Dangerous Driving / Jumping out of vehicle

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hi Everyone.

Any thoughts or advice on how to work with this kind of situation.

BPD husband and I have had a rough 6 days. Everything is caused by intense conflicts and stress for husband at work and husband's perception of my not being sufficiently supportive. I am trying to empathize with all of the stress husband is going through at work, but it is causing me a lot of stress too, and husband reads the anxiety in my body/speech as disloyalty.

Today when he is driving, husband is describing to me a difficult work situation. We exit freeway and although he slows down, he goes past the stop light and looks like he is not going to stop before joining the new road. I calmly and clearly say "Stop". 

Husband says, "I'll show you stop!" and turns off car and jumps out to side of road. It is a main road with gas station nearby. I jump into drivers seat and pull into a near by gas station. I call out to husband, "You'll need your wallet!" Husband ignores me. I follow him in the car as he walks to other side of the lot and try again. This time husband yells at me "Stop following me!" But he takes the wallet and then asks me to get lost. I drive away. We meet up a few hours later and husband is extremely mad but lets me drive home. He criticizes my driving and uses the car ride to swear at me and tell me I am not worthy of respect. 

I am worried about husband right now. He seems to be drinking a lot and the dangerous driving/ jumping out of car is not a good sign. Our baby was in the back seat.

Any advice on where to go from here to address this issue?

[blue_watermelon]

Hi Everyone.

Any thoughts or advice on how to work with this kind of situation.

BPD husband and I have had a rough 6 days. Everything is caused by intense conflicts and stress for husband at work and husband's perception of my not being sufficiently supportive. I am trying to empathize with all of the stress husband is going through at work, but it is causing me a lot of stress too, and husband reads the anxiety in my body/speech as disloyalty.

Today when he is driving, husband is describing to me a difficult work situation. We exit freeway and although he slows down, he goes past the stop light and looks like he is not going to stop before joining the new road. I calmly and clearly say "Stop". 

Husband says, "I'll show you stop!" and turns off car and jumps out to side of road. It is a main road with gas station nearby. I jump into drivers seat and pull into a near by gas station. I call out to husband, "You'll need your wallet!" Husband ignores me. I follow him in the car as he walks to other side of the lot and try again. This time husband yells at me "Stop following me!" But he takes the wallet and then asks me to get lost. I drive away. We meet up a few hours later and husband is extremely mad but lets me drive home. He criticizes my driving and uses the car ride to swear at me and tell me I am not worthy of respect. 

I am worried about husband right now. He seems to be drinking a lot and the dangerous driving/ jumping out of car is not a good sign. Our baby was in the back seat.

Any advice on where to go from here to address this issue?

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[Cpete18]

I’m sorry you’re going through that. My husband once got mad at me while we were on our way home but still 45 minutes away so he pulled over and left me sitting in the passenger seat. I waited for a few minutes and when he wouldn’t respond to calls or texts I drove home. About two hours later I got the call that he needed picked up and so I drove back to where he got out of the car and he acted like it was no big deal and was kind of chuckling about his behavior.

I don’t think we have ever gone somewhere on vacation or a road trip without him threatening to leave me there or pulling over on the side of the road and telling me to get out (which I never do). It’s one of the most stressful examples of rage that he has because even though I’m sure he would come back and never actually leave me, I fear that I’ll have to call someone to come get me which would mean I have to explain to that person that my husband left me on the side of the road which would let others in on the secret I’ve been hiding for years.

I typically try to let him blow his top and just wait for it to simmer down. I don’t have very good advice unfortunately, but I wanted to let you know you’re not alone.

[blue_watermelon]

Hi Cpete18,

Thanks so much for replying. What you have been through sounds so stressful and I sympathize.
I have had some similar experiences. The worst was when I was 7 months pregnant, got out of the car to help husband park and he didn't like my instructions and drove away leaving me with nothing on the side of the curb in an unfamiliar part of the country.

I'm at the point where I don't want to accept this anymore, especially not in front of my son. This time I calmly climbed into driver's seat and drove on but I also followed him to give him his wallet. I'm not doing that again. And I won't go back to pick him up. I'll call a  friend or send him an uber. I think I'm at the point where yes, I still care if other people know this is going on in our marriage, but I don't want to take the disrespect anymore or teach our son that this is how you treat women. I hope I'm strong enough to stick with this.

Yesterday husband later got very mad, throwing our mattress down the stairs, and this morning, he confiscated my car key (although gave it back a few hours later). He's also threatening divorce. I know its just his hurt talking but I am exhausted and fed up. I want to channel this into making positive boundaries and not putting up with disrespect.

[Cpete18]

Good for you for setting boundaries! I too am trying to enforce my boundaries. I told my husband, “Calling me names or insulting me is no longer acceptable to me. I realize that this will be hard for you because your knee jerk reaction when you are angry is to say the words that hurt me the most and I understand that this is going to be difficult and there are going to be slip ups, but when it happens I expect an apology. You can be angry at me without making me feel terrible about myself.” (This was last night after he told me to quit being an idiot). He flew off the handle! Started telling me the usual about going to have some other woman keep him company (to which I cut him off and told him I’m not listening to anymore threats or insults) I just calmly kept telling him that if he wasn’t ready to apologize I wanted to be left alone because my feelings were hurt. He left the house and ended up coming back to sleep on the couch.

This morning he wanted to be intimate and I told him I still was waiting for him to apologize. He kept insisting that he didn’t need to apologize cuz he didn’t call me an idiot, he told me to quit being one. Finally he gave in and apologized, I took it as a win even if it was only to get something he wanted. This is the second time he’s apologized for calling me names.

It is a slow process but I already see an improvement. I think mostly it is because after he apologizes I am back to being sweet to him. He gets over things so quickly he could be tearing the house apart one second and laughing about it the next. In the past I’ve always taken longer to stop being mad at him and giving him the silent treatment but since I’ve been practicing being calm and thinking logically about what is going on I don’t stay angry because I don’t let it bother me as much.

I absolutely agree with you setting boundaries so that your little one does not see this behavior from your husband. Maybe you can let him know that if he is going to act like that you will take the child in the other room or somewhere else. It’s hard to stay calm and stick to your boundaries but it can be done. Practice makes perfect.

[blue_watermelon]

Hi Cpete18,

I was really encouraged reading what you wrote here! I love the courageous and helpful way you spoke with your husband,
"Calling me names or insulting me is no longer acceptable to me. I realize that this will be hard for you because your knee jerk reaction when you are angry is to say the words that hurt me the most and I understand that this is going to be difficult and there are going to be slip ups, but when it happens I expect an apology. You can be angry at me without making me feel terrible about myself.”

This is really helpful for me. I don't think my husband has ever apologized for insulting me/ calling names/ swearing at me.

I too, am trying to not extend the silent treatment and mostly of late that's been working, but this past fight (seven days including insulting me in front of people we know at church, threatening divorce and violence), has been in a new kind of pain and I'm struggling to be sweet to my husband as we try to reconcile. I think asking for an apology for disrespect for insults and disrespect is a good idea. Thanks for sharing your experience.