Husband [M32] told me [F31] to shut up in public because I embarrassed him

Writing this to get it off my chest and also get some advice on how best to move forward in a constructive way. I had an unpleasant exchange with my husband in a cafe today that’s left me cold, and unsure what to do next.

Some necessary backstory: I have a short haircut that I normally style very minimally. I use a bit of hair wax to sweep my bangs to one side, so they aren’t sticking straight down. Husband seems to be a fan of my haircut but he doesn’t like the wax. (He is “into fashion” and pretty critical of my appearance in general - he never body-shames or anything close to it, and compliments me all the time. But if he thinks part of my outfit looks weird, he will tell me. We’ve had arguments while we were dating because he criticized the style of clothing I used to wear.) 

Even though I use very matte and dry wax, he claims that it makes the part of my hair it’s applied to “look shiny”, which looks bad because the rest of my hair doesn’t. Before that, he also claimed that my hair looks odd because the parts I put wax on are flat and neat, but the back has too many flyaways. I’ve taken his advice and tried to fix this, but now he’s found something else to criticize.

Today I tried to do my hair a little differently (with a cream mousse he recommended), but in the restaurant, he said (to this effect) “Your hair is doing the shiny thing again.” I said, well, I used the product you recommended. He said, “Then you mustn’t be applying it correctly.” I said, maybe my hair just looks shiny and yours doesn’t because our texture is so different (we’re from different ethnic backgrounds). He agreed with this, but went on to mention its inconsistent “oily shine” a couple more times. I really didn’t want to hear it anymore, so I said, half-jokingly half seriously, “Stop hatin’! You’re making me self-conscious!”. I thought it was clear from the word "hatin'" that I was being light-hearted.

His response: “Shut the **** up.”

I literally thought he was kidding because I’ve never, ever been spoken to like before, or spoken to anyone like that before myself - especially not him.  But it dawned upon me that he was serious. He tried to leave the restaurant but I told him I wanted to finish my coffee, so he sat back down and went on his phone while ignoring me pointedly. When I got up to pay, he left the restaurant and walked away.

Why did he react like this? Well, apparently I said “stop hatin’” loud enough for the people in the booth behind to look up, and for him to think I was seriously starting a fight in public. I embarrassed him so much that he said he wanted to leave the restaurant immediately and crawl under a rock. That’s why he had a knee-jerk reaction and told me to shut up.

Of course I called him out on it. I said it was disrespectful, unnecessary, and that I never want him to talk to me like that ever again. Since then, he’s apologized profusely, several times and agreed that it was totally unjustified. He started minimizing it at first (“I say that all the time to other people!” - yeah right) but ultimately acknowledged how bad it was, and that he regrets saying it. He also acknowledged that he tried to minimize it at first because he was so upset about being publicly embarrassed, and didn’t want to admit he was wrong. He claims he doesn’t disrespect me as a person and that, to repeat, it was a “knee-jerk reaction”.

I don’t know how to move past this, to be honest. I feel so upset and disrespected. Right after that I had a meeting with a senior colleague who is my mentor (which he knew), and I had to swallow my hurt and jump right into Professional Mode. 

1. Am I might be making too much of a big deal out of it? There are perhaps much worse things that decent people say to each other when they’re upset, and much worse things they do. If this is a one time thing and he’s said sorry, it’s unfair of me to hold it against him.
2. He has agreed that his reaction was unjustified no matter what, but he stands by his claim that I publicly embarrassed him with my words. I’m trying to compromise and I even said that, in future, I will be more mindful of my volume and the content of the things I say when we’re in public. But I still don’t feel like it was anything to be angry about. I’m so sore about this, yet I don’t think it’s wise to bring up my disagreement again (because it’s going to lead to more arguing, and I’m so tired.).
3. Okay, maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction, but aren’t those also extremely telling? I find it hard to believe he respects me if this is what comes out of his mouth.
4. I don’t know what to do about his criticism either. He seems to think that my negative reactions are oversensitive and that I have no reason to be offended, because he’s not insulting ME but simply trying to help me look better. (His words: “if you were wearing something that looked bad, would you want me to lie or be honest?”). He finds it especially odd that I might be offended over his commenting on my hair, because it’s so trivial and not a big deal, and I can easily fix it to make it look better. I don’t know how to articulate to him why his supposedly helpful comments make me feel unhappy, and that makes me even more frustrated.
5. How do we move forward as a team? I want to fix this; I want to stop feeling sad and mad at him. He’s already apologized repeatedly and I’m not sure there’s much else he can do. Maybe I just need time to get over it? Going back to the first question - am I overreacting?

**tl;dr** I half-jokingly told my husband to stop criticizing my hair in a cafe. He told me to shut the **** up.

Submitted November 30, 2018 at 04:14PM by stayawh1l3 https://ift.tt/2BLiSgt