How To Deal with Angry Husband: 10 Things to Know

If you’re searching how to deal with angry husband, it’s probably because you’ve already tried everything—being understanding, being patient, being quieter, being “better,” being the emotional shock-absorber for the whole house.

And yet… nothing changes.

Before you take another step, here’s the most important truth you need to hear:

Your safety—emotional, physical, spiritual—is the priority.
Everything else is secondary.
His “anger issue” is not yours to decode.

So many women spend years trying to figure out why their husband is angry:

• Is he stressed?
• Does he need therapy?
• Did I say something wrong?
• Is it childhood trauma?
• Is it me?

But here’s what women discover in our Betrayal Trauma Recovery community again and again:

Men who don’t want to be angry, aren’t. Men who use anger to control the people around them use anger as a tactic.

Can He Control His Anger? Watch What He Does in Public

One of the clearest signs something deeper is happening is this: He has no trouble keeping it together in public.
Around friends, coworkers, church members, your kids’ teachers… he’s calm, charming, composed.

But at home? He unleashes.

If you’re living this split reality, there’s definately something deeper going on. You’re not imagining it.

I Used to Think My Husband Had an Anger Problem

How to deal with angry husband? I thought my husband needed anger management. He even took multiple courses, including anger boot camp. Nothing changed. Because he didn’t have an anger problem. His problem was something else entirely.

How to Deal With Angry Husband: 10 Questions That Reveal the Truth

If you’ve been wondering how to deal with angry husband, start here.
These 10 questions help clarify whether his anger is situational… or something that’s eroding your sense of safety.

If you answer yes to any of these, it’s worth paying closer attention to the pattern—not the excuse.

1. Do you often feel hurt, ashamed, or embarrassed after his anger?
2. Are you afraid to upset him because you fear he’ll leave you or punish you emotionally?
3. Have you spent time searching for clues about why he’s angry—as if there’s a hidden code to crack?
4. Has he made subtle or direct threats?
   (Example: “Touch is my love language… I get depressed when you pull away.” Translation: Give me sex or pay for it later.)
5.  Do you find yourself trying to predict his moods and make things perfect for him anticipating his anger?
6.  Have you tried describing how angry he gets to other people, but they don’t seem to understand?
7. Do you feel confused about what’s true versus what he claims when he’s angry?
8. Have you ever used sex to smooth things over or prevent him from becoming angry?
9. Do you feel emotionally abandoned because of his anger?
10.  Do you feel like sometimes you caused his anger?

If any of these hit close to home, it’s important to know your husband’s anger has nothing to do with you, other than the fact that he’s using it to control you.

So actually… How to Deal With Angry Husband?

Well, it’s sort of a trick question.

Women in our community start feeling clearer when they shift from:

❌ “How do I help him?”
to
✔️ “How do I help myself and my kids be safe, emotionally and physically?”

That shift changes everything. Our daily online group for women who have been betrayed in this way can validate and support you.

Your Next Step Toward Clarity

For deeper clarity, my Living Free Workshop walks you step-by-step through understanding what’s really going on, without pressure for you to do anything, without therapy jargon, and without being told to “just work on the marriage.”

You’re not asking for too much. You deserve emotional safety and peace.

To discover if you’re actually experiencing emotional abuse, take this free this test has 19 emotional abuse examples that women often miss.

Transcript: How to Deal With Angry Husband

Anne: Welcome to Betrayal Trauma Recovery. I’m Anne. I have Janice and Cameron on the podcast today. They’re gonna share a part of their story about how to deal with angry husband.

Janice, why don’t you go ahead and let’s start with your story.

Janice: Thank you, Anne. I appreciate it. I was a victim of domestic abuse, but I didn’t recognize it. All of those years, while in that marriage, we would reach out to counselors, pastors.

Usually we’d go to a pastor first and they would treat it like a marital problem. And most of the time, the attempts to get help made things worse. It really just boggled my mind that everywhere I turned to get help, whether it be the courts, law enforcement, counselors, nobody knew how to deal with our situation.

I came through a church where the pastor didn’t know what to do. He thought that I should just get out of the marriage. And when he told me that, I thought, well, this man doesn’t know Jesus. I went to a church that believed more like I did, and they told me, well, you need to submit as long as he’s not asking you to sin.

And the more I submitted or obeyed or bowed down to him, the more things would get worse.

Submission was taught Like obedience

Anne: Yeah, I went through a similar experience. I felt like I was like facing this problem head on. I just don’t know exactly what the problem is. And everyone I went to for help didn’t tell me what it was. And so I did everything right. But the people supposed to help me did not help.

You mentioned your pastor said, “You should consider divorce,” And you thought to yourself, this man doesn’t know Jesus. I actually hear that a lot. Women hear my podcast and they think I’m like pro-divorce or maybe not Christian or something. When I very, very much am. And I think Jesus doesn’t want women abused.

Janice: Absolutely. I had actually grown up in a pretty liberal church, and then after marriage I moved to one with strict teaching on men’s and women’s roles. Submission was taught like obedience. And then of course all the years I became a homeschool mom, listening to things like Focus on the Family. Where they talk about how your children will be better off if you stay married, that a divorce is so painful and hurtful to children, and my own parents had divorced.

So I really did not believe in divorce. And it got to the point that my daughter, who was 12 years old at the time, said, Mom, why don’t you just get out? And I said, God hates divorce. I kept asking myself, what does God say about divorce and marriage? But I had about a million things in my head that I had come to believe, put there by my husband. He would say things like, You need to submit. I’m the head of this house. He would use scripture to keep me under control.

Interpreting abuse as only physical

Anne: How did you realize that submitting to abuse or evil wasn’t what Jesus wanted?

Janice: I don’t even know if I came to that recognition until after I got out.

My ex was a physician, so we worked with a psychologist one-on-one for a week. I had been telling myself, this is not abuse. He doesn’t mean it. He just flips out and he really can’t control it. It’s like a little nervous breakdown, but I realized he used everything against me, and that is not physical violence. Before that, I interpreted abuse as only physical, and I had had some incidents, but they were few and far between. We could go years with no physical abuse, but then when they did happen, I would get shoved or blocked in a room.

it did build up and was worse there towards the end than in the beginning.

Anne: Me too. I think I only had maybe three like episodes where he actually touched me, and he didn’t really even harm me except for the last time when he got arrested, he sprained my fingers. But for me, the emotional and psychological abuse was way worse.

And that’s what took me forever to wrap my head around. And that’s what’s hard is that if we don’t recognize what’s happening and we go to get help from like a therapist or the church. They don’t recognize it, so they’re not gonna help us.

Janice: Their church is not understanding, just like victims. We don’t understand the dynamic, so how can we expect them to understand?

How to deal with angry husband: Quoting scripture and praying doesn’t make someone righteous

Anne: Yeah. Church is especially problematic when it comes to abusers because they go to church and they read their scriptures and they pray and they know how to act like a God-fearing man, you know? And so you can’t wrap your head around that. They’re intentionally lying and manipulating you, and neither can the people at church, but just because they can quote scripture and pray and they sound righteous.

If they are lying, if they’re using inappropriate media, if they’re having affairs, if they’re screaming at their family all the time, if they’re like throwing their weight around because they’re selfish. ‘Cause they don’t wanna have to cook dinner, they don’t want a dirty toilet. They’re not righteous, no matter how many scriptures they can quote. They should be studying scriptures on betrayal.

Janice: Yeah, and they know that. Jesus talked about wolves among sheep, right? So I think that they know that and they will actually use the church for their own gain. I mean, Paul talks about it in his epistles.

Anne: You and I both have physical abuse as part of our story, and with mine it was extremely minimal. I’m not trying to minimize his abuse.

I’m just saying like one time he pushed me into the bed, but it didn’t hurt me. It was just scary. And then there was all the punching walls and physical intimidation, which is also physical abuse. I just didn’t see it as that at the time, I could tell that he was getting really mad because he wanted me to back off and I wouldn’t back off.

Emotional abuse is dangerous, how to deal with angry husband?

Anne: I would just keep going and I thought like maybe he’ll punch me and then at least I’d have a bruise. I know a lot of women who think that, ‘ cause without the physical violence, you’re still being severely abused. It’s just so much harder to figure out. How to deal with angry husband?

Janice: I would much rather he hit me. To me, the emotional abuse can be so much worse than physical, depending on the type of physical abuse.

Anne: Well, yeah, ’cause it’s really clear if someone punches you in the face. But the manipulation and the gaslighting, like impossible to figure out sometimes. And that’s not our fault. It’s his fault. ‘Cause he is like literally hiding stuff.

Also, there are many stories, and I’ve talked about them on the podcast like Susan Powell and Leah Moses, Michael Haight, and the dentist from Colorado. I’ve done episodes about the warning signs your husband might kill you. They were not physically abusive and then they killed their family members suddenly. It’s not like they had a history of physical abuse before they committed murder, but they did have a history of emotional and psychological abuse.

Janice: Yes, that’s the thing . I’ve got a friend whose husband was just emotionally abusive, just emotionally abusive for years. She left and went to her parents’ house, so he stormed in and killed her parents and left her for dead.

Anne: That is awful. I am so sorry. I am so sorry. Oh yeah. I mean, that’s the worst case scenario. And not making light of that at all, but like it’s also the worst case scenario to be continually emotionally and psychologically abused.

If you obey the commandments you should be blessed

Anne: There’s no silver lining to abuse, and that’s why it’s so traumatizing. It’s traumatizing, just that the person you trusted with your life betrayed you. How to deal with angry husband?

Janice: Abuse in and of itself is a huge betrayal of the bond that we are supposed to have. It is our most intimate relationship, and so there’s nothing like that.

It’s such a deep wound. One day I’m saying, Lord, nobody knows what’s this feels like. Nobody understands what I’m going through right now. And it felt like the Holy Spirit dropped all over me and I could feel Jesus saying, I know. I know what it’s like to be betrayed by somebody I love. I know what it’s like to have somebody that I trusted turn on me.

He was betrayed. So we have a God who understands when we are experiencing betrayal trauma. People, they don’t appreciate us. They see us more as objects and possessions than partners, and so it’s just a really difficult thing to deal with.

I still had a lot of faith, but I also really questioned God’s goodness. If he’s good, why is he allowing this to happen to me?

Anne: Yeah, especially if you followed the council of your church and you were doing what you thought Jesus wanted you to do. If you obey the commandments, you’re supposed to be blessed.

It’s really hard to feel any blessings when there’s an abusive man standing between you and the blessings that God wants to give you. In terms of the church, like Jesus said, that if you lust after a woman, you’ve committed adultery. And so here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we view pornography use as abusive.

how to deal with angry husband: Abusers have mindsets of entitlement

Anne: And I’m coming out with a book soon that talks all about that. In addition to all the other reasons why lying and betrayal is a domestic abuse issue, and a lot of people disagree with me, they don’t think that pornography use, or lying about pornography use, or an affair is emotional and psychological abuse.

But I’m like, you’re just not educated about emotional and psychological abuse, and I wasn’t either. So …

Janice: Definitely they go hand in hand. Because the heart behind domestic abuse is basically objectifying as possessions. And that is exactly what pornography does. It’s looking at women as objects. I mean, pornography changes and rewires the brain and the way that men can have intimacy with women .

Abusers have mindsets loaded with entitlement, pornography is also an entitlement issue. Like I can look at anything I want to any time. There are no rules for me when it comes to this department. It is definitely the same mindset that you see.

Anne: Yeah, which to me means that if you are in a relationship with an active pornography user, you are in a relationship with an abuser.

I say this all the time: Drug addicts abuse drugs. Alcoholics abuse alcohol. Sex addicts abuse people.

So people are the thing that they abuse. I’m just so frustrated with like therapists or clergy because they say the solution to addiction is connection and they’re asking a victim of abuse to support her abuser, and that is unethical on all sorts of levels. I also don’t think it’s doing the abuser any favors. Like I don’t think he’s actually gonna get help with that approach.

He’s choosing his behavior

Anne: It took us a long time to wrap our heads around the fact that he was emotionally and psychologically abusive.

What would you share with women who were in the situation that we were in at one point?

Janice: Well, you remember I talked about going into this program to learn how to deal with angry husband and I told the guy who was facilitating our week long intensive, I said, he just loses it. He can’t control his anger. He just flips out and he starts breaking things.

And he goes, well, wait a minute. So when he is breaking things, who stuff does he break? Does he break your stuff only or his stuff and everybody’s stuff. And I said, well, it’s mostly just my stuff. Then he says, does he flip out on people at work like that? And I said, no, not really. He said, well, then that tells me that he’s got control over this.

He’s choosing this behavior. A lot of times the truth is ugly. We have to admit that ugly truth before we can embrace beautiful truth. And the truth is that he uses kindness to manipulate. It’s not that he’s losing control at all. It’s that he’s using, whether it be anger or kindness, he’s using both to control. And that was a painful eye-opener to me. It was a very needed one for me to finally move towards healing.

Anne: Yeah, that was a big one for me too.

Well, Janice thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate you sharing your story and your thoughts.

Janice: Well, thank you for having me. I enjoyed it.

Attributing his good traits to me

Anne: Cameron, go ahead.

Cameron: So I got married really young and I had no idea hes love bombing me. It felt flattering. He was saying all the sweet things, and he talked trash about every woman he dated before me, how disgusting or nasty his exes were. And part of me felt special.

Like, wow, he thinks I’m different. One morning over breakfast, he was like, I think I need a break. But like the night before he told me he wanted to marry me, I was devastated. And then a week later, he shows back up saying, I made a huge mistake. And the relief, I mean, I don’t, I don’t think there’s anything more intoxicating than the relief that follows emotional torture.

I took it as a sign that he was the one. He’d say things like, I stopped looking at inappropriate media because of you. I’m closer to my family because of you. I’m doing better in school because of you. He attributed all his good traits to me.

Anne: I’m so glad you brought that up, because then when he doesn’t do well in school or he starts looking at pornography again, then he blames you because you weren’t helping him be a better person anymore. How to deal with angry husband?

Cameron: Yeah, he was just setting me up to blame me for not doing that stuff later.

how to deal with angry husband: His Little abusive accidents?

Anne: Before you got on to interview, you were telling me about like the covert physical abuse. Like he would never punch you in the face, but he’d sort of like pretend like he couldn’t see you and step on your foot and stuff like that. Can you talk about that?

Cameron: The whole time there were these little accidents, opening a door when I was standing too close, so it hit me. Accidentally tripping me. I was like, wow. He’s super strong and big and he just didn’t see me there.

Anne: Yeah. It’s like a threat.

Cameron: Totally, his anger was always looming over me. I never knew when he was gonna lose it or how to deal with angry husband.

Anne: Yeah. I experienced that as well. My, um, ex punched a wall a couple times and then that hole in the wall, like it just sat there and every time I saw it I thought, wow, he’s capable of that.

Cameron: I totally know what you mean.

Anne: . Like he could destroy stuff, but he never destroyed anything that he cared about.

Cameron: He told me I just lost control, but he didn’t hit his beloved TV. And I’d think, okay, but if you really lost control, wouldn’t you have hit me? So clearly you have control.

Anne: If I lost it, is there excuse? That’s a serious threat. That’s like even worse because he could really hurt somebody if he loses control and punches stuff. I don’t think they realize that it actually makes them look worse if they say they lost it.

His anger is out of control

Cameron: I know he might like rip one of our pet’s heads off or something. Anyway, one 4th of July, we were driving to his brother’s lake house and he goes, my parents emotionally abused me. I need you with me at all times while we’re there. So I tried to stay near him, but of course there’s all the kids running around and I’d come and go and check in.

But at one point, one of the kids needed my help in the garage. He found me, got mad and punched a hole in his brother’s garage wall. I mean, crazy town. His brother’s all furious and I’m so embarrassed I’m like, it was my fault. I made him mad. His brother shrugged, like, whatever. My husband apologized and said he’d fix it.

Later my mother-in-law asked where he was and I said, he’s in the garage fixing the hole. And I remember thinking, why is no one asking? What the heck is wrong with him? And it wasn’t just them.

I reached out to our pastor, my family, I said, I mean, “Sure his pornography is a problem, but his anger is out of control.” And everybody was like, be a better wife, have more sex, be patient, use I statements, read The Power of a Praying Wife, avoid the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Anne: I also tried to avoid the four horsemen of the apocalypse, like trying not to stonewall, trying not to criticize what he is doing, you’re supposed to tell him your feelings, but you can’t tell him your feelings. So like if you say something, you’re crazy and then if you don’t say something, you’re crazy. How to deal with angry husband?

A whole unfit mother campaign

Anne: Like if I go to therapy, there’s something wrong with me. If I don’t go to therapy, there’s something wrong with me. How to deal with angry husband?

Cameron: Yes, that! How can it not be overwhelming when they tell you, you have to be absolutely perfect so he can like be nice. And I did everything they told me. And because he was so charming in public, so helpful and humble and worship-team perfect. No one believed me.

He’s telling everyone I was lazy, dependent, a whole unfit mother campaign. Telling people I partied every weekend. Left him with the kids.

Anne: They told me, “You’re trying to ruin your family.” Did they use that one on you?

Cameron: I didn’t hear that one, but the one I heard over and over and over was, “She doesn’t realize how good she has it.”

Then there was the sexual coercion, which I had no idea what that was until I found BTR. If I wasn’t in the mood. Mostly because he’d yelled at me like 10 minutes before, he’d sulk, ignore me, punish me with silence. I realized he only loved me when I gave him exactly what he wanted, and I didn’t wanna poke the bear, didn’t want the sulking or the anger or any more holes in the wall.

And anytime I brought up help, he’d say, I’m gonna change. I’ll find a program next week. But the minute I was like, when? He’d explode. Then came the counselors. Ooh, the counselors one told him I was controlling. Another one said his needs weren’t met, that he should demand more from me. That same one told me my husband was just frustrated because of my anxiety.

How to deal with angry husband: He’s an addict because of low self-esteem

Cameron: Then my husband starts seeing this revered CSAT ’cause he now has a sex addiction. And that guy is like, he’s an addict because of his low self-esteem.

Anne: The sexual addiction thing is so problematic. It’s not that pornography isn’t addictive and it is not that he is not a pornography addict. But in relation to you, he’s emotionally abusive. How to deal with angry husband? His addiction isn’t your problem, his abuse is your problem. But when his addiction comes into the mix, people are like, oh, he’s willing to be vulnerable. He is willing to talk about his addiction. He is willing to go to a treatment program, so things are gonna get better.

After I’ve interviewed so many women, I found that is like rarely the case. Because she’s not experiencing his addiction. So as I’m listening to your story, I’m like bracing myself.

Cameron: I know, right? So my husband comes home like, this isn’t about you. It’s about me loving myself. And I’m sitting there thinking, okay, so you’re gonna go on a three hour beach run every day while I raise our seven kids alone.

I thought his family would care, nope. Within days of me asking them for support, I became the villain. I was crazy. I had borderline personality disorder. They actually told me, we know he has a temper, but you married him. You knew, so that’s on you.

Anne: So wait. Their contention was that you consented to emotional abuse because you married him, because that’s not the thing.

Cameron: Right. Totally.

Focusing on emotional safety

Cameron: And during that week, I prayed harder than I’ve ever prayed in my life. Sat at my computer and I typed in everything I was feeling. And one of your podcasts popped up. That’s how I found BTR.

Anne: That’s amazing. How to deal with angry husband? I’ve heard that from so many women who were like praying and they sat down on their computer and they found BTR. I am so grateful that you found us. Our group sessions, and the workshop focus on your emotional safety only. That’s it.

Cameron: Yeah. It’s so different than any other type of therapy or program and it’s so much better. It actually makes sense. After I found you everything shifted. I started learning your strategies in the workshop and how to use boundaries that actually worked. Unlike that dumb CSAT that had me set the stupidest boundaries. From BTR, I learned that nothing he did was because he felt ashamed or had low self-esteem.

It was because he chose abuse. I started doing the meditations in your workshop. They helped a ton. I went to like six group sessions a week. I could finally think again. And I could feel my own feelings instead of the ones he assigned to me.

So grateful for btr

Cameron: I started to trust myself. Meanwhile, he’s losing weight, and everyone is suddenly so worried about him. Women coming up to me like, he looks so thin. Are you guys okay? Our kids are falling apart, and no one even asks them how they’re doing. And the church board completely bought into all his lies.

They were like, why won’t you let him come home? Can’t you talk to him differently? Don’t say things that make him mad. It was awful. Truly awful. I would’ve never made it through without the workshop and the BTR community, the coaches, the podcast, everything.

I don’t know what I would’ve done without BTR. I’m so grateful.

Anne: Yeah, that’s why I created BTR, because when I went through it, I couldn’t find help. I had the same experience that you did, like going to tons of therapists that couldn’t help. trying to find out how to deal with angry husband.

Thank you so much, Cameron, for sharing your story today.