Weddingbee boards

Posting under an alias on this one so no one recognizes me, but I need to vent and this seems like the best place to do it.  FI and I had a huge fight this morning, and I won't get to talk to him until tonight after work and I have no idea how that's going to go.  It's a stupid argument, but I don't feel like I'm in the wrong on this one and I refuse to back down.  

FI has a horrible temper.  He has NEVER aimed it at me (never touched me, never takes anything out on me in any way, etc.) but it's sometimes like living with a large toddler prone to temper tantrums.  If something happens that he doesn't like, he ends up yelling and swearing up a storm.  It gets annoying, but I know it's pretty harmless and generally just tune him out.  My father, who is the world's biggest softie, is also prone to yelling and my mom always does the same thing, shakes her head and walks away.  As someone with a short fuse, I understand how sometimes it's easy to get frustrated with little things and want to yell too, so this REALLY isn't a big deal, and I don't think it's an underlying sign of impending abuse or doom.  

The other player in this argument is our 6 year old dog.  She is very sweet and lovey and wants nothing more than to be close to her mama since I rescued her 2 years ago, but she has a habit of carrying our things around the house.  She's a retriever, so she thinks she's being nice by 'bringing' us anything she can find, but she also tends to lose things which results in us searching the house for that other shoe, the jacket we left hanging on a dining room chair, things like that.  Most of the time it's my stuff, but sometimes it's his stuff too.  Lately, it's been the winter hat he wears to work everyday.  If she can get to it, she takes it and carries it around.  He always gets annoyed in the morning when he can't find it, even though I tell him ALL THE TIME not to leave it where she can get to it.  Leaving it on the couch in the den, or on the dining room chair next to his coat, or anyplace else is not a good idea.  Hang your coat on the coat rack, put your hat in your coat pocket, or don't get mad when she takes it.  Common sense.  

Well, this morning he couldn't find his hat again.  Please keep in mind that it was 5:00 in the morning, I haven't had much sleep lately for other reasons, I am coming down with a sinus infection and my head feels like it's going to explode.  So with all of this happening, he is tearing through the house yelling, swearing, slamming things, you get the idea.  I get up to try to help him find it, and he snaps at me 'Is there any other hat I could wear?' to which I yell back through gritted teeth 'I don't know'.  He keeps yelling, saying how he can't go to work with no hat (he drives a truck but does have to be outside sometimes...not all day), he hasn't had a hair cut lately, blah blah blah.  I walk into our bedroom to see if the dog has dropped his hat in there, and my dog is laying on our bed.  When I tried to get her to come down, she cowered behind me burying her head in my legs and shaking.  That's when I lost it, because even though he wasn't yelling at anyone, he had terrified my neurotic rescue dog who was abused previously and I vowed I would never subject her to anything like that again.  Seeing her shake set me over the edge, so I started screaming (and I'm not a yeller, so the decible shocked even me) at him to stop being ridiculous, he knows she takes things and he leaves everything wherever he wants so it's his own fault, I'm sick of always listening to him yell about everything, that every single time he doesn't get his way I have to hear about it, he terrified the poor dog who is cowering behind me and shaking because he's pissed off at something that's his own fault.  It was bad, but I felt like a mama bear who had to defend her cub.  He yelled back that he wasn't yelling at me, and I said it didn't make a differene since I had to be woken up by it anyway.  It ended with him putting gel in his hair (which I had to find for him) and him mumbling 'Fine, then I just won't bother you with this stuff anymore' and leaving with a 'See you later' instead of the nice kiss goodbye I usually get (not that I expected it) after silence for a good 20 minutes.  

Now, I realize that screaming at him about how I couldn't stand his constant yelling was a little backwards, but I couldn't help it.  Plus, I think he needed to know what it felt like to be the person on the other end, listening to someone else yell and carry on.  It's one thing to be frustrated, or to always feel the need to complain about something, but the yelling and slamming to the point that my dog was shaking with fear??  No, I won't have that.  I have told him in the past (nicely) that he needs to calm himself down, go on a pill for anxiety if he needs it, something because I don't like the constant fits of his.  I've also pointed out that he has a really good life now, he has a good job, a new family that cares about him, a nice house, a fiance that loves and supports him...so any prior bad stuff in his life needs to be worked out and he needs to move on.  So he has crazy parents he barely speaks to, it's over.  Either work it out with them or don't, but don't hold it all in and yell at the computer when it freezes, or other mundane little things.  He's always upset about something (the hat, work is stressful, the remote needs new batteries, the lamp in the den is out, his car needs work, his head hurts, it's always something).  He is a wonderful person, he has a big heart of gold, and even though he rarely says the 'right' things and isn't a romantic gesture kind of person, he spoils me and loves me and we generally have a happy little life together.  This, however, needs to stop.  I won't live my life 'hiding' in the other room pretending not to hear his rants, or trying to hurry up and find whatever it is that he's lost so he can calm down.  I also will not raise children in a home where their father is always angry.  It's a stupid fight over a $5 hat, but I can't just let it go and apologize for yelling at him unless he admits he has an anger problem and does something about it.  I don't want to leave him, I don't want to break up, I just want him to see that this isn't OK and I won't put up with it.

Am I in the wrong?  What do I say to him tonight when we get home?  Do I apologize for flying off the handle but tell him he needs to stop his tantrums?  Do I tell him the tantrums need to stop before I apologize?  I hate this...and I know he'll spend all day brewing and either come home not speaking to me, or come home mad that I yelled and we'll argue anyway.  We don't fight often, and when we do we always resolve it right away but this was a big one and I hate spending all day brewing (as is he) about it unable to talk to him.  

WOW thank you everyone for the responses!  Just typing it out here helped me calm down, and you're all right...I was totally wrong for yelling and will apologize for not handling it better.  I will also take your advice and calmly tell him how his yelling affects our home life, and how I'm not going anywhere but will support him while he gets help to work through things.  It really helps knowing that other people have had success with anger management and counseling.  I honestly don't know if he'll be open to either, but perhaps if I go with him it'll make him feel less anxious and we'll both learn how to handle things better. Thank you!  I'll keep you all posted!

UPDATE:  It's far from being 'over', but we did have a long talk about it when we got home.  Before either of us could say anything, I apologized for yelling earlier, because it wasn't the right way to handle it and I felt bad about THAT part of it.  However, when I saw our dog being scared because of his rant, I lost it and can't have that happen again.  He apologized for 'not being a picture of sunshine' (which was his way of saying being a miserable ass) and agreed that he does have a problem with flying off the handle.  I was very calm and explained that while I knew he wasn't ever yelling directly at me, and wasn't scared it would turn violent, I still felt like I was being yelled at.  (I actually said I knew how the dog felt, with the shaking and the being scared, even though she wasn't being yelled at)  We talked through it for a while, and in short for now I agreed to hold off on insisting counseling but ONLY because his health insurance hasn't fully kicked in yet, and the therapy I looked into was expensive.  The deal is that he needs to keep himself in check, or talk to me about things before they spiral, or ask me for help if he's missing something, and we'll continue to look into therapy.  If we find something we can afford before his health insurance kicks in fully, we'll look into it, or if this happens again it won't wait.  He actually took it rather well, he wasn't defensive or anything which surprised me.  He knows it's not something that can happen again, nor is it something I will tolerate.  Like I said, it's far from over, but at least we were able to discuss it calmly with no tears or swearing, to be re-examined in a month or two unless there is another incident.  I think all of your advice REALLY helped me explain it calmly, and I think he was genuinely relieved when I told him I still loved him because he is a good person and will work with him if he agrees to talk to someone so for that I thank all of you!!

@eloping:  LOL, believe me we're NOT happy about the poor dog's quirks.  Because she had a REALLY bad home environment before I adopted her, she learned some bad behavior that we're trying to work with her on, including the stealing of things.  I've talked to the vet about it, and we are working on disciplining her in a way that doesn't frighten her, but does show her which behavior isn't 'OK', and redirecting her attention (telling her NO when she is carrying a shoe and giving her a chew toy instead, that kind of thing).  Most of her 'rearranging' is done out of lonliness and basically trying to get my 'approval', so I don't always get to catch her in the act unfortunately.  Yes, she's crazy...but we do our best LOL.