Living with an angry man

[mebaasmum]

How do you deal with living with someone who is constantly angry, DS2 especially seems to not be able to do anything right. The smallest thing like not putting his shoes away is enough for rage. Then he complains ds2 doesnt talk to him!!!. There is alot going on to make DP angry/depressed but its not healthy to live with

"the key is to minimise the impact of his behaviour on you and the dcs"

In what universe is it ok to be making that statement about your partner and the father of your children?

I can accept that some people can be a bit shouty - I bet lots of mums on here can get shouty and we wouldn't tell them they need to be licked out or whatever. So, equally, it is possible to have a dad who is a bit shouty and not grow up damaged and frightened. BUT goosey you were damned by your own hand when you wrote that sentence above.

You way of coping is damaging your children though Goosey - he needs to address his problems re dealing with his feelings of anger - you telling him off and accepting it is facilitating his behaviour.

And believe me I wish I did not know half oif the things that I know about where behaviour like this leads but I do and I am trying my best to make you see what sort of damage this is going to cause because it will cause damage but if that is a risk you are willing to take so be it.

I just hope to god that one of your kids is a little girl who goes on to shag everything that shows her a tiny bit of kindness when she gorws up, that is after hacking big lumps out of her own flesh or burning herself or maybe taking half of the medicine cabinet. Or maybe you have boys - that's easier - they tend to exhibit the same behaviour as their fathers, they have problems with boundaries and accepting how it is appropriate to show their anger - they very often go to the other extreme and suffer from withdrawal and depression at what they have to live with and what they see their mother doing - not protecting them but allowing their father to do this time and time again - or they exhibit intense anger in overtly violent ways often ending uo involved with the local YOT and then they end up in prison. Or they have children at a young age and treat them and their wives in the same way and there is nothing you can do about it when you seeit happen because you have allowed them to see this as anacceptable way of behaving!

Sad but if you are willing to take the risk for a man who treats your children this way then that is up to you.

Not really, dh has occassional brief flashes of rage. I down play them. As a result, the dcs down play them to. They are very brief and far from frequent occurences. If you wish to read more into what I said, so be it.

(I know it's a bit early, but fuck it)

Not sure why you want me to say anything more to you Goosey TBH, I think you're making a mistake as far as your H and DC's are concerned and you don't. I don't want to upset you, but I don't think you're ready to see the truth of your situation just yet.

goosey, I accept that is why you didn't reply and also that my question was inflammatory

I meant it to be, though

Some general info on anger within relationships:-

We get the relationships we are willing to put up with. We were not able to choose the family of our childhood ,and how they dealt with stressors. We can insist on open communication and treating everyone with respect in the family we have now.

Watch how you enable your partner's bad behavior. Do you make excuses for him? Do you feel bad when he is upset? It is not your job to try to get your partner to "diffuse" or "control" his anger. It is the job of each angry person to take care of his anger and find appropriate ways to express it. An angry person may not have the motivation to do so. If you allow, excuse or forgive him repeatedly for his outbursts, why should he be expected to change?

Angry behavior that harms you or the children should not be allowed to continue and get worse. Limit setting is necessary for adults, just as it is for angry two year old who is yelling and flailing. Virginia Satir described people finding their Bottom Line and stating it emphatically. Your Bottom Line is those behaviors that you will NOT tolerate. Determine which behaviors will cause you to leave the relationship if your partner continues to do damaging behavior that creates chaos in the home.

Physical abuse and continual verbal abuse are common Bottom Lines for most people. One older woman cried as she said, "He hit the kids a lot, but when he started in on me, I left. Now I feel ashamed for allowing him to be violent with the children. I should have set my Bottom Line higher and then stuck to it."

State your Bottom Line loud and clear to your partner. Then stick to it. Bottom Lines that define health and safety are one place where you are allowed to be stubborn. Know what you stand for and how you expect to be treated with respect. Here are some Bottom Lines that people have described to show their partner that there are limits to bad behavior:

I can't be with you if you provoke fights with others in public and endanger my life.
I won't take your lying and cheating on me. I refuse to live that way. Don't step over that line.
I won't stay if you continue to swear and call me names. I do not deserve to be called ugly names just because you have an anger problem.
I can't take your screaming at the kids. Screaming insults at them is harmful. Don't cross that line. Walk away when you feel your temper rising, and you want to yell.
Your drinking is damaging your job, our marriage and the children. I refuse to live with an alcoholic.
I'm physically ill and can't handle your constant criticisms of me. If you want to live with me, you have to stop judging me and making nasty comments.
Some people have a high Bottom Line-"I can't stay because you don't hold me when I'm upset. I can't be with you because you are not romantic." Others have an almost nonexistent Bottom Line-"So he hits me and sends me to the hospital every other week. That's not a reason to leave a man." You have to decide what you will allow and will not allow. You have your own conscience and sense of self-respect to live with.

If you find yourself allowing the Bottom Line behavior to happen without your doing anything about it, your line is slipping lower and lower. Your partner will lose respect for you and continue to act out. And your self-respect will slip also. If you can't set limits and boundaries (and many people cannot) get into counseling yourself to learn how to be more assertive." Assertiveness behavior is a set of skills that you can learn with some coaching.

Talk with your friends and get ideas about how they expect to be treated by their partners. Do something different than you have done before when you are bombarded by someone else's anger. Don't just hope that the situation will change by itself. Why should it? Angry people get to stay in charge and threaten others by their explosiveness. Set your Bottom Line and stick to it.

there is a differnce between "occasional brief flashes of rage"

and
"

depends on how often is sometimes versus how often is occasional.

but still - even if occasional - if it has the effect that you/a child wondering when the next time will happen then it is behaviour that is not acceptable.... if it makes you/a child change their behaviour/tiptoe round/walk on eggshells/not act normally eg do normal child things like run around.....

op spoke about her H being angry "constantly" - my exP was angry/negative every day. and occasional flashes of real rage.

i still get the rage when he gets the opportunity... but the dcs experience it less because we separated...

and I think you are now doing what you have obviously hard-wired yourself to do

downplaying and minimising

I think your husbands outbursts are worse than you are now willing to admit, so for that I feel sad that all this thread appears to have done is back you into a corner and defend this man even more

sometimes trying to force someone to see what is in front of their eyes is counterproductive, unfortunately

There is no point leaving, if all you are going to do is get yourself into another abusive situation, which I have seen happen over and over.

It is only until you can understand, what is a healthy relationship and that you are a good enough to have one. That an improvement can be made.

Oops missed a bit of the thread, Attilla covers my point.

attilla usually does

Ah, the moral certainty of the truely righteous, what a glorious thing. I am clearly in the wrong and will graciously accept that (as I have no doubt been conditioned to do). I thank you.

< shrugs >

goosey, when you want some support with your situation you will find it here

Goosey, I hope you are still reading. I can't believe the way people have reacted to your post. Please don't think that all MNers see 'abuse' just beacause someone admits to imperfection. Why is the gut reaction to assume that children are better off separated from their father, even if that father isn't necessarily everyone's ideal? My DH is often unnecessarily grumpy and snappy and angrily shouty with the DCs, and I spend a lot of time limiting the damage. But he's also kind, loving, and keen to spend time with them. I really don't think we would be better off without him.

Now I expect I will be condoning abuse too. Sigh.

Teaandcake, I liked your post.

Maybe you could think about the fact that your husband has attended Anger management classes to "no avail". There was clearly a problem large enough for you to want him to do something about it, and when that didn't work? Well, you just keep getting him to apologise to your kids and try and blunt the force of his anger.

I really think that your first post on this thread was the most honest one. And that was the post which was the most worrying TBH.

I'm not going to respond to you anymore, because I really don't want to get nasty. And my fingers are flying over the keyboard and I keep having to delete.

It's not just black and white. there's a million shades of grey in the complicated world of human relationships. Many of these stories on here require a one word answer (leave). But some don't.

We don't know the truth of your life, Goosey and I think we should have the wisdom to trust that possibly, just possibly...you knows what you're doing.

It's just arrogance, pure and simple, for any of us to suggest you are making the wrong choices..based on a few lines typed onto a forum.

Mebaasmum, can you tell us more? Please read this book and see if you recognise yourself..."The Verbally Abusive Relationship" by Patricia Evans. The Lundy Bancroft book is good too...read them both!

mumonthenet, do either of those books recommend staying with such a partner ?

and being constantly on edge and vigilant to micro-manage his behaviour around the dc

and have an expectation that children could tell tales if daddy has been "bad" when in sole care of them ?

I could turn the arrogance thing completely on its head, and say it needs a certain arrogance to say that you can manage such a flawed relationship and bring up children that are not damaged by being in such a toxic atmosphere during their formative years...

Thanks for those books. I will try and find them. As for telling you more. DP and DS2 have the same inherited condition ,, DS2 inherited fron DP. So there is lots of guilt, DP's health has deteriorated over the last couple of years which has resulted in a loss of status so there is lots for him to be angry about, but that doesnt stop us from having to get on with life

I have grown up surrounded by very angry people. My mother has a massive chip on her shoulder that has made her horribly bitter and the general way that my entire family knew to discipline us kids was the scream at us.

I know that if I had asked my mother about her bouts of rage, she would have described them much as Goosey does - not frequent, not meaningful. I think at the time, that's probably what I would have said too!

Whilst I haven't come away from the experience with any hideous mental scars, I would still say that living with angry people is a deeply affecting thing. I think it had two impacts; firstly, it really affected my relationship with my parents. I used to think this was just "how parents are" and it wasn't until I reached adulthood that I realised it wasn't normal and it wasn't ok and I must say that it damaged my relationship with my mum. I lost respect for her.

Secondly, I found myself becoming an angry person. It wasn't until I was married and having a child that suddenly this little bit of my brain that was evidently mimicking what I had learned as a child piped up and I found myself having a short fuse and a quick, explosive temper. I think it's the thing I dislike most about my parents - the fact that their anger still affects me 27 years later.

It may seem as though the kids aren't worried or being affected but you just don't know what their little sponge-like brains are taking in and it may spew out again one day in ways that you cannot predict...

I think this is an interesting discussion...and if it can stay that way without turning into a slanging match it will be a miracle great.

No, af,as I guess you know - the books don't recommend staying with an abusive partner, but they do give a) strategies for recognising if it's abuse or "normal" and b) they give tools for drawing boundaries and asking for change...whether it be you leave, or the abuser changes.

My point re goosey was that we should not just assume she's in denial.

I second Smithy's post. Goosey sounds like someone who is well able to manage her life and her parenting, and her choices should not be the subject of such hysterical vitriol by people who know nothing of this lady, her husband and her family.

She has chosen for her children to have an imperfect yet PRESENT father in their lives, one who obviously loves them despite his faults. How do any of you know that they are growing up damaged when you don't even know them ffs??

meba, the Patricia Evans book you will find on Amazon. You will find it really useful.

Is your DP also like this with you, with your other dc's. Yes, it may be that he is stressed, guilty about passing his ill health, sad, depressed, resentful.......whatever. But as you say, we all have to cope with that during our lives. The thing is his way of dealing with it is wrong...your instinct tells you that - therefore you came on here. Your instinct is correct. TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS ALWAYS.

So, either he's the kind of guy that will recognise this and get some of the help that is available out there to change, or

..........he will deny it's his fault, blame it on you, something you sail/did, the kids said/did, life, everything and anything but himself. This is a classic sign of an abuser. Once you recognise this you will start to learn how to resolve the problem...which may involve leaving him.

Sorry if typos, gotta run.

mumonthenet, I hope that goosey is in denial, tbh

because the alternative is worse

at least denial can be punctured, eventually

The thing is, there's shouting and shouting.

A father might be yelling up the stairs to a teenage son who is running late, "Get up, you lazy sod". Not stellar parenting, perhaps, but not abusive in my book.

The same father might be towering over his son and screaming in his face, "You're a piece of worthless shit", and I would consider that abusive.

You need to look at more than volume - context, content, the physical aspects - to see if it amounts to behaviour that threatens and intimidates. And nobody should have to live with threats and intimidation, not an adult, but certainly not a child.

Are there really so many of you that never ever shout at your DC? NIcknameTaken puts it rather well, that there is a difference between shouting at a child to get up/leave the kettle alone/stop hitting your sibling and shouting insults and threats at a child.