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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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).

I'm in a similar situation to you, OP, and have been for 21 years. My kids are older teens now, both in HS. I totally get that you feel that you can't leave. There is never a good time. It's taken me this long, and STILL I'm waiting until DS's college apps are in so I can focus on that and have some mental space for my eventual divorce. DH is emotionally and verbally abusive, critical, unpredictable. I gray rock a lot- protect myself, diffuse situations, and I have basically checked out for the last 10 years. I couldn't imagine 50 50 custody without me protecting the kids. It took my son, who is now bigger than my husband, to start telling my husband to back off of me to realize that my kids were now protecting me and that that was wildly dysfunctional. So I'm in process. Good luck to you. If you need to stay for now, do it, but realize that this likely will not get better. You deserve so so much more.