How to handle fallout from husbands angry outburst
Yesterday morning, my husband left his razor on the bathroom counter next to my lotion and when I put my hand down, I cut my hand. I yelled, and he asked what was wrong, and I said, “you left your f*cking razor on the counter and now my hand is bleeding”
His face changed immediately and he started yelling at me and stomping toward me and he had this scary angry look in his eyes. He stopped about a foot away from me. The thing that set him off he said was the fact that I cursed at him. I do have a cursing problem and I’m trying to work on it, he says I curse at him a lot. Idk that’s kind of how my family always talked and it’s a hard habit to break.
He also then started blaming me for cutting my own hand on the razor that he left on the counter. And then the the next 20 minutes was just a series of rants about random stuff. He said I was disrespecting him in front of our kids, treating him like he’s a piece of shit, treating him like he’s my slave (?? The man does maybe one chore a day if I remind him five times). Said a bunch of nasty stuff. I had asked him to take out the garbage and he said something about me being disgusting that I didn’t hear.
A couple minutes in, he was just so relentlessly screaming at me that I started crying and asked him to please stop yelling. He wouldn’t stop and in fact, me crying made him more angry. I just kept crying and saying please stop. I told him that he could stop yelling at me and I would just leave so he wouldn’t have to deal with me. At some point, he slammed the bathroom door so hard that we almost had to break it to reopen it. My contact lenses were in the bathroom and I couldn’t see anything so I kind of had to calm down to get my stuff from the bathroom, but I kept saying that he could stop yelling at me because I was just going to leave.
He immediately got calm and said OK you’re being hysterical, let’s just de-escalate. There’s no reason to leave. But I was still upset so I said over and over again that I needed him to please stop and I would leave and I just wanted to take the baby with me. He then picked up our daughter and I asked him to please just put her down and he said that he was going to change her and get her dressed to go out.
I didn’t feel at any point like he was going to hurt the baby, but I did feel like he was doing this because he knew that I wouldn’t leave without her.
He asked me where I was going to go and I said I might go to target and to my moms and he said something about how I was just going to go talk shit about him to my mom, and that made him angry too
I just stood my ground, and even though I was still crying, he did put the baby in the car seat for me and I left with her. He continued saying nasty stuff to me as I was crying and leaving.
He then started texting me that it was wrong for me to leave and that it wasn’t fair to him and our daughters for me to just walk out. I told him I was absolutely always going to leave a situation where I felt scared and I would teach the girls to do the same thing.
A few minutes later he called me crying. Apparently after I left, my 15 y/o stepdaughter, who is in the next room and heard all of this, she lectured him and I have no idea what she said. But he called to apologize and said he was sorry he scared me and that he would go to anger management.
He has had outbursts before but nothing like this to where I actually felt scared.
The rest of the day he just acted like nothing had happened. Today he’s acting like nothing happened. I’m having flashbacks to all of the awful things he said to me yesterday and I just feel empty and confused.
He says he will go to relationship counseling but I feel like all the work of scheduling and finding a therapist is going to be placed on me and that’s not fair.
I really don’t know what to do. I do want to stay married to him because these are blips in an otherwise very happy life.
For context, the kids in the situation are my 15 year old stepdaughter who was in her bedroom next to us and my 4 month old daughter who was in her crib in the same room as us.
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I would say try and give it another chance and take his word about going to anger management and relationship counseling. If you otherwise have a happy marriage then it's worth giving it another shot, remember that every couple fights.
I would definitely put the work of finding a therapist on him.
Give him timelines on when you want him to have an anger management class and therapist.
I’m sorry this happened to you, it sounds terrible and traumatic; no one would blame you for leaving him.
I don't want to seem insensitive bc nobody should be scared of their partner/spouse. However, I will say that I have yet to find someone in a quote on quote perfect marriage or relationship. From my experience, couples sometimes argue, fight, (not physical) sometimes say or do things in the heat of an argument that they other wise wouldn't. I am a believer that actions speak louder than words. I also believe in second chances. I've needed second chances before. I personally would see if he is trying to better himself, find therapy, or what not, not going off on bursts of anger, showing self control, etc. I've noticed that it seems to be harder for men to ask for help. So maybe you can gently remind him that there's nothing wrong with needing help with anger management or whatever. I wish you the best of luck!
Get both of you into therapy now! Just you if he won't go. Look up narcissism. Figure out if he is a narcissist or if he is able to change. Read "Why Does He Do That" by Lundy Bancroft. Make an informed decision on who your partner really is. BTW I hate it when my man cusses around me but I certainly don't yell him out for doing so.
This is not ok. At all. I get wanting him to get help and all but you also need to focus on you and baby. If he goes and does the work, great! But I also want you to be aware and cautious going forward.
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