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Joined: Apr 2007
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Hi all,

My husband and I are living long distance right now because I got sick (Lyme disease) so I took the kids to stay at my parents for a while, while I recover. The medicines are working, so I'm feeling much better now.

For a number of reasons, some my fault and some his, he's been saying he's not sure he wants to work things out - but he's been saying that for years and never doing anything about it. I told him I did want to work things out so we've been getting together online to play a favorite game of his.

And last night we got into a fight, and it was over something stupid but it's just very typical of how he gets sometimes, and I'm not sure what to do about it.

When he was on last night I said hello, then waited for a while, then said hello? - and of course he interpreted my hello? in the most cynical way possible (and in a way I certainly never intended) and just had to say something rude by accusing me of trying to get him "killed" in the game. I said okay, all you had to do was say you were busy in battle. He started talking to me when he was done, and I just said next time just say you were busy. I was willing to just let it go and play the game, but he had to think up one excuse after another (the game only lets you talk in short phrases, because he's a man he can only concentrate on one thing at a time, etc.) I told him what he said was rude, and if the situation were reversed would you accept such lame excuses from me? He said if I think they are lame excuses that's my problem. Anytime he does something that bugs me, it's my problem but if it bugs HIM, THEN it's a marital problem.

I realize that since I'm the one who wants to work things out, I have to work harder but why do I have to put up with comments that are deliberately destructive? It's one thing to not have his help in fixing things, but why can't he at least not make things worse? And why couldn't he just drop it instead of insisting on defending himself at my expense?

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I'm replying to this so I can add it to my Watched Topics list. I don't know why you have to post in order to watch a topic. I think that's silly. There should be a button for anyone to watch any topic, whether they post to it or not.

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I think the best thing you can do at this point is learn some 'talking points' - meaning, when he dismisses you or gets defensive, you have a nonjudgmental 'I' statement about how his comment affects you. Someone here recommends just saying 'ouch!' every time the partner says something rude. Very effective way to say "I felt hurt when you just said that" and not actually blaming the person, but letting them know they have affected you. If it keeps adding up, an ouch here or there every hour or so, well, you can't ignore all those ouches, ya know?

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If I say anything like that, he just accuses me of trying to pull a guilt trip on him.

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Been there, done that. But what the IC tells me is that I have to stop being about him. I have to start being about me. Remove myself from how he feels when he deals with me. That's his problem, and if he chooses to make it a battle, that's his loss. All I can do is move forward in protecting myself from pain. Let him know that he is causing me pain, and that I now choose to shield myself from it. So my reactions will be my own reactions to whatever he chooses to be at any given time. Kind of like detaching yourself from the situation. I know, easier said than done, and I still haven't reached that. In fact, I have an appointment today to get ADs.

I'm reading a great book someone recommended called Emotional Alchemy, which helps you detach. A lot of zen stuff, meditation, etc., but basically it teaches you to take your emotions out, place them on your palm, so to speak, and look at them from all angles - without emotion - and analyze what they are telling you. So you can move forward with greater enlightenment.

It helps you take the emotion out of your interactions so you can be proactive and fix things better. Not about you and him, but about a condition, or situation, ya know?

Bottom line, so what if he says he thinks you're laying a guilt trip on him? That's his issue to own, not yours. Once you start telling him that, he'll learn that his manipulations aren't working any more, and he has to either find a new manipulation - which will be hard, given that you're now aware of them and not easily led on - or else do some work on himself to find out why he has to be in a win or lose situation instead of a mutually beneficial one. Can you find a way to explain this to him?

I try to overcome my H's negativity effect on my D17. She used to cry at night because of not getting the day she wanted, the 'perfect' day, just like her dad does (well, he doesn't cry, but you get the idea). I tell her things like "You can spend your day counting the bad things that happened to you, and go to bed at night miserable because of all these perceived slights against you. Or you can spend your day feeling blessed to be here, in a great school with great friends and a loving family, great health. If you choose the former, you just wasted a valuable day you'll never get back. If you choose the latter, you just had a day you can count as one of a lifetime of good days. Which way would you like to end up?"

Tell your H you've decided to choose the latter path, and you won't go down his path any more. He can follow along, or be left alone and miserable.

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His issue, not mine? How is that different from what he's doing to me? The problem is that he sees us having separate problems, esp. when I'm the one upset with him (but not so much when he's upset.) Anytime one of us has a problem with the other it's a marital problem. This whole idea of "separate" problems that just happen to affect both of us is at the root of this. I think it would make things worse to encourage the idea that such a figment exists.

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I guess I'm describing this poorly. Maybe someone else can chime in with a better explanation. What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that once you fix your world, your anxiety, your sensitivity to his rude actions, your reactions to his, you're kind of...rising above his childish acts. Once you do that, he'll either have to rise with you, or be ignored. Kind of like when we're told to leave a room when a partner is being verbally abusive; it not only tells the partner that we're not going to tolerate the bad actions, it reinforces in US our own self-respect. Once we can reclaim that self-respect, the partner has to recognize that we are back at a higher point.

It's a lot like living with a verbally abusive person. My D17 is doing a research project on it, so I'm hearing tons about abuse right now. It all says that verbal abuse is worse than physical abuse - it's hard to define, no one else ever sees it, and if you tried to describe what they're doing (he rolled his eyes at me, etc.), people think you're nuts. Also, physical abuse always starts with VA, because no one is going to date a person who wallops you the first time you go out; they start by putting you down, blaming you for everything, minimalizing your thoughts, dismissing you, making you question whether you did indeed deserve to be yelled at, etc. Once you've been softened by all this, getting hit is just more proof that you deserve it. But by the time you're getting hit, you no longer have any self-respect. So it doesn't occur to you to stand up for yourself.

It sounds like you're at a crossroads - knowing you shouldn't be putting up with his crap, but having already put up with it for so long that it seems normal, or at least that he has a right to do it. He doesn't. Anything he does to minimalize you or your feelings is disrespectful and destructive, and if he loved you, he would stop. But he won't, until you start respecting yourself enough to tell him you're done.

LOL, I have no room to talk, but I do know that's what I'm supposed to be doing. Because it works. He has to own his actions, you have to own yours, and you have to let him know when what he does is unacceptable. If he blows up at that, that is his choice. Your choice, if you decide to accept the mission, is to not own his resentment at your standing up for yourself.

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So, now that I've told him I thought what he said was rude I should just pretend it didn't happen unless and until he does it again?

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Have you studied all the stuff here about DJs? When I first came here, I was all about criticizing my H and also about dealing with him in a critical way. When I read that I had to change MY contributions, I thought, 'you've got to be kidding, why should I do that?' But I did it, and surprisingly enough, it lessened my resentment of him and made me more willing to work on our R.

I'm not saying you don't have a reason to resent him, just that expressing it the way you're expressing it 'what you said was rude, etc.' is kind of counterproductive, toward getting what you want.

What do they say? To say things like 'I hear you saying that you don't like my turkey casserole, and that's fine, but it makes me feel like no one appreciates the work I do for the family' - as opposed to 'you don't like my cooking? Fine. Feed yourself.'

I don't know if you're doing that, I only have these few comments to go off of, but if you're making DJs, he's going to feel he has no choice but to mouth off back at you, to defend himself. If I got it wrong, I'm sorry, and please provide more information.

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You might want to listen to today's radio broadcast. Segment 2 is about how to communicate to your spouse when they do something that upsets you.

Dr. Harley says you need to communicate with respect. Do you think that you did that? He also says you shouldn't say anything while you are upset, but that you should present the issue when you've calmed down. As CP says, disrespectful judgements do not help resolve conflicts.

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Hmm..posted this earlier but it didn't make it on here for some reason. Oh well, have more to say anyhow...

Last night and tonight he seemed in a much better mood, acted like nothing happened.

I did not do any dj's at first - just suggested he just say he was busy next time, then he came up with all sorts of excuses, which is when I got mad, said what he said was rude and asked if he'd accept such lame excuses. He said if I thought they were lame, that was my problem. So I said my problem is you never say you're sorry and of course that's when he said he did nothing wrong, etc. So the worst thing I said was he never says he's sorry, although that's only a slight exaggeration. He's said it maybe twice since we've been married!

But I think if he honestly thought it was all my fault, he would have stayed mad longer. Being all cheery and acting like nothing at all happened is typical of him when it's obvious that he's the one who messed up. His memory is much longer otherwise.

I missed the broadcast you mentioned, SnuggleFresh. I'm considering whether to buy one of the packages to listen to archives. However, today's broadcast had something useful in it - apparently people who have a high need for admiration are the same people who have a high sensitivity to criticism. And he's so sensitive to it, even a carefully and diplomatically worded complaint will upset him. (Which really surprised me after we'd been married for a while because he seemed so calm and easy to please, I thought I was marrying a low-maintenance husband -HA! Was I ever wrong!) Well anyway, the point is that I can upgrade admiration from a probable top need (based on the fact that he's a man) to a definite top need and work on that.

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That's great Aphaeresis! My husband also has admiration as one of his top needs (I confirmed this by asking him directly ... he was like, "YES! I would like you to admire me more." LOL!). And as you noted already, that caused it to be hard for me to ask him to change his behavior in a way that he did not take as a criticism.

Over the past couple months, I've given up getting mad at him for doing things I don't like. Well, I do sometimes feel mad, but I've given up pointing it out and making a fight out of it. I might bring it up later when I'm not feeling mad which is when I can tell if it's really a big deal or not.

Interestingly, now that I'm not demanding change, my husband has started to change on his own. He's been helping me around the house A LOT more and is doing things to try and meet my needs.

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I don't know how into psychology you are, but I thought I'd explain some of his stuff, from my perspective on the other side of the window.
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did not do any dj's at first - just suggested he just say he was busy next time, then he came up with all sorts of excuses,
No matter how nicely you say that, simply intimating that he change how he interacts with you (just say you're busy) is - to him - you telling him he acted incorrectly. I know, dammed if you do, dammed if you don't, right? But there it is. Just knowing he's feeling attacked may help you realize why the next steps escalate.

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then he came up with all sorts of excuses, which is when I got mad,
Which tells him he's in a full-fledged battle, and he HAS to defend himself with even more excuses or getting mad himself (remember, he's not here learning better skills).

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what he said was rude and asked if he'd accept such lame excuses. He said if I thought they were lame, that was my problem.
Personal attack, even if you're using it as an "I" statment. You're calling him lame, basically, no matter how nicely you try to say it. So he feels compelled to deflect it back on you (your problem).

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So I said my problem is you never say you're sorry and of course that's when he said he did nothing wrong
You got out of the "I" statement phase, and went into 'YOU always' or 'YOU never' statements - attacks which he has to defend against - wouldn't you?

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if he honestly thought it was all my fault, he would have stayed mad longer. Being all cheery and acting like nothing at all happened is typical of him when it's obvious that he's the one who messed up.
My husband does this every time. It is his nervousness over knowing he screwed up, embarrassment, self-doubt, fear that you'll leave or punish him over it, whatever you want to call it - they get goofy and cheery just like they did when they were 5 and tried to get mommy to not be upset with them over the spilled milk. We all bring these learned skills over from FOO, and use them without even realizing we're doing it! We don't even think, when we're stressed, we just launch into the patterns we saw that worked in childhood. There's a great book that discusses that called Emotional Alchemy.

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even a carefully and diplomatically worded complaint will upset him.
In my experience, most men (and probably women) live in fear, though they don't know it. Everything they do is catered around not creating situations in which they will be judged and found wanting, and possibly dumped. Think about your teen years - it's all about that. It's what we learn. And it never goes away, unless you study a lot of meditation methods and do a lot of philosophical research and become at peace with yourself no matter what happens (that Emotional Alchemy book again). And men seem to be more susceptible to it, because they simply are not usually emotional, talkative, feely people - they don't understand that world as easily, and when the wife starts getting into the you did this, you did that stuff, they feel like they're in a minefield and constantly on guard.

If you can find a way to remove that minefield, perhaps let him know that you will love him no matter what, that this isn't about you choosing whether or not to keep him, that you just want to get your day-to-day living 'system' working better, he may feel safer working with you on these type projects.

The better mood and acting like nothing happened is the act of a scared, embattled person, trying to smooth things over and hope you won't bring it up again, that you can just move forward. It's all he knows how to do, unless you expand the way you two healthily deal with each other.

Read up on Imago therapy, learn how to do the "I" statements better - both of you, so you can get to an even playing field, not a minefield. Hope that helps.

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Thanks, everyone. I'll work on those "I" statements and bringing stuff up when I'm not mad about it.


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