How to communicate in this situation??

Dear All,

Before I start, I briefly wanted to give some introduction:

Me and my boyfriend have been together for 4 yrs and recently we got married in December 2011.

1) My husband has been brought up in a very controlling and manipulative atmosphere ( Both His mother and sister are very controlling and manipulative) and when ever I give any suggestions, he feels I am controlling or trying to change him and ignoring him

2) I had a very abusive marriage in the past and I am very sensitive to people yelling and have angry bursts..

After the marriage things have been rapidly changing, I got a new job to help him financially and we started to plan for kids as the window for us is very small ( due to my age) . We went through a IVF cycle but in the last stage of the cycle , I felt dizzy and light headed and after going to the PCP it was clear that the dizziness is happening due to anxiety ( Because of lack of sleep due to the new job, and intensive process of IVF) and she asked us to stop IVF for some time. This threw him completely off as he feels that I do not want any kids , its only his desire,

In reality I do want to have kids but I feels there are few thing that need to be resolved here:

1) His frequent anger bursts which have been once since the IVF episode have been an Issue for me , he says that he has been stressed out as he is the sole provider for the family and taking care of most of the bills, hence the snappings, when I suggest some breathing or yoga techniques which helped him, He feels I am trying to change or control him as he is not a yoga person, and says he will take care of it but I have not seen any changes in his behaviour, I am very sensitive to yelling and screaming and feel intimidated when he does that..and he says I am too sensitive that I am bringing my past in..May be Iam oversensitive because of my past but definitely I do not think taking anger on others is a healthy way of handling stress...He says the stress is financial and also due to the controlling behavior of the family for which I reassure him that I am working and can help him with some of the finances and that we do not live with his family, so there is no need for those anger snappings, but they keep on happening due to some small triggers..At this point I want to figure out these issues before bringing the baby in and he is getting frustrated as we have very small window to get pregnant...

I have suggested couple's therapy to adrress the underlying issues, which he says he is open but first we need to talk to each other and gain trust before going to the therapist, we have done the talking so many times before but it comes back to the same things, his anger bursts for small things, lack of proper insight what is triggering them and his refusal to see a therapist until we talk, every time we talk next few days are okay and then we come back to square one again. I do not want to bring a baby without the issues being resolved, whih I feel will add to the stress and he is extremely stubborn and wants to work things on his own way which do not seem to be working.

Today when we went to the obg gyn she again suggested IVF is the best option for me and also asked to see a counsellor before that for which he agreed but again he wants to talk and figure things out before seeing any cousellor, I am afraid it will again just end up in talking and postponing the cousellors appointment and feeling very frustuated. Want to give this a relationship a chance before I think of separating or divorce..

Any advice or suggestions are highly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

I have suggested couple's therapy to adrress the underlying issues, which he says he is open but first we need to talk to each other and gain trust before going to the therapist, we have done the talking so many times before but it comes back to the same things, his anger bursts for small things, lack of proper insight what is triggering them and his refusal to see a therapist until we talk, every time we talk next few days are okay and then we come back to square one again. I do not want to bring a baby without the issues being resolved, whih I feel will add to the stress and he is extremely stubborn and wants to work things on his own way which do not seem to be working.

You're absolutely right that you and your husband need to go to couple's counseling. You've been down the "we need to talk and figure it out first" route over and over again and keep coming back to it. When you can't solve the issues on your own, it's time to call in the expert to figure out why. You have issues (baggage) from your previous abusive relationship. He has issues (baggage) from his childhood. Together, you have communication problems. Counseling will help you both work on your individual issues and your communication problem. I would suggest telling him this, reminding him that you've tried to solve the problems by talking yourselves and haven't. Stuck a bandaid on for the short term, yes, but proper long term healing, no. The two of you need to get off the merry-go-round.

Today when we went to the obg gyn she again suggested IVF is the best option for me and also asked to see a counsellor before that for which he agreed but again he wants to talk and figure things out before seeing any cousellor, I am afraid it will again just end up in talking and postponing the cousellors appointment and feeling very frustuated. Want to give this a relationship a chance before I think of separating or divorce..

Your recommended IVF counseling could be your ticket to get him to finally give in and go. Tell him exactly what you said here. That you're afraid you'll get stuck on the talking merry-go-round, not get the appointment made and end up missing your window for having kids.

I have suggested couple's therapy to adrress the underlying issues, which he says he is open but first we need to talk to each other and gain trust before going to the therapist, we have done the talking so many times before but it comes back to the same things, his anger bursts for small things, lack of proper insight what is triggering them and his refusal to see a therapist until we talk, every time we talk next few days are okay and then we come back to square one again. I do not want to bring a baby without the issues being resolved, whih I feel will add to the stress and he is extremely stubborn and wants to work things on his own way which do not seem to be working.

You're absolutely right that you and your husband need to go to couple's counseling. You've been down the "we need to talk and figure it out first" route over and over again and keep coming back to it. When you can't solve the issues on your own, it's time to call in the expert to figure out why. You have issues (baggage) from your previous abusive relationship. He has issues (baggage) from his childhood. Together, you have communication problems. Counseling will help you both work on your individual issues and your communication problem. I would suggest telling him this, reminding him that you've tried to solve the problems by talking yourselves and haven't. Stuck a bandaid on for the short term, yes, but proper long term healing, no. The two of you need to get off the merry-go-round.

Today when we went to the obg gyn she again suggested IVF is the best option for me and also asked to see a counsellor before that for which he agreed but again he wants to talk and figure things out before seeing any cousellor, I am afraid it will again just end up in talking and postponing the cousellors appointment and feeling very frustuated. Want to give this a relationship a chance before I think of separating or divorce..

Your recommended IVF counseling could be your ticket to get him to finally give in and go. Tell him exactly what you said here. That you're afraid you'll get stuck on the talking merry-go-round, not get the appointment made and end up missing your window for having kids.

I wish to second you into believing that being able to fix your (multiple) issues is necessary to have a baby, no excuse. There are others ways of having a baby after that anyways. I think I should also thank you to be considerate of all it could affect by bringing a child with parents ever more worried about the other problems they're facing. This is just the responsible way to go that's best for everyone.

Here's some reading on Angry Spouses:

link removed

I'm sure the yelling is very stressful! Good luck.