World War III

So DH and I had the biggest fight of our marriage on Saturday afternoon. It was awful. It left me feeling like crap.

We woke up Saturday morning a decided to get dressed and do some running around together. Then we were going to go to the flea market and pick up some dinner. The phone rings and it's his brother asking for a ride home from Toronto (where he works out of- he's a trucker and that's where the companys HQ is). I was pissed for several reasons:

1- we were literally walking out the door when he called and because we only have 1 car it means that I am now stuck at home.
2- Toronto is an hour away + the time it takes to maneuver around the city depending on traffic (at least 30 minutes), so this isn't just a quick pick-up... it was going to take up a good portion of the day round trip.
3- BIL is the lasiest person I know... literally. He didn't want to get on the bus (he wouldn't admit that, but it he had 1000 reasons why he couldn't when I suggested it) and hadn't planned in advance for the ride. This is just too far away to call at the moment you need the ride and be like "hey, can you swing down to TO, take 3-4 hours out of your day, and pick me up.... oh and by the way, can you drop whatever your doing and leave right now because I'm sitting here waiting and didn't have the forethought to plan for a ride"?
4- His brother would NEVER do this for him unless he benefitted somehow.
5- DH's family (especially his siblings) walk all over him. Both BIL and SIL are older than he is and they both live at home with MIL (yes that's right... BIL is 30 and SIL is 28... they're real winners) they both get jobs for a couple of weeks make some $$ and then quit. They mooch from EVERYONE but think they're both the cat's ass and they take advantage of DH's big heart all the time. It's sad that the little brother is constantly supporting his two older siblings. It makes me furious.

I told DH that I was pissed and told him he needed to learn how to stand up for himself. I also said that if he really wanted to go get his brother that he should stand-up for himself against me right then and there and say so, but he didn't say anything. Then it went from bad to worse (and got blown way out of proportion) with him slamming the bathroom door in my face and screaming some obscenity at me ( I don't honestly remember what he was responding to). I lost it and we started screaming at eachother. He screamed something to the effect of "if it was your sister, you would go in a minute, but because it's my brother and he's a f**k up you get pissed off."

There was screaming, a phone thrown (not at anyone, just thrown in general), several doors slammed and DH almost punched the wall. I saw what he was about to do and yelled that if he put a hole in my drywall that he was not to come home that night (I won't tolerate that). He stopped, but then riverted to being a child because I said something about him not effing punching my walls and he started play punching them saying "ohh I'm punching them.. does it make you mad". I LOST it... I was so furious that he was being so childish (he's never been like that before and I've known him my whole life). He screamed "f**k you, you know that... f**k you!" He was totally flipping out. I told him he wasn't going anywhere in the car until he calmed down (I didn't need him getting behind the wheel in a rage) and he said "oh yes I am" and kept repeating that. Fianlly I remembered that his brother was calling back with directions so I told him that even if he wanted to he couldn't leave yet because he didn't know where he was going. He sat on the couch staring while I took the directions down from his brother and then I said "here's the directions, his # is on there if you get lost and this argument isn't over". Then I stood in front of the door to make sure he was calm before leaving and I could tell he wasn't angry any more but upset and I said "what the hell was that about.. what's wrong" He said "well I don't like the fact that I just freaked out at you" and I said "neither do I, but nevermind that, what lead to the freak out? Why are you so mad at me?" He said that it's my opinion of his family that made him so mad. I told him that he needs to tell me when I'm doing/ saying something that he doens't like BEFORE it gets to freak out point because I won't live with it. Usually he agrees with me about his family or he just doesn't say anything, so how am I supposed to know when I'm pissing him off? And I told him flat out that I just wanted him to stand up for himself and even if that was with me... the whole "if you want to pick him up then stand up to me and say so" and yet he didn't say anything even when I laid the chance out in front of him. He bottled it up until he exploded. I said that if he ever got that mad again and started punching holes in my walls that we would be done because I can't deal with it. I said we need to talk about this stuff BEFORE that kind of anger erupts. He just sat there in silence. I suddenly started crying (out of shear anger) and walked upstairs saying "don't take your anger out on the car. Calm down before you get on the road". He yelled good bye but I was too mad to respond.

When he came home I hear "hi hunny!" He comes up, gives me a tea and says "what do you want for dinner?". This made me furious because I wasn't done being mad at him yet and we weren't done talking about it. I made that quite clear.

We're fine now, but it was bar far the biggest and worst fight we've had since being married (2.5 years ago). I never want to have to deal with it again... so I'm going to have to REALLY watch what I say about his family from now on because it obviously bothers him far more than I realized, and he's going to have to learn to communicate with me when something is bothering him.