I'm a SAHM wife n mama. Married 4 years. Here are my concerns in a nutshell.

-FINANCES. We both seem to have different goals. He's a spender, I'm a saver. He spends on temporary here and now, I like to save up or pay off big expenses as well. He does not listen to my big goals and dreams, but instead is rather lavish with his expenses which defeats my goal of stricter budgeting. Can elaborate more if ya'll like. But basically, when it comes to my bigger goals for the future, he doesnt listen and says things like "This conversation is over" as though if he doesnt agree, thats that.

-RELIGION. Before we got married, he promised my dad he'd take me and future kids to church. Well we dropped out of churches/groups and its important for me to have spiritual guidance and fellowship. But our beliefs are shall I say...unique. He doesnt give me a chance really to form my own beliefs, he tells me I'm either "all the way in or all the way out" when it comes to our beliefs. I dont even know if I want to believe entirely his way. He finally relented to me looking for a church for the sake of me and the kids, but he has this idea that he cant really learn anything at church. He is rather prideful, saying things like "I really do know the Bible" and the idea that most of the Church is wrong. My point being, for quite some time I've felt ISOLATED because he wont give up his pride and arguing with other people about religion.

-MISCELLANEOUS:
~ If it's playing a game, he gets very upset and will often argue with me or family or anyone about the rules or whats fair/unfair. Even with our daughter who is only 2, he says she has to play it right or not at all. Really? She's 2!
~ He frequently says things like "Admit it, I was right" "Apologize, you were wrong" "No, I'm not going to help you with that , you didnt listen to me" "Dont come to me when [whatever doesnt work out]" etc.
~ He is obsessed with his hobby (Gardening). He spends a lot of time with his hobby, a lot of time on weekends (not Saturdays for religious reasons) in the garden, weekdays after work, etc. I have 2 small kids, I could really use more help/family time. Now that he's on a big work trip, he wants me to constantly check on the flowers or take pictures of them and asks me almost everyday about them.
~He wont consider my little concerns. For instance, he put big pots on the deck and its causing the deck to rot in those areas. He wont listen to me when I say its happening and says 'it will be fine' and I'm honestly afraid to tell him I had to move those pots because we've had this argument before. I tell him to take his shoes off when he comes in from gardening or just in general, he rarely does and then acts like its not a big deal when I get upset about it. He says 'yeah I'll clean it' but did he clean it? No. He can be irresponsible like not locking windows at night for the kids, not cleaning his garage and letting it get super messy, leaving his tools outside, and not caring if his pots ruin the deck that was just painted last year.
~He critiques things like what I should wear or how I should do makeup. Once when we were grocery shopping he directed my attention to what shoes the other women in the store were wearing to prive that "no one does that". He tells me he doesnt like eyeliner or tells me to wipe my lipstick off cuz he doesnt like the shade. He tells me he doesnt like me in bright pinks or tons of colors because it makes me look like a little girl. Isn't this a bit much?

My point is he doesnt really listen to my concerns or hopes/dreams.

ANGER in Parenting - almost forgot this one. He has made some big mistakes parenting our 2 year old. Simply because she was trying to sit in her brothers car seat, he picked her up and shook her. Another time, he grabbed her mouth a bit too rough to make her look at him while he was talking to her. Another time, he slapped her thigh too hard and there was a welt that didnt just go away. He says 'oops, I think that was too hard'. Some of these mistakes have been made in front of my family and they tried to step in and he got angry with me for allowing them to do so and for "taking their side". No, I'm just trying to protect my daughter because he can be unreasonabe with her. He is quite confrontational with her, everything is a matter of principle with him. In fact, he's like that with me. He's a man of principle. Everything to him is a matter of simple black and white. He cant understand why people don't agree with him. He can't seem to accept help/authority/possibility of being right from anyone else (except his boss obviously, but he evn talks bad about work). Everything seems to be a right or wrong issue unless it's about him.

Sorry that was longer than I expected, but I needed to organize my thoughts/points on the matter.

Hi AnonSAHM,

Welcome to MB! So sorry for your pain.

What is his response when you're open and honest about how you feel? This will tell you a lot about his attitude toward you and marriage in general.

If he listens and works on becoming more caring - good news.
If he shifts blame and shuts you down, he's a Renter - and an abusive one to boot.

I would probably start by addressing his parenting - hurting little children is a dangerous path, and she is unable to protect herself. If he won't protect her, you'll have to make some decisions quickly.

In a pleasant voice, with a smile, you might try something like, "Honey, I'm concerned about the differences in the way we parent our daughter. Like the time you [fill in specific incident here, be brief]. It frightened and upset me. Can we come up with a way of parenting that we are both comfortable with?" (If this works, you can build a very specific plan together - Dos, Don'ts and your mutual long-term goals for parenting helps a lot)

While working the MB program, it helped me to write down our dialogue word for word (or record it). Then I could understand where the issue was. In my case, it was my abusive husband who blame-shifted and went ballistic no matter how respectfully I approached him. Who knows? You may even catch yourself 'going off the rails.'

Also, get LoveBusters and check out this website on Demands, Disrespect and Anger. Those articles will help you identify the issues and work together to eliminate any abusive behaviors.

I'd love to hear an update when you're ready. Good luck!

Hi AnonymousSAHM, i'm new to this forum. currently doing premarital counseling using "His needs Her needs" as a tool.

Sorry to hear of your situation

for starters I think it may be a good idea for you to seek professional counseling to gain understanding and start your healing.
I'm a man and in my prior relationship my ex wife was manipulative and selfish. I 'spent' years trying to 'fix' it.


Wishing you well

I suggest you write to the radio show. Do you have the book Lovebusters? It appears to me that both of you are using love busting tactics. However, the issue of his interaction with your daughter seems to be top priority.

These symptoms sound like possible Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. For them, everything is black and white. They also "own the truth"...what ever they think is true IS true.
Look into it. Also they are "demand resistant". If you ask him to take off his shoes, then by gosh he won't.

The best thing to do is to have loving, but very FIRM boundaries with him.

But for makeup, one reason you wear it is to look appealing to others, especially your DH. So if he doesn't like bright pink, is there another color you could use? Try to find one he likes.

It is very difficult trying to do MB if he does have this personality disorder because normally you would not try to have independent behavior with your DH, but you can never please someone like that so you have to take some stands because they will always argue and never come to a joint agreement.

Thanks everyone. I'm rather discouraged. I do love him so much but when I started to realize that there actually WERE things not right in our marriage it rather threw me for a loop because when I married him, I so much looked up to him. He was firm in his beliefs and always talked about God, he was traditional in his views of family life (meaning he works and I SAHM which I do like), and I liked his rather strong personality. I want to help him and love him the way I should. I don't feel a lot of emotionaly lovey dovey for him right now, but I know in my heart that I want to love him in a way that is good for our marriage and our future. Not sure what boundaries I need right now. I've definitely been doing a lot of study and thought processing using the questionairres and information from the Marriage Builders website and will continue to do so.

I'm very nervous around my husband and we keep so many things surface level because I dont want things to turn to an argument and I'm afraid to bring anything deeper than surface level to discussion. I know I need to gain some courage, but why can't I seem to?

AnonymousSAHM,
Hi there. Please just know that the personality traits that your husband exhibits make it VERY difficult for soft-hearted and giving people to co-exist with them. You probably never looked at it this way, but he has controlled you, run all over you in at least some ways to be able to get his way! Strong personalities do that. For them to accomplish that, we have to lower our expectations of them and our own personal boundaries. We do that to "keep the peace", "not anger him", "to make sure he doesn't put me down or yell at me" and so many more reasons. So, then they get used to us then enabling their behavior. The sayings, "We teach them how to treat us", and "We allow them to treat us in these ways", really do apply here. Then we tend to lose ourselves over time, etc... You see where I am going.

There are some wonderful people here to guide you in your efforts to re-built yourself to become strong and empowered. You cannot continue this kind of sacrifice of your own wants and needs to make him happy. There are two of you, and he is not considering your half of the equation. At some point, I hope you can get strong enough to not allow that to happen anymore. Love, respect and value yourself enough to set boundaries for your life. No one can tell you otherwise, not even your husband. THAT is not a relationshiop, partnership.

Your situation seemed a bit tangled to me, that's why I suggested the radio show.
There was a homeschooling mother of 15 (!) children who wrote in last week about getting her husband to clear dishes off the table after dinner. Dr. Harley answered that she could respectfully request this and negotiate him doing it, then gave an example of another woman wanting her husband to take out the garbage.

A call to Brainy if she can find the link to that show.

There's also some Q & A's about can one spouse save their marriage: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5009_qa.html

You can't make him move the pots or anything else, but you can change how you approach the issue with the goal of turning your situation around. You state that you love him and do want to work on the marriage, so do what you can to not commit love busters yourself.

Again, though, if he is having angry outbursts, that should be the first thing to address. Here's a thread of what to do with an agry husband :

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2640607#Post2640607

I will post it as soon a they put it into the archives. They are about a week behind.

***EDIT***
If you feel safe being open and honest with him (i.e. the parenting discussion), I would suggest you start there.

If you are too afraid to even bring it up then I would respectfully suggest that he is dangerous and you should call a domestic abuse hotline.

Honesty does two things:
- It helps a healthy marriage solve real problems
- It clarifies where a marriage is NOT healthy, and allows the parties to take real action

Sweeping things under the rug will not solve anything. You'll just feel worse over time. HOWEVER I would encourage you to keep your safety in mind first. He is physically abusive and you may want to simply take your children and leave rather than engage him in a childrearing discussion.

You'll know the wisest path to take. We're rooting for you, dear!