TlDr: husband threw a tantrum and wanted to punch holes in my parents walls after becoming frustrated that a concert ticket I bought him was having trouble transferring to his name.

My (38F) husband (45M) and I have been married 14 years. Things have been genereally good until a couple years ago. Last year we decided to separate, but have since reconciled. We have been back together around 7 months. We still live seperately atm while we work on our issues, but frequently (2-5 nights a week) spend the whole day/night together.

A few months after we reconciled I bought him a ticket to see a concert in anticipation of his upcoming birthday. It's a band he really likes and has seen before years ago. It was a huge financial sacrifice for me at the time and I was super excited to be able to give him the ticket. The ticket itself wasn't that expensive, but it was relatively expensive compared to my budget at that time. Unfortunately I couldn't afford for both of us to go, but I just wanted to buy him something nice. I also arranged for him to get a ride out to the venue and back (about 1 1/2 hours away) so he wouldn't have to stress about driving.

Fast forward to yesterday when I realized I still needed to transfer the ticket to his name, which I did. I told him about it and reminded him that he needs to make an account/"accept" the ticket on his end. He said he would do it the next day (today). Sure enough about an hour ago (middle of the day) he decided to do what he had to do to finish the transfer. Unfortunately the process was more complicated/took longer than he thought it would (had to make the account, had to free up storage, had to download app multiple times, etc) and he got frustrated. Fine, whatever. Nothing new. He gets frustrated easily.

It just so happens that we are at my parents house right now for the holidays. How he acted was embarassing. He started stomping his feet loudly (our chold could hear it from the next room) on the floor. He looked like he was having a toddler tantrum. His face was red, grunting noises, fists balled up, etc. I tried giving him space, but he didn't want that. I tried offering to help but that only frustrated him more. He seemed annoyed at my presence. At some point I lost my patience and told him to stop acting childish. That wasn't my proudest moment. I immediately regretted using that choice of words.

Sure enough it set him off. He went outside to cool down. I could hear him banging around outside. While he was cooling down I finalized the ticket transfer. After he came back inside we had a talk about it. I apologized immediately. That's when he said that if he hadn't walked outside he would have started punching holes in my parents walls. I believe him. He has punched the wall when we were living together during past arguments. Sometimes it did damage sometimes not. It never really scared me before, but it does now. The thought of him doing it at my parents house just makes it more concerning.

I asked him if he sees it as a problem that he wants to punch holes in the wall because of something that (in my eyes) seems minor. He acted like he had never considered that before which in itself seems like a problem. He also tends to self harm when he is frustrated which is another issue I worry about.

ETA:

  1. He has been to therapy in the past (unrelated issues) and has agreed to go back to therapy, but has not found a therapist yet. I told him that it's very important to me that he goes back to therapy so he absolutely knows that's the expectation.

  2. Supposedly he has been working on himself while we were separated and admitted that he "had a lot of growing up to do" so that's progress.

  3. I apologized for my choice of words not for how I felt/for calling him out. He also apologized later.


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