So it sounds like your DH has some gross notice/motor planning challenges. I imagine he felt bad about breaking your piece.

Anonymous wrote:You are exhausting. Anyone who says an ornamental watering can is “homed” somewhere is exhausting. I’m sure your husband is so sick of your demanding and persnickety demeanor. He knew you’d freak out. Why would you accuse him of doing it on purpose? Your poor husband.

My thoughts exactly.

Anonymous wrote:Does your husband usually break your stuff when he’s mad? This question wouldn’t even cross my mind if this happened at my house Bc DH never intentionally breaks my stuff. I’m confused by this whole interaction.

This

I'm good you guys. As I said in a follow up, I don't think he did it on purpose anymore. He was acting annoyed/angry, and in the moment, I thought he might have been angry with me. But most likely, he was probably just annoyed and angry with himself.

He's a naturally clumsy person (dropping things, bumping into things, hurting himself, spilling things). He doesn't see things normally, and struggles with some everyday things that everyone else takes for granted, and his default is to assume everyone is criticizing him (and 90% of the time they are not). And yes, he gets angry, but it is more just the frustration of the everyday - for example, he has trouble with mechanical things like opening packages - so after trying for 5 seconds to open the package, he will flip out and then just break it open with brute force. I mean, it's kind of comical.

And yeah - I recognize now that I assumed his annoyance and anger was about me when it has nothing to do with me, and I also recognize that I may do that as part of a pattern. We both come from abusive childhoods so it's probably just residual stuff from our early lives that colors our reactions.

There’s no way we internet strangers could gauge without knowing more about your DH’s personality and behavior in general, but it seems an odd thing to leap to. But in your subsequent post you mentioned (almost casually) that he often breaks things out of anger, so perhaps it makes more sense. What is clear is that your marriage has some real troubles.

You seem crazy. Why would someone's husband break something their wife loves, on purpose? Maybe he was thinking about how sorry he was and thought he'd said it. Why aren't you assuming the best of the person you married?

You are exhausting. Anyone who says an ornamental watering can is “homed” somewhere is exhausting. I’m sure your husband is so sick of your demanding and persnickety demeanor. He knew you’d freak out. Why would you accuse him of doing it on purpose? Your poor husband.

OP, your posts make me wonder if you ever learned about "I statements":

"I feel upset that you broke the watering can, which was important to me." (Instead of: "Are you mad at me?")

"I'm frustrated that you're not washing the vegetables." (Instead of: "You should wash the vegetables."

"Thomas Gordon developed the concept of an “I” statement in the 1960s and contrasted these statements to “you” statements, which shift blame and attributions to the listener. “I” statements enable speakers to be assertive without making accusations, which can often make listeners feel defensive. An “I” statement can help a person become aware of problematic behavior and generally forces the speaker to take responsibility for his or her own thoughts and feelings rather than attributing them—sometimes falsely or unfairly—to someone else."

(https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/i-message)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let’s all face it.

If he would have said: Ooops, oh shite I accidentally broke your favorite blah blah. I’m so sorry. Aargh.

You wouldn’t be on here posting and no one would be talking about it.

Normal responses to a long way.

Yes, exactly. That's all I would have expected, and I would not have been mad about it. If it were me that broke something of his, I'd be so apologetic and "oh my goodness, I'm so sorry" would be the first thing out of my mouth.

But I think I just have to keep reminding myself he just doesn't react the same way I do.

It's good that you've finally come to that conclusion, but since it took you so long to get there, you're *really* going to have to keep reiterating it to yourself *before* you react, as it seems your natural instinct with him is to react dramatically/over react... as the pp said "like his mother".

You need to readjust your expectations with him... you married him knowing that he was like this.

If you expect him to react the same way that you would, you'll be in a constant state of disappointment because he's not you.
Having expectations for anyone other than ourselves is unfair.

So now I’d she hears a crash, she’s not allowed to ask what happened? Walk on eggshells.

It should take 5 questions to get an answer to what crashed apart. How he chooses to respond is not normal. He’s almost trying to escalate a simple questions into an argument in order to avoid answering it entirely.

I doubt he was like that when dating.

Uh, sockpuppet much?

Egg shells?? lol
How would YOU know how he was while they were dating?
How would YOU know he's trying to escalate into an argument?

You're either sockpuppeting or really projecting your own feelings onto the OP right now, because your whole post is "not normal" and defensive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let’s all face it.

If he would have said: Ooops, oh shite I accidentally broke your favorite blah blah. I’m so sorry. Aargh.

You wouldn’t be on here posting and no one would be talking about it.

Normal responses to a long way.

Yes, exactly. That's all I would have expected, and I would not have been mad about it. If it were me that broke something of his, I'd be so apologetic and "oh my goodness, I'm so sorry" would be the first thing out of my mouth.

But I think I just have to keep reminding myself he just doesn't react the same way I do.

It's good that you've finally come to that conclusion, but since it took you so long to get there, you're *really* going to have to keep reiterating it to yourself *before* you react, as it seems your natural instinct with him is to react dramatically/over react... as the pp said "like his mother".

You need to readjust your expectations with him... you married him knowing that he was like this.

If you expect him to react the same way that you would, you'll be in a constant state of disappointment because he's not you.
Having expectations for anyone other than ourselves is unfair.

So now I’d she hears a crash, she’s not allowed to ask what happened? Walk on eggshells.

It should take 5 questions to get an answer to what crashed apart. How he chooses to respond is not normal. He’s almost trying to escalate a simple questions into an argument in order to avoid answering it entirely.

I doubt he was like that when dating.

If this is a pattern OP, read about NT/AS couple dynamics.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let’s all face it.

If he would have said: Ooops, oh shite I accidentally broke your favorite blah blah. I’m so sorry. Aargh.

You wouldn’t be on here posting and no one would be talking about it.

Normal responses to a long way.

Yes, exactly. That's all I would have expected, and I would not have been mad about it. If it were me that broke something of his, I'd be so apologetic and "oh my goodness, I'm so sorry" would be the first thing out of my mouth.

But I think I just have to keep reminding myself he just doesn't react the same way I do.

It's good that you've finally come to that conclusion, but since it took you so long to get there, you're *really* going to have to keep reiterating it to yourself *before* you react, as it seems your natural instinct with him is to react dramatically/over react... as the pp said "like his mother".

You need to readjust your expectations with him... you married him knowing that he was like this.

If you expect him to react the same way that you would, you'll be in a constant state of disappointment because he's not you.
Having expectations for anyone other than ourselves is unfair.

Anonymous wrote:He sounds immature and a sincere unprompted apology would have gone a long way, but you would do well to eliminate words like "pissy," unless, of course, your actual goal is to needle and annoy him and not to get an honest, positive response.

The reason to eliminate loaded words is due to the likely fact that HE CANT HELP HiS MANY ACCIDENTS.
He just isn’t going to suddenly grow up and be thoughtful or aware or remember stuff.
His mom probably has a litany of dumb stuff stories about him. Now you do too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Omg OP, I understand your reaction at being upset your watering can shattered, however you seemed to go from zero to 100 in thinking that he did it on purpose.

Are there parts of the story you left out that we need for context, because I cannot tell why you'd jump to such an irrational conclusion.

You said he was being "pissy", when was he acting like that? All week? All month? All year?

Yes, he should've apologized, because that's the right thing to do... but it was an accident.
We're human, accidents happen.

You have got to tell us why you'd make such an enormous leap from clumsy accident -------> to passive aggressively smashing your things??

Yeah after some reflection, maybe it was a bit of a leap. But he had a weird reaction earlier in the night too, with a similar air of indifference. I thought he may have been annoyed at me because he thought I was criticizing the way he does things.

For example, as we were preparing dinner, he's chopping veggies:
me: wait, did you wash that pepper before chopping?
dh: no
me: you just cut it dirty?
dh: yes
me: did you wash any of the veggies?
dh: no, i did not.
me: well, you know you're supposed to wash before you cut them
dh: <silence>

You sound like his mother.

He’s lazy, dumb, or selfish or all of the above.

His incapabilities are him being an @$$ or him having a learning disorder/ no common sense.

Hopefully nothing worse happens than dirty veg and broken heirlooms. Sorry.

OP, did you post about yelling, window breaking/falling out, and not knowing where your drivers license or cc were?