Reader Dilemma: 'My husband torments his family after a stressful day at work – it’s like living with Jekyll and Hyde'

Advice: I suspect that if I can persuade you, too, to feel pity as well as fury, you might find you can break this cycle

'Obviously, after a stressful day at work, your husband returns home feeling absolutely frightful' (AFP/Getty Images)

Dear Virginia,

My husband is normally a very amiable man, and all our friends find him charming. But whenever he comes back from a stressful day at work, he delights in tormenting one of his family, often making my daughter cry over some completely pointless issue. Then, once one of us – the two children and I – has been reduced to tears, he goes into his room and slams the door, emerging an hour later as if nothing had happened. It’s like living with Jekyll and Hyde. He refuses to talk about it. What can I do?

Yours sincerely, Diana

Virginia Says

How awful for you all! But – and you may not like my saying this – I feel so much for your husband, too. And I suspect that if I can persuade you, too, to feel pity as well as fury, you might find you can break this cycle.

It’s a well-known fact, and one that we all forget daily, that if someone makes you feel ghastly, it usually means they feel ghastly, too. If someone reduces you to tears again and again, it means they’re on the brink of tears themselves.

Obviously, after a stressful day at work, your husband returns home feeling absolutely frightful – he feels, I imagine, diminished, incapable of carrying on, with the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, and at the end of his tether. He needs, somehow, to release these emotions, but because of some deep-seated childhood taboo, he’s unable to. The emotions have to be released somehow. So how does he do it? He gets you to express them for him.

I was made aware of this when a friend became irrationally angry with me. Once he’d expressed it and made me feel awful, he then apologised and said: “I feel so much better now! It’s always better to let these things out, isn’t it, rather than keep them bottled up, don’t you think?” For him, it was better. For me, it wasn’t. Because, years later, I still keep the anger at his behaviour inside me. He offloaded his fury onto me. What your husband is doing is getting you to suffer for him. The tears you’re shedding aren’t your tears. They’re his.

Firstly, explain the situation to your daughters and make a pact that none of you will shed a tear when he next tries this tactic on. It will be much easier when you understand what’s going on and can see him as a tragic two-year-old having a temper tantrum. By changing the dynamic, he will be left with his own misery to handle himself. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.

If that doesn’t make a difference, tell him that his behaviour is having a terrible effect on your family and that unless he agrees to see a counsellor with you, and perhaps your daughters as well, or at least try some strategies to stop this appalling behaviour – exercise, not going to the pub before coming home, going straight to his room for some downtime before he even makes an appearance – then you’ll have to consider separation. Yes, I feel sorry for this bitter, angry and suffering man. But that doesn’t stop his behaviour from being completely unacceptable and vile. He’s not going to break the cycle. He doesn’t know how to. That is something only you and your girls can do, by simply refusing to respond to it or – more likely I’m afraid – refusing to put up with it.

Readers say...

You can put this right

My dear, late husband was a little like yours in that he, for all that he loved and admired his stepdaughter, my daughter, could be quite beastly to her from time to time, though not constantly like you describe. I found ways of overcoming the problems and somehow we carried on. I would sulk for days, and then get over it. Then one occasion was too much for me. I would not let it go. I did not go into a sulk. I stood up to it, and I said, again and again, that we had to talk to someone. There was no choice. I would have left him if he had not agreed.

I found some names and addresses for him. I behaved perfectly normally, but a little coldly, and waited. He eventually agreed and phoned them, we made an appointment and continued for some years to visit someone once a week. Occasionally he went alone. It “cured” us! He was a very private man, and I discovered things about him and his childhood I had not known or understood. It was a blessing altogether, and helped my daughter. When he died of cancer a few years later, she and he had come to good terms with each other. I could look after him with all the love he needed and deserved, and by then I really did love him again.

I have always been so pleased that I did not give up, and I did not sit down under it. Something had to happen and I made it happen without compromise.

name and address supplied

He’s having an affair

Your husband has a mistress. He is creating an unpleasant atmosphere at home which he will later cite as the reason for his straying – if it ever comes to light. This assuages his conscience as he can’t justify his adultery to himself unless there are fights at home. Furthermore, you will be blamed for the arguments and for his ‘need’ to find comfort elsewhere. Check his emails, texts etc now.

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Give him some space

In the days when I was the sole breadwinner for our family, in a job I found stressful, I needed an hour on returning home to adjust to being there. Perhaps your husband needs this too? It’s not a nice way to behave, but is there something that triggers it? I used to find being told about their day by the rest of the family too much to take as soon as I got in. Maybe suggest he takes the hour out before he does anything else. But certainly make it clear his behaviour is unacceptable, too – as he is refusing to discuss it.

Sarah Playforth

Seaford

Next week's dilemma

Two of my children have settled into good jobs since university, but my son seems unable to find a job. He was employed for a while doing work experience and everyone said he was brilliant. But although he’s been offered a few jobs since, he won’t take them, for various reasons. One was too far away, one needed him to work one weekend in four, another needed him to create a website, which he said he found too daunting – though he knows a lot about computers. He’s now been out of work for nine months. What can we do to help him find something suitable?

Yours sincerely,

Dodie