# Advice from Men?



## eowyn (Mar 22, 2012)

Need a man's perspective on this. Your feedback is much appreciated!!

My husband and I have been married three years now. We come from absolutely different family backgrounds, as in, I come from a close knit family who has always stood by me and supported me. I have couple of very close friends as well. On the other hand my husband comes from a family that has given him a lot of pain and grief. I understand the reason why he wouldn't want to trust people, and would like to stay away from people in general & be an introvert. He is over-cautious and many times unreasonably skeptical about my family members & close friends which causes me lot of grief and leads to an emotional drama. Moreover when I try to make him see that his assumptions are unreasonably negative, it appears as though I am taking sides which is not good. However if I don't say anything that is not good either. With this background it is also an effort to get him to do anything in this context (eg: go out for an occasional movie with my friends, talk to my parents or aunt on phone once in a while etc) In general he is extremely distant and for some reason tries his best to form a negative opinion about them whenever possible.

While this is one side of it, he loves me very much and is a really nice person otherwise. However these things cause lot of emotional drama. I am very protective about my family members as well as my husband and his unnecessary negative opinions about my family make me feel sad. 

I thought about this and I guess it could be one of both of these reasons (1) Since my husband's family has been a major negative impact, that is probably the default judgement he uses to evaluate people (2) Unknowingly he could be getting overpossesive about me and unintentionally trying to injure my close relationship with rest of my folks. 

Lot of the times after a drama he realizes his mistake, however that doesn't seem to create a long lasting change. I have talked calmly about this with him many times, however there is not much change. This issue is particularly tricky since I cannot talk about this to any of my family or friends (I do not want anyone to judge him based on this since by doing that I would spoil both ends of the relationship) 

I know there is no overnight solution to this problem. However please give me some constructive advice on how to make him see my perspective and voluntarily get along well with these handful of people that mean a lot to me. Also please let me know how to handle myself in the meantime since I do not want to be stressed out or move into the resentment zone. He is a real good and caring guy and I would like to fix this issue positively. 

Thanks in advance for your advice!


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## lovinhusband (Feb 25, 2012)

He seems to have developed a bit of a rut.........sorry to say it is not an easy solution. Do you and him have any mutual friends? What about the things he likes to do? 
My thought would be to do things with people he likes to be around, for a while anyway, and this may take long time. Do some of the things he likes to do, or go to his places of interest. 
Over the course of time he will come around, once he realizes that you have done more than what is considered "normal". More importantly don't cut ties with your family. Your family is not going to go away, and neither is he. he will more than likely develop a sense of co-existence with them at first and more than likely he will get over whatever is bugging him. And lastly, (and I'm not saying that you have one this by any means) don't nag him about it. Let the subject cool off for a while. Nagging will only reenforce his stubborn side. 
your husband will see you for who you are, and will ultimately see your family as people who can be trusted, cared about and even loved over time. 
You have got a good heart, let him see that first, and he will see the rest the same eventually. 
I'm not talking days here, or weeks, this is a long process but he will love you for it later, and you will have a wonderful husband in the end.


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## eowyn (Mar 22, 2012)

Thank you so much for your advice! 

He is indeed a very loving person with me, and I am sure he would have been so different and so much more positive with people had he been raised in a different environment. I feel so bad for that and would give anything if I could heal the negativity he has seen throughout his life thus far. Also being the wife I feel it is my responsibility to help in the healing process. 

However being a human being it is difficult for me to maintain the balance. I think your advice on 'not nagging' is the most important thing. I will make sure I control myself and maybe reduce my expectations little bit while things improve.

I am wondering if there are any good books, seminars, dvds on marriage maintenance? I guess if we can work out the basics somehow and come up with some ground rules it would be a good start.


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## RDL (Feb 10, 2012)

Hello,

In your situation I would suggest that you gently guide him towards situations where he can himself arrive at the idea of your family being close and supportive and loving and trustworthy.

Generally men connect to each other by doing activities together. Is there such an activity that your husband and other men in your family can take part in? Options would be sports, camping, racing and other games, fixing cars, fishing, video games etc...

Simply put, one of the best ways to fix the issue is to gently show him what a close supportive family has to offer. Repeated exposure to this positive environment will eventually naturally allow him to let his guard down, it may also offer him a set of feelings and experiences that he did not have the fortune to have in his past.


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

Eowyn,
Part of a healthy marriage is bonding without having to lose yourself. I think you should agree to a schedule for you to socialize with others. And put enough time in for you to do what you feel you need to do. And then let him know he is welcome to participate whenever he wishes to. And emphasize that he needs to limit his negative comments about your friends and family to "patterns" of observable behavior. If there isn't a pattern of observable negative behavior than he needs to give folks the benefit of the doubt at least to the extending keeping his harsh viewpoint to himself.

UOTE=eowyn;642461]Thank you so much for your advice! 

He is indeed a very loving person with me, and I am sure he would have been so different and so much more positive with people had he been raised in a different environment. I feel so bad for that and would give anything if I could heal the negativity he has seen throughout his life thus far. Also being the wife I feel it is my responsibility to help in the healing process. 

However being a human being it is difficult for me to maintain the balance. I think your advice on 'not nagging' is the most important thing. I will make sure I control myself and maybe reduce my expectations little bit while things improve.

I am wondering if there are any good books, seminars, dvds on marriage maintenance? I guess if we can work out the basics somehow and come up with some ground rules it would be a good start.[/QUOTE]
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## lovinhusband (Feb 25, 2012)

eowyn said:


> Need a man's perspective on this. Your feedback is much appreciated!!
> 
> My husband and I have been married three years now. We come from absolutely different family backgrounds, as in, I come from a close knit family who has always stood by me and supported me. I have couple of very close friends as well. On the other hand my husband comes from a family that has given him a lot of pain and grief. I understand the reason why he wouldn't want to trust people, and would like to stay away from people in general & be an introvert. He is over-cautious and many times unreasonably skeptical about my family members & close friends which causes me lot of grief and leads to an emotional drama. Moreover when I try to make him see that his assumptions are unreasonably negative, it appears as though I am taking sides which is not good. However if I don't say anything that is not good either. With this background it is also an effort to get him to do anything in this context (eg: go out for an occasional movie with my friends, talk to my parents or aunt on phone once in a while etc) In general he is extremely distant and for some reason tries his best to form a negative opinion about them whenever possible.
> 
> ...


I came from a home where a mother was always on my butt about something, we fought and she berrated me with threats, accusations, and etc, several times it was extreme. It took me three to four years after we were married for me to actually settle down to a more normal and relaxed state. I've got a few things to add here but later. ok?


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## eowyn (Mar 22, 2012)

lovinhusband said:


> I came from a home where a mother was always on my butt about something, we fought and she berrated me with threats, accusations, and etc, several times it was extreme. It took me three to four years after we were married for me to actually settle down to a more normal and relaxed state. I've got a few things to add here but later. ok?


Your mother sounds a lot like my mother in law, maybe a lot more worse if that is possible. Initially my husband had some anger/bitterness issues as well due to that. But he has improved a lot on it since our marriage. However 'not getting along with my family' is still a major issue. Unfortunately this is not a non-biased issue such as general anger management where I can advice him as a third person. In this case if I say anything it certainly can be perceived as 'taking sides' which makes it worse. :slap:


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## Browncoat (Mar 25, 2012)

I can relate to your husband in several ways, my wife comes from a decent sized and well connected family, I come from a largely disfunctional family that has a lot of resentment towards one another.

My wife makes friends easily, I do so much more slowly.

I find for me it's easier to make connections with people when they are invited over to my house one at a time. Once I got to know each of them as individuals it became a lot easier to accept them all as a whole.

I don't appreciate it though when I feel like my wife is trying to introduce me to folks (not family) in order to help me make new friends. For me I want friendships to be formed organically, not as a result of some sort of wifely-machination (lol new phrase TM).


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## joshbjoshb (Jul 11, 2011)

I can also relate except my wife is like your husband.. .almost never trusts anyone. I like to trust people, to help whenever I can and to connect as much as possible.

No real solution here, except you must always show him how your connection to your family is not instead of your connection to him - verbalize it "I love my family very much but you are my husband and we are always connected" etc. Try not to push him to become like you - it won't happen if you push it, it might if you are not.

But most importantly, you have to show him how having a supportinve family and friends make you a happy person. He might want to try that himself too!

I am just thinking how a short time after we got married, every time I used to go out with friends she used to always go crazy, and never went anywhere herself.. always dragged me to shopping which used to drive me insane... I think that some stuff are not meant to be done together with your spouse but with your friends!


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## River1977 (Oct 25, 2010)

I'm sorry, Eowyn, if I seem insensitive, but I don't see there being a problem here. You never said he tries to prevent you from visiting with your family or friends. That would be a problem and show him to be controlling. Perhaps I missed something, but what I got from your post is he says bad things about them. My response is so what.

It actually sounds to me that you are the controlling one to be so determined to change him and make him think, be, feel the same as you. When he says derogatory things, ignore him. He is entitled to form opinions in his head whether they are right or wrong so long as he does not do or say anything to the other people or try to start a fight with them. But, what is stated between the two of you should remain between the two. I can understand you don't like his opinions. The things he says are probably hurtful to you, but you have to ignore him. When he says something you don't like about someone you love, just respond by saying "okay" or "I'm sorry you feel that way" and go on about your day. This hardly has to become an argument or point of issue between you two. You are not a psychiatrist, psychologist, counselor, or therapist. You cannot fix his childhood, nor can you fix the way he is because of his childhoold. You can be a loving and supportive wife without thinking you need to change his way of thinking. People have way too many real problems in their relationships for you to manufacture and fashion problems out of the way he thinks of other people. As long as he is good to you and doesn't become controlling by keeping you from your family and friends, then view your marriage as the wonderful and happy insititution that it is. Learn to pick your battles. This is not one of them.

Maybe I missed something when reading your post. I just don't get what your issue is because there does not have to be any issue at all as far as I can see.


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## eowyn (Mar 22, 2012)

I agree with you that this is not a major issue and I wouldn't like to project it that way. On some of my concerns I would like to elaborate further -

When my husband says negative things about my family for no reason, it is usually due to some very negative (almost imaginary) assumptions. I do not fight with him, I usually give him some time to cool off and then talk to him. At the end he does see how his thinking was overly negative and bitter. However the pattern keeps repeating again and again. 

Couple of my issues with this are -

Respect: I am afraid after some point I will start loosing respect for my husband and it might start reflecting in my behavior which will not be good for our relationship. Respect, Love and Trust are the 3 pillars for a healthy marriage and it is crucial for all of these pillars to be rock solid.

Harmony: and this might be my personal short-coming. I cannot thrive in an environment where my husband is unnecessarily angry with my family all the time. I have a very small inner circle (my parents, bro, couple of close friends) which means the world for me, and if there are unnecessary conflicts in my inner circle it creates lot of mental trauma for me.

Relationship: If my husband were my roommate it might not matter to me how he thinks or interacts with my family and friends. While he certainly does not create scenes or does not talk unpleasantly at their face, he does talk unpleasantly about them with me, and avoids talking or meeting them as much as he can which gets awkward at times, and of course it does affect the frequency with which I meet them as well. In the first yr after marriage we wld meet my fly/friends more often, in the second yr of our marriage I had to convince him so that we can go meet my friends/fly once in a while and caused weekend conflicts. In the third yr of our marriage I pretty much gave up to avoid conflicts and its rare now that I meet my fly/friends without an occasion so to speak such as a b'day etc. So I wouldn't call either of us "controlling" but it does affect the way things work especially for the person with "less strong" opinions. My general level of happiness and enthusiasm has deteriorated gradually and I am worried about that as well.

I know that I am not a psychiatrist however I am trying to avoid getting into a situation where I might need to go to one. Prevention is better than cure and it is better to try and fix such issues before they get worse. Moreover my husband does realize that he needs to change. 

Your point is valid to some extent, however there seem to be some people on this thread who have experienced a similar issue and therefore understand where I am coming from. Again, this is not a major issue but the reason I posted it on the forum is to see how me and my husband could fix it and get some advice from people who might have struggled with a similar issue.

I cannot change the 'past' where my husband comes from.. the family he was born in etc. Their gradual influence succeeded in bringing bitterness and criticism into his perception and judgement about people. On similar lines I would like to think that I might be able to positively influence my husband and gradually (not overnight) help him change his perception that people are not all that bad, help him reduce this accumulated bitterness and develop some compassion and forgiveness towards people. Let me know if I am being unrealistic or unreasonable here.




River1977 said:


> I'm sorry, Eowyn, if I seem insensitive, but I don't see there being a problem here. You never said he tries to prevent you from visiting with your family or friends. That would be a problem and show him to be controlling. Perhaps I missed something, but what I got from your post is he says bad things about them. My response is so what.
> 
> It actually sounds to me that you are the controlling one to be so determined to change him and make him think, be, feel the same as you. When he says derogatory things, ignore him. He is entitled to form opinions in his head whether they are right or wrong so long as he does not do or say anything to the other people or try to start a fight with them. But, what is stated between the two of you should remain between the two. I can understand you don't like his opinions. The things he says are probably hurtful to you, but you have to ignore him. When he says something you don't like about someone you love, just respond by saying "okay" or "I'm sorry you feel that way" and go on about your day. This hardly has to become an argument or point of issue between you two. You are not a psychiatrist, psychologist, counselor, or therapist. You cannot fix his childhood, nor can you fix the way he is because of his childhoold. You can be a loving and supportive wife without thinking you need to change his way of thinking. People have way too many real problems in their relationships for you to manufacture and fashion problems out of the way he thinks of other people. As long as he is good to you and doesn't become controlling by keeping you from your family and friends, then view your marriage as the wonderful and happy insititution that it is. Learn to pick your battles. This is not one of them.
> 
> Maybe I missed something when reading your post. I just don't get what your issue is because there does not have to be any issue at all as far as I can see.


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## Posse (Jan 30, 2012)

I would suggest marriage counseling. If talking to him one-to-one isn't working, bringing another party in might help hammer home the importance this has to you.

Best of luck.


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