My wife and I have been married since September, have been living together for just over two years, and seeing each other for almost three and a half. Since shortly after I proposed to her things have been rocky. At times it seems that we can't go more than two or three weeks without a huge fight, always because of something I've done (or not done). I've read the articles at marriage builders and many other sites, tried implementing them (beginning a little less than a year ago), and I still can't seem to make much progress, other than to change the things we fight about.

At first we fought because she didn't believe I love her (I do), but now the fights generally center around fairness and my lack of results in doing basic things better (my driving, how I do chores, etc. all seem to incite annoyance and eventually anger in her). I try to be better for her, but I always seem to come up short. And worst of all, our arguments run in circles because I agree that I should be better about these things, but I can't seem to accomplish it.

She does deal with a lot of stress. Her mother is a constant source of stress, not helped by the fact that her mothers inflicted emotional abuse on her because my wife's mother was sexually abused as a child and was jealous of my wife getting a normal childhood and took things out on her emotionally. My mother seems to dislike her, not to mention that on two occasions my mother said she would divorce me if she could, both times happening after we had moved in together, though ostensibly not about our relationship. She works very hard at her job for not as much pay as she deserves. And then when she comes home she feels stressed about taking care of things around the house, exacerbated by the fact that she is annoyed by how I do many of the chores that are my responsibility (which is nearly all of them; she is clearly more stressed than I am about things and I have more energy for chores in the evening and on weekends).

Still, nothing I try seems to work, and inevitably we end up back in the same arguments, which lead to further arguments about how I am not changing even when I say that I'm trying to.

It's gotten to the point that she's told me, though only with anger, that she thinks she made a mistake marrying me. She's even said that she thought she should have broken up with me after a month and regrets that she didn't. Still, I love her very much and want to do better and make her happy.

So, that's my story (thanks for reading it!). I've come to the forum hoping I can get some advice on how to move forward, since just working on my own seems to have failed.

Like I said, I love her. One thing I wonder might be holding me back is that I don't get the love back from her any more, not since I said some, admittedly, insensitive things, not meaning them to be serious. But even now, at the start of the new year she decided to give me a fresh start with no held over anger. At this point I've already blown it, despite that during all that time she was showing love back towards me (although we haven't had sex or even kissed since our honeymoon, but she was being receptive to me doing things to try to build our relationship back up).

So, I at last come to the subject of this post. I keep trying to change, I desperately want to change, yet I seem to fail every time. She says I do okay for a week or two, but then I start to slip back into old habits. I don't notice myself doing this, other than not feeling like I'm walking on eggshells. I don't know what I can do to correct this, so that I can actually make the changes I want to make. Does anyone have any suggestions or comments that might help me?

Thanks (and thanks for reading all that)!

Akrasia, I can definitely relate to your situation.

My wife and I are experiencing similar problems in similar circumstances. I am brand new here as well and wouldn't presume to be capable of giving good advice, but i did have some questions.

Apparantly she is unhappy about fairness issues... is this chores around the house? Financial responsibility or lack of Employment? I provide most of our income but wy wife's chief complaint is how i do things (she thinks she has a better way).

Also, not having kissed since your honeymoon seems pretty intense. Again, no advice here, but I can tell you from personal experience romantic rejection/lack of romance can create some deep-seeded resentment for everyone.

My wife had a tough upbringing too, in my case I am still trying to determine the long-term effects and how to navigate the emotional mine-field this seems to have caused.

I have found the site very helpful, hopefully someone more experienced will pick up your post and respond. If not try posting in the emotional needs form-- more traffic there.

No, the fairness issue is broader than that. She has, or has been willing to, give up a lot for me. For example, at one point it looked like I was going to have to move out of state (before we were married), and she was willing to go with me, even though it would be thousands of miles from her family. And I think she feels frustrated because it seems that she keeps giving up or being put in positions where she is willing to give up a lot for me, and the same doesn't happen in reverse. I don't try to make things unfair, but it seems to happen that way.

I do try to take things on to make things more fair. For example, I do essentially all of the chores around the house, even though I often get yelled at for not doing them how she wants me to. And I get up early before her and go to bed late after her so that I can stay up and get more stuff done for us. She does earn more money than me, but this hasn't always been the case.

As far as kissing, the day we got back she had a kidney stone and was on bed rest and pain killers for a month. After that her grandfather was dying of cancer (he passed just after the new year) and in dealing with all of those things she didn't feel sexy, and because of all the fighting it hasn't started back up.

If I don't get many bites, I'll try posting over there. Thanks for the tip!

Your relationship sounds pretty lopsided. What does she do for you? What does she think you expect her to? Women who marry men who become complacent or even subservient (sorry, no insult intended) often get angry at the man for not standing up for himself. It just makes the woman madder. My D17 dated a guy like that, and the more upset she got that he wouldn't make any decisions or stand up for himself, the more he tried to please her by being even more subservient, and the madder she got!

What you need are boundaries. I'd start with openness and honesty. You have the right to tell her how you feel; you're supposed to be best friends. Tell her how you feel - without blaming her - and tell her that you have to start doing some things to make you feel like more of a partner, less like a servant. Use your own words, though, LOL.

She needs to start respecting you again, before she'll even be willing to work on things. So set some boundaries - I'll tell you when I'm feeling unfairly criticized; I will not accept yelling in our relationship and I'll leave the room if we start raising our voices until we can talk it through; I'm going to ask that you contribute to the housework, no matter how stressed you are (I'm pretty stressed, too, at this point, but I'm still getting the work done); I want to start spending 15 hours a week together doing good stuff for our relationship - and stand by them. This is one time you can't afford to back down, just to please her. Because it won't please her; it'll make her lose respect for you.

Secondly, have you considered that she may be having an emotional or physical affair? Just look at the number of threads here on betrayal, and you'll see it's way more common than you think. And everyone who comes here saying 'no way, she/he would never do that, I know her/him too well' - ends up eating their words when they start snooping and find evidence. Her actions sound a lot like an affair.

This morning on the car ride to work I worked up the courage to discuss things with her. I told her that I didn't want to fight anymore (at least, not fight how we do, which is her yelling at me and me giving in to whatever she wants) and that I wanted to work on our relationship by calmly discussing things. She didn't say anything, so I continued by saying that I wanted her to know that I still love her a lot and want things to work out for us.

I stopped talking for a little bit then and she didn't say anything, just kind of thought on it. Since I wasn't getting a response I then told her that I had been reading and thinking a lot and thought that a good place to start might be things that annoy us about each other, since maybe if we could get over those things we'd be less likely to fall into old patterns when we have a more serious disagreement. I finally asked her what she thought about all this.

She told me that she thought it was [censored] and that I didn't really want to change. I stressed again that I did and that I love her. She tried yelling at me but I didn't let her put me back into the subservient roll and kept stressing that I wanted to work on things. She accused me of trying to blame her and put the guilt on her. I told her that no, we were both doing things to hurt the relationship and that we both needed to stop them, especially her yelling at me and my backing down.

At that point we got to her office and she had to get out to go to work. When she left she handed me a couple letters that need mailing and told me they needed to be mailed, but without yelling at me. From the tone of her voice, I think I may have made a breakthrough this morning with her. Hopefully this will be the seed from which we can regrow our relationship.

Good work! You did great! Staying calm, repeating what you're saying, not getting drawn into it...great work.

There's a book called The Dance of Anger that talks about all kinds of situations where you feel anger, and how you can learn from that anger to tell you what you're really feeling. It says that, once you change the 'dance' the other person will do what is called 'change back!' behavior, to try to suck you back into the comfortable, familiar way of dealing with each other. You have to be strong, and not do it. It also says that, when you do change the dance, and she exhibits the 'change back!' behavior, you have to take steps to reassure her that you still love her, that you are not pulling away and just being selfish. Which you did, so even more great work!

Finally, this:
is important information. She's telling you she doesn't trust you to stay firm on this path. So make this one of your most important goals - no backsliding, keep your eyes on the prize.

Thank you for the suggestions, catperson.

Right now she is giving me another chance and trying to let me start clean. No fights yet, so no chances to try my new take on our arguments, but I'm working on doing some of the things that we've talked about in the past that I need to do to meet her emotional needs.

AK
reading His needs her needs is a MUST for you
AND COUNSELING..professional advice is a good idea at any stage in marriage
but I am going to say a few things you wont hear in that book..
1. the general media mis reprsent what woman want.
you get a bunch of politically correct crap
ALL (every) women want a sense of security
physical, emotinal and financial.. and they all want to have that available from their MATE.. No mattre how much money she earns herself she still wants you to be financially responsible. she also wants to FEEL physically protecetd by you and to TRUST you to stay away from other women..
when you give in to her and pander to her she FEELS insecure because you FEEL WEAK to her and any weakness in YOU will freighten her..THATs why she gets angry
ACT CONFIDENT..
on the seduction webistes this is called being "cockey-funny"
..but it really is just a sense of confidence.. BUT GENTLY
JB

We had a fight again last night. We went out to a Mardi Gras parade and everything was going good (and has been going good since I last posted). After the parade there was a concert, and we tried to go to it but couldn't find a spot to see it (I should add at this point that my wife requires a wheel chair when we go out most places because she has a foot problem that prevents her from walking for more than a few hundred feet without experiencing agonizing pain). She said she saw someone we could ask, but I couldn't see who this was and kept going, hoping I'd either see whoever she was talking about or find someone else. In the end, all the handicap seating was taken and we weren't able to stay for the concert.

But missing the concert isn't what started the fight. It was that I didn't ask for help from the person she pointed out to me. It was because I didn't act on what she was telling me. When I couldn't find the guy, I should have asked her to point him out to me.

We had a fight on the car ride home and once we got home. During the whole thing I stayed calm. I accepted blame for my mistakes, but didn't regress to sounding like I was rolling over to her. Among the things we fought about were how she gets angry at me, and I think we made some progress when I explained calmly that, yes, the yelling needs to stop, but accepted that part of the reason the yelling happens is because I haven't reacted to things before they got to that point. As much as she needs to stop yelling, I need to pay attention to her and work on issues before they get to the point that she feels yelling is the only way to communicate things to me.

This morning things are peaceful again; the fight is over and we're moving on. I hope we can have more successful fights like this, where the anger doesn't linger and we both get something out of it to think about to help improve the relationship (I've left out a lot of what I thought about here because I only have time to type so much of the story right now).

OT, but what is your wife's foot problem? Is it plantar fasciitis? Just curious. I'm dealing with that right now.

Can you guys come up with a signal you use when one of you recognizes that you're devolving into a fight? Like a palms up sign, or something? So you can stop, take a breather, and come back and talk it over?

Akrasia, I am so glad that you found MB. I encourage you to copy and paste your post to the EN board.

What you're decribing sounds to me like an emotionally abusive relationship. But MB has tools for that.

Check out the Love Busters section, the Article that says, "Conversation Is Boring" There you'll find the Friends Of Good Conversation and the Enemies of Good Conversation. In a nutshell, you've got to become like a traffic cop, and as soon as she says something that makes you feel bad, tell her "Ouch" and change the subject to something on that list.

You've got to get really consistent right away before you start to hate her. This happens over and over here with the patterns you describe. Don't let her immaturity (she sounds really young) and poor habits ruin your enjoyment of your marriage together. If she wants something, she's got to ask respectfully, that's it. POJA. You're not enthusiastic about being yelled at.

When she gets upset or starts to yell, pick up on this and call the time out that she doesn't know yet to ask for. Wait until she's the woman you love again before you engage her again. Yelling comes from powerlessness. Figure out together when she's calm how she can stop feeling like that. Does she have good female role models in her life that model this? Cat is so right on about that Dance Of Anger Book, but there's nothing like seeing someone you admire in action. You can model this for her, too. "Remember how you started to holler the other night when the water was scalding hot? That happened to me this morning, too, and I was SO mad, but then I looked for found the water heater and set the temperature lower. I want to share with you that I feel confident that we can solve our problems without yelling."

I am asking you to be really consistent with this, especially staying in a room for even a second when she's yelling, because I've seen many guys in your situation get fed up so quickly. I am asking you to take charge of your Love Bank account and keep out the withdrawals and get lots of deposits in there by asking for lots of things that you want that you know she's enthusiastic about giving.

Yes, plantar fasciitis. She's done physical therapy but so far that hasn't helped. She's had it for almost two years now. The first time she went to the doctor he thought the only option was going to be surgery, but he wanted her to try therapy. Now, though, it's getting pretty bad. Don't know if she will do surgery or not; she wants to avoid it because of the recovery time.

A signal would probably be a good idea. We did something similar a while back because to help me stop some of my love busters. I was unknowningly being grumpy, making her feel like I resent her presence (this was before the fighting got bad). So I asked her to let me know when I was doing it so I could stop, and she did and that worked.

The big difference here has been that I hadn't asked her not to yell at me. I think I will bring this up, soon, since it would probably keep the fights from escalating. Even without one, though, I think just having gotten a new attitude towards things, thanks to the advice I've gotten on the board, has helped.

Ears_open,

I'm not sure if it's immaturity. She's 24 and I'm 25. She's been through some rough stuff: her grandfather just died a month ago, her exboyfriend right before me was in a serious car accident while they were dating and was in a comma for several days and was in the emergency room before he was bandaged up, giving her post-traumatic stress disorder, and she had a miscarriage with her exboyfriend, which is what led them to breakup (he initiated it, not her).

Instead, and this is what she even has said to me, is that she gets angry and yells mainly because I either don't act on what she tells me (which happens for many reasons, some of them mine) or I don't stand up for myself, presenting her with a weak man when she needs a strong one. I'm trying to fix both, and I think I've finally gotten the latter down, but now we're on the slow road to recovery.

Thank you for the suggestions about how to encourage more desirable behavior. I will definitely give it a try.

Has she gotten the orthopedic heel supports for her shoes? Her doctor can get them made; you slip them in your shoes and they provide arch support. It helps a bit, maybe enough that she won't need the wheelchair. However, is she doing exercises every single day? Stretching her feet? She really, really needs to be doing this; it's the single most important thing she can do to get rid of the pain, aside from surgery. Let me know if you don't have those exercises, and I can find you a web link to them.

I think the one thing you guys need more than anything is safe, nonjudgmental honest communication. Make a promise to each other that you can talk about stuff without it being a you/me thing, but rather an us thing.

And btw, to us old folks, 24 is pretty immature! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Not a put-down; just means you guys have a lot of living to do and lots of wisdom to earn through experience. At least you're here, learning.

Oh, also? Be grateful that she's been able to point out to you what it is you do that bothers her. That's priceless information; something, even, that I would thank her for, if I were you. But not in a weak way! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Doesn't this sound abusive to you? If you don't do things her way when she wants them (selfish Demands), then she says you're wrong and defective and weak? Do you think that you're buying into her abuse by believing that you're defective? They are behaviors, they don't define you. I am glad that you are starting to feel differently.

Best wishes!