My DH is the type of person that thinks the only way to get his point across is to yell. Even if we are just having a conversation, when he wants to get his point across his voice gets louder and louder and he will speak over me.
How do you get across to someone who has most likely lived his entire life doing this, that it is disrespectful to yell at someone? It never occurs to him to just ask for what he wants nicely, it usually comes as a snappish command. And on the rare occassion he does "ask" it comes across very sarcastic.
DH has never yelled at my kids but if they did something he didn't like or forgot to do something (like turn off a light) he can't nicely remind them, he would come to me and yell at me over it. And most times it would be something so insignificant that you couldn't imagine someone would actually get upset over it. It was almost like it was a personal insult to him.
We have a cat with issues and tonight she had an accident. She has been good for the last few months, but she is old and I guess we were due. You would have thought the world ended with the way he yelled at me. He said the next time it happened she would be put out. I told him that wasn't going to happen.(if there is a choice between him and the cat, lets just say the cat doesn't have anything to worry about) Now he could have just calmly said the cat needed to stay in the basement if she was still having issues and I would agree. However he can't do anything calmly. He was ranting to me about this, waving his finger in my face. I told him I was 45 years old and he was not to talk to me in that tone of voice. He stormed off to bed.
I know how my DH is, he is the type who needs to blow up and let off steam to make himself feel better. I have seen when he hasn't had a blow up in awhile it is almost like he looks for something to get upset about. I was not raised in an environment like this. If someone is mad enough to yell, it is serious. I am also not the type of person who easily gets over something so I really take this yelling personal.
How do I get across to him that yelling at me is disrespectful and damaging to our relationship?