Husband is being hurtful

[Saywhat]

Hi there,

I normally post on Going NC with PD parents, but my husband is also estranged from HIS PD parents, and this topic concerns him.

It's been more than a year since I we went NC with my IL's. So far, they have made no serious attempt to contact us, which I am grateful for as they were very toxic to us.

I believe, however, that my husband suffers in silence from his parent's abandonment.  He barely mentions them, but when he does, I can feel his anger towards them. I understand that anger is a natural part of the healing process and prompt him to speak about them more often, but he resists and says there's nothing to win talking about it.

The problem is that all the emotions he's not feeling end up being dumped on me, and I'm getting really tired of it.... 

The most insignificant things I do, such as being tired or forgetting a detail about something he explained, remind him of his mother's neglect and silent treatment and trigger him into passive aggression towards me. I have enough on my shoulders already (we have a two year old and no parental support on either side of the family) and really cannot take it anymore. 

The problem is he doesn't seek help and takes little responsibility for the way he reacts to me.

Have you been through similar situations and how have you solved them?

[gettingstronger1]

Saywhat, I am sorry this is happening to you.  It is extremely painful when your husband takes his anger out on you.  I wasn't very clear if you explained to him that he is taking his anger out on you.  Hopefully it is as simple as making him aware that he does this.  Hopefully he will recognize this, apologize and change his behavior towards you. 

If you have already explained this to him and he continues to take his anger out on you, then I would call him out on this when he does it and set a boundary by leaving the room and removing yourself from inappropriate behavior.  It may also help for him to read about improved anger management skills.  I mentioned in a separate post that reading and education are very helpful.  Counseling with an empathetic counselor may help also. 

[notrightinthehead]

Saywhat when your h gets triggered by something you do and is passive aggressive towards you - how do you respond?  Do you have support - friends, a counsellor, therapy, a self help group - where you can open up and strengthen yourself?
Are you applying medium chill and grey rock when your h takes his anger out on you? Do you have strategies to protect yourself and your child from his anger?

[Saywhat]

Saywhat, I am sorry this is happening to you.  It is extremely painful when your husband takes his anger out on you.  I wasn't very clear if you explained to him that he is taking his anger out on you.  Hopefully it is as simple as making him aware that he does this.  Hopefully he will recognize this, apologize and change his behavior towards you. 

If you have already explained this to him and he continues to take his anger out on you, then I would call him out on this when he does it and set a boundary by leaving the room and removing yourself from inappropriate behavior.  It may also help for him to read about improved anger management skills.  I mentioned in a separate post that reading and education are very helpful.  Counseling with an empathetic counselor may help also.

Thank you for your response Gettingstronger1.

I have brought it up with him numerous times and he never took full accountability for it until last night. He says he's trying to treat me better and to heal himself; however, I don't see any progress on the outside. He is critical and judgy of me all the time, no matter how much I do for him and our family.

This is also extremely triggering for me as I used to be the SG in my FOO, so it brings up a lot of painful memories. Perhaps because I was the SG I have tolerated this for so long.  Maybe I'm used to being in that role. 

By the way, we are in counseling right now. The counselor recommended that we take 30-minute breaks whenever we get into an unproductive argument and afterward take it from there. The problem is he doesn't learn and always end ups hurting me again. Last night I told him I'm no longer speaking to him until he decides to take his issues into his own hands. This seems to have worked as today he's thoughtful and apologetic. I'm just sad I had to take it so far (threaten to not speak to him and sleep in separate rooms) that he would listen.

[Saywhat]

Saywhat when your h gets triggered by something you do and is passive aggressive towards you - how do you respond?  Do you have support - friends, a counsellor, therapy, a self help group - where you can open up and strengthen yourself?
Are you applying medium chill and grey rock when your h takes his anger out on you? Do you have strategies to protect yourself and your child from his anger?

Thanks for your message Notrightinthehead,

My husband is verbally aggressive / passive-aggressive, which means he has a permanent low-grade hostility toward me that manifests with contant criticism and judgment about the TINIEST things, like forgetting to wear our son a bib after a full day of work. He is not openly aggressive towards me or my son, which is why I'm not worried that he might hurt me / us.

However, I am very tired of his low grade aggession, and it's starting to take a toll on my self-esteem and my general comfort being around him. I used to be so in love with him (and I still very much am), however, it's very uncomfortable to be around him as I feel he's only there to point out my mistakes... This very much reminds me of how my parents treated me my whole life (I was the SG). I could never do anything right in their eyes and even though there are differences, I still feel very much like this in his presence.

I do practice medium chill with him as this is the only thing that seems to work with him. It's too bad he doesn't react to normal dialog.

[candy]

Saywhat,

it must be very hard being criticized constantly. From my screen it sounds like you have an empathetic understanding of what is boiling under your H's skin - but it
doesn't really matter if you're wrong or right about H's feelings: you should not be treated like that! Your H should not treat you like that!

DH and I used to fight unreasonable fights about minor issues every time he had been in contact with his parents, NMIL and uNFIL. DH started them. It was like he couldn't assert himself with his M, so he tried to dominate me. I mean this figuratively. For every boundary violation by NMIL I got the fallout: evenings and nights of arguments, DH trying to make me accept rules he had just invented. It was very exhausting.

Sometimes I blew up because I saw the arguments coming. I was alert to the little offs and nuances in DH's voice and behavior. I could tell he had had a phonecall with MIL when he entered our front door.
Like you I am the scapegoat in my FOO. I was used to walk on eggshells.

I called him out on his behavior. He couldn't own up to this pattern. He was able to admit though that every encounter with MIL and FIL was followed by a week of arguments in our relationship. We were able to agree that we do not want to spent our time on unreasonable arguments.

We are in counseling and individual therapy now for quite a while. I can only tell what we do differently now: we take timeouts, way longer than 30 minutes. When DH tells me about the latest contact or hoover (I am NC, DH is VVLC), I do not tell my opinion immediately. I ask DH first: how do you feel, what do you think. And even if I think something very different, which honestly is the case most of the times, I hold back from telling him what I think.

My T calls it ,,You let him own his feelings and thoughts.". And T also stated that DH will come up with his own conclusions.

It was awkward at first, mostly because I am a quick thinking, analytic and impatient kind of person 
But it is surprising that DH comes up with thoughts and conclusions that are not so far away from mine when I manage to let him do it at his own pace.

What I do differently now: I have and enforce my own boundaries with DH more clearly. He is not nice? I tell him that. He does not stop? I leave (the room or situation as we have a toddler and leaving the house is not always an option). I tell him we may talk about it another time, in a civilized manner. And what if he gets mad? Here is the thing: I try to care less. I remind myself that I am not responsible for his anger or sadness or whatever feeling arises. I cannot help him handle those. But I can listen and I can tell him how I want to be treated.

I hope any of this may be helpful to your situation.

[PeanutButter]

 Saywhat, I empathise with the struggle.
My H and I were triggering to each other in a similar way. His reaction (usually passive aggressive tone) to being triggered would trigger me. I was the same way you are. I was pointing it out to him and asking him to change it. I wanted husband to 'fix' his trigger (feeling criticized easily) so that I wouldnt have to be triggered (about being the scapegoat/false accusations).
When I am triggered I react with hurt/anger that he is accusing me of being critical when I am not. His dad had verbally abused, berated, and scorned him daily for years. He never confronted his dad but keeps getting upset at me. 
I eventually decided to ask of myself to 'fix' (or deal with in a way that didnt negatively effect H) MY trigger instead. I wasn't going to expect H to do something that I couldn't do.
Its not an easy accomplishment.
I remind myself that I experience my trigger because of my abusive childhood, not because of my husband.
My goal is to respond to H's feelings (I picture a beautiful, innocent, helpless little boy; broken in spirit by an arrogant, heartless, dispicable adult man) not my feelings. (he is NOT scapegoating me like my FOO did but that is the feelings that are triggered in me)
Here is an example of my goal 'response' instead of the 'reaction' I use to have.
Calm& soothing tone used "H I love you. I am sorry that what I said made you feel criticized. I promise I didnt mean it as a criticism."
I am trying to continually respond in this way for this trigger he has.
The first time I used it he was quite surprised that I new he was feeling critisized before he even knew he was feeling it. So that taught us that he has a reaction to the feelings before he is aware he is having the feelings.

[Saywhat]

Saywhat,

What I do differently now: I have and enforce my own boundaries with DH more clearly. He is not nice? I tell him that. He does not stop? I leave (the room or situation as we have a toddler and leaving the house is not always an option). I tell him we may talk about it another time, in a civilized manner. And what if he gets mad? Here is the thing: I try to care less. I remind myself that I am not responsible for his anger or sadness or whatever feeling arises. I cannot help him handle those. But I can listen and I can tell him how I want to be treated.

I hope any of this may be helpful to your situation.

Thanks, this helped. This is what I strive to do now (to tell him when he's not being nice even when he doesnt like). Turns out he's getting better and better at taking accountability since I've started to set clear boundaries...This gives me hope that he will change, even if this takes some time.

[Saywhat]

Saywhat, I empathise with the struggle.
My H and I were triggering to each other in a similar way. His reaction (usually passive aggressive tone) to being triggered would trigger me. I was the same way you are. I was pointing it out to him and asking him to change it. I wanted husband to 'fix' his trigger (feeling criticized easily) so that I wouldnt have to be triggered (about being the scapegoat/false accusations).
When I am triggered I react with hurt/anger that he is accusing me of being critical when I am not. His dad had verbally abused, berated, and scorned him daily for years. He never confronted his dad but keeps getting upset at me. 
I eventually decided to ask of myself to 'fix' (or deal with in a way that didnt negatively effect H) MY trigger instead. I wasn't going to expect H to do something that I couldn't do.
Its not an easy accomplishment.
I remind myself that I experience my trigger because of my abusive childhood, not because of my husband.
My goal is to respond to H's feelings (I picture a beautiful, innocent, helpless little boy; broken in spirit by an arrogant, heartless, dispicable adult man) not my feelings. (he is NOT scapegoating me like my FOO did but that is the feelings that are triggered in me)
Here is an example of my goal 'response' instead of the 'reaction' I use to have.
Calm& soothing tone used "H I love you. I am sorry that what I said made you feel criticized. I promise I didnt mean it as a criticism."
I am trying to continually respond in this way for this trigger he has.
The first time I used it he was quite surprised that I new he was feeling critisized before he even knew he was feeling it. So that taught us that he has a reaction to the feelings before he is aware he is having the feelings.

Thanks for sharing your story, PeanutButter.

I do believe we are in a similar dynamic ourselves (we trigger each other). However, until now I've been much better at taking accountability and working on my triggers than he has, which is the part that upsets me. I did try to reply in a similar way that you did for some time (reassuringly telling him that it was not my intention to hurt him), but this didn't really resolve the fact that he didn't work in his issues, and instead continued to dump them on me. In the end, I just emotionally couldn't take it anymore.

Since I started setting stronger boundaries this week, however, he has promised to work on his triggers too, which gives me hope.