Help!My husband calls me hurtful,unprintable names

In recent years, my husband has developed a habit of speaking awful and hurtful words to me whenever we disagree. He calls me unprintable names or puts across demeaning statements. He also becomes defensive even when he is on the wrong and never apologises for anything. After our fights, he expects us to carry on as if nothing happened. Is there something wrong with him? Am I expecting too much from him? Please advise me on how I can handle him as I always feel that he just takes me for granted and does not care about me.

{Risper}

When you lose your cool, you will see more mistakes - imaginary or real. On the road, when you believe other drivers are making mistakes to annoy you, you are on the path to causing an accident. Politely remind him that he is unfair to you. Equally use his friends to sound him up on the same. It is possible he is going through stressful moments, instigated by you or from somewhere else and it is equally healthy that you conduct a self check to see whether you could be part of the problem.

{Tasma Saka}

You should have a conversation in the presence of some trusted friends. It is your right to demand for freedom but maybe he also needs counseling. For me I look at how a man treats his mother. If he treats his mother with no respect I know exactly how he is likely to treat his wife.

{Cecilia Nkatha}

Your husband will only go as far as you let him. You have allowed him to do this to you and go unpunished. You are his queen and deserve to be treated well and with respect. If he wants to insult people, he should do it anywhere else apart from the house. Then he will face the law.

{Lillian Osoro}

A disrespectful spouse can make you feel worthless, frustrated, and sad. Some even do it in front of others. No marriage can stand when one of the parties keeps looking down on the other. He should change or hit the road.

{Maureen Wanja}

Communication is one of the most essential components of any relationship. As a matter of fact almost every other component of any relationship depends on communication. It can enhance and strengthen relations between people and the lack of it pushes a wedge between the parties involved. Prolonged lack of it makes people drift further apart to distances that later become extremely difficult to close. Yet with this knowledge many people struggle with communication or refuse to pay attention to this often leading to physical and emotional disconnects within relationships.

The thing with communication is that it manifests itself in many ways. For instance outright refusal to engage is one form of breakdown while use of harsh and demeaning words is another form of breakdown. Refusal to empathise or consider the other persons perception, feelings and self worth is another form of breakdown.  However there are always some underlying reasons as to why people behave the way they do and these include lack of self-esteem, misplaced anger, or the existence of deeply entrenched unspoken issues which lead to feelings of resentment towards the other person and I think this is what is going on here.

You may need to deeply reflect and even carefully engage him in an attempt to understand why he harbours such strong and deep feelings of resentment towards you. The use of unprintable and demeaning words towards a spouse is not a common occurrence; there must be something that is fuelling this. About apologising after doing you wrong and preferring to carry on like nothing happened, that is more-or-less typical male behaviour. Generally, men choose to apologise in many other ways other than blurting out the magical words “I am sorry.” They will take you out to dinner, buy you a “sufuria” or that expensive piece of cutlery – generally anything other say those words but in essence what they are usually doing is saying that they are sorry.  It may not make sense but that is just how it is.

What to do about this? In the first instance if you are feeling disrespected or taken for granted then you ought to let him know in a candid way in how his actions and words make you feel. This discussion should be held in the spirit of love with the hope that he will realise his mistakes and change. The other thing that could be facilitating this is the likely possibility of internal emotional weakness thus leading to the assumption of an arrogant and harsh personality as a cover up to the underlying weaknesses. If there are issues, you may probably have a hint about them but if you don’t and even after deep reflection and discussion with him you don’t find any issue then this could be what is playing out here.

Simon is a relationships counsellor who helps couples face the truth towards finding reasonable solutions for their problems