If you grew up with an angry parent...
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Anonymous
| How did it affect you? Spouse is constantly angry. Feels like we (children and I) are walking on eggshells at home and don’t know what will set spouse off. When spouse is upset, spouse will yell and throw stuff (not at us). Spouse was not always like this, it’s related to the pandemic and a stressful job. We have young children and I’m worried about how this is affecting them. |
Anonymous
| I recently had a memory of my sister doing something and of me being worried that it would set my dad off. I was 3! I realize that I was able to monitor my dads moods and plan my behavior accordingly while in preschool. As an adult I am hyper vigilant, startle easily. I also have a really hard time identifying my own emotions and struggle with being aware of when I am stressed or even physically in pain. It's almost like growing up monitoring someone else's emotions left me little time to reveal my own. Trust issues in relationships and really bad at handling conflict or standing up for myself. |
Anonymous
| It’s hard to articulate but it was a really terrible experience for me and created long lasting issues with relationships. Thankfully I’m fine now but it took a lot of time. Eventually my parents divorced and both my siblings and myself were glad when that happened. |
Anonymous
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How does it feel to grow up emotionally abused?
Is your spouse seeking help? |
Anonymous
| Yes, both my parents had anger problems and the fights were explosive. They both had un-diagnosed anxiety and in mom's case depression as well. Once mom got older the anger became even more explosive. An SSRI helped tremendously. I think therapy would have also helped, but she refused. |
Anonymous
Sorry...forgot to say how is affected me. It was frightening. I made sure to marry someone who didn't have anger management problems. I have learned to tune out my mother when she stops meds and goes back to being angry at everyone including me. Still stings though and makes me physically sick sometimes. Oh and my mother is ALWAYS the victim. No personal responsibility and very little perspective when not medicated. |
Anonymous
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It was terrible, and I still have a hard time not believing that I’m responsible for others’ behavior. Plus I think I have kind of perpetuated the cycle. DH says he feels like there is a lot he can’t say because he doesn’t know how I will react to it; he feels like he has to walk on eggshells around me.
But I have worked a lot on my anxiety and I am on meds, so I think it’s getting better. We have a good relationship and I’m a decent parent because he is patient with me and I have committed to be calm around my kids. I don’t yell but I do get irritated, and they feel like they are responsible for my irritation. I have tried to explain that they aren’t and have pointed out that my reactions depend on my mood, not their behavior, so hopefully that will sink in. But I still feel like I have a better relationship with DH and my kids than a lot of posters here. I never yell and I cultivate emotional closeness with my family. I work hard on it, maybe in part because I know how awful it was living with my mom who yelled and just seemed too caught up in her own emotions to be there as a good parent. Also I would consider divorcing your husband, honestly. I know that it’s soooo complicated and I don’t know what the right decision is or what your circumstances are, but his behavior is emotionally abusive to your kids. My parents divorced and the time spent with my dad was a good respite from my mom. And he was careful not to say anything bad about her, so it was easy to still love her despite everything. |
Anonymous
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My first memory of my mother is her standing over me with her arm up, ready to hit me, yelling 'What did you do? What did you do?'. I was two or three. My parents yelled at us a lot and hit us with their hands and belts. If it wasn't happening to me, then I saw it happening to a sibling.
I learned that people are angry at me, anything could set them off, and my #1 job in life was to be invisible. I had lifelong depression and anxiety. It too years of therapy for me to get free of it. |
Anonymous
Also, we are all stressed out right now. A lot of people have stressful jobs and they still don’t throw things. Your husband isn’t responsible for his circumstances but he is responsible for how he reacts to them, and he is making a choice to react to them poorly. |
Anonymous
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Adult Child of an Alcoholic. My father was an angry, spiteful, verbally abusive drunk with violent tendencies.
I was a nervous wreck of a child-suffered from stress induced asthma and eczema. Constant anxiety and easy startled - something that continued into adult life. Diagnosed with (in order): bulimia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, PMS, PMDD, PPD, Panic Disorder, Depression. Therapies: counseling, outpatient therapies, meds, EMDR |
Anonymous
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PP 10:00
By the way, I’d like to think that I’ve broken the 4 generation cycle of addiction/alcoholism or at least am providing a generational respite. I’m a strident non drinker. I am a mom now and have blown up and had some tirades with them but I always apologize and talk to them about my behavior. I’ve learned coping mechanisms and one is to simply cool off solo, even if this means going to bed early or just being quiet. |
Anonymous
But if divorce, the child is then alone with the angry parent and without all the grown-up skills to protect themselves. |
Anonymous
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My mom was angry a lot when I was a kid - a lot of times because of stuff I did to set her off. I just remember there always being a lot of yelling, and also thinking that was normal. It took me a long time to realize that my own relationships didn't have to involve so much shouting. I think I messed up a lot when I was younger because I thought it was normal to be furious and loud so much of the time.
My mom is much less angry anymore. She and I get along very well now. She wasn't ever ever violent or anything like that - just, mad a lot. |
Anonymous
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It affected me a lot. And I have much stronger memories of my parents being angry than of the good stuff (and there was good stuff) because of the fear. I also have very vivid memories of being confused and never feeling sure of what to do because anything could provoke rage.
I’m certain my parents would also say it was situational, and that they were just responding to particularly stressful times in our lives. But first, kids don’t always understand where that stress is coming from, especially the financial and work stuff. And second even when they do understand, they will blame themselves. I spent many years as an adult feeling responsible for the moods of the people around me because I learned as a child that if people were unhappy, it was often my fault. I also have had depression and anxiety (well managed now, thankfully) since I was a teen. And finally, my relationships with both parents are very distant (my choice) because once I figured out through my own work on myself how my childhood impacted me, I had to maintain distance and employ detachment to keep myself from being triggered by my parents. Especially after I became a parent, I had to prioritize my well-being over those relationships, which I know is hard on my parents. I wish they had done their own work on themselves and addressed these issues before it was too late. |
Anonymous
| Please do something OP. Excessive anger in a caregiver can affect your under-5 (I'm assuming) children's developing brains. It may affect their responses to stressful situation for the rest of their lives. |