Hello and thank you for the warm welcome. Sorry to hear that you have also experienced what I'm currently going through. My husband had five sessions with a psychiatrist and came to the conclusion that all of his issues were my fault. He is currently on medication. His anger outbursts are rooted in any confrontation or challenges to his behaviour and ends up with me apologising for daring to bring these issues up. He is also estranged from his family, their fault!! I am struggling with living with him right now but still want our family to remain together. Where do I go from here??
With mental illness, it's easier to blame others around us than it is to realize the problem is internal. And on some levels, your husband does see it, but he's immature when it comes to conflict resolution and chooses the selfish route.
You mentioned his outbursts stem from confrontation, which makes sense. We have to find a way to validate their FEELINGS without being confrontational, and that takes quite a bit to master. Just know that his feelings are real...if someone is mad, it makes no sense to tell them that they shouldn't be mad. They're actually mad and by standing up to them in that moment, it never leads to anything good. Our only real task at that moment is to help them calm down.
I know what you're thinking, "But he says the most ridiculous things and blames me for everything!" I fully understand, I've been there countless times. In those instances, think of him like a toddler. You don't try to figure out what all the goo-goo-gaa-gaa sounds mean...you simply see a crying baby and you comfort it.
Ignore your husband's words completely and simply focus on his FEELINGS. Feelings are always real, even if they come from a temper tantrum that's ridiculous.
If he's sad, cheer him up. If he's angry, calm him down. That's the only goal, and the more you try to defend or explain why he's wrong, the worse it gets. So skip all of that, recognize a hurting toddler in need, and help him get through the moment. The argument part might not even come up later because it wasn't about that...it was always about FEELINGS and his inability to express that his feelings were hurt.
Now, I'm not calling your husband a toddler. But when he's in that emotional state, he's thinking like one. Everything is explosive and reactionary. So you calm him down, refuse to take the bait and argue, and you wait for the moment to pass. Then you can go about your day like nothing ever happened.
I know this sounds certifiably insane, and you're probably thinking it would never work in a million years. Give it a try though, just for a day. Don't argue or defend. Show compassion when he starts to anger, and let him know how much you care about him. That's what all of this is actually about on the deepest levels. He's afraid you're going to leave him and all this chaos follows through disordered thinking. You just help him "reset" to get off that broken line of thinking.
