I am trying to figure out if I am the victim of verbal abuse, or if I'm just a crazy whining partner. I have been with my husband for 4 years and we have always seemed to love each other dearly. We still have amazing sex almost daily, we hang out together, but there is one problem. He can be very aggressive and angry in the way he communicates. He can be very negative and complains about he many problems with life almost every day. Sometimes it can be very draining to be around. At the beginning of our relationship he became a few times while we were traveling together. I became very sick with food poisoning and this seemed to anger him very much. He acted like I was disgusting, and when I started to cry and ask him how he could be so cold to me when I had no control over my sickness, he left me angrily, lying in the hotel room to go and drink beer. ANother time I was sad and had apparently been whimpering and crying in my sleep. This made him very angry and he said (totally our of character for him) while half asleep "shut the F*%$ up! You are so annoying! Shut up or I'll shut you up myself!" When I got up in the morning I proceeded to pack my things, assuming that it was over, after all I wasn't going to be treated this way. He actually thought he could justify himself for saying these things to me, and then all of a sudden started apologizing, as he noticed that I was planning on leaving. This led to him crying, and saying he didn't mean it etc.. etc... So you can see how this is confusing for me.
When we fight, it is usually because he is mean and bullying to me and then I react and get very sad. This makes him very angry and he usually ALWAYS states that "you don't even hear the original issue that we are fighting about, only my harsh mean words. This isn't fair to me."
So, this issue is, he yells, I cry, he then yells at me for crying, saying that I am overly sensitive and that he is SICK of always being "the bad guy" and always having to "apologize". But ALL I ask for is to be treated with respect. I feel that 90% of the fights occur because of the way he communicates with anger. I have been in relationships for years where I have hardly ANY disagreements or fights, so I sort of feel like it is my partner who causes most of them. Last night I was in a sad mood and needed to cry a little. You know that feeling when you are sad, and if someone takes you in their arms, then it's very easy to just lose yourself and burst into tears. Well, this happened. My partner became upset that I was crying, assuming it was something he did. I told him it wasn't, and that I didn't know exactly why I was sad. This angered him and he became argumentative about how I couldn't explain myself properly. He repeatedly told me to "stop crying" and said "I'm NT fighting with you! I'm SICK of this Sh%t!" he yelled and seemed to bully me into explaining myself, and so this only made me cry even harder. I only wanted to be held and consoled, but I felt that he immediately just made the situation much sadder. It ended up turning into a huge ordeal, and when I asked him "why can't you just be nice to me? Please, it's all I wanted in the first place" he immediately said "All you ever do is point out my faults and bad qualities. I'm SO sick of this, this is SO Fuc$&d!"
And so I ended up being more sad. He then said (in a very ANGRY yelling voice) "WHY CAN'T WE JUST CUDDLE AND GET ALONG?! This is bull****! I'm trying to make this work, and you are lying there cold and whimpering! I don't want to fuc#%&$ fight!!"
so I ended up being the bad one for not accepting his nice (angry) way of trying to reconcile things. This morning was terrible when we woke up. My eyes were practically swollen shut from crying so hard and I barely slept. He yelled at me again "this is Bull****!! Why do we do this to each other?!! This relationship is ****ty!"
so my dilemma is this. I feel that he argues, and yells and screams, and then says things like "why does this have to happen!!??? This is not what I want! I want to be happy!"
it's like he cannot take responsibility for his anger and harsh words. He blames me equally for the fighting, as I make him angry. HELP ME. I feel like I am going CRAZY!! I feel like whenever I try to tell him how he hurts me, he CONSTANTLY just keeps saying "YOU'RE ALWAYS MAD AT ME! YOU ALWAYS COMPLAIN ABOUT ME! I'M SICK OF ALWAYS HAVING TO APOLOGIZE FOR EVERYTHING!'
my husband isn't much like that but he is similar he hates when i cry and saids im so ****ing annoying and i need to grow up and be more mature he saids i cry over nothing and he gets so upset with me and saids how annoying it is to sit there and watch me cry. from all the other stuff you said i wouldn't really call it verbal abuse i just think he has an anger problem just like my husband he is in the military and it has changed him so much he is now more strict and very agressive and mad all the time. he has sat me down and cried about how he hates how mean he is to me and how the military has changed him and he wishes it didn't make him so mean. im not sure a soulution to the problem becuz im still going through it but just want you to know you are not alone.
he has an anger problem closely followed by a remorse problem. and that is confusing and unfair. he needs to work on the front end so he doesnt need to employ the back end so much.
frankly, i dont know how expects to sustain a relationship with you acting as you describe
When I hear about or see men who are like this I almost always come to the same conclusion - that they are so un-skilled in handling displays of emotion that they are in fact terrified of all emotion. From that perspective one can have some compassion for these damaged souls who are struggling mightily with the fact that they are missing a huge portion of being human. It is as if they are walking through life with half of themselves cut out.
I doubt you will get much mileage out of a decision that you are a victim of verbal abuse. Your husband's behavior sounds pretty awful and frankly rather unbearable to me, but you are the one who is married to him.
Given that, I would suggest that it is to you to decide if you are going to help him recover his humanity, and if, in so doing, you are to claim your own power to create a strong marriage built on the foundation of partnership.
Verbal abuse never usually stops at that. If it goes on for long enough it can erode your self esteem and make you feel worthless. Eventually you will start believing that you deserve everything that is being thrown your way and of course this is never true. The longer you allow him to do this to you the more he will do it and increase the intensity. You need to stand up for yourself and set boundaries for acceptable behavior. If there are children involved and they are witness to this behavior, they can be influenced more than you'll ever know. I've been through 25 years of this incidious behaviour and only just started to wake up now. My boys are 18 to 25 and believe me stayiny together for the kids sake takes on a new meaning when they are being exposed to their mother being verbally abused. They mirror the behavior they live and that never has a good outcome. Hope this helps
He sounds a little immature, I use to be like that in my 20s until I realized how ridiculous it made me look. I still get like that occasionally, while doing really stressful home repairs but I dont turn it towards people around me.
My husband is the same, although great in other ways, he just gets crazy when he feels out of control, including when I cry. One time he was yelling because I broke a cup. Really, really, silly thing. My first response was to cry and run away. He followed me and started to yell at me some more about how clumsy I am. I was like, wtf??? I'm here crying, the world is falling down around me (not really), where's the loving sweet supportive husband I need right now?
Anyways, he yelled some more and I cried some more, demanding respect and telling him that I am a clumsy girl and if he didn't like it, he can leave. That didn't work. He yelled some more. lol...What did work is we went to see a counselor about our communications skills. He realized he yells at me because that's what happened to him when he was kid. His mother used to yell when she felt out of control.
He's still scary angry sometimes, but he doesn't direct it towards me. I learned he's really not angry at me and I just calmly walk away and grab one of his favorite beers. I figure sooner or later he'll learn that when he yells, I drink his beer. Really, get some counseling. Too much drama to live with. Him yelling, you crying....
I don't know if it's actual verbal abuse (sounds very much like it, though), but even if it's not, it's a complete and total lack of respect for you, lack of caring and concern for you.
I saw nothing in what you wrote that would justify his getting that angry. It seems to be he has an anger management issue, and has no respect for you. He knows he can get away with treating you this way (because he has been so far), so he does it.
Stand up to him. The next time he starts talking to you that way, tell him that you are not going to tolerate it. Walk away from him if he won't stop. Repeat that you won't tolerate being talked to that way.
If he really won't stop, then you need to decide if you're going to live this way for the rest of your life or not. Do you really want to live knowing that if you cry, you'll get yelled at? I wouldn't. I'd rather be alone than have a "partner" who yells at me for having emotions. And for the record, I wouldn't call him a partner. Part of being a partner is to support the other person, and he's not doing that.
When I hear about or see men who are like this I almost always come to the same conclusion - that they are so un-skilled in handling displays of emotion that they are in fact terrified of all emotion. From that perspective one can have some compassion for these damaged souls who are struggling mightily with the fact that they are missing a huge portion of being human.
Given that, I would suggest that it is to you to decide if you are going to help him recover his humanity, and if, in so doing, you are to claim your own power to create a strong marriage built on the foundation of partnership.
This is beyond verbal abuse. It's threatening. "Shut up or I'll shut you up myself!" What decent human being threatens someone they allegedly love? Especially when that person is obviously ill! He's abusive, cruel, and manipulative. "you don't even hear the original issue that we are fighting about, only my harsh mean words. This isn't fair to me." See? This is not an apology. It's an accusation. Even his tears are manipulative B.S. "
All you ever do is point out my faults and bad qualities. I'm SO sick of this, this is SO Fuc$&d!"
And so I ended up being more sad. He then said (in a very ANGRY yelling voice) "WHY CAN'T WE JUST CUDDLE AND GET ALONG?! This is bull****! I'm trying to make this work, and you are lying there cold and whimpering! I don't want to fuc#%&$ fight!!" There is no remorse here, no empathy. Your illness is not valid, your needs and opinions aren't valid. Your pain is not valid. He wants what he wants and that's it. He's got serious issues, IMO.
It sounds like abuse to me. As unbelievable stated - he has no empathy, a typical abuser trait. My husband sounds very much like yours - the daily negative/anger over small things that we all understand and don't get upset about, e.g. traffic.
Set boundaries with him, that you won't be treated that way.
Also worth reading up about verbal/emotional abuse and angry men.
Even though the original post is very old, undoubtedly, someone will read this having experienced similar occurrences-- feeling crazy, not really understanding what's happened, feeling sad although wondering why, feeling abused although not being able to explain the exact form of abuse. It's called narcissism and will deplete the affected. Read all you can about it and you will come to know that you are not crazy and will understand the tactics used to bring you down.
You both need communication skills. Ask him to go to a marriage counselor with you. If he doesn't like the idea...then go without him. He needs to figure out how to deal with things without yelling. And you need to figure out how not to cry about everything and just have a discussion.
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Am I going through verbal abuse? 
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