I'm a foreign wife in my forties. My husband has bad breath but, when I tell him, he gets angry and asks me why I'm being so rude. I don't know what to do. It gets bad as the day goes on and life in the evenings is almost unbearable but, if I say anything, we'll quarrel.
There's one other thing. When he speaks to me he's almost shouting but, if I ask him to speak more quietly, he gets angry again. It gives me headaches and I end up saying something like "I'm right here!" which just sets him off. I think he might have gone a bit hard of hearing but I can't really ask him to go for a check-up.
How can I say these things more kindly? I've asked my husband but that just makes him angry again.
(Mrs F, living abroad)
You are asking about bad breath but I'd like you to consider when you first started noticing it. I wonder if things are going well between you and your husband. If you like your partner, you tend not to notice these things but you do start to see them when your relationship gets worse. Maybe it's not his bad breath you don't like in the evenings, maybe it's him you don't like. Perhaps his voice isn't loud, it's just that you don't want to hear what he's saying.
You ask if there's are kinder words to use with your husband but it's not just about the words. He's looking at your facial expressions and hearing the real emotion in your voice. Maybe you want to say "I'm right here!" because you feel ignored. You need to think about your whole relationship with your husband. Only by doing that are you really going to improve your situation.
EDIT: 2 mistakes in the translation. The wife is Japanese & the husband foreign. Also, he did have a health check but there was no sign of hearing loss.
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