Sorry, this may turn out to be long.
Dh and I been together 10 1/2 years. Married 9. 2 dc. Am a regular but the way he's being recently want to keep this annoymous as he knows my regular posting name.
We've had a few problems over the years. We're both very stubborn so arguments tend to get drawn out more than they should. I realised about a year ago that a big part of this was my fault as I wasn't apologising or accepting his apology so, when we disagreed, I tried a new tactic of asking him to sit and talk rather than us standing yelling. This worked well for around 6 months. Hardly any fights as, I felt, we were trying to listen to each other more. Now this has all fallen apart and I just don't know how to react to the way he's behaving.
I feel he's been starting alot of fights with me, about nothing atall, and then when I ask him to talk, to explain to me why he's angry and tell me what he thinks we can do to fix it, he says I'm trying to start a fight, and he can see just where this is going and he won't do this with me.
He says when I talk I lecture him and am condesending. I've said sorry if I sound that way, but apparently even if I say 'we differ in opinion. we both need to compromise' that's lecturing. He then won't listen to anything I try to say, if I try to talk talks over the top of me, or if he agrees to let me talk says I have a time limit- he'll only listen for 30 secs for example. Then he'll get up and walk away from me.
I'm trying not to get into word for word accounts as this would last for pages. There's been a couple of really bad ones recently when he's said some horrible things to me, then the next day says he can't remember anything, so I'm left hurt and upset, but not allowed to show it. He thinks by saying I didn't mean it or I can't remember it, it makes it ok.
His tempers getting worse. He shouts more and more and feels this is ok. I'm not to say anything about the shouting, or disagree with it, because that's me starting a fight.
This is confusing and hurtful, but I don't know how to handle it so I've let it go.
Tonight was out of order though and I can't let this one go. He yelled at our dc, over something really small. dc1 got upset, went upstairs. I said to dh he was being unreasonable and should say sorry, so he yelled at dc1 to get downstairs, and when dc1 said he didn't want to, started counting..he had to be down by 3. I don't feel shouting at someone to get down here now is the start of a real apology. I intervened..went up to dc1 and brought him down, by which time dh had fallen out with dc2. I told dh he was in the wrong (not in front of dc) and he still refused to go to them to say sorry..they had to go to him. They ran upstairs. He refused to say sorry. I asked him if we could talk as we can't disagree about parenting issues.
This apparently was me starting a fight. He knew where this was going and I'm being unreasonable, lecturing and won't listen. This was before I'd even said anything. I got really angry then. Told him I haven't started a fight, he just had, I don't understand him, and I think we need councilling. He laughed, lay down on the sofa and went to sleep!! I asked if this was going to be another conversation he'd forget, he said hopefully. So I told him if he couldnt discuss this like an adult, then tomorrow he can go to his mothers and stay there because I can't take this.
I do love him. For the most part we get on great. And up until recently I would have said he was an amazing dad.
Please, can anyone help me understand him? How do I deal with this?