My [32F] husband [31M] has severe anxiety and anger issues and acts like he’s the only one allowed to be in bad moods.

We have been together for just about 14 years total, married for 8. He was military and got out at the 10-year mark. He has pretty severe anxiety and had an anger problem he is working on. He just started going to therapy about 2 months ago.

Before therapy, he used to get horribly angry at small things like traffic or customer service people being incompetent. He would be angry for days and just sat around being miserable. Like, it would ruin his life and then I would have to tip-toe around him and try to make everything calm.

Since therapy, he’s been much better about realizing when he’s getting angry and try to let it go. I will give him that for the past two months he’s has much less incidents and in generally much happier.

Well, my job has been giving me trouble lately and honestly I’ve been getting kind of mad about the people I work with. Two nights ago, I came home a little miffed and was trying to vent to my husband. I wasn’t yelling or angry, I was just expressing my frustrations. He interrupted me mid-sentence to say loudly that he doesn’t want to talk to me when I’m in this mood. I was super annoyed that he interrupted me and just stopped talking. I was visibly annoyed at him, but I got over it because I didn’t want to set him off in a bad mood. Well last night I came home again having a bad day. I was in the garage and I decided to just make a funny comment about my coworkers instead. So I opened the door, said my hellos and proceeded to start my story hoping to get a laugh out of him. He interrupts me again and says “How ‘bout you don’t talk to me when you’re like this?” So I just stop and stare at him. I go upstairs and try to calm down because I was getting angry at this point. I close the bedroom door to change and he comes bursting in asking “ok, what is your problem?”

I normally would have just said “nothing, everything’s fine” but I was still angry to I said I was trying to say something and you interrupted me and I just wanted someone to listen to me. No one at work listens to me, HR doesn’t listen to me, I don’t have any female friends to listen to me, I just wanted my husband to listen.

Well, he gets in one of his classic bad moods. I say I am going for a walk, just to clear my head. I come back like 20 minutes later because it starts to rain and I apologize to him for getting upset. But he’s like “I don’t want to talk about it”.

I leave him alone for a few hours and ask if he wants to come out of bed to watch tv with me and eat a late dinner. I make food, we talk a little, and I think everything’s all good. Well this morning he announces that he’s still in a bad mood and won’t talk to me, he’s seething all day, and just again being upset and miserable. I tell him sorry again and that I love him. I go out because he likes to be alone when he’s upset. When I get back later, he’s still upset, still won’t talk to me, still stomping and seething. This time it seems like his trying to be better, but he’s still not happy and won’t talk to me.

This has happened before many times. He gets so upset at the world, I apologize for things that may or may not be my fault, and it takes him a few days to get over whatever is bothering him. He doesn’t want to talk to me and I have to tip-toe around acting like I’m so calm and collected, waiting for him to be in a better mood.

I try talking to him but he doesn’t want to talk, I try making his favorite foods but he doesn’t want to eat, I try to be generally calm and happy but he’s still miserable. But the second I also get upset, it’s the fucking end of the world. He will vent when he wants to, but I have to just listen.

I love him so much and he’s my best friend. He needs therapy and I probably need it too. But he acts like he’s the only one that can be upset and I’m having a really hard time.

He had said that’s hates these moods and feels really bad when he gets upset because I try to be happy, but it is still happening.

When things are good, they’re really good and he have so much fun together. But when he’s upset, the universe comes to a stop. I don’t know what else to do.

TLDR: husband had anxiety and anger issues. He’s getting help but he gets in to terrible moods where he’s mad at the world, but he gets angry at me when I get upset and won’t let me talk about being upset.

Submitted April 27, 2019 at 02:36PM by GuiltandRelief http://bit.ly/2vrcQxs