# anxiety and conflict in marriage



## anxiousgirl (Jan 17, 2014)

Sorry this is long, but I really need help...

I have been on medication for anxiety and depression for over 10 years. I have been married for just over 4 years and we have a 3 year old son. Before I met my husband I was in a 7 year co-dependent relationship with someone who was very controlling and consistently disregarded my feelings and needs. After I finally got out of that relationship I was determined never to let that happen to me again and that I would stand up for myself and not allow my partner to dominate me like that.

But I think my fear of that happening to me again has made it hard for me to manage conflict with my husband. Whenever I try to talk to my husband about things that are bothering me or that I am not happy about, he becomes defensive and accuses me of the very things I am confronting him about, instead of listening to what I have to say and how I feel and then talking about his issues at a separate time. I am not willing to listen to him until he has listened to me, when I am the one initiating the conversation. They are things that I was usually not even aware were a problem because he never raised them with me until I brought them up. It feels like he hijacks my initiation of the conversation to bring up his own stuff and use that as a reason to invalidate my concerns about him. I felt like I didn't have a voice in my previous relationship, so I have a strong need to be heard by him, so when I don't feel like he is listening to me, it pushes a big red hot button and I escalate into yelling very quickly, because it's the only way I feel like I can be heard (a pattern from my childhood conflicts with my dad). This just makes him more defensive and listen even less.

I try hard to start the conversations in a calm, respectful way, but he is very sensitive to tone of voice and choice of words and if he doesn't like how I've said something, he becomes belligerent and defiant, like he doesn't think he should have to consider me or cooperate with anything I am asking to do, because he feels like he is being forced, so he pushes back. My fear of not being listened to or having my feelings or needs considered kicks in and I feel like I have to start pushing him, because he is not willing to give me anything to even start with. But that makes him push back even more and also makes me escalate into yelling.

I desperately want to break this cycle. I have spoken to him over and over after each argument when I have had a chance to calm down and apologise for yelling and handling things badly and ask him what happened and tried to explain it from my point of view and what I need from him to stop me from escalating, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. 

Last night it happened again. We have been cleaning up at home and made the decision to get rid of some tiles that have been sitting around here for 5 years, with no plans for us to use them ourselves. He said he wanted to offer them to his sister and brother-in-law for them to use for a possible laundry renovation they have been thinking about for at least that long, if not longer. 

They have a history of not getting around to things (a bit like my husband) or taking a long time to respond to offers of help, so I needed there to be a set time frame that we would wait for them to decide whether they wanted them or not before we got rid of them, otherwise I knew they would probably just sit there for another 5 years (since it has taken my husband to get around to even asking them). Waiting is a really difficult thing for me - it is a major trigger for my anxiety and has made my relationship with both my husband and his sister and brother-in-law hard for me because they make me wait for them longer than I think is reasonable all the time and have pushed me to my limits several times.

He spoke to his sister about it last week and she said she would ask her husband and let him know. We had not heard back from her, so I asked him when he was going to follow it up and how long he was going to wait for them to decide. He said he didn't know. I said I needed more than that, I needed a time frame. I wanted it to be this weekend, but since I am trying to consider his needs more, I thought that maybe I should be willing to be more flexible and give them all some more time. I was also trying very hard not to escalate into yelling, even though I was feeling increasingly frustrated with his laid-back attitude about it and unwillingness to commit to a time, especially when he knows how hard it is for me not to know when something is going to happen. In fact, at one point I had to walk away and go into the bathroom to scream, so that I wouldn't scream at him in front of our son.

He eventually gave me a time frame, but I felt like I had had to fight for him to do that. I feel like that a lot - that I have to fight for him to consider my needs and feelings about something that I'm not happy about and be willing to change or cooperate with me. I don't want him giving in just to end the fight, I want him to stop being so resistant to me expressing my discontent and asking for anything from him. It makes me feel like he doesn't really care about me, but that he cares more about protecting his ego and being able to do things his own way, even if that causes me distress or inconvenience or a feeling of being unsupported and unvalued. Nobody is going to tell him what to do. I don't start out trying to tell him what to do, but sometimes I feel pushed to that when he seems so unwilling to give me any kind of consideration. 

And then last night when I complained about him not considering me, he threw it back at me and complained about me not considering him, instead of listening to me and acknowledging how I was feeling and trying to resolve it. When I asked him for an example, he talked about Christmas day, when I had said I would only be able to go to one meal with his family, who I find difficult to be around (that's a whole other story). Up until now, we have had breakfast with them, but this year I asked if we could do dinner instead, which he agreed to. We were still invited to breakfast, but I said I could only do one, I couldn't do both. He told me at the time that he was okay with that, but last night he used it against me and said I hadn't considered his wish to go to both, even though he didn't tell me that at the time and said he understood why I felt the way I did. In fact it was a case of me asking him to consider my needs and feelings about it and if he had wanted to go to both, he could have, but I just couldn't. Sometimes we are going to have to make a choice, because sometimes we just can't do both and I needed to look after myself - I couldn't look after him too. I didn't think it was fair for him to bring that up - as he has done before, he seemed to only be picking on that to try to make me look bad too, as a way of trying to even the score. And that is his argument against me bringing things up - that I do some of those same things, so that somehow cancels out my right to raise them with him, even though he doesn't raise them with me until I do.

Thank you to those of you who have read this far. Can anyone help me with this?


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## "joe" (Aug 19, 2013)

hi anxiousgirl. i'm really sorry to read about your situation and i understand your frustration perfectly because my wife did exactly the same thing, and i had exactly the same reaction. so many bits of your post are photographs from my own marriage. i would raise an issue, sometimes even in an offhand way because it wasn't so big a deal, but she would backbite with something that i had done that she didn't like but that she said nothing about. so she was not speaking what she felt when she felt it and wasn't respecting my issue either. at first i calmly assured her that she can say anything anytime, good bad or indifferent, but the pattern continued and i'd get frustrated and loud and then the damage was done. when she bolted she cited the fact that i was argumentative and loud, but of course didn't acknowledge that she contributed to the situation. she had never forgiven me. 

there are skills to attempt when talking to someone with this issue. they are collected and discussed on this page: 
COMMUNICATION: Overview

unfortunately, in my case these didn't work. i of course cannot say what's up with your husband at root, but my w has borderline p.d., and her sense of being judged by any comment i made, however mild, or of being forced to do something when i ventured any opinion, however weak, was too much for her to overcome. i can't help but mention that because what you describe above is just so familiar to me. but you might try those techniques.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

What are you doing to work on your own sense of action? Have you read The Dance Of Anger?


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## Sanity (Mar 7, 2011)

anxiousgirl,

Your post and description of your anxiety issues give remind me of my EX. She was very much like you. She HAD to know minute details of everything and would have made a great counter terrorist interrogator. She had a terrible time with the unknown and caused so much misery and drama in my life. My love for her turned into hatred. 

What can I tell you that will help? I honestly do not know but I will tell you that eventually the drama and the emotional roller coaster gets old and you will end up divorced if you do not get some IC and/or MC for your anxiety. If you value your marriage, please speak to a therapist and get to the root of the anxiety and fear. Get help and heal for your marriage. I pray you find peace. Living in fear has to be a terrible way to go through life. 

Just remember, just because you feel, it's not always real.


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