Diana, I posted this to you on your other thread. Maybe you missed.
Your husband is firmly ensconced in the Win-Lose method of managing a marriage. In Win-Lose, one partner gets hurt and that's just the way it is. That's why telling him you're hurt will make NO difference to him at all, no matter how many times you try to tell him you're hurt under the excuse of using Radical Honesty. You can say it to him ten billion times and it will not affect him one bit.
The solution here is for the two of you to stop using Win-Lose and start using POJA.
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There are two methods that couples can use to resolve the questions and differences of opinion and disagreements that come up in every marriage. These are:
1) Win-Lose
2) Policy of Joint Agreement (POJA)
The vast, vast majority of couples use the Win-Lose method, mostly because they grew up seeing their parents use it on each other and it's all they know.
With Win-Lose, every situation will have a Winner and a Loser.
With Win-Lose, your only goal is to avoid being the Loser.
With Win-Lose, the outcome of "hurting my partner" IS an acceptable outcome.
Win-Lose is also the reason why Marriage is largely a synonym for Misery.
It's why every wife is a B*tch and every husband is a B*stard.
These partners are not trying to help or protect each other. They are just trying to Win.
That's why telling your Win-Lose partner that "I feel hurt when you . . . " has absolutely no effect. They know you're hurt. They're okay with it. That's what happens with Win-Lose. What's your point?
But the trouble is – when you have to be the Loser in a relationship, and you have to watch how perfectly happy and content your spouse is with you being the Loser, all it does is build more and more and more pain and suffering and resentment.
You cannot have anything resembling a healthy relationship when one or both members are seething with hurt and resentment.
POJA is very different.
POJA presumes that hurting your partner is NOT an acceptable outcome.
This sound positive and good, doesn't it? But people who are accustomed to Win-Lose, and who like it very much because they nearly always Win, hate the POJA with every fiber of their being.
Why do they hate it? Because a Winner is extremely resistant to giving up the imbalance of power in the relationship.
They're not about to become Losers and they are fully convinced that there is no other way except Win-Lose to deal with a spouse and "everybody knows this".
Unfortunately, if they cannot give up their addiction to Win-Lose the marriage is almost always doomed – doomed to divorce or at the very least doomed to unending misery.
That's because it's impossible for your partner to love or respect you when they know full well that you WILL happily hurt them if it means YOU get to Win.
POJA protects both partners and allows both of them to Win. But sadly, many, many people angrily dismiss this idea and instead go through life convinced that the only way to deal with a spouse is through Win-Lose and that the only goal of a relationship is to make sure that I Win and Spouse Loses.
This does nothing but keeps the marriage counselors and divorce lawyers making money by the bucket.
Win-Lose or POJA. Pick one. It's your marriage.
Mulan
