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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Last night DH said something really rude and thoughtless (and inaccurate!) related to our shared finances. The finances aren’t the point and they’re quite healthy, so I won’t go into tedious details.

In the course of this discussion, he became really rigid and stubborn and somehow flipped an insult he had lobbed at me into the conversation being all about his hurt feelings. He raised his voice and pouted and then stormed away not talking and spent the night on the couch.

[b]This is a pattern[/b]- he says something unkind, thoughtless or rude to me, escalates the situation when I tell him he can’t treat me like that, and then walks out of the situation, turns on the silent treatment and sulks around as if he’s the victim.

He absolutely can never be wrong and [b]I’ve seen him argue with our kids in the same stubborn way[/b]. Part of me thinks that whenever he realizes he’s behaving badly he deliberately tries to twist the situation to cover his shame/embarrassment and make me the bad guy. Is that a thing? Does it have a name?[/quote]

See the two parts in bold, OP. He's treating not only you but also the kids this way. They will grow up resenting him; or tiptoeing around dad out of fear of making him angry; or seeing what he models and doing this same toxic behavior themselves, and by the time they're adults, they won't see it and won't be able to change it easily.

Maybe (and it's only a maybe) if your DH can be self-aware when he's not angry and petulant (and yes, he's petulant and immature when he plays the victim and pouts!), there's a shot at talking to him when he has NOT just been pi$$ed off, and saying you want to talk about the dynamic you have as a couple and he has with the kids. But you would need to be ready with a script so you don't just put his back up and make him defensive, and then...petulant and immature DH pops out again.

The fact that this is a definite pattern in how he communicates (which is by not communicating at all) indicates it's ingrained and you need to see if you can get him to accept going to therapy, whether individual or couples I'm not sure. Maybe both. If you think he would flatly refuse therapy or even just a short-term couples communication course (like a premarital counseling course, such things do exist) -- you may have to double down on saying, "If YOU don't see a problem here, I do see one. And when one half of a couple sees a problem, there's a problem, even if the other half doesn't perceive it. If you won't go, and won't make a real effort at working with me on this as a team, I will reconsider how we go forward as a couple." I am NOT saying to divorce over this, OP! This can be fixable but if and only if he can step outside his own anger and ego enough to see the issue is going to make you dislike him and make his kids dislike/resent/fear him. [/quote]

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