General Relationship DiscussionAlthough anyone can post anywhere on Talk About Marriage, this section is for people interested in general relationship and marriage advice.
Honest to God, i know i know i know it takes 2.
i know, as our therapist says, "there are always 2 answers."
i know i have to see things from his point of view. and i try.
every day i try.
but right now i feel like i am TRYING SO HARD to be:
positive
supportive
loving
kindhearted
helpful
i've done everything i can to help with the practical stuff in the ways he's asked me to. i'm out of town right now for a few days. then i express a thought about something and he tells me: "i'm being nice. you're not."
wtf??? i did not think i was "not nice." i told him to feel free to change a picture i posted if he preferred something else. i was *trying to BE nice.* and he assumed. assumed. jumped to conclusions. assumed that i was assuming.
and i'm getting nothing but this in return:
irritability
snappiness
rudeness
blaming ME for his frustration instead of looking inside himself AT ALL
"i'm frustrated because i have to sit here adn listen to you repeat yourself. YOU are frustrating me."
he is showing ZERO TOLERANCE for me right now, and I am doing NOTHING to bug him at the moment.
i know it sounds impossible, and i know i'm not perfect, but right now, i feel f-ing blindsided.
and then i have no room to be:
honest
and i don't feel:
loved
free
i'm trying very hard to respond in a new way, a different way, a way i have not responded before, to this pissy attitude he gives me.
and that is the following:
"honey. i know you are stressed and frustrated and you have 100 things on your plate and you are frustrated with them. i am here to be a support for you, for us to do things together. i am not your enemy. i love you. good night."
and then i hang up the phone. while he's snapping back at me.
for once, i'm showing him that i won't put up with being unfairly blamed and snapped at.
and hope to God that somewhere in his heart, if i hang up, he can actually look inside himself and see the role that HE plays in these communication breakdowns. and stop blaming ME entirely. stop projecting onto me every negative feeling he has, and making every negative feeling he has MY F-ING FAULT.
think maybe he's stressed and cranky and that maybe in that split second, he misunderstood me.
he's picking me up from the airport on thursday night. and we just happen to be driving straight to therapy.
any advice?? Anyone???
I havent read through all you're 26 posts, just this one and little of one other, but i see a lot of boundary issues. my H and i fought like cats and dogs the first three years we were together. then i learned about boundaries.
If you work on your boundaries i think things can improve dramatically. i read a couple of books, dr. phils relationship rescue and dr. cloud and townsends boundaries in marriage.
my H and i did boundaries in marriage together. we read a chapter a week and wrote each others answers in the workbook. at first this caused A LOT more fighting, and it was very intense. we had to stop off and on because id get so angry. but i knew the advice was right and i learned to change.
my H and I still have disagreements, but i would say we havent 'fought' in over a year. he still does things i dont like, and vis a versa, but i have boundaries now and I try to respect him as his own person before i expect him to do what i want/need. I read one book about treating people as objects that was really helpful. wish i could remember the name of it.
I've heard this term, "boundaries," more than once.
From what I can tell, I need to set them. Not sure how that works or what that means. I'm pretty sure it means I need to be a strong person.
I hope that hanging up when he started acting like a jerk on the phone last night was part of "setting boundaries."
Right now I feel mostly negative about my husband. It sucks. I'm giving him distance because he is pushing me away, and I'm taking space that I need to protect and take care of myself.
I think there are also boundaries within the strategies we're supposed to be applying from therapy. I'm doing what I can, but from what i can tell, he is not.
I don't have any kind of advice but all i can say is that i feel for you and relate. I'm in the same boat. Things were great for years and now...as cheesy as it sounds i don't have that "soulmate" feeling anymore.
"Right now I feel mostly negative about my husband. It sucks. I'm giving him distance because he is pushing me away, and I'm taking space that I need to protect and take care of myself."
I don't know, maybe we're all going through this because of the screwed up economic period we just came out of extremely stressed out, vulnerable and emotionally tired. I'm doing the same as you said. I really want to be closer to him and i try to make him feel the same way. It works for a short while then he snaps.
Nekko, I've read some of the advice you've offered in other posts, and it's been helpful to me. My husband and I are in "imago therapy," which I'm hoping will help us turn a corner and actually *stay* in a good place.
We haven't been married long. He's still getting used to the reality of having a personal, intimate relationship with another human being, as opposed to a business relationship that requires ZERO emotional work or connection.
But he has to learn it. I love him and I can be patient as he does learn it, but I'm not going to get stepped on anymore on his way there.
I feel like I'm dealing with a 3-year-old sometimes---like he's resisting the things that are good for him/us. Like "I don't WANNA learn to listen and talk nicely and get along!" Even though i know that inside, he knows how much MORE peaceful and GOOD that can be.
When I see that person give way to the toddler with the temper tantrum, I have to take a deep breath and step away.
The tantrum says: "I'm sick and tired of having to take the time to peacefully discuss something. I want to get away with being a jerk and not be accountable. This is too hard."
The grownup says: "I know this is important and good, even if it's hard sometimes."
We have therapy tonight. Deep breath.
please stay together, no matter what it takes. relationships are very trying. only the loving & emotionally strong survive. it's to call it quits, for some people. that's OK they were never really in love anyway. Right now I'm an emotional wreck, myself. just found out about another man in love with my wife. she want's to leave, but say's it's not because of him. there seems to be enough heartach to go around for everyone
1lonelyheart, thank you for your encouragement. i don't know if it's as simple as whether 2 people are really in love or not. i'm really sorry to hear that your wife wants to leave and that there's another man in love with her. i hope the two of you find a way to work out whatever problems there are in your marriage.
Hanging up the phone on him when he was doing something you didnt like is good. Stopping negative interactions by disengaging is really good. It is one part of setting boundaries. Protecting your own happiness is really important. You teach people how to treat you. But that's the tip of the iceberg. Boundaries are really about protecting yourself but also respecting the person that you think is hurting you. If you resent the other person, or think you're better then them, you havent really grasped the concept of boundaries yet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by credamdóchasgra
I'm doing what I can, but from what i can tell, he is not.
There is a lack of boundaries on your part in what you've said above, that he is not doing what he can. You're not his judge and his life is not about what you want and think he should do. He is doing exactly what he should and can do. Once you can wrap your mind around the concept that he is doing exactly what he should be doing, then you're starting to understand boundaries.
Sounds absurd right? I know. When i first heard this concept, from a book called Seat of the Soul, it actually made me really angry. i couldnt fathom how someone could possibly insinuate that my H should be doing what he was doing. It was absurd. well, as my quote below says, after years of pain one learns to stop arguing with reality. I initially did what you are doing, stopped engaging in the negative behaviors, but i did it with a bitter heart and resentment. i thought he was a miserable selfish jerk that i had to protect myself from. things got a little better but still i didnt like how i felt. It wasnt until i stopped resenting my H and appreciated his own journey that my life improved.
when I read this post it made me cry. It was almost as if I wrote it. I can also relate to Nekko's response of "not feeling like soulmates" anymore.
My husband goes through periods where he yells and screams at me at the top of his voice and uses foul language. I think he had a rough time with adjusting to being married and sharing his space.
I use to take it personally. In fact, the first year it affected my self esteem so much that I became very depressed and I went to therapy a few times which helped. He doesn't have as many explosions and they can still come unexpectedly. He nags a lot and "orders" me around, but I think I tune it out instead of reacting.
Clearly, he was overstepping his bounderies, but I had no idea how to get him to stop. I eventually stopped taking it personally. I realized HE was the one with the problem (the screaming and yelling). Normal people don't react with such anger over small stuff. (it;s always small stuff). When I started not being personally phased by his behavior/insults...telling him he clearly has a problem because normal people don't act like that and he probably needs help. Well, he stopped doing it.
Still, after only 3 years of putting up with this, he is slowly wearing away at my love for him. Part of me wants to keep the marriage together because I think we have what it takes to have a great marriage. The other part says S___T, having to put up with this for the rest of my life feels like a life sentence.
Normal people don't react with such anger over small stuff. (it;s always small stuff).
What you've just said here sometimes means the guy doesn't feel like he's getting enough respect from the woman. As silly as this may sound, my guy did this for a long period.
I was a pretty relaxed and open-minded person, knew he was angry and didn't take it personally. What i didn't realize is that i never, ever bothered to try do what he said or ever show him that i valued his opinion.
While i'm not exactly "slave material" now and if he bugs me i'll snap back eventually (i've made it perfectly clear that if he doesn't know how to ask something politely i won't let him step all over me), i have however listened to him and tried his way when he said it nicely. Noticed that this makes him feel happy, more respected and less determined to pick on me over small stuff.
Grr, I just wrote a lengthy reply and gotkicked offline!
In essence: yes, the idea that my husband is in fact doing what he can---that's something I need to think about and hope it'll help.
Also, I really do hope that my disengaging in heated conversations is only a step, and that it will lead to closer and more productive, open, respectful conversation. Disengaging, and cultivating respect for my husband and his boundaries along with that, is a step I can make...what steps he can make, I suppose thats for him to decide and Im trying to have faith that he will.
I'm feeling stronger and more capable----both on my own and with my husband----to make changes, than I have in awhile.
At the risk of losing my message again, I'll stop for now. Thanks everyone for your advice! Posted via Mobile Device
That's great. Things will probably work out eventually. If i learned anything from this forum is that sometimes we just don't understand what our partner is missing and we have to try various stuff till we figure it out. Sure, it may take a while for some of us to get things fixed, but it's nice when it happens, so best of luck to you
For some reason I've found that it is less productive, less helpful, when I try to go back to things that have gone wrong with my husband, to make them right.
And maybe more helpful to just look forward and try to make things better..."start over" or "move on," as my husband calls it.
That's not easy for me, because it's hard to forget some of the scars we've given ourselves.
But we need to try, so we can get past grudge-holding and trust each other more... Posted via Mobile Device
I am trying so hard!!!!! 
