Is this abuse??

[happydaisy]

My husband is getting worse and I don't really know what to do. He spends most of the time shouting at our 2 beautiful children and gets angry about everything. I can't show him any love because I feel like I'm betraying my kids if I do. My daughter is 12 and is having a really difficult time at school/friends/periods etc and he will just make snide comments to her all the time and sets her off for no reason normally when she's tired just before bedtime. Nothing the kids do is ever good enough for him. He doesn't name call and isn't physical (although he scared the life out of our 7 year old a few months ago by chasing him into his bedroom with his hand raised and being very angry). I just don't know what to do. Any advice?

It sounds like emotional abuse to me. He's got serious anger issues. Have you thought of contacting the NSPCC for advice?

why can't you show him love? (aside that he may not be easy to love...) why do you feel you're betraying the kids? because he's horrid to them?

abuse need not be physical or name calling. The fact that anger is his immediate response to situations sounds alarming IMO and snide comments are a version of verbal abuse.

Women's Aid name VA as "# Destructive criticism and verbal abuse: shouting; mocking; accusing; name calling; verbally threatening." which I think could be used to describe his behaviour from your original post...

i think i'd be angry trapped in a relationship with soeone who didn't love me - thats not to say that excuses his behaviour, but it goes someway to explaining it.

it sounds like you want us to say yes

chicken n egg, isn't it custy? does she not love him because of his behaviour, or is he behaving as such because she doesn't show love?

relate.

you sound communicationally fuckedup challenged.

if dh grounds one of the kids for lets say one month for something and nothing - and its more to do with the gob from the kids in the heat of the moment - then after wards we will talk it through and i will tell him that i think it;s ovely excessive - explain to him that by chosing such a big punishment for such alittle thing - it leave him nowwhere to go when he does something truly bad - its the way you couch it - not undermining in front of the kids

i hear what you're saying. I did show him lots of love to start with but i had very little back so i know that i've given up. he's really bad at supporting me - he had a bad experience at work and in 2002 i went back to work full time so that he could take some time out (being a house husband) with the understanding that he would go to college. he never did and it took me dragging him to counselling to get him back to work 2 years ago but he still refuses to get a full time job and expects me to be the main earner. i've missed out on my kids - i've walked out of jobs in the hope that he would go back to work but he never has. i've talked to him about his anger, found articles for him to read (which he doesn't) suggested ways for him to cope with the kids but he doesn't ever take it on board. I'm just sounding like a nag now but I don't know what else to try....