Help

[jfh]

Help

Am sitting here feeling generally v. angry with both myself and my wife.

It all blew up this evening with my wife bawling me out about 12" from my face for about 10 mins about how she was going to divorce me (with plenty use of the f word), about how generally useless I am etc etc. This seemed to stem from attempting to sort our diaries for next week, and a completely erroneous assumption that the conversation was all about me attempting to shirk childcare. To be fair, this had sort of been going on all evening, despite some v. measured requests for her to stop.

Protestations to the contrary seemed to be of little interest. After many years of learning to turn a blind eye, I weathered this particular storm - it seems to be pretty much every week that my wife informs me that she is going to divorce me, and she's not saying it as a joke.

Her parting shot was left the room (telling me to f**k off) was to pick up a cushion and slam it hard full in the face, almost wrecking my glasses - which apart from being very expensive to fix, I rely on totally for vision. She's done this before, chucking my (rather heavy) watch at my face (this time without glasses, thank god).

At this point I flipped, shot up the stairs after her, grabbed her by wrist and pulled her downstairs into the kitchen, whereupon I told her that she had lost it and was generally a very angry bunny with her.

I'm angry at myself for manhandling my wife. There's no excuses. Have never done anything like it before, to anyone. After seething and feeling stupid for an hour, I went up to apologise profusely.

Why I am angry with my wife is that she refuses to acknowledge her behaviour at all - not as a justification, but just so we understand that my anger didn't simply come out of nowhere. This is a not-uncommon scenario; she feels very free to f and blind me and threaten divorce, yet even when I can grind an apology out of her its either grudging or flippant. Heaven forbid I should answer back - from that point her behaviour somehow disappears from view and its all about me.

When we have talked about these things rationally, she explains the disparity being that, whilst I am able to shrug these things off, she is far more sensitive and takes them to heart. Whilst this is probably true, it hardly feels like a good reason to dole it out freely to me.

It just feels as if she can chuck rocks at me however she likes, but I just have to sit there an turn the other cheek. I am tired at constantly having to grin and bear the frequent threats of divorce, the insults. I feel so much the whipping horse. How do I get through to her that its not a one way street?

Sorry for the ramble. Its late and I am upset, because of my actions and because I think my wife is, yet again, going to divorce me. Guess I need someone to talk to.

Have you ever been able to talk to each other rationally?

It sounds like a divorce would actually be the best thing for both of you. If you can't live together without violence, you are better off (and your children are certainly betteroff) with you putting a stop to this unhealthy, unworkable couple-relationship.

i think you need to go to mediation.

she needs to know that this normality of threatening language and physical abuse is not normal.
now...thats easy you might say - one should know this you might say.

however - imagine you are in a room with a comlete stranger and you told this stranger that your wife threw something at you.

would she be embarrassed? there are a lot of other emotions she might feel too - but embarassment means that she recognises totally not normal behaviour.

they also teach techniques for handling different situations.

recognise your triggers

recognise what is important to her - you mighn't see the bog deal about and visa versa - but to recognise this and to treat accordingly.

lastly. there isn't an excuse for violence - violence is at heart about power. however i must say although i realise that this subject should be treated with equity, that i am making an assumtion when i say this.

her throwing hitting pushing you - may emasculate you and take away your power but generally probably maybe you aren't frightened that you are going to get thumped really hard. i mean seriously afraid.

assuming a typical male - if you managed to grab her and drag her by her wrists from upstairs to downstairs to another room - the kitchen... then you can probably guess that you scared the holy living mother fucking life out of her. and whilst this doesn't justify in anyway her pushing a pillow on your face, thre are degrees of these things and you probably haven't felt that fear.

so no - sorry, you cannot say i am sorry but.... in this situation.

she did something wrong - thats one issue

you did something wrong - apologise for it sincerely.

phone relate or a mediator

and get some sessions booked

It sounds as though you need some serious breathing space from each other. I agree that you need some kind of mediation to sort out your problems with someone there who can hopefully stop it getting out of hand.

Any violence in a relationship is out of order and both of you are in the wrong on that score.

I can't help but think that you would get a very different response if you were a woman posting about her husband screaming in her face and throwing heavy watches at her face. It's sad that, because you are male, the response you get is so different.

There are lots of reasons for this type of behaviour. Her feelings of insecurity or lack of control in the relationship etc, feelings that you are not really listening to her. TBH this marriage sounds like a volcano about to erupt, a pressure cooker with no valve etc (like my marriage was).

You really need to get to Relate or counselling before something serious happens. Tell Relate about the violence/threat of violence and they will see you immediately (jump the queue). This is how we jumped the queue at Relate (I pummelled my DH - long story).

You really do need to do something pro-active - if she won't go, go by yourself. Think of your DC.

BTW, me and DH had four months of counselling and whilst marriage is still a work in progress, things couldn't be better.

Good luck.

Gosh no wonder you are upset. That is horrible behaviour to have to endure from a spouce.

You do know you don't have to endure it though don't you? You don't have to turn the other cheek or grin and bear it.

You can leave.

It sounds like you two are just not compatible and are bringing out the worst in each other.

While I get where custy is coming from, I find myself disagreeing with her (it doesn't happen often). I don't think for a minute that while you took your wife back downstairs that you scared the living mother fucking life out of her.

She knew she had done something wrong so probably knew you both needed to talk about it and probably came willingly, while putting up a pretent fuss, am I right?

Shoving the pillow in your face was a way for her to get you to react, she didn't want it to end there, with her walking out of the room, she wanted to continue with the 'fight'.

Hello again

Thank you for your replies. It helps to know that there is someone I can share this all with. Not surprisingly, it is like the cold war in my house today, with my wife taking every opportunity to snipe (this is usually the case when she is in a bad mood).

For the record, the number of steps concerned was three from the bottom. Any visions of me dragging her down a full flight of stairs should be avoided. The bottom of the stairs is about 6 feet from the kitchen door. I wouldn't say she went freely, but if she had not wanted to go she could have dug her heels in. I say this not as some excuse, or mitigation, but to clarify the last poster's point.

Did she whack me in the face with a cushion to try and prolong the argument? Almost certainly. She didn't get the rise she wanted out of me, so tried another method. Stupid me fell for it - what an idiot.

Take the incident with the watch - this happened around bedtime, some kind of heated debate took place, she got sweary, I asked her to stop, she didn't, so I went and slept in the spare room as there seemed no stopping her. She railed for 15 mins, and when I didn't respond she charges in, turns the light on, and decides to continue the fight, eventually ending up in said watch being thrown at me. Its like she absolutely cannot let it go until she has completely vented and there is some kind of enormous capitulation on my part. She has great difficulty being disagreed with - she can't stand it when I (calmly) say I disagree with something and we'll have to agree to disagree!

We've done plenty of counselling - believe it or not our behaviour is much better than it used to be. You could conclude that this means we are in a bad place, but I'd argue this means things can get better. I'm just very depressed about it right now and am struggling to hold on to that...

Thank you

JFH

Is there somewhere you could go and stay for a few days? Just till things cool down.

Any idea WHY, in general, she is SO angry?

I had to confront my behaviour when I did counselling and so did DH. I was/am very much like your W, need to control and be right and DH avoided confrontation so nothing was ever resolved. It all went back to our pasts/childhoods. The upshot was I am extremely insecure and DH has never grown ie behaved like a 5 year old all his adult life so we/our marriage was a car crash waiting to happen.

We have both acknowledged our behaviours and what causes them and can both see now when things are reverting back and can stop it IYSWIM.

I think you probably need to find a different counsellor and try again. You both have to acknowledge your behaviours and be willing to make changes. It is tough and I agree your DW sounds like she has a lot of anger, this really needs to be dealt with. Is there anything you could do better as far as the arguments are concerned, even saying this is getting out of hand and I am going for a 10 minute walk for us both cool down ?

ombd - you could be right

maybe i was 'projecting'

She's verbally and physically abusive. Why are you still with her?

You may have gone to counselling and generally, things may have improved yet she is still abusive!

You have children and this sounds like an unhealthy scenario for all of you. For whatever reason, if any, the dynamic between you is dire and that dynamic has to be shifted.

She will continue with this behaviour because there is no reason for her to take responsibility for it. You stay! What are you teaching your children?

She does not have respect for you and she will struggle to find that until she finds self respect. She can't do that from within this situation. By being her whipping boy you are not helping her, you are supporting her negative and detrimental behaviour in full and worse still, you are becoming an active part of that cycle of abuse.

I do agree with EvoMouse too.

One does have to question why you are still together and whether there is any point in trying to 'work it out' or understand why both of you are baving this way.

The bottom line is, you are both bringing out the worst in each other. If you stay together this is likely to continue. You both only have on elife and deserve to not live it in this miserable way.

As harsh as it sounds, you will probably both be happier more content people if you split up.