My husband yells at me or the kids at least once a day

[Anonymous]

Do: Try to disassociate from his as much as possible and live your life as separately as possible. Know that this really has nothing to do with you, it's his own mental stuff. There is nothing wrong with you, and there's nothing you're doing to provoke it. The fact that you have ADHD is irrelevant. No one is perfect, and he shouldn't hold you to that standard. If he does, it's on him. Get your companionship from friends, don't tell him everything, find peace within yourself. If you really can't leave now, then don't. It's okay to tell yourself you'll reassess in a few years.

Don't: Don't try to change him, get him to go to counseling, get him to admit his anger problem, any of these things. None of them will work and could possibly backfire. And absolutely DO NOT try to get his family to agree with you and go against him. It might seem like it's working for a while, but will eventually backfire. Leave them out of it as much as possible. If that means pulling away from them, so be it.... Don't feel guilty about this. Again, it's not on you. You need to protect yourself and your kids, and not worry about anyone else (and most certainly not his family).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for the responses. I see what everyone is saying but like, I am not in a position to leave the marriage right now. I have one older kid and a nursing baby and between working full time and breastfeeding and having shared finances and doing WFH with my husband I have no time for anything. I was just diagnosed with high cholesterol and prediabetes and cannot even find 20 minutes each day to work out. What is the point of documenting things? Why is no one suggesting pursuing marriage counseling, even if just for myself? We share one vehicle and I have very little privacy from him.

I think individual counseling would be much more important at this stage. Marriage counseling can help you learn to communicate, but a person with no self-awareness and anger issues doesn't need to learn HOW to communicate, they first need to learn WHAT to communicate.

I'm very sorry that you're in this position. You don't deserve this. Your kids don't deserve this.

It sounds like your families are supportive. Can you get help from your parents to clear your head and think about next steps?

[Anonymous]

How on earth did someone so CLEARLY type A/perfectionist/high strung end up with someone with severe ADHD, PTSD, depression & anxiety???

This sounds like a match made in absolute HELL.

Being type A is all about an incredibly intense need to control -- and you, being someone with special needs & mental health challenges, will ALWAYS be someone that he can never fully control, because you yourself don't have complete control and that's always going to be a huge problem for him (and it will only get worse over time).

This tells me that he's always treated you this way, right from the giset date on. His is such an intense need for control, that he could have never hid it, so you've known this about him since day 1.

Get out now -- you two should have never, ever gotten married in the first place.

[Anonymous]

* first date on

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like I know the answer to this, but am putting it out there anyway. My husband loses it on me or our daughter at least once a day. By that I mean he yells, loses his cool, and blames me/her for losing it. She and I are both ADHD and he gets really triggered if we don’t hear him, or we miss something he said, or we are distracted, or any number of reasons. I admittedly have anxiety, a history of depression/PTSD, etc and often being concerns/worries to him. This annoys him because he says I am just venting or being negative or asking him to solve my problems. He is also a perfectionist so he constantly criticizes me for not making independent decisions and running things by him, but then if I do things on my own (even if it’s just cooking dinner) he will find something wrong with what I do. If I go to the store, he gets angry if I forget a staple or items we needed, or I can’t get back in one hour because it only takes him an hour to shop. If I cook dinner, he gets mad that I used too many dishes in cooking and made a big mess, or the meal was not served on time. If I pack the diaper back and try to run through all the items we need before we leave, he will get mad and tell me to just figure it out and then stop running things by him. But if we get to where we are going and I forgot anything (like maybe I brought a snack but it was only crackers and not a cheese stick for our older kid, or I forgot to pack bug spray or apply it to the kids) he will criticize me for that. If I ask him to stop yelling at the 5 year old when she eats slowly in the morning or when she won’t get dressed or brush teeth and I decide to intervene, he will scream at me that I can take her to school because he has always had the responsibility for it and we lose track of time (which is right, time management is hard for us).

Today on the car ride home from our pediatrician he lost it on me because I was trying to go over the guest list for our older kid’s birthday party and figure out a few extra kids to invite because we have space (at a play place with a set limit of guests). When my mother in law was here last weekend he lost it on me because he made us a nice dinner, barely sat down because he was cooking and then went to change a diaper, and I threw away the food on his plate (1 piece of broccoli) because he said he had told us we was not done eating and that I have no consideration for him (despite me offering to change the diaper and thanking him for cooking our meal). He yelled at me in front of my mother in law (he yells at her and they argue with regularity) and then the next day when we were out walking as a family he stormed away from me when he got mad after I tried to bring it up to him, and refused to speak or respond to me in front of our daughter and my MIL. I confided in my MIL how embarrassed I was with his behavior and how he loses it regularly on me and the kids and she agreed with me that it was not ok and said he is still not over a lot of his childhood issues (addictions, multiple divorces, verbal/physical abuse). My FIL who is divorced from her has visited us and seen some of his angry outbursts and even reached out to my MIL about how he needs to calm down.

I feel like I have the support of both sides of our families when it comes to his behavior, at least in the sense that he’s being inappropriate, but I don’t know what to do. I told my MIL I have begged him to go to couples counseling and he has adamantly refused and says the issues are all mine. He says he has no interest in relitigating childhood and psychoanalyzing it. I feel so beaten down and verbally abused and controlled by him that I find sex a chore and it difficult to enjoy intimacy - I feel like he’s just invading me and it’s not arousing at all to kiss him, I just want to get away but I give him pity sex every week or two and somehow I think he thinks that and apologizing can fix this marriage, which feels rotten at the core to me.

I cannot afford to divorce him and maintain my own household in our neighborhood, and we recently bought a home and the kids are finally settled. I guess my question is, is this emotional abuse? And if so, what can I do about it? I know I cannot change him, only myself. How can I protect my kids? I don’t want to get divorced, but the idea of him yelling at me and the kids the rest of my life feels unsustainable and toxic. He won’t admit to an anger problem, and instead always says we make him yell because we don’t listen to him any other way. I am now so accustomed to it I feel I have lost perspective on everything and don’t know what to do…

Uhhh, it's really obvious that he has some major resentments towards you... like, major.
Ask him point blank what you did for him to resent you so much.
It may have zero to do with you and everything to do with him; but he's most definitely resentful about something?


.

[Anonymous]

You need to leave him now. Either find a family member willing to help or ask your MIL to move in with her. Doesn't matter the type of abuse, it will get worse. Do it for your kids. No one deserves to be treated this way. Nothing good will come out of it.
I'm serious. LEAVE HIM. He won't change.

[Anonymous]

Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or visit their website at thehotline.org. They’re available 24/7, and they have lots of information on their website.

If you’re in DC or Va, get help from The Women’s Center,
https://thewomenscenter.org/

In Montgomery County, contact the Family Justice Center,
https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/fjc/

At a minimum, go see a lawyer so you can find out what you’d be entitled to if you separate.

You might not be ready to leave just yet, but you can start preparing for it.

[Anonymous]

This is modeling for your daughter that it's okay for men to scream at her, and it's normal for husbands to verbally abuse their wives. Your household is your children's baseline perception of the world. How will she be able to filter out abusive men as an adult, when you are showing her that abuse is something to tolerate? She may even become drawn to men like your husband, because this is her first perception of a man's role in her life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like I know the answer to this, but am putting it out there anyway. My husband loses it on me or our daughter at least once a day. By that I mean he yells, loses his cool, and blames me/her for losing it. She and I are both ADHD and he gets really triggered if we don’t hear him, or we miss something he said, or we are distracted, or any number of reasons. I admittedly have anxiety, a history of depression/PTSD, etc and often being concerns/worries to him. This annoys him because he says I am just venting or being negative or asking him to solve my problems. He is also a perfectionist so he constantly criticizes me for not making independent decisions and running things by him, but then if I do things on my own (even if it’s just cooking dinner) he will find something wrong with what I do. If I go to the store, he gets angry if I forget a staple or items we needed, or I can’t get back in one hour because it only takes him an hour to shop. If I cook dinner, he gets mad that I used too many dishes in cooking and made a big mess, or the meal was not served on time. If I pack the diaper back and try to run through all the items we need before we leave, he will get mad and tell me to just figure it out and then stop running things by him. But if we get to where we are going and I forgot anything (like maybe I brought a snack but it was only crackers and not a cheese stick for our older kid, or I forgot to pack bug spray or apply it to the kids) he will criticize me for that. If I ask him to stop yelling at the 5 year old when she eats slowly in the morning or when she won’t get dressed or brush teeth and I decide to intervene, he will scream at me that I can take her to school because he has always had the responsibility for it and we lose track of time (which is right, time management is hard for us).

Today on the car ride home from our pediatrician he lost it on me because I was trying to go over the guest list for our older kid’s birthday party and figure out a few extra kids to invite because we have space (at a play place with a set limit of guests). When my mother in law was here last weekend he lost it on me because he made us a nice dinner, barely sat down because he was cooking and then went to change a diaper, and I threw away the food on his plate (1 piece of broccoli) because he said he had told us we was not done eating and that I have no consideration for him (despite me offering to change the diaper and thanking him for cooking our meal). He yelled at me in front of my mother in law (he yells at her and they argue with regularity) and then the next day when we were out walking as a family he stormed away from me when he got mad after I tried to bring it up to him, and refused to speak or respond to me in front of our daughter and my MIL. I confided in my MIL how embarrassed I was with his behavior and how he loses it regularly on me and the kids and she agreed with me that it was not ok and said he is still not over a lot of his childhood issues (addictions, multiple divorces, verbal/physical abuse). My FIL who is divorced from her has visited us and seen some of his angry outbursts and even reached out to my MIL about how he needs to calm down.

I feel like I have the support of both sides of our families when it comes to his behavior, at least in the sense that he’s being inappropriate, but I don’t know what to do. I told my MIL I have begged him to go to couples counseling and he has adamantly refused and says the issues are all mine. He says he has no interest in relitigating childhood and psychoanalyzing it. I feel so beaten down and verbally abused and controlled by him that I find sex a chore and it difficult to enjoy intimacy - I feel like he’s just invading me and it’s not arousing at all to kiss him, I just want to get away but I give him pity sex every week or two and somehow I think he thinks that and apologizing can fix this marriage, which feels rotten at the core to me.

I cannot afford to divorce him and maintain my own household in our neighborhood, and we recently bought a home and the kids are finally settled. I guess my question is, is this emotional abuse? And if so, what can I do about it? I know I cannot change him, only myself. How can I protect my kids? I don’t want to get divorced, but the idea of him yelling at me and the kids the rest of my life feels unsustainable and toxic. He won’t admit to an anger problem, and instead always says we make him yell because we don’t listen to him any other way. I am now so accustomed to it I feel I have lost perspective on everything and don’t know what to do…

Uhhh, it's really obvious that he has some major resentments towards you... like, major.
Ask him point blank what you did for him to resent you so much.
It may have zero to do with you and everything to do with him; but he's most definitely resentful about something?

Are you suggesting that he rages at the children because OP wasn't nice enough to him?


.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

How on earth did someone so CLEARLY type A/perfectionist/high strung end up with someone with severe ADHD, PTSD, depression & anxiety???

This sounds like a match made in absolute HELL.

Being type A is all about an incredibly intense need to control -- and you, being someone with special needs & mental health challenges, will ALWAYS be someone that he can never fully control, because you yourself don't have complete control and that's always going to be a huge problem for him (and it will only get worse over time).

This tells me that he's always treated you this way, right from the giset date on. His is such an intense need for control, that he could have never hid it, so you've known this about him since day 1.

Get out now -- you two should have never, ever gotten married in the first place.

OP here. I think you are making a lot of assumptions here and not being very kind to say we never should have Been married based on one post and not a ton of information. We have been in a relationship for 17 years and he has changed a lot in that time. As have I. In early years of our relationship he was a very laid back guy. Over the years he has gotten more controlling and anal about things. Parenthood was when he really changed - his childhood was quite difficult and that is when the controlling aspect came out. The stress of life for us has been extreme and included a chronically sick child, lots of sleep deprivation with the sick child, and another child with behavioral challenges. Also WFH for 2 years, moving, and pandemic.

In my case, I was not diagnosed with ADHD until a few years ago. I developed coping skills in childhood to overcome the challenges and succeed academically and professionally, like many women. I had gotten to a good place professionally and personally when we had kids but the addition of children to our relationship has been really hard for me to balance with so many competing needs and priorities on top of work and running a household and the aforementioned issues with our kids. I also did not get diagnosed with PTSD until 5 years ago because inexperienced a traumatic event 5 years ago. I was diagnosed with depression in my teens when my parent had a very messy divorce and was on meds for a few years and then got off them. I do not have severe mental illness so why are you making that assumption based on something I did not say?

Anyway, I’m trying to say there is a lot of factors that have gotten us to this place, and it certainly did not start out that way. I never would have married a husband who routinely yelled at me.

[Anonymous]

I would not live like this for even one week. My husband and I don't scream at each other, ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would not live like this for even one week. My husband and I don't scream at each other, ever.

+1.

OP, if your parents and his parents all agree that you and the kids are in a bad situation, can you ask them for help getting out of it?

You seem to be providing a lot of reasons why you can’t leave, which makes this sound even more abusive. So it’s the exact reason why you should leave. You CAN get out. Now you have to want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were you going together to the pediatrician during a workday? That's a little unusual.

Do you have a pediatrician who sees patients at nights and on weekends? Please share!

Are you dense? The question is why are both parents not working during normal business hours and are available to take the child together?

Maybe it is shift work. Or unemployment. Or he is controlling and doesn’t let her go out in public without him.

I think CMA is open on Saturdays, since you asked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

How on earth did someone so CLEARLY type A/perfectionist/high strung end up with someone with severe ADHD, PTSD, depression & anxiety???

This sounds like a match made in absolute HELL.

Being type A is all about an incredibly intense need to control -- and you, being someone with special needs & mental health challenges, will ALWAYS be someone that he can never fully control, because you yourself don't have complete control and that's always going to be a huge problem for him (and it will only get worse over time).

This tells me that he's always treated you this way, right from the giset date on. His is such an intense need for control, that he could have never hid it, so you've known this about him since day 1.

Get out now -- you two should have never, ever gotten married in the first place.

OP here. I think you are making a lot of assumptions here and not being very kind to say we never should have Been married based on one post and not a ton of information. We have been in a relationship for 17 years and he has changed a lot in that time. As have I. In early years of our relationship he was a very laid back guy. Over the years he has gotten more controlling and anal about things. Parenthood was when he really changed - his childhood was quite difficult and that is when the controlling aspect came out. The stress of life for us has been extreme and included a chronically sick child, lots of sleep deprivation with the sick child, and another child with behavioral challenges. Also WFH for 2 years, moving, and pandemic.

In my case, I was not diagnosed with ADHD until a few years ago. I developed coping skills in childhood to overcome the challenges and succeed academically and professionally, like many women. I had gotten to a good place professionally and personally when we had kids but the addition of children to our relationship has been really hard for me to balance with so many competing needs and priorities on top of work and running a household and the aforementioned issues with our kids. I also did not get diagnosed with PTSD until 5 years ago because inexperienced a traumatic event 5 years ago. I was diagnosed with depression in my teens when my parent had a very messy divorce and was on meds for a few years and then got off them. I do not have severe mental illness so why are you making that assumption based on something I did not say?

Anyway, I’m trying to say there is a lot of factors that have gotten us to this place, and it certainly did not start out that way. I never would have married a husband who routinely yelled at me.

Yeah I'm sorry that some people can't hold space for there to be nuance, complicating factors, change over time, etc. It's definitely not helpful, nor compassionate.

I mentioned before that I don't think you need marriage counseling as a first step unless you are hoping the counselor will tell your DH he needs help and he might listen to a third party. But the issue is his anxiety or whatever that is manifesting as short-tempered rage.

Would your in-laws be willing to do some kind of intervention?

[Anonymous]

OP, thank you for above post with additional information. I wouldn't focus too much on whether or not you should have married, had a child, or had a second child. You need to focus on now and moving forward.

You definitely need individual therapy. Couple therapy will not be useful to you now. The goal of this therapy should be figuring out how to protect yourself and your children from this ongoing abuse. Therapy can give you some very practical strategies about this in the immediate, even if you are still living with your husband. It can also help get you in the right mindset for what I suspect you ultimately need, which is a divorce.

You seem very fixated on the idea that you "can't" divorce, and I think really hashing this out with a therapist will be helpful. Maybe you just need to create a window of time... maybe when you finish nursing your baby, maybe once school starts, maybe there is an known job shift coming in the next year... whatever. The point is that you can pragmatically determine your exit strategy.

As others have said, you need to do this not only for you, but also your kids. If you don't, you are setting up your kids for one or the other as an adult
1. A person who screams, yells, and is abusive, or
2. A person who is a victim of someone who screams, yells, and is abusive.

I think you think that posters here telling you to divorce don't understand how hard that will be. I think clearly people DO understand. We also think that--hard as it is--it's still what is needed.
So, get yourself some individual therapy as a first step on this path. Do it for your children.