We had a very very bad day a few days ago. I don't know precisely what brought it on, but H and I have been using our diaries at the weekend to decide which nights we will have together and which he will have to himself (and I GAL). The aim here was to meet his needs for solitude in the home, mine for GAL, and ours for some time together. It seemed to be working okay. On one of the evenings that was 'ours' he said he wanted to get in bed with me and watch a film. I had some work to finish off so I went upstairs and got on with that and he said he'd be up at 9pm. At 9.50 I went downstairs and he was playing on his computer game, and as I thought he might have expected me to come and get him when I'd finished his work, I said, 'are you coming up?' and he turned off his computer and he did.
He got into bed and I could see from how he was moving that he was quite drunk. I asked him what film he had in mind and he ignored the question and started talking to me about feeling constrained, suffocated, unhappy in our house and our marriage. I validated and asked him if he just wanted to do his own thing instead. He ignored the question and basically spent an hour unloading on me. It reminded me so so so much of how it was early in our separation - when I did see him during that time he used it as an opportunity to just verbally savage me - he can be so mean and cruel - and it was like that again. It was hard to really make much sense out of what he was saying, but his general points seemed to be that he felt disrespected, unimportant, that he felt I didn't consider him when making decisions, that he felt his relationship with Eldest was irreparably damaged, that he felt all the decisions I made around the kids (he was giving examples of fairly basic day to day stuff, like their chores and their homework schedules and after school activities) weren't for their benefit, but to make sure my friends thought I was a good parent because all I cared about was what other people thought of me (?) and various spewing amongst those lines. I listened for about an hour, saying very little. He'd now and again ask a question of an argumentative and leading type, 'don't you think that...' but not stop to draw breath or let me answer, then carry on arguing on his own as if the answer he imagined I would give had displeased him. After about an hour of this I suggested that it was late, and perhaps it was better picked up some other time once we'd had some sleep. He then started doing nasty impressions of me crying and wailing and begging for him to stop being mean to me (I was doing none of those things - I was calm and quiet and saying very very little) and so I left the room.
I stayed downstairs crying for a long time. I was extremely upset and confused. He's been saying, more and more, how much better things feel, and how much more space and respect he feels he has in our relationship, and how the parenting and his relationships with the kids feels so much better than it ever has, and how he's looking forward to our future and enjoys our friendship. So I was totally confused by what he was saying. I also had no idea what had triggered it: when I got back from work earlier that evening I jumped in the shower and he came with me - which is something we used to do together a lot and hardly ever do now. It was nice. What happened between then and him coming upstairs to verbally abuse me I have no idea. I did ask him what had triggered these feelings, but he was just so angry and ranty there was no sense to be had out of what he was saying.
I had a very sleepless night. Things were calm enough in the morning and I went off for work. I know he felt sorry about his behaviour as he offered to drive and collect me from work (he's an acts of service man). I felt like I'd been emotionally beaten up and it took me right back to how it was around BD time and in our separation.
I gathered myself and the day after asked to speak to him. I don't know if this is good or bad DBing but I said
1 - I was happy to listen to his feelings, even if they weren't all hearts and flowers, and I acknowledge that our past had hurt him and the effect of that was not going to disappear overnight. 2 - there was a difference between expressing difficult feelings and verbal abuse, and he had crossed the line and it was entirely unacceptable - and whatever justification he felt he had for it was irrelevant to me - in my eyes there was no justification at all and I didn't want to hear his excuses 3 - if he ever was deliberately cruel and nasty to me like that again I was done. That I was never ever going to be subject to him not being able to control himself again - and that if he wasn't able to drink without getting nasty, then he had to decide what was more important to him, drinking or having a home and a place in the family 4 - if he had an issue with anything in our marriage - parenting, money, sex, free time - anything at all - then I wanted to hear about it, and I wanted to build a life that suited us both. But he was responsible for asking for what he wanted, and asking for it without abuse. And if he couldn't learn to do that he needed to re-enage with his therapist, or get out as for me, being safe from his verbal abuse was more important than anything else.
He did try to come back at me with some excuses for his behaviour - these were largely about bringing up times from our past (well over two years ago) when I'd been upset and unreasonable towards him. I cut him off and said I wasn't interested in that any more. That if he felt the past was good ammunition for justifying abuse in the present, I'd never have let him back in the house. I used the word 'abuse' which I know enrages him, but I was past caring and I wanted him to know I would call it what it was.
He did apologise, but I could tell he was angry and resentful about it.
I've been generally taking my space since then. I believe he was a) drunk and blue because he was drunk and b) he'd got drunk because he didn't want to hang out with me but didn't know how how to break our arrangement without risking me being disappointed and c) he was worried I would expect sex and because of the drinking he'd be unable and I'd be disappointed. This man is so sensitive to criticism that even if he imagines a mildly disappointed expression on my face, he comes out fighting, and I believe that was what was happening.
A lot of his discomfort is about him feeling like he has no control and not respected enough in the house and not given enough space (or that's what he used to say around DB time and that's what his drunken ranting the other night was about). I believe I have done 180s in a number of areas that address these things, but if there's something specific that isn't working for him, he needs to articulate it clearly and he knows that is my position and that I am willing to listen if he has specific requests. I believe he feels that because I refuse to listen to whining, blame and verbal abuse, I am cutting him off - when I tell him I will listen to him, he points out the times I leave the room when he speaks, and he doesn't seem to understand that when he's rude, blaming, sarcastic or mean I leave the room, but when he says, 'this isn't working for me. When you do X I feel Y and please instead can we have Z' that I am all ears and a co-operative and collaborative partner.
I am actually really furious with him and disappointed by him. His drunken teenage ranting and fight-picking is also really unattractive to me. But more than that, I am annoyed with myself for lying there and allowing it. I thought I was past that. I did have a boundary not to be around him when he drinks - he isn't a big drinker most of the time, but when he is stressed he drinks more, and drinking seems to make him more self-pitying and blaming then he already is, and I don't care to be about that. I wish I had made an excuse when I saw the state he was in and went off and read a book in the bath or something until he'd fallen asleep.
