I've learned to have a lot more control over what I say in anger, but I can still slip up and say "I hate you" to my husband, or threaten him with divorce. It's more than just not getting my way. He has his own issues, and his biggest one is relating to me emotionally. Heck, he can't relate to ANYONE emotionally. He's on the autism/Asperger's spectrum, for one thing, and for another, he was severely abused as a child. Combine these things, and he can't tell the difference between simply expressing strong feelings, and raging violently the way his father did. So, I show the slightest hint of emotion, and he turtles up. Clamps that shell down tight. He is *incapable* of helping me work through whatever it was that upset me. Knowing that I do have a depressive illness, he might tell me I'm not in my right mind, and I need to call my T or p-doc. (He says "doctor" for either one, and doesn't quite grasp the difference in what the two of them do. This despite the fact that he is actually very intelligent.)

Well, having my emotions blown off that way can trigger me and cause me to escalate, hence the ugly words. If I wasn't actually in crisis before, I might be by the time it's over. I was aware when we got married that my husband had been abused by his father, but I didn't know he placed on the ASD scale. So do I, but I do have the emotional connectivity. I didn't always, but I've made tremendous progress. Understanding these things about him does help me to realize that when I'm having a meltdown, and he's not hearing me but avoids me and plays computer games, it isn't what it looks like. It may appear that he doesn't care and isn't being supportive, but it's more like being frozen in fear as a conditioned reflex in the face of emotion. Not knowing what to do, he plays the computer games to clamp that shell down and feel protected. Since I realize this now, I'm far less likely to escalate than I once was.

As for the harsh words I say in anger, I do feel at the time as if I mean it. But when I calm down, I usually discover that I didn't really. I don't hate him, and I have no intention of leaving him.

Occasionally the shoe has been on the other foot, and he has said harsh, ugly words to me. Usually that happens because he misunderstood what I said, and is reacting to what he thought he heard. For example, I was surprised to learn he didn't know where our local YMCA is located, or how to get there. Because he drives a transit bus for a living, I thought he would be very familiar with our city's geography. We were already having a bad day and being impatient with each other. I snapped, "You're a bus driver, and yet you don't know where the Y is?" I didn't quite get that out of my mouth before he lit into me and told me to get out of his life. It turned out he hadn't heard me completely. He zeroed in on "you're a bus driver," and interpreted this as, "You're nothing but a loser of a bus driver, as opposed to somebody with a big important job like a doctor or a CEO." And thinking I'd said *that,* of course he was angry. He was very sorry when he later learned what I'd actually said and meant. Then he explained to me that he doesn't drive the routes that go to the Y, so no, just because he is a bus driver doesn't mean he knows where everything in the city is. Then he observed, rightly, that we both need to watch what we say to each other.