What Would You Do?

[YallaYalla]

Hi,

Looking for a bit of advice please. I am slowly working out that DH has some major issues with passive aggressive behaviour. We've just come back from a week-long holiday and he is no longer talking to me because of a row we had on the last day. He has gone into emotional shutdown and as usual I am paying the price.

In brief: I wanted to do something (buy a souvenir on our last night) which he didn't want to do; I could tell he wasn't keen and offered to leave him in the bar we were having sundowners in while I nipped up to the shop; he didn't take me up on this offer, and also did not say he didn't want to do it when I asked him in a friendly way about it.

So we leave bar and walk to shop buy souvenir, him seemingly in an ok mood. On leaving shop he gets into a major strop because he was very sweaty and hot from the walk (tropics) and within a space of about 5 minutes shuts down totally.

Doesn't want to do anything, goes mute, won't respond to queries of if he's ok, my offers to go and stand in areas where there is AC, queries about which bar he would like to go to next and where we should have dinner on our last night.

Eventually he says he's had enough and wants to go back to the hotel and do nothing/watch TV. It's 8pm, it's the last night of our holiday and we're both dolled up for a good night out.

I'm pretty pissed off, but use my usual tactics for snapping him out of these moods - cuddling him, ignoring his mood, teasing him gently, trying to take charge in a non-confrontational way. It worked for a bit, and then I got a bit exhausted by the whole effort and said, fine, let's go back to the hotel. We are waiting in a taxi queue and I say I'm just popping into this shop to use the loo.

He claims he thought I said 'see you back at the hotel'. I though I'd made it fairly clear I was just nipping to the loo but it's possible he didn't hear me as we were about 10 metres away from each other. Anyway, point is, I return from the loo and he's vanished.

He KNOWS I have no money in my pocket whatsoever (he always carries the cash on nights out on holiday) and no mobile phone which I've left in the hotel safe. So he's dumped me in the middle of a capital city in Asia. Admittedly, it's a safe city, it's not late, I know the way back to the hotel 20 minutes away, and we're in a really touristy area. But it's the principle of just being dumped like that without even money for a taxi. I'm furious. Walk back to hotel room.

Half an hour later he shows up. I am fuming. Not proud of what happens next but I use the security chain to stop him getting access to the hotel room. I tell him he's not coming in as he dumped me in a foreign city with no resources. He asks again to be let in. I say no and slam the door shut.

Eventually, at 2am, he tries the door again. This time I've softened and feel pretty bad for locking him out of the room (even though HE had his wallet and credit cards and finances mean he could easily booked himself another room in the same hotel for the night). I let him in, he walks in in silence and hasn't spoken to me since.

We flew home in silence and he sat separately to me from the plane. Now we are home and he's still in the silent treatment mode, sleeping on the sofa. Total emotional frigging shutdown.

Now. I KNOW I was unreasonable to prevent him access to the hotel room for a few hours. I haven't apologised yet either (he's stonewalling me and I don't see what value it would have at this time). But, as usual, it's me who looks the nutter.

He could not express feelings on us going to the shop. He 'punishes' me for taking us there by shutting down emotionally, and then abandoning me on the last night of our holiday in a foreign city with no bloody money in my pocket. I shut him out of the hotel room but in no way compromised his safety (for all I know he spent the intervening hours in the hotel lobby bar knocking back single malts). And, as usual, I am sitting here tearing my hair out, trying to find a way to get him to open up and being given the silent treatment.

I've spent some time on the internet this morning looking at PA behaviour. I'm sure he doesn't have the PA personality disorder as generally he is a very good, loving, honest man who holds down a very stressful and highly-paid job and - this issue aside - our marriage is strong and we have a good relationship. But I just can't BEAR this passive aggressive shit.

What am I supposed to do?
Any tips for how I can make myself feel better while his mood subsides?
Any tips for how I can snap him out of it?
Should I apologise for locking him out of the room?

Sorry - this is an essay - just feel like I'm going mad here. Thanks if you got this far.

Yalla

Seriously if he ever went to counselling he'd only do one session if that. My friend's abusive H did not go to counselling because he knew they would call him on his abuse. Also any decent counsellor would never counsel the two of you together in the same room anyway.

Look too at his disparaging remarks he has made about such people; by turn he is calling you stupid to even consider such an idea, that he the all almighty one here is just that and you're supposed to suck it up just as you have done this past 7 years.

Abuse is insidious in its onset and you did ignore/not notice its onset but you do not have to remain within this abusive marriage any more. It is okay to leave, you always have that option despite his veiled threats towards you and by turn your unborn child.

Yalla

Seriously if he ever went to counselling he'd only do one session if that. My friend's abusive H did not go to counselling because he knew they would call him on his abuse. Also any decent counsellor would never counsel the two of you together in the same room anyway.

Look too at his disparaging remarks he has made about such people; by turn he is calling you stupid to even consider such an idea, that he the all almighty one here is just that and you're supposed to suck it up just as you have done this past 7 years.

Abuse is insidious in its onset and you did ignore/not notice its onset but you do not have to remain within this abusive marriage any more. It is okay to leave, you always have that option despite his veiled threats towards you and by turn your unborn child.

My family don't know any of this. They would be shocked (although obviously would get over it). How can I take such a big step without telling them?

My friends say that the fact we are having massive disagreements doesn't mean this is the end. One very good friend (who admittedly doesn't know all the ins and outs of his behaviour) said every relationship has it's 'issue', it's 'unresolvable problem'. Perhaps this is just ours?

Fab - I'm sorry. If I was reading this about someone else I would be throwing my laptop at the wall by now!!! I don't know quite what I want people to say. Not really sure why I'm posting. Just to get it out of my head I think.

Grace - thanks. Very valuable advice. Glad to know that someone has been through this. That's exactly what he says: 'We can work our problems out ourselves, we don't need strangers to help us'.

I think I'm at the stage I keep probing for WHY the hell he is doing this. I keep asking him about his childhood, whether his mother did this to him and if he's copying her behaviour (to which he rolls his eyes, of course). I am searching for a reason. I feel like there can't NOT be a reason.

I know it's futile but I just can't reconcile it all.

Sorry for those who want to strangle me in frustration by now! Would you believe I have a bloody psychology degree ?????

dittany - power.

He said that today. At one point I said "it's about Respect, I need some respect from you". And he replied: "No, it's not about respect, it's about power."

I asked him what he meant but he refused to say. I said that I feel HE has all the power. And he said, 'No, you have the power.'

[headf+ck}

I feel like I signed up for a lifelong commitment/marriage and I can't just walk away. That it would be unfair to him/us, and would make me a 'flaky' character. Who runs away after 3 years? It would be a failure.

I mean, I would be a failure.

Going back to you "what I want" list ...
If you were to ask me what I want, and my reply was a list of things I wished would stop, what would you think?

Whoa! When you made your marriage vows, did you say "Love, honour and respect"?

Do I need to highlight the obvious??

yalla,

I have been lurking.

As Dittany (and others) has said...please check out the Patrica Evans book, or her site verbalabuse.com

POWER. This is exactly the cause of most verbal abuse. Patrica Evans explains what it means in her book. When you understand what she's on about, you will be able to understand every single comment he makes.

Please don't apologise to me. I feel bad for being so blunt but it frustrates me to see you wasting your life with this tosser.

You can't change or fix him. You have to make the break. You are not the failure. Shit happens and you have decided not to take any more of it. That makes you a success. If you leave.

Hi YallaYalla,

re your comment:-

"I feel like I signed up for a lifelong commitment/marriage and I can't just walk away. That it would be unfair to him/us, and would make me a 'flaky' character. Who runs away after 3 years? It would be a failure".

Why on earth would you be seen as a "flaky" character. FGS woman!.

Your friends would react differently if they truly knew you were in an abusive marriage. Your marriage is abusive, it is not simply about "unresolvable problems" and even you admit that your friend who said this does not know the full extent of the problems there are.

He's the one who is messing up here. You are not the bloody failure here, he is. As Dittany says it is not a failure to refuse to be abused. At its heart abuse is about power and control. This is what all this is about; he wants complete power and control over you.

It also frustrates me to see you wasting you life with tosser bloke.

History is indeed repeating itself here; you are both acting your your respective parents marriages all over again. Neither set of parents would likely see the problems within your marriage even if they wanted to, which they do not.

You can break this cycle but you do not fully believe in your own self to do so. Its certainly not a happy environment for a child to be brought into.

I'll make this short. He will never change. you either have to put up with him treating you like this or leave him. But you won't change him.

he might go through the motions for a few months of treating you well, but it won't last because you can't completely change a person.

Leave him or put up with this life - there is no third option. You need to decide between the options you have, not the ones you want.

I got as far as page 3.

If this guy is already using silences to try and provoke a conversation about YOUR various wrongdoings and failings, and this is before you have children, run for the hills. Listen to Dignified's posts.

You have to be prepared to leave him. There's no point talking to him if you're not prepared to leave him. He'll know that you're not prepared to leave.

Whatever you do, don't try to 'cuddle' him out of a sulk. I'd match that sulk with a run for the hills.

If he is behaving like this before you have had children he'll be and even bigger arsehole after children.

Ps, also listen to ITsgraceagain.

I totally agree that these guys won't accept your reasons for ending the relationship. It's over when they say it's over. I told my x the relationship was over and he said "the fuck it is over". So I just made a run for it, and he has held that up as proof of my low character ever since!!

You don't need his permission to end things.

You would not be seen as a flaky character, you'd be seen as a strong woman who won't be treated like a piece of crap.

Since leaving the man who treated me so badly 3 years ago, I've had lots of people (people who at first in my low self-esteem frame of mind I imagined would pity me) tell me that they admired my strength and all of them had a sister or a friend or a cousin that they were watching waste their life.

The facade you imagine you've maintained is probably not quite as successful as you think.

And besides, you don't want to revolve major life choices around appearing to be happy to you?! Surely you shoudl revolve the decisions which affect the rest of your life around BEING happy!?

You get one life. APPEAR to be happy? or BE happy?

I made the wrong decision for 8 years.

I think the ultimatums were good simply because they revealed his true character to you.

He really doesn't think you have the balls to leave therefore he doesn't need to even consider changing therefore he doesn't need to go to counselling because over the last 8 years he's trained you to accept his abusive behaviour.

Perhaps since you conceived you're feeling more vulnerable and that's been the wake up to realise that he is the opposite of supportive - he undermines you, abandons you, belittles you, controls you, blames you etc etc etc

The thing is that unless you have the misfortune to become involved with someone like your H (as I say, I have had close dealings with someone who turned out to be a narcissist) then you just don't and can't understand what is going on. It was only in the endgame of the situation I was involved with that I read the Lundy Bancroft and Patricia Evans books, and passed them on that we could finally define and understand the very real problem.

It is not normal behaviour. But normal people try to rationalise it because they have no experience of it eg your friends saying every marriage has its issues etc...

And this is why the abused person stays in it, because they can't believe it's true either. They just cannot understand how anyone would knowingly behave like this. The fact is that the narcissist lives in their own version of reality and nothing you can say will every make the blindest bit of difference in the long term. It might temporarily change as they sense they are losing control, but the cycle of abuse rolls merrily round.

When you start to wake up to it and read up on it, scales fall from your eyes. Please do read the Patirica Evans and Lundy Bancroft books - they will prove to you that you have not gone mad or bad.

Can I add to those who recomended the patricia Evans books. I needed...and still need to keep reading them to understand what happened in my mariage, and what is wrong with HIM. And I actually am starting to think that he is insane.

I found her books to be extremely enlightening, and really very helpful for me in dealing with my grief. I am mourning the loss of a persona of a loving husband....who actually does not exist. He is in reality, someone who enjoys hurting me...he is playing dolls with our lives...me and my dc's. I am very slowly starting to really hate him for what he has put me through. Even this very week. He is SO angry with me for telling it like it is, he couldn't bring himself to make eye contact when he picked up dd. Tosser.

My final words to him this week were:

If I thought for one moment that I was hurting some one. My first instinct would be to stop, say sorry and not do it again. Not feel sorry for myself and blame them for accusing me.

I simply do not have the skills to deal with your problems. It?s way over my head

Yalla,
I have been lurking for a while on this thread and thought I would put in my two penneth.
I have a little experience of what you are going through. My father sulked for England when we were children - strangely enough he doesn't do it now as none of us care whether he is sulking as we don't live with him any more! There was a lot of tiptoeing around the house and uncertainty as kids. This was a pattern he had learnt from his father. I also had a boyfriend who was verbally abusive and very similar to your husband in that he tried to control my behaviour, especially in public. The relationship was all about him, his work, his interests, his friends. He was very quick to make me accountable for what he considered to be my bad behaviour such as disagreeing with him in front of friends but seemed strangely reluctant to be responsible for his own appalling behaviour which could be a whole other thread!
Anyway I read your thread a month ago and then RL stepped in and a holiday so I just caught up this morning. As I was reading the bits I had missed I was beginning to think that maybe we had got this out of proportion and he wasn't as bad as we thought and then you almost casually mentioned the walking behind you slowly! Very disturbing! And then this was followed by the latest rows you have been having and it brought everything back into sharp focus again. I can only imagine that this is how you feel all the time. Thinking that maybe life isn't that bad after all and then realising, abruptly, that in fact it is.

You really need to hold onto those angry feelings as they will help you leave (they certainly helped me) - and you know you have to leave. It is only a matter of when - please believe me. You are gradually facing up to the fact that the relationship is considerably less than perfect. What you don't want to do is wait until this baby is born and you cut down your options further. It will be harder with a child in tow. Start cutting those emotional threads now and plan an escape. As dittany or Grace said you do NOT have to validate your reasons for leaving with him. Take control of YOUR life and go.
Listen to these women - they really know what they are talking about. They have certainly helped me realise I was in an abusive relationship (albeit a while ago) and help cut those final threads that were in fact preventing me from moving on in my current life with my husband and child.
All the best Yalla, you sound like a lovely lady and most of all congratulations with your pregnancy. Your baby is very lucky to have a mum who cares so much about it.

Yalla,

I have just read your last comment now about the scan. I feel you are overreacting!
And I am not sure this man is so wrong when he refuses to miss a scan (that could maybe be moved?).

Maybe I missed sth. in the middle but please do not be taken in by this chat so much!

Lol, Barbara

I am physically in pieces.

Strangely enough the person I'm really angry with is my father.

And myself.