My husband and I have been married for four years. We are in a blended family. He has two children and i have two.

He is not physically abusive and does not damage property in anger. He is very intimidating when he is angry and I feel he has passive aggressive behavior and directs his anger at me (ie. yelling, nasty looks, cold shoulder, ignoring, unloving). I have told him it is ok for him to be angry but NOT ok for him to direct his anger at me.

This past weekend is the most recent example of his anger. He yelled at me and when I told him I was staying at a friends he chanted that he didn't care. He continually tells me that what I am doing is 'continuing the distruction of our relationship' and I feel he threatens leaving the relationship. I admit, I make mistakes (unfortunetly a lot of them) and by no means do I ever want to hurt him. His love is completely withdrawn. I have stayed the past two nights away as I do not want to be around his anger as I can feel his anger toward me and it is so uncomfortable.

Last night I had him care for my two children along with his one that lives in the home while I stayed out. One of my daughters told me he was mad when he found out that she was texting me. She is 13 and says that it was a look that he gave her that indicated he was 'mad'.

I don't know what to do. I don't want to go home but I don't want to be around him. I know if I ask him to leave it will make him even more angry. I love him deeply and do not want a divorce. I want my children to not go to their dad and tell him we are having marriage problems. I'm in so much conflict with my feelings but know I do not want to be at home when he is there. I miss home but don't want his anger directed at me. I don't want to pay to stay elsewhere as it will get really costly. I can stay at a friends house but do not want to overdue my stay.

Husband thinks I am the one with issues. That I am stuck on anger dealing with his adult daughter. I don't think I am stuck on her but more baffled by her choices. The marriage counselor we went to see backed him up in that I needed to get past it, however since my husband told me he is okay with what she does to him I have backed off. I only cared for his well-being and if he wants to be abused by her that is his problem to deal with now.

I have shared this program with him as I really would like to do the full program but he has not persued anymore than saying it looked like a good program and that he wanted to look at the bookstore for other ideas.

So I guess I come to.... what do i do tonight? He agreed to help take care of my kids (while I get help). Do I go home to protect them and endure the anger that fumes from him? Do I leave them there and I stay somewhere else, leaving my kids in a possible hostile situation due to his anger toward me? Do I take the kids and go stay somewhere else, making him more angry that I took them out of his care?

HELP!

Can i ask why you continue to do things you know cause him anger? There is no excuse for his anger, but do you purposely anger him? For example, why would a married woman stay with friends for the weekend?

How did you meet? Dd your relationship start as an affair?

I do not do things to anger him on purpose. I only do what I do because of my feelings. We met at church through a joint friend. We were both divorced. I am staying with friends because of his anger.

Have you ever asked his XWife her perspective on why their marriage failed?

Might be revealing if she divorced him due to his anger/outbursts/lovebusters.

You said he got angry as a reaction to your telling him you were staying at friends house for the weekend. Is that what brought his anger on?

His ex wife said he is controlling. So he goes off the handle if I ever say I feel that he is being controlling. His ex has her own issues. He says he has changed dramatically since his divorce. I can see that he is more gentle with his younger daughter. He is very loving toward his kids and that is one reason I fell in love with him.

It was not that I said I was going to stay at a friends house that made him angry. It is a continuing battle of him feeling disrespected and that I have not let his adult daughter go. To be short with the daughter issues, she struggles with not being put before me and feels that her son loves me more than her. If she doesn't get her way she alienates her dad. He is loving and communicates with her as she allows. He has always been there for her but will not pick her over me.

I hear his feelings of disrespect and learn from each time he shares his feelings. Many times he shares them in anger like I am doing them on purpose to disrespect him.

What things do you do that make him feel disrespected?

This sounds like a young lady who has learned to survive by manipulating those around her and a father who is handling this correctly.

Have you tried validating his feelings? It is perfectly normal to be upset when you feel disrespected. Anger is childish and always inappropriate but you might be able to guide him into a better way of expressing his feelings by giving him undivided attention when he talks.

Then at a neutral moment later on tell him how his anger causes you to flood and prevents you from hearing what he is saying.

He says my response of 'ok' and 'thanks for sharing' make him feel like i am saying he is an idiot and saying this is the way it is going to be so too bad. I had made a decision without him and recanted part of a chore on my daughter when he wasn't around. I agree that I should have spoken to him and I apologized. He feels disrespected a lot which makes me feel like I can never really please him. It is this sort of thing that he thinks I do over and over again because he feels I disrespect him. He says he has a hard time being the fun guy with my kids because he feels he is not respected by them when it comes to him telling them to do things. My kids listen to him well. Better than myself because he is scarier. He says he feels like he is taken advantage. I am boarderline ADD and not medicated. He sees the ADD in me with how I switch tasks in the middle of things and eventually get them done. He has told me things that are important to him like keeping the clothes off the couch (which i have done very well to remember), closing cabinet and closet doors (which i feel i have done very well), keeping the kitchen clean, removing clutter, sharing who i am texting with or talking to, sharing who i am going out with, sharing scheduling and random things that keep the 'team' informed on the family. I am not good at them all but i feel i have mastered the couch being kept clothing free and I try really hard to put the clothes away or only put them on my office chair if they need to sit for a bit. I have also focused on closing cabinets and doors and deal with that everyday. I know this sounds stupid but I am very scatterbrained and these things are not important to me so I have to constantly keep my mind on them. I forget a lot of things and he says that 'I forgot' does nothing for our relationship. If I leave a single dish (pampered chef stone) dirty on the stove for three nights he blows up on me and tells me how he is being disrespected. I had cleaned up everything else. I want to make him happy. I am feeling more controlled.

Yes, there is much more to the story here. I wouldn't say he is handling it all correctly but I am not allowed to have input on the matter. I feel he is doing what he can to have a relationship with her and the grandkids and keep me as his wife at a bare minimum. She has a cycle of shutting him out in some of the worst ways and then tip-toeing back into his life while never bringing up issues that need dealt with. She has done it multiple times since the four years we have been married and my husband tells me she did it before on other occassions. She has shut me out also and that does hurt. I miss the grandchild terribly. Husband says he is okay with her treating him terrible because he gets to see the grandkids. He does stand firm that he will not pick her over me and he will not ask me to leave the house for her to come over. He will go see her and keep me out of it to appease her and see the kids. It hurts but I know he just wants to have a relationship with them. I just think it is enabling. I know he loves her and the grandkids. He is really a loving father who only wants what is best for them. I feel he enables her to do it over and over but I have moved on since he is okay with her treating him that way. He believes I haven't moved on. It is not his daughter that is the issue, she is only a symptom of a greater issue between he and I. I do not feel I have unconditional love from him. He often says he is 'not going to have a relationship where....' and that my actions 'continue to be the distruction of our relationship'. I'm sure you can figure out the connection to the symptom.

I agree. He has a right to be upset and maybe even angry. I'm sure he feels violated. I am very open to hearing his feelings. As I said above, my response of 'ok' and 'thanks for sharing' are viewed as negative. I feel like I have to tip toe on eggshells with the words i use. I am working on listening. I have moved to taking notes when he speaks to me to distract me from wanting to defend myself. I can write down his thoughts and revisit them.

I have realized that there are two key things that I must work on. How I apologize and how I share my feelings. I have said 'I feel you are angry' and I have got to get it in my head that it should be more like 'when you are angry, i feel.....' It is coming to know the feelings I am having to be able to share them. I know i don't feel good! This must be why I like to write down and share things through email and text, because I can think through them more. These are the two challenges I am working through for myself. I just don't know if I can go stay at home and be in an environment where there is so much tension. I miss home and want to be home but I do not want to be around his anger.

Blended families are really really hard to deal with. You have to POJA every single issue all the time all day long.

How much of Marriage Builders have you read? The reason I ask this is because Dr Harley does not believe in the idea of 'moving on' or in 'unconditional love'.

He does have the right to be upset but he does not have the right to be angry. His upset should discussed openly and honestly before it gets to the angry stage.



Great stuff!

**edit**

I haven't read much of the marriage builders. I was trying to get him to do the program with me. He is saying to me that he doesn't think it will work. He tells me I am the one that needs to change.

I feel defeated. I don't have any more energy to put into making this work. I'm tired of feeling like my feelings do not matter in situations. I'm talking about the things that matter to me, not things like where we go to eat or the color of paint we put on the walls. I'm talking about things like doing this program where I have told him this is high in importance to me, but he knocks it down. Or parenting the kids. We both have the same vision but the execution is where we differ and my feelings are not considered as he feels the way he was raised is how it should be. It makes me feel like he is discounting the way i was raised and I didn't turn out too bad. But if you ask him, there are things he would change about me.

I just want to lock myself in a room and cry. Today, my depression is kicking into high gear. i don't like it.

Suggested truth telling:

I am rapidly losing any remaining love I have for you. Unless you agree to getting help for both of us, our marriage will end. I will not remain married to a man who does not care about my feelings. I know where we can get real help. I need help. Please, do this with me. I want to fall back in love with you.

Make an appointment with a 'MB' coach.

My husband and I have been married for 4 years and are a blended family. I feel my husband is abusive with angry outbursts and needs some major intervention with his anger.

Here is some background on the current situation.

My daughter (11yrs) almost missed the bus. His car was running and I asked him if he could run her to the next stop so she could catch it. He huffed and I said I would take her. He growled and said i will do it in a very snotty way.

I shut the door and called him a jerk (not where he could hear me) and his daughter 11 heard me(which I did not know she was in the room. She told him as soon as he walked in the door and he stormed upstairs to where I was (using the toilet)and bolted in the bathroom where he proceeded to tower over me (I am 5�6�155lbs, he is 6�4� & 320lbs), yell at me that I can call him any names I want to my friends but I am not to call him names in front of his daughter, tell me if I would make my children mind it wouldn�t be a problem and threaten that he is �this close� (I�m assuming to leaving).

I�m sure he was so loud in yelling at me that his daughter could hear downstairs. In my opinion it gives her the sweet satisfaction that she got me in trouble. From my perspective he was being a jerk. I could have called him much worse!! While I should not have done so within a possible earshot of his daughter, his actions were out of control.

Today I was talking to him on the phone and telling him that it was unacceptable to teach his daughter that it is okay to tattle on the other parent and show her that she can get me into trouble.

While his youngest has a controlled respect for me when her dad or I are with her, I know she does not respect me as a person and wife to her dad. His oldest (21) has zero respect for me and throws tantrums when she doesn�t get her way. (Kinda like my husband does) She will not allow me to touch her children and says that I undermine her and step out of line. I am not trying to be her mother and never care to be that figure in her life. I have tried to care about her and for her. She says that her son loves me more than her. There are lots of other issues there but the point is that his kids will never respect me as they grow older.

I told my husband that when he was yelling at me, he was verbally abusing me. He argued with me that it was not. He says he was frustrated and argued with me that if I would hold my kids accountable for things that wouldn�t happen.

We are going through the marriage builders coaching sessions and are awaiting scheduling our 4th appointment. I have filled out my questionnaires and sent them in. He is still working on his. It has been about a month since we had our last coaching session and we have not spoken about what we each heard in our individual coaching sessions as was requested by Steve. I did mention it to him today and he said yes, he does remember him saying we need to talk about what we heard and he needs to look at his questionnaires to make sure they are all done.

I don�t think I can continue in this marriage if he thinks his angry outbursts are okay and not abusive. Of all the lovebusters he does that is the worst and if he doesn't realize that is wrong behavior there is no way he will acknowledge the other ones. I know he has seen the videos. His ex wife says he was abusive (I�m not sure in what way) He has admitted to having anger issues in the past and he is much better now. He says his father had anger issues when he was growing up and he says he is nothing like him. (Scares me to think he could be worse)

I�m in such a tough spot. I want to work things out with him but I feel so distant from him. I want to be with him but I want to avoid him. How am I going to be able to give him what he needs if I hurt so badly and what he does pushes me away more? I don�t see my lovebusters being eliminated. How do I eliminate his lovebusters if that is the case?

Wipedout, welcome to the MB forums. I'm glad to hear that you are being counselled by Steve. I'm assuming you and your H have discussed your H's anger issues with Steve? Has your H considered anger management counselling?

Tell us about the beginnings of your marriage. How did the two of you meet? Were either of you legally married to anyone else when you starting dating?

Tell us about the kids: how many, whose are they biologically, how old are they? Is the 21 yo and her child living with you?

I'm sorry there are so many questions, but if you could flesh out your sitch a little we might be able to help you better.

Are the two of you able to talk about your communication issues when you're both calm, without allowing it to blow up into an argument?

What have you told Steve about your husbands anger? What has he told you in response?

Suggested reading:
When To Call It Quits Letter 2
How to Overcome Lovebusters
What to Do With a Controlling Husband Letter 1

What to Do With a Controlling Husband Letter 2
Angry Outbursts Letter 1
Angry Outbursts Letter 2
Domestic Violence Letter 1

Domestic Violence Letter 2
Domestic Violence Letter 3
How to Overcome an Abusive Marriage Letter 1
How to Win Back a Wife Who Has Fled to a Shelter
How to Win Back a Husband Who has Been Driven Away by Abuse
Am I Trivializing the Term Abuse
What to do With an Alcoholic Husband who is Abusive
Why Do People who Love Each Other Fight So Much?
What to do with an Angry Husband

You are right. You will not be able to continue. Read this from Dr. Harley:


Unless your husband eliminates his angry outbursts, your marriage will not survive.

No we have not gotten to that topic. He does not always display his anger but pretty much chapter 2 of LoveBusters says it all about him.

He doesn't acknowledge he has anger issues

We met through a mutual friend. We attended the same church. He had been divorced for about 6 months. I had been divorced for 4 years.

He has two and I have two. None together. All girls. My two are 11 and 13. His are 11 and 21. My two live with us full time and visit their dad every other weekend. His 11 year old is with us a week on and a week off but we see her every week on Monday's and Wednesday's and she sees her mom ever Tuesday and Thursday. The 21 year old is not living with us. She is married to her secon husband and her husband was just deployed yesterday. She has two children by separate fathers. The first was injured from shaking and now the father is serving time. I did not initially try to bond with her first born as she has a sick cycle of hurting those around her but when he was injured I came to my husbands side and bonded with him. In my opinion she is toxic. She has alienated me and her sons paternal biological family even though they stood by her when he was injured. I also found out that her new in-laws are not on speaking terms with her and their son because of her. She doesn't have many friendships and seems to only have her parents by her side. She has told her dad he needed to pick between her and myself and she says that I am selfish for not leaving the house so she can come and visit. She is mad at me for redoing a dresser for her sister that she was wanting to do for her unborn baby.

Please ask away. I could write a book about all my issues.

No we can not communicate about anything we differ on. He is very judgemental and controlling. I tend to withdrawal. I hide the fact that I am so withdrawan on the inside. I am trying to meet his needs and eliminate lovebusters but it is all at my own expense.

You need to prepare for a separation then, because this is not going to get better. I am sorry.

You need to talk to Steve about this now. This problem must be solved first before anything else can be.