I’m a 36-year-old woman married to a 49-year-old man. We’ve been together for 13 years, married for 8, and have always had a volatile relationship—screaming fights, name-calling, emotional blowups. But for the past 9 months, things have been calm. That changed today.
While working from home, my husband casually brought up our ceiling leak and said airflow was making the mold worse. I replied that the mold was the bigger problem. That’s all it took. He exploded—accusing me of never accepting criticism, of always arguing. I stayed calm and didn’t yell back. That only made him more aggressive. He started hurling insults—calling me a bitch, asking if I was “retarded,” saying he’d be better off without me.
I tried pointing out that he can’t handle disagreement and always shuts down the moment I criticize him. His response? “I’m never wrong and I’m not going to change. If you don’t like it, leave.” He even said he gets to act that way because he’s a man.
I’m exhausted. Every time things start to feel normal, he sabotages it. It’s like he thrives on chaos. I just don’t know if I can keep doing this, or if people like this ever change.
Let’s start here: screaming, name-calling, and emotional blowups aren’t “just part of a volatile relationship.” That’s not a rough patch. That’s a pattern of abuse. And it’s been your normal for 13 years.
You’ve been conditioned to see these cycles—calm periods followed by explosions—as some kind of progress. It’s not. It’s a trauma loop. You’re being punished when you don’t fall in line, then love-bombed or ignored into thinking things are fine again. That’s not growth. That’s survival mode.
The moment you disagreed about the mold, your husband went nuclear. You didn’t yell. You didn’t escalate. But he did—because the truth is, calm doesn’t make him feel powerful. Control does. And when he feels challenged, even by something small, he lashes out. With insults. With demeaning language. With threats. That’s not a man trying to fix a leak. That’s a man trying to break your spirit.
And when you held a mirror up to his hypocrisy? He said the quiet part out loud: “I am never wrong and I’m not going to change. If you don’t like it, leave.” That’s his baseline. He doesn’t want a partner. He wants compliance.
Now you’ve got a decision. Because he’s telling you exactly who he is. And if you stay, you’re not staying because you’re happy—you’re staying because this has become familiar. But familiar doesn’t mean safe. And it damn sure doesn’t mean healthy.
Love isn’t screaming matches. It isn’t emotional warfare. It’s not being told you’re the problem every time you breathe wrong. Love is accountability. Respect. Growth. If he can’t—or won’t—offer those, then you have every right to walk toward peace. Toward yourself. Toward freedom from the chaos.
You don’t need to wait for the next blowup to prove to yourself that this is broken. It’s already broken. Now the question is: are you ready to stop letting his damage become your normal?