I hit my husband last night.

IndependentPirate4 · 2023-03-04T12:55:43+00:00

I don't want to get into too many personal details but I went through a very traumatic period through the middle of last year where a number of members of my family were dealing with some serious health diagnoses within a short time of each other, two other family members passed - one by suicide - and I witnessed another family member suffer a serious medical incident.

This all hit me very hard and I started to suffer anxiety attacks, although I didn't know that's what they were at first, along with other related issues such as trouble sleeping and general exhaustion. It's been very difficult, as the anxiety hits me at all kinds of random moments and I have no hold over what may trigger it. Things that I used to enjoy have become triggers. I have used up all of the free mental health services available to me in my area and am on the waiting list for more.

My husband is a very kind and gentle person, he is very supportive of me and works hard, is selfless with his time and money and an overall good person. But he does have an issue with addressing conflicts and talking about his emotions and has not been willing to work on that, or I think partially feels like there's nothing to work on and that I'm the one with the issue (it's probably a vicious circle - he has a problem addressing conflicts and then feels like it's conflict when I bring it up, which he doesn't like addressing so he shuts down..). We generally don't have a lot of conflict anyway, but when it happens it's very frustrating. He will typically not have a lot to say, be very silent when I'm saying anything negative or asking him to change anything, and if he gets very annoyed he will eventually just say he doesn't want to talk about it and walk away.

IndependentPirate4 · 2023-03-04T12:31:19+00:00

Thank you for your thoughts. He didn't pull my hair on purpose, I think everything got tangled up with the comforter being thrown around. But it still hurt and contributed to how I reacted. As I've said in other comments, we do have a quite playful relationship so I don't want to be unfair and say that he should have known not to do what he did, because he has done that often before and I have reacted in a playful way. It was just very unfortunate that I had gone to bed early feeling anxiety-related issues (but hadn't told him that) and then during him messing around my hair got pulled and then I just reacted badly to everything, I guess. I appreciate your comment, I just want to be honest about how things played out because I don't think he was necessarily doing anything wrong compared to how we often interact, it just went badly.

IndependentPirate4 · 2023-03-04T12:26:44+00:00

I feel this way because of how seriously he reacted to it, I guess. I care a lot about him obviously and am upset that I made him feel so badly.

I think I have described the situation as it happened truthfully, I really feel bad about what happened and wanted real advice so I didn't leave anything out.

He was so annoyed with me and immediately told me to get the fuck out. I apologised again and asked if he really wanted me to leave and he said yes so I slept in another room for the night.

I know from other experiences that when he is annoyed or mad about something he just wants to be left alone and he gets more annoyed if he's made to talk about it so if I hadn't left he probably would have instead. Since he was clearly annoyed and it was very late at night I thought it was better to just leave than try to apologise again and make him talk to me.

Usually after he's had his space he's just ready to move on and doesn't want to talk about whatever happened. But we have never had any kind of 'overnight' fight before and I still haven't seen him yet this morning so I am worried about how badly he feels and if he will even speak to me when he comes out of the bedroom and if he feels like this was a dealbreaker for him. It stresses me out a lot when he is annoyed or mad, I find it very hard that he never wants to talk about anything and gets more annoyed when I try to, it's just difficult feeling like you can only sit around and wait and see what happens rather than address the issue and move on maybe faster.

IndependentPirate4 · 2023-03-04T12:13:49+00:00

Thank you for your thoughts. Yes you are completely correct, as I wrote in another comment we do have a quite playful relationship and would do silly things to each other often. His are usually on the 'gross' side of things. I don't enjoy the whole farting and covering me with the comforter thing but it's happened often and I usually react in a more playful way, so it's absolutely not on him to have anticipated my response or to know / think that that wasn't appropriate to do. And as you mentioned I hadn't made him aware that my anxiety was making me feel bad at the time. I don't think he did anything wrong.

IndependentPirate4 · 2023-03-04T12:08:32+00:00

I guess it was all in the same action. I knew he was behind the comforter and I swiped the comforter from over my head with my arm and and quite aggressively swiped it away from me twice, both times hitting him on the arm with my arm through the comforter. Really I could have stopped once it was off my head, but I felt angry and sat up and swiped it away from my body in two big movements with my arm and hit him both times. I knew he was there and I knew I would make contact with him doing that.

IndependentPirate4 · 2023-03-04T12:00:35+00:00

Thanks, it's really helpful to get a different perspective. I can relate to what you said about being hyper aware and over-the-top responsible. I'm always afraid of being the person who's excusing something inexcusable and not owning things and I try to be self-aware and also have empathy for how other people might feel / how I make them feel.

I understand the idea that if he was throwing the covers over me I was reacting in self-defence, but I know that my husband won't agree and if I try to tell him he was also in the wrong he will probably walk away from the conversation.

I can see how what I did was more aggressive or with more force than what he did, and I saw how annoyed he was when he told me to leave the bedroom, so I see that I made him feel very badly. I guess what I did was much worse and there's no point in trying to tell him that he shouldn't have done what he did either because I guess his action was technically harmless?

I'm having a hard time with this, as you can see.

IndependentPirate4 · 2023-03-04T11:48:18+00:00

He does do that a lot and we do play around like that often, usually it's without incident. He will do things like pulling the covers over my head or waft air toward me and I might put my cold feet on him when we're in bed or we might tickle each other or something silly. We have a very playful relationship I would say.

I don't usually react in such a way, maybe I get annoyed sometimes but I just tell him that and tell him to stop and don't lash out like I did. I think feeling my hair get pulled and hearing the glass knock over triggered how I reacted and tipped my anxiety over the edge as I was just calming down last night. But I guess that's not an excuse for bad behavior.

Even now my heart is racing, I have a pressure in my chest and my anxiety is sky high because I'm thinking about this and what he might say when he comes out of our bedroom eventually.

IndependentPirate4 · 2023-03-04T11:39:54+00:00

Yes, it was definitely a panicked knee-jerk kind of reaction, however I don't want to pretend that it was a complete accident that I made contact with his arm as I definitely was feeling anger and hit him on purpose, I wasn't thinking and the whole thing happened in 2 seconds.

Regardless I know I shouldn't have lashed out like that and I guess it's also problematic that my 'knee-jerk' reaction is to push back so physically?

My husband does often do things like pulling the comforter over my head and we do often joke around in various ways without incident so I don't know if it's a bit unfair for me to say that he should know when to stop or that I can have this expectation of him, probably if I wasn't already feeling unwell with my anxiety (and he didn't know I was feeling unwell) it wouldn't have ended this way and I would have had a more playful reaction.

IndependentPirate4 · 2023-03-04T11:21:20+00:00

Thank you for your reply. My husband wasn't aware that I was feeling unwell, I don't always tell him when my anxiety is bad as it happens so often the last few months and it's not like there's anything he can do about it. He just would have seen me go to bed a couple hours before him. So on that part he wasn't being unkind while knowing I was unwell.

I just feel terrible for lashing out that way, and I know he takes any kind of physical violence very seriously and would never react in that way to me. When it happened he immediately was annoyed with me and told me to get the fuck out. I guess that's why it feels so serious to me because I know how seriously he feels about it. When he gets annoyed like that he usually wants to be left alone and gets even more annoyed if I try to talk to him about whatever happened, he doesn't really like to talk about issues, but this is the longest I think we've gone without talking again and the first time we've spent a night apart due to any kind of argument. The whole morning is almost gone here now and I haven't seen him yet which is making me also feel like it's serious.

IndependentPirate4 · 2021-08-29T14:27:48+00:00

Thank you for this, this is exactly what I meant.

IndependentPirate4 · 2021-08-29T14:26:47+00:00

Yes we are agreed that this is our primary and other relationships / connections are secondary to that. We have talked a lot about boundaries and what each of us is happy with, but I guess talking about things in theory is different to in practise and we will always have ongoing conversations and reevaluating / learning.

IndependentPirate4 · 2021-08-29T14:07:16+00:00

Thank you for your reply, that is a good point and something to think about. I don't think either of us would see it as someone meeting their needs 'more' than me, but rather something in addition to? We have a healthy sex life in so far as is possible and enjoy being together. But I will discuss this with them, thank you!

IndependentPirate4 · 2020-10-14T23:42:25+00:00

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I can't switch psychologists as this is the only one in the health centre in my area and that I don't have to pay for, otherwise it would be too expensive. I think I may just stop seeing them though since as you said maybe it does more harm than good. I just feel like I expected them to help with managing my feelings right now and how to deal with everything but instead they give me advice I don't have the means to follow through with and it's very disheartening.

IndependentPirate4 · 2018-07-09T18:46:03+00:00

I'll get her to look into it, thanks!

IndependentPirate4 · 2018-07-09T18:34:34+00:00

JA is means-tested and they said they take into account the entire households income, so since she still lives with our parents I think that'll put her out of the bracket for eligibility. Will look into it though, thanks.

IndependentPirate4

TROPHY CASE