I hope you don't mind me venting. I could use a friend to care. Venting to my husband is not helpful.

I've been volunteering at my church doing check-in for the children's ministry every other month. My husband had been out all day and when he got home I reminded him that I was back on duty the next day and needed to go to the early service. Well, he was offended that I hadn't told him earlier. He asked me how long I had known about this. He felt very disrespected. All he knew was that I had told him I was off last month. (It had been set up since the fall that I would do every other month, but we were separated at the time, so he wasn't on board. I moved out in mid-August and came back in mid-October.)

Then it occurred to me (We've been reading the Lovebusters book and working through HNHN) that I had not gotten his enthusiastic agreement about doing this volunteering in the first place, so I apologized and tried to ask him about how he felt about the whole idea of me volunteering there. He said he was still not having a good attitude and asked if we could talk about it in a half hour or tomorrow or sometime. I said okay, I understood, and started to write myself a reminder.

He then got all offended that I had not responded to him. I was confused. He said I not responded to which time I was going to get back to him and started into a tirade of disrespectful judgements that I can't even recall now. I responded by saying I was feeling attacked and was going to retreat. He then said that I was judging him by saying that.

Anyway, things spiraled from there and I ended up having an angry outburst and we did not end the evening well. I'm having a hard time responding well to when he starts to lecture me. Especially when it's after 11 p.m. Any advice?

Tell him that your volunteer work is off the table until you two agree for it to begin again, and you would like for him to approach you when he wants to agree to it, because you were wrong and it is off the table and you are sorry.

Also have you tried this?
Four Guidelines for Successful Negotiating

I would go back to him when things have calmed down and say I want to talk about my volunteering. Although I don't agree with how you said it, you were absolutely right that I should have shared the information about it with you earlier. Any activities we do should not be a surprise. Also, we should both agree that activity is something we are both on board about. I shouldn't take on a volunteering activity without making sure you are good with it, just like you wouldn't schedule a trip without making sure I am.


Then maybe another time discuss how you will discuss things that are Love Busters without Love Bustering.

Can I suggest a mechanism? When we hear about the activity, we discuss it and come to an agreement if we will take it on. Then we put it on the family calendar. That day we will try to remind the other person of the activity as well. Does that sound good or do you have another suggestion?

Why were you separated from August to October?