Horrific argument with DH

[Underoressure]

I’ve no idea how last night got so out of hand. Normally our relationship is great. We are mid 50’s, both have good jobs, a lovely house, plenty of money. But we are both under pressure. His job is life or death work, and he’s aching for retirement. I’m self employed and work 7 days a week. I also have an elderly parent who needs me a lot and it’s tough.

Last night we drank far too much. We ended up rowing (rare) and it escalated to the point where I hit him in the face and he pushed me to the ground. I threatened to call the police so he took my phone off me and wouldn’t give it back. This meant I could not set my morning alarm. Cue more arguing and he finally gave it back.

We slept in separate beds. This morning there was evidence of a struggle, a wall plaque was on the floor and smashed and there’s a tiny amount blood smeared on a bathroom tile (we don’t know whose). His face is sore and I have a bruise on my arm.

We are both mortified. We’ve made up, kissed and cuddled and blamed the highly stressful lifestyle, something just snapped. We’re on the verge of a wonderful retirement together and getting the police involved and us both being arrested would have been catastrophic for our travel plans etc.

He is now doing a late shift at work and I’m still dumbfounded as to how we’ve been so stupid.

Not sure what I’m looking for but it felt good to just write that down.

You have external stresses.None of which are about each other.

His job is awful and your dealing with an elderly parent. None of those things are about your relationship with each other.There about the stress as you have outside of your relationship.

Put another way my mother died last year and she was elderly and at no stage during her illness did the stress make me want to punch my partner in the face.

There's more going on here than external stress. But it's happened once, and it will happen again most likely.

Just be careful op; the stress will be gone when you reach retirement but you will both still have the trauma, which means you are likely to continue to drink heavily and get into fights unless you both get some counselling and try to cut down.

I hope you do both have a happy retirement.

You're right that you're copping an unnecessary amount of abuse here. I imagine DP is some kind emergency responder or healthcare worker. If he is, there will be some form of employment-based counselling service. He needs to refer himself asap. If he does, it is likely he will be able to get paid medical leave for stress. In this time he should also be able to access counselling to address the drinking and the stress. It is also possible that the result of this is that DP is signed off for the rest of his remaining time and THEN able to retire with his pension. You can get medical/legal advice re this as well. Obviously these are symptoms of quite severe PTSD and no money is worth this - but you are right that you DO have a future to pay for.

You have too many toxic clouds in your life. When you drink too much they all rain down on you. The drinking is a symptom not the cause. The toxic jobs and people need to go if that’s possible for you. The exact same thing happed to me (I’m female in my late 30s)
.

You are making lots of excuses for your own behaviour anc your partners. This has all the hallmarks of being in denial about your true behaviours and abusing alcohol to escape responsibility. It is never acceptable for an adult to physically assault someone. Did you post because underneath all the blame of others and insistence everything is normally perfect in your relationship, you know there’s a problem? If so, I’d say be brave and take the next step to confronting your situation and getting help. This may mean a visit to your gp, going to AA, seeing a counsellor. - whatever it is - take the next step so you can live life.

I think you’re posting because you’re not comfortable with it, though. You know something is off.

The argument started because you were both off your faces on drink.

What a stressful existence. You urgently both need time off work to sit down and resolve this.

Book some counselling for you both if you can. You need to agree on and then get some strategies in place to make your lives easier.

Sounds as if you have too much to cope with to me. If you are self employed I expect you have to deal with accounts and PAYE paperwork as well as doing your actual work. How long has the elderly parent needed your support? That can be the tipping point, I reckon.
DH used to contract to the police (computers - the 999 system) - very stressful job and occasionally on-call. But it paid very well - he wanted to retire but the money was so good...
Anyhow, he was made redundant and it was the best thing ever. He was 57. By that point he was having to do a huge commute and we were trying to cope with his very elderly parents.
We had enough to live on until the pension kicked in and it was such a relief to him. He could be unbearable at weekends (worse if he was oncall) and had just managed to relax before Monday came around.
If you can persuade him to retire, and get carers for your parent I think you'll both benefit a lot even if you have to watch your budget for a while.

Quit drinking.

Yes, you’re deluded. 5 occasions like this is dysfunctional and completely unacceptable.

You both have issues handling stress, a problem with alcohol, and an inability to hold reasonable and healthy boundaries regarding work/caring/abusive relationships.

Money and a nice house doesn’t make up for how awful the rest of it sounds.

Yeah, if you normally get on then it was probably a horrible one off. You are both stressed from hard work. And drinking just makes things worse. Try to build relaxation/ fun time into your lives until can retire. Absolutely dont drink every again. It would be a shame to start screwing up if you really do have a good relationship, especially with retirement round the corner. Don't over dramatise this. If things start to go on the slide though then that's another matter. Then you need counselling. But I bet this was just a horrible mistake. I've known it ro happen to other people. A one off episode. Don't worry.

That's so lovely. 😁

Yes, you are deluded. It’s not normal for this, or anything remotely close to this, to happen even once in a life long relationship.

Oh. Think I was wrong. Thought this was a one off but I've just read all the other bits. No. Not all right. Your relationship needs help.

The thing is you crossed a line and, in order to stop it happening again, you both need to make some lifestyle changes, working less, drinking less, which will both be difficult and not straightforward.
Life is stressful and work pressures can be immense but there are some lines you just don't cross.

Looking back at my life I have realized that the only times I have ever done something really embarrassing or stupid is when I have been drinking. You may consider cutting back.

I just want to empathise and say these things absolutely can be one offs, but open communication and change needs to happen.
be that counselling or help with chores and caring.
look after yourselves and each other.
no matter what anyone else says, abuse is not a one off. It’s a continuum.
only you know the reality and if it’s as you say here, you are both having a shit time and stuff spiralled, communication, support and care and love. All the best op

So you're saying if a woman slaps a man across the face he can kill her then?

Reduce the drinking, it’s hopefully shocked you both enough to do this. Find other ways to reduce stress, such as more exercise. Both phone your work employee assistance lines. If only one of you has this service they can be used for family too so you can both phone it independently and get some quick support to process this separately and to help reduce your respective stresses. CBT which they generally offer could be really useful for this situation and give you both some control on sorting this out. Couples counselling is also an option but I’d advise using your employer support first as it’s free, confidential and independent - it can absolutely be used for non work related matters. Good luck.

It sounds like while stress and alcohol are no doubt triggers, the reason these fights become so intense is that resentments and nasty attitudes that are normally unspoken emerge. The fact that they are simmering away will do damage in the end, fights or not. I wonder if some kind of counselling could help you both to process these things in a safer and more productive way so that if you do end up stressed and drunk there isn’t quite so much waiting to explode.

This is horrifying

Made all the most worse by the OP’s belief that this is a genuinely happy and healthy relationship.

Op, have you had much / any relationship history before your dh? What was your own parents marriage like? Because what you describe is very very far removed from what I regard a happy healthy relationship

Reduce the drinking, it’s hopefully shocked you both enough to do this.

this has happened 5x in the past

Stay away from the drink .

This is what I thought too. He without sin cast the first stone or whatever it is (I'm not religious).

Humans do things that are out of character while under extreme pressure.

You need to reduce this pressure.
Your husband needs some EDMR or similar for trauma.

You need some time off. Money is pointless if it is causing the amount of pressure that results in this. His pension from the police will already be great. He's damaging his health. You're doing too much and need to slow down. You both need to forgive one another remember why you married and why you love one another and accept your humanity.

You are one another's safe spaces, if your relationship is good as you have said. We lash out at our safe people. You both went too far it happens.

The holier than thou types need to remember (& feel grateful) that they're human too and have likely never been in a situation that could bring out what is in all of us.