Our fights start to feel like strips of SPY vs. SPY, out to hurt one another out of spite. I cannot decide whether I am being stubborn and immature or being treated poorly. So I would like to ask you guys.
We are going through a rough round with my husband. He is losing hope for our relationship because he "is not getting what he has asked for" and he "doesn't trust that I will ever change". Many of his wishes and needs (or demands) I can agree to and agree with. Biggest issues since the beginning of our relationship were:
1) To become more sexually involved (this the one I have fully succeeded in at this point, at least we have passionate sex regularly, initiate it almost equally and I do the things he likes — have had some drier patches but now it's going well).
2) To learn to talk more openly about my feelings and not let anger fester. I have read 40 books, every other page on the internet about relationships, written 300 pages of emotional journals and been to therapy. I am by no means a master of it, but getting better and better. I talk to him about my thoughts and feelings and ask him for things I need. More and more, at least.
These were very valid concerns and I have tried to take measures to correct them. But here's the catch: any time I lapse even for a moment, and make an old mistake, my husband gets furious ("I have told you .." etc. ). This, to me, is uncalled for. Want me to change? Encourage it, don't try to beat me down. I have told him this, in a nonaccusatory way, many times. No effect. Yelling at me for not having said anything sooner , when I finally have the courage to open up, is not going to make me want to open up any sooner next time, no matter how illogically it would seem to you.
The third, ever-changing, ever-problematic wish:
3) Talk to him in a clear, positive way. Good, I agree, except that I don't think even he knows clearly what he wants. The language of our relationship is his native language, not mine. He still expects me to speak and understand it perfectly and gets (very) upset if I say something that he percieves as negative. (How am I supposed to know, that saying "Good luck" when he has already started something, means I'm saying he's not going to succeed?) He also gets utterly mad, if I mumble when I'm very tired or don't speak loud enough when there's noise in the room. It's fine to get a bit annoyed that you can't here me but yelling at me seems a bit much.
And the big head-banging problem:
4) When he is mad/upset/something and not saying anything (brewing) he wants me to pet him back to a happy place. I'm having a terribly difficult time with this wish, even though I'm sure in a way I expect the same thing from him. Thing is, in my culture it's perfectly fine to just be quiet all of a sudden — even mid-conversation — without there being any reason to suspect that the other person has gotten upset about something. I am also quite bad at reading people. Hence, 6 times out of 10 I DON'T KNOW that he is mad. I just think he wants to be quiet. I've asked him to tell me or signal it in some way. He thinks it's too difficult. More difficult then getting more upset about me not knowing what he needed? Perhaps I should just tiptoe around him and try to pamper back to serenity when he's mad, but unfortunately my own resentment towards him is getting in the way of that.
I want him to take responsibility over his own feelings. But, he doesn't "buy into that theory".
Apparently, my husband has over the course of a year built such resentment over these issues, that today he cannot stand anything else I do either: He gets upset that I speak in too many words instead of short facts (male-female thing I suppose). He gets upset if I accidentally cut him speaking (I always apologize and let him continue). He gets upset if I take too long pauses in my speach. He gets upset that I'm too forgetful, or that I take a wrong turn sometimes, and he can get upset even when he is not even involved or affected — because in his mind it is "a manifestation of the reason why everything else goes wrong in our relationship: because you forget what I've asked from you".
At this point, him saying that just makes me want to respond: "Just go and marry someone as unforgetting, unforgiving as you then."
But of course I don't, I'm not an idiot.
So the end result is, the over-flooding of negative feedback has caused me to feel resentful towards him. I've tried letting everything go and just being at my very best behaviour, but then when making even the smallest mistake causes him to spiral into fury — I don't have sympathy to be ever-understanding. I didn't get what I wanted either. I don't have my needs met either. I'm not trying to change you as a person yet you don't even like half the personality traits you said you fell in love with me for.
He says I have to give up this "fairy-tale wish of being loved as who I am". Is it true? I understand I must evolve, the relationship must evolve and I can really use dropping some bad habits and learning to open up more. But having spent my childhood feeling like other people don't accept me like I am (which he very well knows) that is something I did want in a relationship. I wanted someone who loves the whole me, despite the fact that I'm not perfect. Is it too much to ask?
Of course there are things in him or his behaviour that I have asked him to change. To help more around the house. To wash his hands more often. And have then been careful to praise him for doing them for me. But at the same time I know there are things I cannot change — even some that I have asked and told him they were very important, but he has said he can't/won't. That's fine, he's not mine to govern. He does seem to think that I am his.
I love him. I know he loves me. When we get along it is really great. But the vicious cycle of one resentment answered with another is tearing us apart. See a councelor? He refuses. Just be the bigger person and change yourself, he will change accordingly? Tried that for 6 months now, it's not really working..
What then?
Sorry for the rant.
We are going through a rough round with my husband. He is losing hope for our relationship because he "is not getting what he has asked for" and he "doesn't trust that I will ever change". Many of his wishes and needs (or demands) I can agree to and agree with. Biggest issues since the beginning of our relationship were:
1) To become more sexually involved (this the one I have fully succeeded in at this point, at least we have passionate sex regularly, initiate it almost equally and I do the things he likes — have had some drier patches but now it's going well).
2) To learn to talk more openly about my feelings and not let anger fester. I have read 40 books, every other page on the internet about relationships, written 300 pages of emotional journals and been to therapy. I am by no means a master of it, but getting better and better. I talk to him about my thoughts and feelings and ask him for things I need. More and more, at least.
These were very valid concerns and I have tried to take measures to correct them. But here's the catch: any time I lapse even for a moment, and make an old mistake, my husband gets furious ("I have told you .." etc. ). This, to me, is uncalled for. Want me to change? Encourage it, don't try to beat me down. I have told him this, in a nonaccusatory way, many times. No effect. Yelling at me for not having said anything sooner , when I finally have the courage to open up, is not going to make me want to open up any sooner next time, no matter how illogically it would seem to you.
The third, ever-changing, ever-problematic wish:
3) Talk to him in a clear, positive way. Good, I agree, except that I don't think even he knows clearly what he wants. The language of our relationship is his native language, not mine. He still expects me to speak and understand it perfectly and gets (very) upset if I say something that he percieves as negative. (How am I supposed to know, that saying "Good luck" when he has already started something, means I'm saying he's not going to succeed?) He also gets utterly mad, if I mumble when I'm very tired or don't speak loud enough when there's noise in the room. It's fine to get a bit annoyed that you can't here me but yelling at me seems a bit much.
And the big head-banging problem:
4) When he is mad/upset/something and not saying anything (brewing) he wants me to pet him back to a happy place. I'm having a terribly difficult time with this wish, even though I'm sure in a way I expect the same thing from him. Thing is, in my culture it's perfectly fine to just be quiet all of a sudden — even mid-conversation — without there being any reason to suspect that the other person has gotten upset about something. I am also quite bad at reading people. Hence, 6 times out of 10 I DON'T KNOW that he is mad. I just think he wants to be quiet. I've asked him to tell me or signal it in some way. He thinks it's too difficult. More difficult then getting more upset about me not knowing what he needed? Perhaps I should just tiptoe around him and try to pamper back to serenity when he's mad, but unfortunately my own resentment towards him is getting in the way of that.
I want him to take responsibility over his own feelings. But, he doesn't "buy into that theory".
Apparently, my husband has over the course of a year built such resentment over these issues, that today he cannot stand anything else I do either: He gets upset that I speak in too many words instead of short facts (male-female thing I suppose). He gets upset if I accidentally cut him speaking (I always apologize and let him continue). He gets upset if I take too long pauses in my speach. He gets upset that I'm too forgetful, or that I take a wrong turn sometimes, and he can get upset even when he is not even involved or affected — because in his mind it is "a manifestation of the reason why everything else goes wrong in our relationship: because you forget what I've asked from you".
At this point, him saying that just makes me want to respond: "Just go and marry someone as unforgetting, unforgiving as you then."
But of course I don't, I'm not an idiot.
So the end result is, the over-flooding of negative feedback has caused me to feel resentful towards him. I've tried letting everything go and just being at my very best behaviour, but then when making even the smallest mistake causes him to spiral into fury — I don't have sympathy to be ever-understanding. I didn't get what I wanted either. I don't have my needs met either. I'm not trying to change you as a person yet you don't even like half the personality traits you said you fell in love with me for.
He says I have to give up this "fairy-tale wish of being loved as who I am". Is it true? I understand I must evolve, the relationship must evolve and I can really use dropping some bad habits and learning to open up more. But having spent my childhood feeling like other people don't accept me like I am (which he very well knows) that is something I did want in a relationship. I wanted someone who loves the whole me, despite the fact that I'm not perfect. Is it too much to ask?
Of course there are things in him or his behaviour that I have asked him to change. To help more around the house. To wash his hands more often. And have then been careful to praise him for doing them for me. But at the same time I know there are things I cannot change — even some that I have asked and told him they were very important, but he has said he can't/won't. That's fine, he's not mine to govern. He does seem to think that I am his.
I love him. I know he loves me. When we get along it is really great. But the vicious cycle of one resentment answered with another is tearing us apart. See a councelor? He refuses. Just be the bigger person and change yourself, he will change accordingly? Tried that for 6 months now, it's not really working..
What then?
Sorry for the rant.