I agree he could use IC. He went for a while, then ended it over text. I don't know what they discussed and he won't go again. I met her, and she was a direct woman, and when I did meet her I told her that the way he treated me when he was angry (and I described it directly and honestly) was a massive issue for me. I don't know if she challenged him on it or not. I do know he really really didn't want me to go for a joint session with him.
He doesn't think he has a problem. When he's calm, he'll say what he needs to work on is standing up for himself more and making sure he has more time alone. He never says that he feels he needs to work on his anger or the way he speaks to me when he is angry. His general opinion is that if I behaved better, and I got Eldest to behave better, then he'd have no reason to be angry. This is abusers 101 and I know it.
Things I have tried - other than just getting out of the room:
Telling him it hurts me and makes me feel unloved. His response when angry is to mock me and laugh. When he's calm, he'll say well he feels unloved when I don't do what he wants me to do, that I don't give him enough time alone, that I bring it on myself.
Recording him. I did try this May! He became very odd, and started 'performing' into the phone, outlining for an imaginary audience everything he thought was wrong with me (I'm damaged, I'm messed up, etc etc.) I deleted the recording unlistened to because I couldn't bear to put myself through it again.
Asking him, in calm moments, if he would consider seeing a doctor for stress and anxiety (which felt like less confrontational ways of saying 'anger management issues'). His response: he wouldn't be stressed if I didn't do the things he didn't want me to do.
Trying logic. 'If you're not responsible for your behaviour when you're angry because I make you angry, does that not also apply to Eldest and to me? When Eldest speaks disrespectfully and slams doors, do we allow him to blame his behaviour on you or me or Youngest because he's angry with us? If I act badly, does that suddenly become okay because you've made me angry? Are you the only one who gets a carte blanche on this?'
Also, along the same lines, asking him to get control of himself when he's ranting. He'll tell me he is perfectly in control, and I say well then you need to choose better and be responsible for your choices. Then he'll say I'm making him do it. I say if I have that power, I'd now like to 'make' you speak to me with respect and in a solution focussed way, and he'll laugh at me. I don't bother trying to be rational with him when he's ranting any more. It's like trying to reason with a three year old.
Telling him I struggle to respect him or feel love for him, and struggle to want to be intimate with him, when I have all the ways he's treated me in anger and the fact that he's perfectly okay with treating me that way, and holds me responsible for both causing it and stopping it. He shrugs and tells me he's perfectly okay with keeping himself to himself. I am not saying I with-hold sex - I'm the HD partner - but I do tell him that when he initiates, all I can think about is his angry face. He tells me fine, he won't initiate then, and he generally doesn't.
Challenging him. When he's given me a compliment and seems in a good mood I have tried responding with 'no, you don't think I'm a good mum. You think I've damaged our children and you believe I'm just like my violent and abusive father, despite the fact I don't shout at them and have never laid a hand on them in my life,' or 'no, you don't admire my success at work. You think I'm a failure and that I'm brain-dead.' He will generally roll his eyes and claim I am picking a fight and the discussion then becomes about my inability to take a compliment and experience love because of how messed up I am, rather than the way his nasty words sit around in our marriage and he is unwilling to take them back or apologise for them.
Threatening to leave him if it happens again. He's told me to go ahead, and nobody is making me stay in the house. Asking him if he'd consider going back to the flat he rented while we were S. He says he's not being separated from Youngest and his home because I can't cope with him having opinions.
I've told him he's hurting the children. He says he only gets angry when I am in the room, and if I leave there's nothing for the children to see. (This is true and I do this most of the time.) I've said he's trashed his relationship with Eldest and as the parent and the adult he needs to show some love to start mending bridges. He says he's not doing that until and unless Eldest gives a full and detailed apology for all of his behaviour starting in year 7. It is a ridiculous thing to want and makes me feel contempt for him.
I've asked him if we can have a solution focussed conversation about the issues that are important to him (laying aside anything I want or feel about his angry behaviour.) I've told him it is important to me that he feels respected and that he gets what he needs in our marriage. Even if I come to him calmly and when he is calm, he will generally roll his eyes, get sarcastic, tell me I am taking too long to say what I am trying to say, time me using his mobile phone ('you get three minutes of my time, talk quickly...') or say he isn't engaging with me to solve it because then I will use that to expect a similar response to any issues I have, and that it is manipulative behaviour.
Addressing it - for four years now - with an IC. Working on super tight boundaries. Looking at what is left between us when I do keep these boundaries. Asking myself if the remnants of a marriage like this is enough. Learning it is not.
Sage - I need to sit with your question. I think in the end the answer is no. I am furious with him today and I am out of ideas. I don't feel trapped but I also have no wish to try anything I've tried before, nor do the work of being his emotional punch bag. I'm mainly angry with myself for sitting there and taking it - I think talking on here about boundaries and realising that my boundaries were so high they were probably acting as an obstruction to the intimacy I wanted made me drop it a little with him, and sit in the room when ordinarily I wouldn't have done. I don't think he feels listened to, and I wanted to give him some room to be listened to as a first step. It was a terrible idea and kind of underlined to me that I need those super-high boundaries of mine. That he is not a person who deserves to have my heart.
Today, I feel like I am pretty much done. What that might look like right now in terms of concrete action in a lockdown I do not know.
