Could I ask how often name-calling happens in your relationship and if you tolerate it?
DH and I are both mid-40s, married 20 years, and recently - last year or so - have been having a rough patch. At the beginning of this time we would have some horrible arguments which involved name-calling on his part (bitch, whore, fucking c*nt included). This name-calling stopped after a few arguments: several occasions when I told him absolutely not to call me those names ever again. For context, he’d only very rarely name-called when angry before.
Then this week we had an argument and he called me a horrible, horrible person, and said I’d been a “fucking bitch” the night before (actually I’d been mildly irritable with him and for a very good reason, as he later acknowledged). I called him out on it afterwards and he apologised but I had to prompt him to do so. I feel like he doesn’t take the name-calling as seriously as I do and minimises it, but I really hate it. It sticks in my mind afterwards and I would never name-call him - I think I’ve once or twice called him an idiot in anger.
So I’m interested - what’s your toleration for name-calling? Am I over-reacting? I feel like he should respect this boundary which I’ve made really clear, and mostly he does. But these most recent incidents have upset me.