My husband is aggressive and anxious...

I am having a lot of family problems lately.

This has been going on for over a year now, though, and I don't know what to do.

My husband has become very aggressive, angry, and seemingly depressed and anxious, although he has never talked to a doctor.

He is very negative, hopeless about his future and lazy, too. He gets very angry and anxious in public situations like in grocery stores.

His yelling and aggression has also been out of control for a while and I'm at my wit's end.

Today, he exhibited a classic episode--we got into a little disagreement and started arguing, and as I sat there, eating my dinner and conversing with him, he got up, slapped the food out of my hand, pushed a neighboring chair over and pushed everything off the table. He came at me and I closed my eyes and flinched. He likes to charge at me to intimidate me.

Most of the time, his tactics are purely intimidation, but the whole attitude he exudes day after day is really making me frustrated and disengaged in the relationship.

Despite my bipolar disorder, I am doing very well at work, and I'm positive and hopeful and I think the future has great things in store for me. I seem to rise above my diagnosis most of the time.

It is quite a contrast with my husband that walks around like there is a constant cloud over his head. I would have never thought he was the one that seemed more out of control than me.

I have tried to discuss with him that he talk to a doctor or even another family member--there is always an excuse. He doesn't want to do any of that and frankly I'm tired of the excuses. I work to get help every single day for myself and my personal issues. Why can't he?

Even more frustrating for me, he doesn't spend extended time with anyone else except me. He is fantastic at appearing like the calm, cool guy for a few hours, but when he's home "safe" with me, he acts like a tyrant.

What do I do? He refuses to get himself checked out or talk to anyone, and he doesn't want me to talk to anyone to get support/help because he doesn't want anyone to know. It's frustrating because I'm the only one dealing with this all the time.

It is really straining our relationship. He is acting very strange. I don't like living with an aggressive, miserable person.

Any advice?

Has your husband always been this way? How old is he? Does he work or go to school?

The fact that he controls his behavior when he is with others and only acts out when he is alone with you shows that he does have control of his behavior. That alone would make me want to end the relationship if he does not agree to get counselling.

If he has not always been like this, is there any thing you can think of that changed over the year? Some thing changed some where. Can we rule out drugs and alcohol? Some thing caused a change.

Sorry I didn't reply so quickly, but he is having anger outbursts today (slamming things, screaming), so I was reminded...

He is 25, he works full time, same place for 7 years now. He lost some overtime hours over a year ago when the extreme outbursts started to get worse, but that's about it as far as changes. I wonder if it is mental illness "coming out", if you will...

He has always drank socially, but his drinking has increased in the last year or so as well. That makes me think the drinking stems from something else.

As I mentioned, he attributes a lot of his issues to problems like not getting paid enough, yet he doesn't do anything to improve the situation, so for me, it gets old, because that is what I do, take action, when I'm not happy with things.

He didn't like how I talked to him this morning, so he blamed me again for upsetting him and started screaming and throwing/pushing things around.

I don't want the neighbors to hear his outbursts, so embarrassing...

And I think I mentioned he gets angry in places like grocery stores, but this is like silent angry, like whispering angrily to me, he will not get crazy anywhere public, or in front of anyone but me. So that makes me tend to agree with Yoda because obviously there is a level of control.

Sounds like it is getting worse, as he is increasing his alcohol consumption. At the same time, it seems common knowledge, there's underlying unresolved issues that exist.

So, if he's unwilling to accept he has a problem, and unwilling to get help. The question remains, what are you going to do, with that fact?