, you’ve offered to help him find support to help him stop, but he simply doesn’t want to. That would be it for me.

Sodthesystem · 17/05/2025 14:47

Think of it this way, if I love someone, I don't act in a way that makes them feel unsafe around me. If I have, I'm absolutely mortified and do whatever it takes to make sure that never happens again.

This guy won't even see his GP.

And he's physically putting you at risk too. Utter selfish bastard.

And that's best case scenario.
Of course the truth is he's likely trying to intimidate you deliberately. And fyi, the next thing that happens is he 'accidently ' punches you. It's obviously going that way.

Please get away from this horrible man. You are not a rehab centre, you can't fix him.

category12 · 17/05/2025 14:53

i spoke to him today and suggested that we could go to the doctors next week together to see if they can support him. He has declined this offer saying he won’t find it helpful, and suggested I might need emotional support from a Doctor instead.

Wow.

Are you the one self-harming and scaring the shit out of him? No. Yet you're thd one who needs help, according to him. 🙄

He's another abusive guy, OP. Sorry.

Wavescrashingonthebeach · 17/05/2025 15:02

Please tell me you aren't considering ever having children with him????????
And I'm not sure why you are tying yourself up in knots and over thinking the whole thing. What he is doing is a form of terrifying emotional abuse and you should get away from him as soon as possible.
And it doesn't matter how "lovely" he is the rest of the time. Lovely people don't do this to their partners.

cestlavielife · 17/05/2025 16:37

suggested I might need emotional support from a Doctor instead.
I am giving counselling some serious thought as I have used it in the past and find it really helpful… but it’s rather evading the cause of my needing it at present.

Well i agree
Go see a counseller yourself
Tell the whole story
Describe how his behaviour impacts you
Talk through strategies you can take
Talking it through will help you to see the solution here
He isn't going to do anything to change
You can decide what you want to do
And it looks like you need emotional support to decide what to do
You cannot save or cure him. The only support he wants from you is you to witness and cower .
You can save yourself (please do before you tie down with kids or property)

Anonymous1011 · 17/05/2025 18:07

I think I have a lot to think through and I am going to take his ‘advice’ and see a counsellor.

the more I think about it the more I feel unsettled by his behaviour twisting what is going on between us. I can’t really believe he has declined getting help and instead suggested I might need it. The only thing upsetting me is his behaviour.

I hope that counselling can give me some clarity and support as I’m feeling very fragile and vulnerable. I would be much more ready to keep working through it with him if he could at least acknowledge he has a problem and work at it… But it doesn’t seem likely now.

OP posts:
tipsyraven · 17/05/2025 18:31

It is emotional abuse clear and simple.

Wavescrashingonthebeach · 17/05/2025 19:09

Well I'm hoping that the counsellor tells you to fuck him the fuck off as your partner is deranged and abusing you. If you won't accept it from us lot hopefully you will accept it from him.
Life is too short to put up with this shit you deserve better x

TheSlantedOwl · 17/05/2025 19:17

OP he wants you to be scared.

He can’t regulate his overwhelming feelings himself so we wants to put them on you.

He is manipulating you and he wants to shock and affect you.

It is time to begin planning to leave him.

Whataretalkingabout · 17/05/2025 19:22

Definitely seek some emotional support for yourself OP. Of course you feel fragile and vulnerable because he is abusing you. You are stuck in the fawn/ freeze and would be safer if you were fleeing this man for good.

Anonymous1011 · 17/05/2025 19:48

He still keeps saying how much I have failed him for not being there to support him whilst he was self harming. he said I haven’t brought it up in the week since and that I should have asked him how he’s been doing? I guess I just didn’t want to talk about it again which maybe isn’t helpful.

I feel like he doesn’t want me to see a counsellor, he says I’m making this all about me when it should be about him as he was the one struggling. I guess I am making it about me, but what can I do if he wont let me help him find his own help? His view is that he’s improved over the last few years so he would prefer to focus on the progress.

I kept just saying I couldnt help you in that moment as I was scared and I just wanted to get away from the situation and felt frozen. He has no regard for what it feels like to be so full of fear because of someone’s behaviour. He always likes to point out that men can be abused too but he clearly has no idea what that even feels like.
He thinks I should have been more scared for him and what harm might have come to him but he wasn’t doing anything which could have truly harmed him.

OP posts:
flyoverstate · 17/05/2025 20:31

So he won’t take action to support his mental health, he doesn’t actually want you to take action to support your mental health either.
He hasn’t brought up his self harming in the last week but he is criticizing you for not doing so.
I would definitely get some support for yourself and have on a loop, “DH you need professional support I can’t provide that. Let me know if you need my help setting that up”
whether intentionally or not his behavior is emotionally exploitative at present.

flyoverstate · 17/05/2025 20:33

Just to add that you having a therapist doesn’t mean he can’t as well. You can both get the support you need, although I would definitely do this individually.
There isn’t a rule only one person at time can see a therapist.

ClaredeBear · 17/05/2025 20:37

100% manipulative attention seeker - in my experience.

Grenola · 17/05/2025 20:37

This doesn’t sound right to me. Self harm and u controllable anger like this in front of you scream manipulative behaviour. It’s seems very very child like.

you need to put a boundary in that tells him that he absolutely cannot behave this way in front of u. Bloodiest self harm is bad anyway… but this is the extreme.

before u know it, u will be doing everything u can to appease him so he doesn’t ‘do it again’

out yourself first always, u can’t fix a broken persons they have to do it themself my love.

enciurgwe him to get help and make it clear he will not get an audience from u and will not work getting attention and pitty from him

hope it gets better x

MaryGreenhill · 17/05/2025 20:44

He's mentally abusing you OP.
You need to get rid of him .

cestlavielife · 17/05/2025 20:54

It s just too hard work op.
It us all about what you can do for him.
Leave.
For support and validation talk to someone please do

Sunflowers67 · 17/05/2025 20:55

You need to leave.
That is about all I can say and I think you know that.
He is a grown man and he is choosing to do this to you.
It is about you now.
You must leave him.

BellissimoGecko · 17/05/2025 21:00

You know, OP, you can leave him for any reason you like. You can leave him if he’s not listening to you, if he scares you, if he frustrates you, if it just don’t want to be with him…

My view is that he is being really manipulative. You DON’T Have to be with him if he’s being violent or self-harming. You don’t have to support him.

His views on eg male victims of assault make me think he’s full of shit and lacking in empathy.

You deserve to feel safe with your partner.

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