Coping when husband is ranting

[AnOverwhelmedMum]

Hi it’s my first time posting here. Would really appreciate it if anybody can relate to either side of my story or can offer any advice or insight.

We’re in our thirties and we’ve been married for 10 years. We’ve 3 young kids and married life is hitting hard. We’re quite opposite in personalities and that is seeping into lot of arguments. Funnily enough, it was the differences that drew me to him when I met him. But now almost everyday I regret marrying him and wish instead that I had met someone more like me, calmer and more rational.

He has a ton of great qualities and he’s a great dad. But the one thing that I struggle with him is his anger. He can get angry over little things - like if I ran the tap too much, or scuffed the paintwork, or cook something wrong, or didn’t dress right etc etc.

In the early days of the marriage, I used to listen and used to think that I just had to do it his way to make him happy. Over time, I’m growing tired of his silly insistences and would try to explain or rationalise my actions - and boom, that leads to anger and arguments. He is completely unable to handle a disagreement in a calm or civil manner. He feels like he’s being challenged and refuses to listen to a different view point or ever agree that I am allowed to have a different opinion than him. I find that the more I try and argue back or defend myself, the worse the argument gets. He shouts louder, he starts swearing everything under the sun, even words I don’t know the meaning of, and just insults and rants.. frankly he’s just quite vile when he gets into that. It’s almost like he has to get all anger out and he goes back to his usual self again much later. The only way to instantly calm him down is to accept that I made a mistake and apologise (even when nothing was ever my fault). Even when he’s finally calm, he’s very preachy, and I just nod and accept whatever he says just to avoid a repeat of the whole thing.

It’s downright awful to be on the receiving end of being scolded and shouted at, and I don’t communicate well in the best of circumstances. I tend to clam up and try and weather it, but that provokes him even more and he says that I don’t say anything. I keep telling him that what he’s doing is not a conversation and I can’t talk to him if he’s not calm. But it just doesn’t get through to him in that moment. Sometimes, I get so overwhelmed and angry that I argue back and at the end, I’m not even sure what started it all off.

My brain works a very different way to his, I would solve problems in quite a detached way, by talking without getting feelings involved, very practical and straightforward. But he is a very emotional person, and he wants a full back and forth passionate heated conversation. But I can’t do that, I don’t cope well with raised voices and being shouted at. I struggle with emotional resilience and we struggle to connect because he’s all fired up and I’m halfway shutting down because I can’t cope.

He’s very caring and overly so - he feels too much and wants me to give him so much attention and care than I am capable of and I honestly have time for.. His point is that he pays a lot of attention to everything, and expects me to do the same for him. He loves very deeply and possessively, and in turn expects a lot. So in his mind he naturally feels hurt when I’m doing something that he doesn’t like. But it’s the way he reacts to disagreements that I’m completely overwhelmed with. Even a simple conversation about what to make for dinner tomorrow would suddenly spin out of control if I disagree with him and he would just rant and swear. The issue itself doesn’t really matter, something about my attitude or my tone would be enough to set him.

Being quiet didn’t help, explaining myself didn’t help, defending myself or asserting my feelings made it much worse, fighting with him about it also just destroys us both, and now I’m back to being quiet because I feel defeated. I’ve realised I can’t change him or help him. His anger and the way he responds is entirely in his control. And I can only choose to control my own feelings to not give into reacting. Nowadays, when I see that he’s starting to go off, I tell him firmly that I’m not going to take part in the conversation is he’s not talking in a calm manner, without shouting or swearing. If he continues, I’ll try and leave the room. It takes a huge amount of control for me to not react to all insults or rude things he’s saying, and sometimes I have the presence of mind to tell myself that I just need to focus on not reacting. Because if I react and respond, it does not end well for either of us because it’s always him that wins the shouting match. Many times I don’t make it and the stress of it overwhelms me.

If I could have my life over, I know I wouldn’t choose him. But I chose him and this is my life and I have to see through it for my family’s sake. I’m by no means a perfect woman or wife. I have have a lot of faults too in the marriage. But I feel like this ranting, swearing, and shouting is just unacceptable. Are there any practical things I can do to keep my sanity, to stay calm when being shouted at, to keep my mental self protected from his harshness? How do I stop myself becoming overwhelmed, because I need to protect myself for the sake of being a calm parent for my kids.

Sometimes he apologises for swearing, but not always. Sometimes he would just completely try and justify it with his own reasons the next day. Once he’s got it out of his system, he’s back to his loving self. Then I’m left like whiplashed and confused trying to work out whether there was any substance within his rant or if he was just in an uncontrollable anger mood? Leaving him is not an option at the moment, for the sake of the kids and extended family, I’m trying to put my best efforts in to see if we can come out the other end better.

I know I haven’t really asked a specific question, but I’m just writing to see if there is anyone out there who has been in similar situation? What helps you stay calm when your partner is angry with you and ranting at you? Are there any helpful coping mechanisms or calming techniques I can practise to deal with this sort of conflict?

Thanks in advance!

I was a child with this kind of upbringing, although it was my grandmother who constantly raged at myself and my grandfather. My grandfather was kind and diplomatic, and I absolutely adored him. I always wanted to be like him and nothing like my nan. But, guess what? I ended up marrying someone who turned out to be exactly like my nan, and it took me far too long to divorce him because I had been brought up to believe that such awful behaviour was normal. It felt completely normal to me to be shouted at and walking on eggs shells all the time. It shaped some extremely unhealthy core beliefs that are taking lots of psychotherapy to try and unpick. And it's left me completely useless at confrontation. A people pleasing doormat. I freeze or fawn, because that's what would de-escalate my nan's rages the quickest. I wish my grandad had left my nan and shown me that people like her should be walked away from. I would've then not wasted so much of my life with an emotionally abusive person. Please don't let your children be me, no matter how hard it is to leave. I know it must be so, so hard with 3 kids, but please make a plan to get out of there for you and them. You all deserve so much better.

It’s for the sake of the children that you must leave him. He’s vile. There is no excuse for his shitty controlling behaviour.
You know what will happen?
Your children will grow to despise him having suffered a miserable childhood (and believe me it’s miserable for them) and never come home to visit him OR you if you stay. Your family life won’t exist as they won’t want THEIR children around a vile grandfather.
You will become so ground down over the years that you won’t know which way is up.
I’ve seen it first hand. I’ve lived it.
don’t try and reason with it and learn coping mechanisms - you have to get out.

A friends parents had a relationship with similarities to this, and in her 40s my friend had therapy and she’s angrier with her mum for staying with her dad, than her dad the abuser!

What you are describing is an abusive relationship op.

He's not abusive because he's angry. He's angry because he's abusive.

I am so sorry you are going through this. All the advice might be a bit overwhelming. He is abusive, no question but you need some help to come to terms with this, plan and leave safely. Take a deep breath, one step at a time. At the moment he is not violent but this could change or the emotional and psychological abuse could get worse if you challenge him ( Do not "sit him down" to address it as one pp suggested). Please call women's aid, read Lundy Bancroft or find a local Freedom programme. Explain that you need help to understand what's happening and how to leave safely. Separating from somebody like this is completely different to a standard relationship breakdown so any support you can get, here or in real life will be essential.
Do not let him know any of this, or he will use any tactic possible to get you to stay.
Take care xx

I echo what @okydokethensays. To anyone in a healthy relationship, it looks obvious you should leave. But for all kinds of reasons it doesn’t feel like that when you’re in it.

I have now talked to H about him moving out. So I’m making some progress. But he has been ‘fine’ for the last couple of months, and he uses that to make me doubt myself. Then we had the head-f@&!ery of playing happy families on Father’s Day. (DC exams/trip coming up so keeping things ‘normal’) for now.

To those who grew up in this kind of situation - I have heard that before. But my DCs - especially the youngest - will be rocked by a split. It may well be best in the long run but the combination of their current attitude and him diminishing my concerns is hard to get over.

@AnOverwhelmedMum- Hope this isn’t all too overwhelming. Know that you’ve got all of us and can come back on here whenever you need to.

He sounds horrible OP, suffocating, and a terrible example for your children. He sounds like he wants a doll, not a human, autonomous wife.

I'm wasn't sure whether to add my post, because OP has had a lot of overwhelming advice already, but I will add it and add a trigger warning here - I'm about to talk about self harm and worse, as a child. Perhaps MN HQ will delete it, I don't know, but I hope not because it is the reality of my life and my sibling's, at the hands of an angry shouty Dad.

We had a nice middle class life, looking at it from the outside. Dad had a good job and I had a horse and we used to go on holidays abroad.
When I and my sibling were small children, the shouting at us wasn't too horrendous, but it got worse when we became teenagers and started to develop our independence.

One morning when I was about 14, and my sibling would have been about 7, I was in my bedroom getting ready for school. The day before, I had got my annual school report which in summary said "could try harder". I was in the top class for all subjects, but definitely could try harder. Anyway, that morning after the school report had been received, my Dad started shouting at my mother about the report and how I didn't deserve to go on holiday with them (didn't want to anyway tbh but where else was a 14 year old going to go?) and I could hear it all through my bedroom wall. I heard the front door slam as my Dad pounded out of the house to work. I decided at that moment that I'd had enough and couldn't cope with the shouting any more trigger warning here about what's to follow and I went and got a razor blade from the bathroom cabinet and tried to end my life. Fortunately, I didn't know what I was doing so just needed a few stitches in the end but 20 years later, my sibling did succeed in ending their own life. I'm as sure as I can be that my sibling never knew about my attempt as they were only 7 years old, it was an accident as far as they were concerned. We both tried independently of each other to end our own lives, only I didn't succeed.

I'm also as sure as I can be that if we had had a different type of father things would have been different, because home never felt like a safe space. I totally blame my Dad for what I tried to do and what my sibling did.

This is the short version of my experience with a shouty father, much more happened. I don't know why my mother didn't leave him, she had a good career. She and I didn't have much contact after my Dad threw me out of the family home at 17 for not wanting to do the A levels he had chosen for me. Mum and I are trying to rebuild a relationship now she is in her 70s and I'm in my 50s and he is dead.

The trouble with this - and I have said the same advice myself so this isn't an argument to what you've said at all - is that leaving doesn't protect her kids completely. They will then have to spend time with him alone, without OP there to mitigate or intervene. I bet that's a very scary prospect for her.

I know that being alone with my father was a frightening time for me and my brother - on one hand he kept it together more consistently, but when it went bad, there was no one else there. I remember during one episode my brother and I hid in the Crawlspace under our stairs and just cried silently until it was over. I reckon it was a couple of hours. For better or worse, we didn't do that when my mum was there.

Yes it's possible OP might get some sort of court order but I wouldn't have fancied my mum's chances of getting one. And in the time it takes for all that to go through court more damage is being done.

I always said my mum should have left, but I can see more as I get older why it wasn't that simple. There are no winners here, there is no perfect plan.

He can get angry over little things - like if I ran the tap too much, or scuffed the paintwork, or cook something wrong, or didn’t dress right etc etc.

none of things are wrong

I never said it was perfect. But you do what you can to protect your kids. Staying and putting up with it is not a good option, sorry.

ND people can be abusive, same as NT people. I trust Monastory to know her DF better than any of us do.

The poster thought her dad was nd but that does not necessarily follow that he actually was. And even if he was it’s no justification or excuse for terrorising his family .

Surely you need to protect the kids and yourself from this crap. Leave him

Do you think that such a man would at all bother with his children going forward?.

They will also interfere with his social life and work. If he did truly love these children he would never have abused their mother. He will likely just palm them off to his parents.

Better to be from a so called broken home than to remain in one. Op cannot protect her children, let alone her own self, .whilst they are all under the same roof. And in the meantime they are being damaged all the time.

I’m sorry OP I couldn’t live like that .

I've been where you are. I could have written this post (in fact, I have many notes in my mobile where I've written my thoughts down and they read very similar to this).
But my eyes are now wide open. Other posters are right: it's NOT that you have different ways (your brains work different), or that he loves deeply and is more emotional. He doesn't have anger management issues. HE IS ABBUSIVE. You cannot rationalise or speak to him. He will not hear you.
My eyes are now open to this and I cannot unsee it.
I haven't left yet, there's a particular big issue that is stopping me. But I know there's nothing I can do to help, there's nothing I can do that will make things better or even allow me to cope.
I've read Why Does He Do That, and it explained everything to me. I see him now. I'm now reading "How he gets into her Head" and that is helping me understand ME, and tackle my guilt and my shame.
I will leave one day. For my sake but mostly fir my kids.

But how is allowing your children to be alone with this man on a regular basis a better option? Which is better, in your opinion?

Leaving men does not just result in them disappearing into a puff of smoke. Unless you're very lucky.

I didn't say it was. I'm not quite sure what you're trying to get out of this.

I have written very few things about my dad here, I don't know why you feel you can make a diagnosis either way. I lived with him for 18 years and knew him for a further 29. I am very sure of what he was like.

Staying and putting up with it sends the message that it's okay. That your mum wasn't prepared to protect you from your dad.

Most dads don't want 50/50 so chances are the DC will see him once a week or fortnight, and as they get older they can choose not to see him at all if they don't want to. They will know they have their mum's support and that she understands.

Staying is the worst option here.

Op cannot protect her children, let alone her own self, .whilst they are all under the same roof.

OP cannot protect her children while they are NOT all under the same roof. The only person 'protected' by leaving is OP, not the children.

My dad would have absolutely 'bothered' with us. And we would have absolutely been alone with him. My brother and I were part of a broken family, it doesn't matter where we lived.

I agree with this, although I know the advice is to leave, it seems it's most just better for the mother. I don't care much about me, I'm string and I can take it, I learned not to let my self-esteem suffer.
I care about my kids though and REALLY what situation is worse? I manage to.pkay it down a lot when the shouting starts, most often BEFORE it even starts, but if I'm not there?

The only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none

It is worse for the kids to be exposed to abuse all the time whilst their parents are together.
Their self esteem as well as your own gets trashed too. Trying to protect the kids from abuse whilst you are all under the same roof is impossible.

I feel like you are wildly underestimating the situation here and looking at it from a very romantic angle where everyone lives happily ever after. Do I think my mum should have left? On balance, still yes. But even that would have come with massive consequences.

All I can do is speak to how my situation would have been. It would not have been magically better. There's the chance that we would have 'got it worse' without my mum around. There is an almost certain chance that we (probably me) would have become the keeper of his emotions, just like my mum was. The burden of that is monumental. I don't think 'only' doing that once a week or fortnight would be protecting me from anything, moreover I highly suspect I would have felt my mum had thrown me to the wolves.

And you should bloody well care about you confused because if you do not care about you who will?. No one and certainly not your abuser. What message does that send your kids?. And you should not be taking it from him. Be tired of being the last person who matters here.

We cannot expect better for our children if we do not have the courage to live up to our own words. We all want better for our children surely?.