My neighbors think I'm an abused wife

[Anonymous]

How old are you, OP?

Sorry you're dealing with this.

[Anonymous]

Oh, OP that does not sound good.
My doctor's office always calls me to ask if my DH is abusive. Awkward. He is not abusive, he has mental illness and says things he shouldnt-- hes a bit argumentative, but we have been together for many years and never had a problem. Couples always fight, but you sound like it goes beyond that with your DH. I am sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh, honey. Yes, this doesn't bode well. Do not have children with this man. If he is a hot pocket now, I can't imagine how he will manage the stress of children. My wife has anger issues and we have children and it's very difficult OP. She actually went to therapy to help her manage her anger, but I still go out of my way to avoid conflict and prevent her from exploding from the stress of the mundane parenting mishaps.

You have to make your choices. I'd leave, but that's because there are no kids and honestly if you want children the sooner you go the better (because you can find someone who does not have these anger issues).

I have to really agree with this. My dad was/is like your husband (old age is mellowing him out thank god) and I was always walking on eggshells around him when I was little. Even at 4 or 5, I was trying to manage his reactions and not piss him off.

If you get out now, you could still meet someone who you can have a healthy and happy family with. If you stay with your husband, you may end up with a family but it won't be happy and healthy, it will just be more people living their lives waiting for the next blow up.

Also want to add, I had to spend a large part of my young adulthood unlearning the lessons I got from my dad on how to treat your loved ones. I still have problems dealing with and expressing anger appropriately because the model I saw growing up was scream your head off, throw a fit, stomp around, then go cool off after a while and never apologize.

+1

Or you apologize but get angry when others don't accept, because after all, it was only 15 seconds.

Exactly. The only times he would ever apologize, it was when he would scare me badly enough to get me crying uncontrollably. Obviously, when a little kid is scared so bad they're crying, an apology doesn't immediately fix everything but he would get SO MAD if I didn't immediately stop crying if he said sorry.

[Anonymous]

The mellowed guy is trying to justify his bad behavior. Just making pathetic excuses. No real man (or woman) who has developed beyond the age of 4 uses these excuses. Period.

Get out now. It only gets worse.

Signed a guy who has an exwife who behaved like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are concerned with OTHER PEOPLE who are OUTSIDE of your marriage. You did not state that your husband actually abuses you in any specific way. You simply said that he lost his temper because he was under pressure. You are making this into a giant issue almost like you are having some anxiety attack and spinning this incident far into the future and it is making you feel helpless.

A few thoughts.

1. When I was in college I had a period where I would feel anxiety during tests and start thinking about all the consequences of my potential failure and it lead to me not being able to focus on the now and get finished with my tests. What you describe sounds similar in nature. That is an internal problem you need to fix.

2. How old is your husband? Is he attempting to advance his career, take care of bills at home, plan for the future, start a family? The reason I ask is that many men in their early years (20's and 30's) experience an insane amount of stress about being a provider for a family and they are overwhelmed. In effect they are at about 90% of their stress threshold most of the time and small things set them off. (Not necessarily justifying... but that is the way it is) This mellows out (for most) as they (1) get accustomed to being a provider (2) get the whole situation under control (i.e. build up some savings, get some debt paid off (school loads, cars) (3) reach a point in their career where they feel they have accomplished something.

3. I personally do not think that his losing his temper necessarily makes him an abuser. I'm sure there are those on this site who will disagree (but they also feel its ok to throw water in their husbands face... but he better not lose his temper).

4. There are those who will disagree... I really believe that one way to help diffuse his outbursts is to SIDE WITH HIM not other people. It will only add more stress to him if he thinks you are judging him. He already feels pressure about how he is providing things and if you pile on about his temper that's just going to give him one more thing to be stressed about. Just show him you are on his team.

5. I really don't expect you to really get what I've just explained. I also fully expect the DCUM crowed to really blast me.

Signed.... a guy that has mellowed out a lot from my early 20s who was known for his outbursts and now is known for his calmness in adverse situations.

A couple of points:

1. Everyone -- male and female -- has to learn to deal with stress maturely and non-abusively.
2. This is hard to do when you are first starting out in your career, have student loans, family pressures, etc. -- that applies to both men and women, who both support families and have careers.
3. It is not acceptable for either sex to behave destructively or abusively in marriage.
4. Both spouses should be on each other's side, but that does not imply appeasing an enraged spouse merely to avoid a public scene or episode.
5. Describing an epic public meltdown indicates that the situation has reached a point of no return.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, there is no way you can want children, experience infertility, and be happy. Do you have a diagnosis? This man or another, you need to figure out what's going on below the belt to evaluate your options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, honey. Yes, this doesn't bode well. Do not have children with this man. If he is a hot pocket now, I can't imagine how he will manage the stress of children. .

This, this, a thousand times, this.

If he treats your kid like that what are you just going to stand there and let him?
Do you want your children growing up to think this is normal?
Is this how you want your daughter to allow someone to treat her?
Is this how you want your son to behave?

OP I don't think you said how old you are. It's not too late to leave him. Adopt if you want. Do a sperm donor. Just don't reproduce with this man.

[Anonymous]

The biggest red flag is that you don't realize that you're being abused. This is emotional abuse. He screamed and ranted for 15 minutes about packing a car? No one should ever scream at you like this. Please get out now. You won't be single forever, I promise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The biggest red flag is that you don't realize that you're being abused. This is emotional abuse. He screamed and ranted for 15 minutes about packing a car? No one should ever scream at you like this. Please get out now. You won't be single forever, I promise.

I wonder what makes people say that. As if they know. I personally think OP has a healthy way of looking at it. She's evaluating getting out v. being alone. Not getting out v. meeting someone fabulous which may or may not happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The biggest red flag is that you don't realize that you're being abused. This is emotional abuse. He screamed and ranted for 15 minutes about packing a car? No one should ever scream at you like this. Please get out now. You won't be single forever, I promise.

I wonder what makes people say that. As if they know. I personally think OP has a healthy way of looking at it. She's evaluating getting out v. being alone. Not getting out v. meeting someone fabulous which may or may not happen.

Being alone is a thousand times more worthwhile than being abused. How in the world can you possibly do a cost benefit analysis of being abused?

[Anonymous]

This is me. Except my husband wouldn't have apologized, but instead would've gone off about how I'm such a disappointment and how it was my fault to make him angry. Oh, and except that we have one child and another on the way and my husband has refused to acknowledge it's an issue with him (it's always us or someone else's fault). I'm pretty stuck.

The fact that he apologized and is aware of his temper is a good sign. Have you considered couples therapy? Sometimes it might come down to making him aware right around when he is losing control, so he can control it better next time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The biggest red flag is that you don't realize that you're being abused. This is emotional abuse. He screamed and ranted for 15 minutes about packing a car? No one should ever scream at you like this. Please get out now. You won't be single forever, I promise.

I wonder what makes people say that. As if they know. I personally think OP has a healthy way of looking at it. She's evaluating getting out v. being alone. Not getting out v. meeting someone fabulous which may or may not happen.

Being alone is a thousand times more worthwhile than being abused. How in the world can you possibly do a cost benefit analysis of being abused?

I was asking about reassuring OP that she will definitely meet someone better. Please re-read if you bother to respond.

[Anonymous]

I see a big red flag here too
First your neighboors are nosy jumping to the conclusion that when a person is mad that person is abusive. Really?? They don't get pissed off at one point in their perfect lives?
Second you just stand there and take it. Next time hold your ground and tell him to STFU and lower your tone before I bitch slap you with this tuna sandwich.
Three you need to tell him to go eat a brownie when he meditate.

[Anonymous]

Leave now, this is not normal. Consider this a blessing that you have no children. Children has invoked feelings of frustration and anger I have never felt before, I can't imagine a person who already cannot handle emotion deal with children. They would grow up in terror of their father.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The biggest red flag is that you don't realize that you're being abused. This is emotional abuse. He screamed and ranted for 15 minutes about packing a car? No one should ever scream at you like this. Please get out now. You won't be single forever, I promise.

I wonder what makes people say that. As if they know. I personally think OP has a healthy way of looking at it. She's evaluating getting out v. being alone. Not getting out v. meeting someone fabulous which may or may not happen.

Being alone is a thousand times more worthwhile than being abused. How in the world can you possibly do a cost benefit analysis of being abused?

I was asking about reassuring OP that she will definitely meet someone better. Please re-read if you bother to respond.

I read what you said -- you said "I personally think OP has a healthy way of looking at it. She's evaluating getting out v. being alone. Not getting out v. meeting someone fabulous...."

I repeat: how can you possibly do an analysis weighing being abused vs. the alternatives?