@Tee – I agree with you that there’s definitely an imbalance in our dynamics when my husband has these kind of moods. He has some type of chronic pain and this can be a real trigger for him to be cynical.

This is something I wrote on a note in my phone right after it happened, so I couldn’t forget the course of our conversation:

Our oldest child throws clothes from a drawer on the bedroom floor.
My husband picks them up, muttering: “That hurts my back!”
I’m busy dressing our youngest after a bath and respond: “I could have done it!”
“Yeah, but you often leave things,” he says.
Me: “When my head gets too crowded by thoughts, yes…”
Him: “There you go with your excuses.”
It ends with me saying: “But I would have done it now, because you were just saying it! I wouldn’t have missed that.”

Here, I felt an unfair dissatisfaction towards me that made me feel totally powerless.

He becomes such a different person when this mood strikes, and I’m unable to snap him out of it. You’re right, it’s unacceptable. Although I don’t believe I deserve it, it’s problematic that I get very anxious when he is angry and try to maintain “control” by attempting to placate him or try to make him see that “I didn’t mean to do anything wrong”. Unfortunately, walking away is very hard for me when we’re arguing because it goes directly against my instinct to pursue.