I’ve been struggling with recognizing and appropriately dealing with my husband’s verbal abuse. As of yet I haven’t given up hope for our relationship. I am starting to regain my self-confidence and defend myself and children from his angry outbursts. He seems to be getting better but it is definitely a work in progress. I am finding that I am still unsure of the roll I play in contributing to our marital problem. I’m sure some of my behaviors could be considered abusive and even manipulative at times. I also understand that my perceptions and sense of reality is likely still heavily influenced by his manipulations and my background. I was hoping that some of you could give me some advice the following situation.

My husband has spent the week hunting from dawn to nightfall. When he comes home he basically retreats to the bedroom and has had very little interaction with me or the kids. I know this sounds bad, but hunting has always been a part of his life and I’m OK with him dropping off the face of the earth for a week to do his own thing. However this has resulted in a dramatic increase in his physical activity and fatigue has set in --he has become miserable. Today he came home really down on himself complaining of leg cramping, tiredness, and generally feeling like crap. This obviously is the result of going from being sedentary to hiking around in the woods all day. The problem is that he comes home and literally dumps is anger, frustration, and woes on me and expects me listen with compassion. I can handle him isolating himself for a week but I really struggle with trying to be supportive of him when he gets like this. It is times like theses where he calls me cold, insensitive and uncaring. I want to support him and listen to his concerns but much of what he is experiencing is self inflicted and his angry tone and body language makes me not want to be around him.

Am I being cold and insensitive? Should I be able to rub his back, lie to him about his state of health, and listen to his woes? Am I being self-centered? Is this what wives who love their husband’s are supposed intuitively to do?