My wife and I perpetually are in conflict about her feelings being hurt. It's endless and exhausting.
She feels like she gets hurt by something I say or do and tells me about it and is seeking validation. Instead of feeling validated, she feels like I am defensive. She doesn't feel heard.
I feel like my wife is a victim. She is hurt all the time, nearly daily at this point, and it feels controlling. It doesn't seem like she wants to be heard; it seems like she wants an admission of guilt, even if I have a different perspective.
We have been to MC for a long time and the marriage actually started getting better, but with this issue we are completely stuck. Our MC, btw, excels at keeping things fair and making both of us feel heard. She does not call people out.
When I read about people in similar situations the advice seems to be split depending on whose point of view the poster agrees with. Sometimes the advice is to draw a boundary and stick with it, which would have me telling my wife that I am not responsible for her emotions. On the other hand, the advice from the other point of view is to make sure that she feels heard and validate her no matter what I think about the facts.
What I try to do is listen and reflect, agree with whatever I feel I can agree with, and apologize if I think I did something wrong. I will often say something like sorry I hurt your feelings, I didn't mean it that way. I'm not trying to defend, I'm trying to let her know that I didn't mean to hurt her.
My wife was raised by a single mom with major MH issues and her dad was absent apart from paying child support. Wife is by her own admission very controlling and type A and has a hard time asking for and accepting help. She has self-diagnosed with PTSD but refuses to see an IC because she says our marriage issues are too draining for her to have the emotional energy to work on herself.
I was raised by a couple that are still married 50+ years. Dad is a total nice guy and has no boundaries with my mom and no life outside of the marriage and often resents her. Our family was not very emotionally intelligent. I became aware of my own nice guy-ness a couple years ago and have worked hard to learn about caretaking and boundaries, etc. I've seen an IC for a couple years to work on these things, I read a ton of self -help books. I've grown in some places and not in others.
At this point, I just don't know what to do. Our marriage sucks. There are other issues besides this one, but this one is present all the time. I feel like I am looking over my shoulder to try not to do something that hurts her feelings. I sometimes put in the hard boundary and say, I can't help, and I sometimes say I'm sorry. I can't even tell who is accurate (I don't want to say right or wrong--it's all so subjective). I don't want to hurt her feelings but I also don't think I'm the terrible person she makes me out to be. I'm not sure how to bridge that gap.
We both work and share child care. My wife is a career woman and a good mom, although she's not the warmest mom, and I see her being the victim with our kids, too (at least that's how it looks to me). She is the one more likely to want to talk about problems and I am the one more eager to move on and make up. I am more reluctant to bring up problems and she has a harder time letting go.
Any advice about validation vs victim? About making her feel heard and having boundaries at the same time? IN a good marriage, how much responsibility does each person have to take care of their own emotions and how much do they expect the other person to take care of them?
She feels like she gets hurt by something I say or do and tells me about it and is seeking validation. Instead of feeling validated, she feels like I am defensive. She doesn't feel heard.
I feel like my wife is a victim. She is hurt all the time, nearly daily at this point, and it feels controlling. It doesn't seem like she wants to be heard; it seems like she wants an admission of guilt, even if I have a different perspective.
We have been to MC for a long time and the marriage actually started getting better, but with this issue we are completely stuck. Our MC, btw, excels at keeping things fair and making both of us feel heard. She does not call people out.
When I read about people in similar situations the advice seems to be split depending on whose point of view the poster agrees with. Sometimes the advice is to draw a boundary and stick with it, which would have me telling my wife that I am not responsible for her emotions. On the other hand, the advice from the other point of view is to make sure that she feels heard and validate her no matter what I think about the facts.
What I try to do is listen and reflect, agree with whatever I feel I can agree with, and apologize if I think I did something wrong. I will often say something like sorry I hurt your feelings, I didn't mean it that way. I'm not trying to defend, I'm trying to let her know that I didn't mean to hurt her.
My wife was raised by a single mom with major MH issues and her dad was absent apart from paying child support. Wife is by her own admission very controlling and type A and has a hard time asking for and accepting help. She has self-diagnosed with PTSD but refuses to see an IC because she says our marriage issues are too draining for her to have the emotional energy to work on herself.
I was raised by a couple that are still married 50+ years. Dad is a total nice guy and has no boundaries with my mom and no life outside of the marriage and often resents her. Our family was not very emotionally intelligent. I became aware of my own nice guy-ness a couple years ago and have worked hard to learn about caretaking and boundaries, etc. I've seen an IC for a couple years to work on these things, I read a ton of self -help books. I've grown in some places and not in others.
At this point, I just don't know what to do. Our marriage sucks. There are other issues besides this one, but this one is present all the time. I feel like I am looking over my shoulder to try not to do something that hurts her feelings. I sometimes put in the hard boundary and say, I can't help, and I sometimes say I'm sorry. I can't even tell who is accurate (I don't want to say right or wrong--it's all so subjective). I don't want to hurt her feelings but I also don't think I'm the terrible person she makes me out to be. I'm not sure how to bridge that gap.
We both work and share child care. My wife is a career woman and a good mom, although she's not the warmest mom, and I see her being the victim with our kids, too (at least that's how it looks to me). She is the one more likely to want to talk about problems and I am the one more eager to move on and make up. I am more reluctant to bring up problems and she has a harder time letting go.
Any advice about validation vs victim? About making her feel heard and having boundaries at the same time? IN a good marriage, how much responsibility does each person have to take care of their own emotions and how much do they expect the other person to take care of them?