<img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" /> My husband of ten years has a hard time dealing with my past relationships. And I don&#8217;t have a bad past. But I was with other men before him (2). But since the day we met I have been 100% faithful to him. I couldn&#8217;t have found a better match. But now I don&#8217;t know. He will get mad at me for something small then all of the sudden all these other thoughts will come into his mind. He thinks that I have cheated on him, that I want to be with other men. That I can&#8217;t tell him the truth about anything. And I tell him to ask me anything and I will answer. So he does and I do and then he says I am lying, that he knows how I am and how I was. He becomes so hateful. He says the meanest things that a husband can say to his wife. He even said last night that he hates me and wished he never even met me. He was at work so then he will hang up and then call back again yell hang up and call back. All day long all I did was cry and for what? Nothing because I have never been unfaithful to this man or even thought about it. But he thinks every time I look at someone is because I want to be with them. Because of the music I listen to means I want something from men. I just don&#8217;t know what to do. Some times I think I should just grab our son and run away. And never look back. What should I do? And he never wants to be wrong so I can&#8217;t really talk to him, and when I start to raise my voice he gets mad and tells me not to scream. I can&#8217;t win with him. And this has been going on for so long. I am going crazy. He is so nice and sweet and caring for awhile then one small thing can set him off&#8230;. I get scared to say or do anything around him. If I sit he says I should stand if I stand I should be sitting&#8230;. Help!
<img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" />

Dear Junior's Mom,

Welcome to MB.

Often, in an abusive relationship, the abusing spouse has found a line of reasoning that is successful in engendering guilt, or at least an emotional respons, in the abused spouse.

I suggest defining the problem as your husband is being verbally abusive.

There are several threads under Resolving Conflicts, that deal with verbal abuse.

Basically pre-planning a breather time, if things have gone too far, is one strategy. Another strategy is changing the subject. Another strategy, is to ask the abusing spouse to be more polite and loving.

There are already plenty of ideas here.

First you need to build your own self-esteem, so that you can relize that your nasty spouse is the one who needs to change. The change you need to make is to find ways to protect your self image, and how to stimulate change for your verbally abusive spouse. Click on Jade72, under the thread entitled Handling Anger, Stemming Verbal Abuse and Avoiding Chaos. Click on View recent Posts, or do a search with her member number. Jade72 has many helpful references in her posts.

First breathe deep, and realize that you are not the bad person in the marriage.

Let us readers know how you are doing. Keep posting back until you get your marrige in good shape.

Quipper
Husband of 28 years, raised 2 challenging kids, still struggling

<small>[ November 08, 2003, 07:46 PM: Message edited by: Quipper ]</small>

Hello Junior. Please know that you are not alone. As you can see from my previous posts there are a lot of us in this boat. As I was told and truly believe, some sort of counseling must be imposed, otherwise it will only get worse. There had to be a trigger for his feelings all of a sudden, a good counselor could find this out easier than you trying to get it out of him. Being a man he's probably not going to come out and just say it. He may not even know himself why he feels this way now. Keep posting it will help.

Alex

Juniors mom

Going out on a limb her but, did your husband know about your past relationships before you were married?

I acted much the way your husband is acting now, and it led to some very hard times. Eventually, I got the worst wake-up call imaginable... my wife had an affair (NO MATTER WHAT, DON'T GO THERE!). Yes, it was a wake-up, but I'd much rather have had a friend, family-member, clergy, ANYONE tell me what an @**hole I was being and slap some sense into me.

<small>[ November 08, 2003, 07:57 PM: Message edited by: Mortimer ]</small>

Juniour Mom

My wife and I have gone through the same thing. I was never abusive to my wife though. I too wished at times that I had never married her, but that was my anger speaking not my heart. I knew in my heart I loved my wife and wanted to nothing to tear her down.I think your husbands problem is more of a control problem than a problem with your past. It took my wife and I over two years to work through things. Our problem was even though I knew about it before we were together we never talked through any of it. We buried in our heads and moved on which was a mistake. In the end I needed to know from my wife that she felt shame and regret for her past. Once she expressed that on her won my attitude started changing.
I think you husband needs counseling, and if he doesn't want to get it I would find somewhere else to stay until he can control his abuse.
Good luck!

The oldest daughter is 12. We have taken all the courses you can imagine. My wife took a course the daughter took 2 course. My wife and I took a 16 week course....one day a week for 16 weeks. These methods don't seem to work. She has expensive psychologists and psychiatrists. i figure all she needs is a good kick in the @ss...I think she has an antisocial personality just like her bio dad. I am never one to judge but this situation is putting me over the edge.

I will look carefully at the 180 thanks for the advice.