Losing My Temper With Husband

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Allegra

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Over the past year or so, losing my temper with my husband has become an increasing problem. I feel like he simply does not listen to me until I am literally screaming and sometimes using bad language, which I hate. It’s weird because I’m really good at holding my temper with kids. It’s like I understand that they are just kids and they a get a “pass” on some stuff. Also, I realize that if I scream at them, they might stop listening if I just talk. I’ve always been really careful about it, but now it seems like I’ve let the same thing happen with my husband. Nearly all of these outbursts are about some sort of chore that he either said he had done or would do and then I find out that it wasn’t done, or was done a completely useless way. I’ve tried to explain to him when calm that as we’ve had more children, there’s a lot more work, and I need him to step up some, but saying all that takes a long time and frankly, doesn’t seem to be nearly as effective or lasting as yelling and harsh language. I’ve tried to do away with some extra things in order to streamline the work that needs to be done around the house, but I think with the Corona business and all of us staying home more frequently, and taking on my 9yo niece 6 days a week, there’s still a lot more to do around the house. And to be honest, I resent a little, having to streamline so a grown man doesn’t have to be bothered with chipping in on house work and childcare, even if it does avoid some arguments in the long run. Any suggestions for getting the man to contribute without yelling and feeling like I’m his mother (and a bad one) instead of his wife?
 
Allegra said:
Any suggestions for getting the man to contribute without yelling
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I think you should stop yelling, even if your husband doesn’t contribute as much as you believe he should. Yelling at him creates a toxic environment, and you can only control what you do.
Allegra said:
frankly, doesn’t seem to be nearly as effective or lasting as yelling and harsh language.
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It’s a higher priority to stop using harsh language to your spouse than for things to get done, unless they’re literally life-sustaining.
 
Allegra said:
Any suggestions for getting the man to contribute without yelling and feeling like I’m his mother (and a bad one) instead of his wife?
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I know it’s hard, but you need to stop the outbursts, particularly for chores that you think he did incorrectly. It’s just going to make him want to not engage at all. “I tried to help and I still got yelled at, so why bother? There’s no pleasing her.” will be what he’s thinking.

I know it’s frustrating, but you’ll have way better results if it’s “oh, honey, thank you so much for doing x…just next time, don’t forget about y.” as opposed to screaming at him.

I hate to sound like we’re talking about a dog here, but positive reinforcement > smacking him with a rolled up newspaper.
 
I mean, sometimes it’s been something fairly serious, like leaving weed killer out when we have a toddler that could get into it and leaving behind similar wakes of potential disaster. It’s not just leaving his socks out or something like that. He doesn’t seem to get that I seriously count on him to do what he says he’s going to do without having to go back and check on him for every little thing. I hate the yelling, and I would like it to stop, but simply accepting his behavior so I don’t yell is cutting down aggressive toxicity from me without dealing with the passive-aggressive toxicity from him. Maybe this is something to talk to a counselor about, but I’ve never had one before and I’ve heard its hard to get in with one as a new client, especially with the social distancing. I thought this might be faster.
 
By the way, I hope it didn’t sound like I didn’t understand your frustration. Totally get it.
 
It’s not like I just prefer he do it in a different way, but more like, he does the task in a way that is intentionally unhelpful, in the hopes that he won’t be asked again. An example would be him agreeing to supervise the kids cleaning their rooms while I do several other tasks and telling me it’s done and I find all of the kids belongings piled up on their bed and dresser. The stuff is still not put away and now it’s bedtime and the kids can’t even use their beds until I go back and do it over. A goofy example would be if I have a kid with snot running down their face and I ask for a tissue, and he go goes twice as far to get a paper towel instead of a tissue. I joke that he’s literally the father in the Bible who would give their kid a snake if they asked for an egg. Or if I ask him to supervise dressing the kids, he’ll put my daughter in the first garments that he pulls out of the drawer, even if they don’t match, half her stomach is showing, and they’re completely inappropriate for the weather. He doesn’t walk out the door dressed like a circus clown himself, so I’m not willing to buy that he can’t tell the difference between tights that go under a skirt and a pair of pants to be worn in public without a skirt. Out of concern for my child’s dignity I have stopped asking him to pick out clothing for her, although he has tried to send my son to school in corduroy in 88 degree weather because he didn’t feel like looking for shorts in the laundry room. It’s becoming a toxic environment because I feel like I have no help whatsoever sometimes. At least, none I can actually count on. Sometimes he IS in a more helpful mood, but I don’t get to find out what mood he’s in until it’s bedtime and there’s a pile of dirty and clean clothes and toys on the kids’ bed.
 
Another example would be if I asked him to water the plants. He goes out but he waters all but one bed of plants. Then the next day I go out and the plants are dying or dead. Or he might tell me that he didn’t water that one bed and I still have to go out and go through the process of unwinding the hose and turning on and off the water just to water one bed, so he hasn’t actually helped at all. Meanwhile, he left a soda can on the edge of the bed for me to pickup and throw out for him.
 
Was your husband raised to be helpful around the house?

Did his mother hold him accountable for doing chores, and more importantly, did his FATHER back up his wife in holding the son responsible for various household chores and handing out consequences when the son didn’t fulfil his resonsibilities?

Or did his mother do everything around the house, and her husband was only responsible for earning the income? Did she feel that it was her role as a wife and mother to wait on her husband and children and do everything for them?

And very important–did his father undermine his wife in front of his son, and/or snicker about her behind her back in front of his son when she asked him or both of them to do a task or a chore?

Was/is your husband a “mama’s boy” who can do no wrong and does she consider you an invader who stole her little boy away from her? Did she raise him to think that he was privileged and/or “special,” and therefore he shouldn’t lower himself to do any mundane or manual labor?

It would be helpful for you to know the answers to these questions because it would explain why your husband is the way he is. As for changing him–it’s probably not likely unless other MEN in his life admonish him to change his ways. If he participates in a men’s group at his parish, that might help as the men become friends and talk about deeper subjects than sport, the economy, and cars.

But I’m guessing that at this stressful time, you are not likely to see much effort on his part to take up more of the workload on the home front. He might be feeling overwhelmed by the whole COVID-19 disaster, and be worried about what will happen to him and his family if he should lose his job, and this makes it hard for him to try to add anything else to his plate.

So my suggestion to you is to lighten YOUR load as much as possible. Is there any possibility that you could hire some help at home? Or use more “quick” meals (not necessarily “fast food” , but simple meals like grilled cheese sandwiches/tomato soup instead of a meat/starch/vege/dessert meal?

Also, work on tolerating his diferent ways of doing the chores and his different “standards” . E.g., big deal if he goes further to get a paper towel instead of Kleenex–maybe he likes the paper towel because it’s bigger and he doesn’t get snot on his fingers. And so what if he dresses the children in funny ways–as long as they are decent, and their teachers aren’t calling the house (make sure they talk to your HUSBAND if they call!), and the other kids aren’t making fun of them–well, it might become a family joke that Daddy doesn’t have any sense of style!

Hope this is helpful. If this advice doesn’t apply to you and your situation, my apologies. I honestly think your husband is just doing what his parents, especially his mother, trained him to do, and it will be hard for him to change his ways.
 
I don’t think his upbringing really fits squarely into either category. His parents were divorced when he was thirteen. His mother was apparently a clean freak. Like severely, to the extent that it contributed to their marital problems, however, I got the impression that he had very little chores to do when he was at “her house”. On the other hand, his dad is very into being self-sufficient and taking pride in the home and I’ve heard him imply that my husband is lazy on multiple occasions. His sisters have always said that he was lazy about his part of household chores, but it’s hard to say if he was really that lazy as I think his dad’s chore expectation was a little higher than typical. (Things like chopping firewood and stuff like that because of their lifestyle.) I do know that the whole do-it-poorly-so-she’ll-do-it-for-you thing did work with his mom, who was too neurotic about cleanliness and was going to end up doing it anyway. His dad, not so much. His mother and step-mother were both homemakers so they probably expected to do a much larger portion of the housework than I do.
 
Oh, and he gets the paper towel because he knows I won’t use it because it irritates their faces. And yes, she would be made fun of because of the clothes he put her in, which is why I stopped asking him as it isn’t fair to her. He has dressed her in ensembles that are not decent and the preschool teacher had to inform him that what he put on her wasn’t pants. Fortunately, she had a change of clothes there.
 
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Ah, so his behavior makes sense, doesn’t it? You have a good grasp of why he is the way he is.

I agree with others that screaming at him won’t help, and it probably will hurt your marriage and make the children feel stressed and scared that mommy and daddy will split up.

I still say that this is not a good time to lay more responsibility on him–the pandemic is overwhelming for many people, and your husband might be suffering inside and hiding it from you and his kids. Instead, try to cut back on what needs to be done.

OR…it might ??? be worth trying to sit down and have a talk with him during a time when the two of you are more-or-less alone (with kids, that’s a hard thing to do!), and tell him that you are overwhelmed (blame it on COVID-19!) and ask if he would be willing to take complete responsibility for1 or 2 of the daily chores, and give him the choice of which 1-2 chores he feels most comfortable doing. If he picks the easy chores, well, it’s a start and it’s something that you don’t have to do. Thank him for helping you and when he actually does the chores, tell him you love having his help and you love him! If completing these few chores brings him a positive response, maybe he’ll be wiling to take on a few more chores!
 
That is sort of what we did in the past, and it worked pretty well. Unfortunately, with all the kids and with them home all day, things come up that need immediate attention and I am often feeling seriously overwhelmed right now. I just finished my masters degree last week, so it should help that I don’t have to worry about that anymore, but school will be starting soon and if the schools don’t open, I will be homeschooling and working from home at the same time.
 
How would your husband describe this situation if he were to post in this thread?
 
I also think it might be a good idea to not spring a request to help on him. He sounds like someone who is kind of “one track” when it comes to his life, and he has his day planned out, and when you suddenly interrupt his “plan” and ask him to do something–he resents it.

Yes, it’s silly and kind of self-centered, but some people just don’t like to have their routines disrupted. Kids can be like this–they don’t like being “thrown off course” or interrupted in an activity, and they get really upset and sometimes melt down.

And adults can definitely be this way. E.g., if he has his morning all planned out–up at 5, spend 20 minutes working out or running or reading the paper or going online, and then showering, eating a bowl of cereal, leaving the dirty bowl in the sink and dashing out the door for the morning drive to work–and then you interrupt his “plan” by asking him to dress one of the children–well–you consider it a small thing, but to him, it seems like you have just put a mountain in his way.

Keep in mind that most men are not multi-taskers, while many women ARE multi-taskers. We women use both sides of our brain at the same time, while most men are not capable of doing this. It’s truly not easy for a man to try to be like a woman and do several things at once, or to have his well-laid-out plan for his day interrupted.

So we have to be patient and start with small changes–one or two chores, not many, and something that is on the schedule well in advance so that he can incorporate the chores into his daily routine instead of having them sprung on him.

And I definitely agree with those who advise that you give praise for what was done right, and gently suggest that the next time, make sure to do (whatever wasn’t done). But be careful about that–he may just throw a tantrum, tell you that he can never please you no matter what he does, so in the future, he won’t do anything, so there! I think it would be best to let him muddle through and trust that he himself will recognize that his effort was sub-par and that he really needs to buckle down and do it right.

Again, hope this is thought-provoking and maybe even helpful.
 
Honestly, after the fact, he would probably be reluctant to do so, because I think he realizes how childish he is behaving. But if he had to say something on it, it would probably being something along the lines of “I know I was being a jerk, but you don’t have to yell about it. I’m tired too and I don’t feel like doing that stuff right now.” At least, that’s what he usually says to me.
 
Yeah. I don’t like to have my morning messed with either, but that is sort of what happens when you make these needy, unpredictable little humans. I do try to ask him to do tasks that he can do on his own schedule when it’s possible. I think it’s a little unfair that I’m the “chore” broker in the household as he is an adult and can see when stuff needs to be done. So he has a lot of tasks that I flat out don’t care about but he finds important such as the correspondence, the trash, the lawn, scrubbing out the shower, the downstairs bathroom and collecting the laundry and taking it downstairs. These are all things that he can do on his schedule and only have to be done once a week or less (except the trash). I know there are certain things he is less likely to whine about if asked to do on the fly, such as making dinner. (Mostly because if he makes it, he gets to choose it.) so I try to choose those things, but still, with all that’s going on, I sometimes need some help, and things are getting pretty low standard in the cleanliness department around here.
 
I would definitely stop the yelling.
What I would do…as you really do need some reliable help…is calmly explain to him that you can’t do it all and if he can’t or won’t willingly help and do the job right, you need to hire some help that will.

Sometimes, when someone realizes that money will be spent to do something he’s actually capable of doing, they finally “get it”. If he really feels that it’s too much to ask of him, a request for paid help is entirely justified. Just my opinion and what I would do.
 
It not a bad idea, but I think he’d probably call my bluff on it. We both realize we are lucky to stay in the black each month right now. Although things should improve for us in August. My sister works for a cleaning agency and as I’ve been watching her daughter for her during the Covid, she’s planning on cleaning our house for us while we are on vacation next week. Maybe he’ll consider hiring her under the counter once August comes around.
 
I certainly understand your frustration.

When asking a grown man to do something once, and he doesn’t do it, there’s room for the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he didn’t hear the request.

Having to ask twice, and it still isn’t done (within a reasonable time frame), then maybe he’s just preoccupied or doesn’t have time.

Having to ask a third, fourth and fifth time, and it STILL doesn’t get done within a reasonable time frame (or when you NEED to have it done, which is the same thing), then there’s an element of defiance. Then, it’s time to try to find out why he is dragging his feet. If it’s a valid reason, okay. Maybe you can work that out. If not, then he needs to shape up.

While yelling is undesirable, sometimes it seems to require a sledge hammer to get through a brick wall.

You shouldn’t have to carry an unreasonable amount of the burden. He is an adult, after all. And from where I’m sitting, he doesn’t seem to be very considerate.

Still, try to avoid yelling and using profanity. Instead, try to point out how his behavior is selfish, and in a marriage, both spouses are supposed to help each other, not one leaving the other twisting in the wind. it’s a form of shaming, but maybe that’s what he needs.

I do indeed understand how this upsets you. You’re not alone in your sentiments.

I wish you the best. This can really be a serious problem.
 
It’s hard to give advice because I don’t know if he’s a child or just an idiot. A different approach is needed for each of those. But if what you’ve been doing isn’t working then try something else.

You could sit him down and tell him that he’s dead weight, and you’re sick of carrying him. Or, the idea of hiring a helper is a good one. Tell your husband that you’ll have to hire a real man to get some stuff done around the house. Or marriage counseling is another option. Your husband sounds like the type that would dislike marriage counseling so much that he would do anything to avoid having to go back, including cleaning up after himself.
 
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