Think aloud
If you are like me, you have the same question on your mind as I do – why is my husband so mean to me?
A mean husband can make your everyday life a living hell, and you just won’t be able to take it anymore.
I have been wondering why is my husband so mean to me lately, so I read about it and am coming to you with answers to help you detect the reasons for his disrespectful behavior.
You should start fixing your marriage by determining the reason why he acts the way he does.
And you need to solve this problem soon because living with an angry husband is like living near an active volcano.
You are always alert, waiting for it to ruin everything with lava. And he can easily ruin your day by even the smallest outbursts.
But you could always choose to move away from the active volcano.
I will try to help you by giving you a list of reasons why your husband is mean to you, and I will tell you what you can do about it.
Dealing with a mean husband can be difficult, but your only solution is to either find a way to deal with him or leave him.
If you don’t want to give up on your marriage just yet, leaving him isn’t an option, so you have to find a way to deal with a mean husband.
I found myself in situations where my husband is mean to me, but he is also mean to others.
It is like he suddenly got sick of everything, and he has to lash out on someone in order to help himself feel better.
If you have been asking yourself “why is my husband so mean” read on to discover most common reasons why are husbands mean to their wives, but keep in mind that every situation is different so the reasons I’m going to mention don’t necessarily mean that he falls into any of these categories.
If he does, it will be useful for you to read my advice on dealing with a mean husband, but keep in mind that those don’t work for everyone.
All in all, you should continue reading and try to recognize your situation in those that I’m going to mention, but whether you find your mean husband in these examples or not, you should definitely consider counseling as an option to solve this problem.
My husband is mean, and I just accepted that he is like that and found ways to deal with his outbursts, but if your husband loses temper over little things often, you must remember that you don’t have to take that.
Here are the reasons why you have a mean husband:
1. He has a personality problem
All mean husbands have something in common, and that thing is that they all lack empathy for their wives.
Consider does he have a lack of empathy for others as well, because if your husband is mean and disrespectful towards everyone and not just you, the problem is not with your relationship but with his personality.
You should also consider has this lack of empathy started recently or was he like that from as long as you know him.
Because if he was always mean, he has a personality problem.
I have been wondering why does my husband get angry over small things, and I realized that he is just an impulsive person.
This means that he doesn’t think much before he reacts and doesn’t consider the consequences his reaction might cause in the future.
It is a psychological problem, and you will notice that your husband later regrets the things he does.
If he was always like this, then it’s a personality characteristic, and I’m sorry to inform you, but it’s not going to change.
However, if this is a recent problem, the stress could be causing him to act this way. It might even be a mid-life crisis symptom.
Still, in some cases, lower inhibitions caused by alcohol or drug addiction is what is causing a man to become a mean husband.
If your husband is mean because of a personality problem, that is unlikely to change, and he most likely won’t accept to try therapy.
You will just have to learn how to deal with an angry husband and learn to set boundaries in order not to become a victim.
2. He is a mean husband because he is stressed
Not all men have a healthy coping mechanism, and some use their wives and kids as their scapegoat.
Successful men are capable of realizing their problems and coping with them.
Still, men with poor cooping don’t want to accept that they have a problem, they deny it and blame others for it.
They will even get angry if you point out the problem to them.
Deep inside, they know that they have a problem and that they have to do something about it and it’s eating them from the inside.
Actually, they feel inadequate to deal with it. So they are building up the anger inside them until they burst out.
What you need to know is that he would still have this problem if he were married to someone else. It’s not you, it’s him.
And he has to find a way to deal with it.
He will most likely choose drugs, video games, and alcohol, or some other stimulating activity because it helps him with his stress. But that help is only temporarily useful.
You have to understand that you are not the cause of these problems, and you need to set boundaries to protect yourself and deal with him.
It might be a good idea to even use intervention in order to get him to admit he has a problem because only when he realizes he has a problem and chooses to work on it will there be a chance that you won’t have an angry husband anymore.
3. He thinks you are rejecting him
Even though in most cases you don’t have much to do with the reason for having a mean husband, sometimes wives have unrealistic expectations from their husbands, which they simply can’t live up to, and it’s causing the husbands to feel like they are not good enough.
In these cases, they don’t receive enough affirmation, and it is causing them to become disrespectful because it is their way of emotional self-preservation.
What you, as his wife, need to understand is that all conflicts are harmful to a marriage.
So if you are constantly arguing with your husband, criticizing him, or complaining about him, he will become more and more disrespectful and will surely criticize you back.
This is why it’s not a good idea to argue with him because it won’t help you work things out and will only make the situation even worse.
You need to have a positive atmosphere in your marriage, and you are the one that needs to bring the positivity and closeness into your marriage in order to make your relationship great again.
Stop creating conflicts, and try to make sure that your husband enjoys spending time with you and that he feels loved and appreciated when you are doing things together.
Consider what changes you can make to make your husband once again enjoy spending time with you, talking to you, and making love with you.
You need to make sure that he knows that he is loved the way he is.
4. He might be having an affair
If you haven’t recognized your mean husband in the examples before this one and have realized that he is mean only to you and not to other people, I am very sorry to inform you, but he might be unfaithful to you, and that is the reason for his bad behavior.
He is picking fights with you about the smallest things and blames you for everything?
This is a type of emotional distancing behavior, and it is common with people who are preparing to leave their partners.
Most men are unable to have a good relationship with their wives while they are chasing after other women.
So if you don’t have any real problems in your marriage, but he is being mean only to you and lashes out about the minor things, this might be the case in your marriage.
If he is avoiding to make your relationship better, it is because he is cheating or is preparing to have an affair.
Why else wouldn’t he want to do with you the things he liked doing before?
Being nice to you and doing things like that would only make it harder for him to cheat on you.
In this case, he will be avoiding you and will pay more attention to where he leaves his phone. He will probably keep it turned off when he is at home.
If he is, in addition, behaving secretly and comes home late or leaves early, it is likely that he is being unfaithful.
This is most likely to be the case if he is also avoiding being with you and is being mean to you for no apparent reason.
Confronting him with it won’t get you anywhere because it will only make him angrier.
You have to find a way to deal with him that best works for your situation. Consider counseling or coaching as a solution to this.
5. He could have low testosterone or low serotonin
Even though we might think that anger comes from high testosterone, that is actually not true, and it is actually associated with the abuse of steroids, not testosterone.
Studies proved that men with low levels of testosterone could be more irritable and have mood swings.
Even though it’s often undiagnosed, many men have low testosterone.
His diet and the quality of his sleep can impact his testosterone levels as well as his serotonin.
People who have low serotonin can become irritable and unhappy.
It’s good to mention here cortisol as well. It is a stress hormone, and it could also be the reason why he is so irritable.
If your mean husband hasn’t always been mean, but it only started when he was exposed to a lot of stress at work and is not eating and sleeping properly, high levels of cortisol could be exactly what made him become a different person.
It’s not a bad idea to take your husband to the doctors who can check his overall health. He doesn’t have to know the real reason behind this visit.
But all in all, if your husband hasn’t always been angry, but recently became different, there is hope that he will go back to his old self once the circumstances of his life change and he is able to relax.
Try talking to him about his job to see does his have a lot of stress at work and pay attention to his eating and sleeping to notice if the cause of his problem lies in his stressful lifestyle.
6. He might feel he has no purpose
If his male identity is compromised and he can be a macho man he wants to be, this struggle could be what’s making him so angry.
Maybe he even has the wrong assumption that this angry behavior is manly, and it’s his way of trying to be “a real man”.
He is most likely comparing himself to others and feels like he is inadequate, which is making him have these outbursts.
It might even be a sign of a mid-life crisis since he probably doesn’t feel empowered and thinks he has no purpose anymore.
If he has been angry and mean always and not just recently, it could be that he was actually raised to think that this kind of behavior is manly and macho, so he is just trying to be a man because he is actually really self-conscious.
It could also be true that he has unresolved emotional issues that he doesn’t know how to deal with, so he becomes irritable and angry.
This problem could be resolved by counseling and maybe even just between you two if you get him to open up and talk about his feeling sincerely.
How to deal with a mean husband
When you hear him roar, don’t think of it as a roar, but rather as a baby’s cry.
He doesn’t know how else to show that he has a problem, and it is important that you stay calm and not get afraid of his temper.
Consider what you might have done to cause this angry behavior.
If you have done something to cause this kind of treatment, you need to apologize to him and try to fix things.
But if you know you had nothing to do with his outburst, and it is about such minor things, then you should know that his anger is his habit, and no matter how much he tries to blame you for it, he needs to accept that it’s only his fault. You can’t change him.
He has to choose to change. And he has to take the blame and realize it’s not your fault in order to do so.
The only thing you can control is how you will deal with him and react to his angry outbursts.
What you need to know is that the anger had maybe been making him feel manly at first, but as it continues to consume him, it is starting to eat him from the inside, and he is actually suffering maybe even more than you, even though he might isn’t realizing it.
Because anger, in fact, isn’t a manly thing – it is a weakness. Only the weak and insecure men who are actually scared have the need to prove themselves by being angry and mean.
Remember that humor is the best medicine and use it as a shield. Try making him, and yourself laugh about his outbursts.
Once the dust settles in and he calms down, you could try pointing out to him that it’s actually funny how such an irrelevant thing caused you two such pain.
Here are some helpful tips on how to deal with a mean husband:
1. Don’t make him angrier
You need to know that anger is a temporary thing, and don’t make him more upset but rather wait because he will soon calm down.
Don’t let the anger consume you as well and make you say something that you will later regret but will leave a permanent scar on your relationship.
If you don’t let him be angry by himself, you might cause the anger to last more than it would if you just let him vent.
2. Wait for him to calm down
As I said before, anger will pass, and you need to wait for things to cool down before you react.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t talk to him about his irrational behavior, but just that that angry energy needs to leave his body before he can become rational again.
Anger causes an adrenaline’s effect on the body, and it takes some time for that effect to pass so the person can go back to the previous state.
3. You need to set boundaries
As I said when I was talking about reasons for his bad behavior, you need to set boundaries and stick to them, so you don’t become his victim.
There are things you can tolerate, and there are things you simply can’t and won’t tolerate, and that needs to be clear to both of you.
This is the most effective technique that you yourself can do for anger management.
4. Choose the fights you want to participate in
Never let him drag you in one of the irrational fights about minor things that aren’t really the problem.
You need to win some fights in order to control his mad behavior, and for you to do so, you need to pick the fights you want to participate in.
It doesn’t matter that you win; what matters is that he learns that he is not winning by bursting out about the irrelevant things that aren’t really the problem in your relationship.
5. Don’t let him disrespect you
This is the man who promised to love you in good and in bad, so you should not tolerate him being disrespectful to you, especially if it means being condescending.
You don’t need to tolerate his dismissive attitude.
And most importantly, you must not tolerate it because he will continue doing it if you let him, just to boost his ego.
Don’t let him disrespect you and don’t tolerate his behavior when he is hurting you.
If you can’t show him with your words, show him by walking away from him that this behavior is unacceptable.
6. Say you are sorry when it’s needed
When you did something to upset him, apologize sincerely and don’t use “but” when you apologize.
Simply and honestly saying “I am sorry” when you have caused him to be angry should be enough to soften his angry heart and make him realize he has his part of the blame as well.
7. We are what we eat
It might be strange to mention his diet here, but trust me, it’s also important. Make sure he is eating healthy and getting enough sleep.
He should be taking vitamins, eating fruits and vegetables, and drinking enough water.
8. Try to help him be less stressed out
If this behavior of his is new, it might be because of some stress, so you should make sure that he doesn’t have additional stress at home and talk to him about the stress he might be experiencing at work.
Treat him with a massage, maybe even go with him and get a couples massage so you both can finally relax.
You both need it bad and deserve it as well. Show him compassion, and don’t get angry in response.
He needs you to understand him and be there for him to help him out with the heavyweight he might be secretly carrying on his shoulders.
