My Husband Gets Angry When I Push Him To Change

by Anonymous

Me and my husband have been together for about 10 years. We have two beautiful children, a 5 yr old boy and a 3 yr old girl, the million dollar family!

My husband has had a lot of problems with his work life, many failures and wrong decisions. He is now starting from the bottom again.


Due to this I feel he is going through depression, and is not facing it but running away from it. He does this by working long hours. If he's at home watching TV, he's never wanting to talk about reality.

Of course this is affecting our marriage and family life as he is not able to give us time and communication is minimum.

When I try to be a little more assertive in him joining me and the kids to the park, for a walk or even just to eat dinner, he makes an excuse that he is wanting to watch the TV show and wants to be left alone. There are times I do leave him alone, however there are times when I am feeling frustrated that he is not being involved and present in his family.

I will tend to be a little more pushy and this makes him angry. He will at times start to swear at me and tell me to leave him alone or he will throw objects which have damaged the house, or break doors, the remote control and even a glass. He gets abusive at times.

I keep saying to myself that I just need to leave him alone and this would not happen. I feel I cannot control myself in being more pushy at times and feel guilty for the abusive result that comes from my husband. The kids see this at times and get very scared.

I am not sure what I should do, apart from the anger he has been an awesome husband and an awesome dad. I feel I am just waiting for him to snap out of this and be himself again. Will this ever happen?




Response from Dr. DeFoore

Hello, and thanks for telling your story here. How great that your husband has been an awesome husband and an awesome dad, apart from his anger. And how great it is that you know how to put a stop to the anger.

I understand why you would want to push him to participate more in the family and turn off the TV. The problem is that your pushing is only making a bad situation worse.

Here's what I suggest:

1) Start thanking your husband every day for all of the awesome things he's doing, and all of the positive things about him as a person. Make a list every morning of what you like and appreciate about him, and tell him throughout the day. This will definitely help, and might motivate him to get up and get involved in the family more.

2) Stop all pushing, criticizing and questioning of his behavior. He's either going to figure out the right thing to do, or he's not--but you cannot get him to change. That's not just your husband, that's human nature.

Use this positive journaling process to help you to shift your focus to what's good, right and working about your marriage and your life. If you find yourself getting angry at him, then do the anger journaling on this page, and that will help you vent your anger without doing any harm.

Believe in yourself, and believe in the goodness of your husband.

My very best to you,

Dr. DeFoore