Is this it?

[Keepinggoing11]

Been with my husband 35 or so years. Mostly happy. There's always been disagreement about housework. He freely admits he does less than me. I deal with it for the majority of the time. Every so often we have an argument about it. It's always the same - I reasonably I think point something out, he starts going on about my nagging as opposed to just accepting he should have done something.

I come home from work tonight. It's been a long day, 11 hours out of the house. He is currently unemployed. I walk in, see his breakfast and lunch things on the table, say can you clear that up please? Same old circular argument except within a minute he's screaming in my face and (this sounds pathetic) destroying the flowers he bought me. Just ripping them up and throwing them on the floor.

He yells that I think that he is pathetic and worthless. I am crying saying that I can't believe what he's doing, that his sheer spitefulness is beyond me. He carries on yelling at me and calls me a cunt then walks out of the house.

I am just in shock. I know that he is depressed about having no work. I never ever criticise him about that. I do say sometimes that we can't afford to spend money on certain things. But it's true - his latest idea was to get our kitchen completely redone and I have said no as the money will come from our savings which we need to keep for our retirement. I have suggested that he looks for a job in a different industry - the industry he is in is struggling. But he won't.

He also had a health scare at the end of last year and is not in great health and finds physical activity hard.

I think that when he told me I thought that he was pathetic it's actually what he thinks about himself. But to yell at me and call me a cunt is just beyond me. I can't believe that he has treated me this way. In reality I am tired of being the only earner, I am fed up that he hasn't worked since November (and was really more or less working half time all year) but hasn't taken on any additional housework and spends hours doing fuck all. I'm worried because we are in our 60s and should be saving for our retirement, not spending our savings. I have no mental energy left to deal with a husband who screams in my face and blames me for the way he feels about himself.

I don't want to talk to him or see him. He will be home later. He won't apologise I am certain. I don't know what to do.

Just leave him. There is absolutely no way I would stay with a man who called me a cunt. Let alone the fact that he’s uselessly sitting on his arse all day whilst you work and he can’t even pick up after himself.

I would say the same to a friend. But most of the time we have been happy, in all our time together he's never treated me like this.

I am just tired of being the person who does it all more or less as well as the disbelief that he could treat me like that.

The way he spoke to you and his actions are unforgivable and you don't have to tolerate that. As you are married both of you have a right to stay in the house but l would be moving out of the bedroom ( if you share one) and living separately under the same roof whilst you seek to divorce him.
Stop doing anything for him at all, if you come home and see dirty dishes, or whatever left for you just ignore them. You say you've been happy in the past but he's not acting like he has any respect for you at all.

He is completely out of order !!! But sadly stress brings out the worst in people… I take it this is the first time he’s called you a cunt? (Not down playing it at all) but I think both sit down and you tell him he needs to find work asap!! Enough is enough and things need to change round here!! And under no circumstances he speaks to you like that when your the one keeping a roof over his head

Whilst I can appreciate that his health and being out of work may well be getting him down, if a man called me a cunt it would be the last thing he said to me.

I’d already be pissed off that his lazy disrespectful arse thought he could leave his dirty plates all day for me to wash up when I got home.

How awful that he can't keep the house tidy for when you get home then he turns it on you and abuses you about it. I hope he returns with a serious apology. I wouldn't put up with that.

Same here - I am rarely a LTB responder, but seriously that would be the straw that broke the camel's back for me. No one treats me like that, no matter how long I have been with them or for whatever reason. Absolutely not.

Put your savings in a pension then he will know money is not accessible.
Maybe just don’t say anything when you get home and do what you need to do, IE cook for yourself, wash only your clothes and attend to your needs.
He is the Cunt and perhaps,
you doing nothing for him he will realise what a cunt he is !

In 35 years of marriage my DH has never called me a cunt and if he did, that would be it for me. How do you come back from that? I would move into the spare room and stop doing anything at all for him while you think about your best way forward. I'm not saying you should leave - that's got to be your decision. But I think you have to draw a line in the sand and say that you absolutely will not tolerate a repeat of that behaviour. I don't care how bad he's feeling about himself, he has no right to take it out on you.

Sit down with him and calmly tell him that this can't continue and that you won't put up with it if he doesn't change his behaviour towards you from now on.
He needs to look at alternative employment and take it out on you.
If it continues then yes LTB.

Thank you all for your posts, I don't disagree with any of you. My husband has come home and apologised unreservedly. He is clearly extremely depressed about his health and lack of work. He is talking to his nurse today.

I have told him (and I mean it) that I will accept his apology but if he ever treats me like that again that is it. I said that everything he said that I thought about him is his own thoughts and his lack of self worth and I can't take responsibility for that, not should I have to.

I am in reality not sure where we will go from here. His health is never going to improve much, and he is in constant low level at least pain. If he continues to feel the way that he is currently feeling I think that it will be the end of us. Because I am not willing at the age of 60 to be in a once good but now shit marriage. I've given him one chance and I mean it. I am going to research what splitting up will mean for me practically and financially so I am ready for it.