Hello,

My husband pocket dialed me the other day while he was talking with his brother. I heard 32 min of my husband bashing me. We've been together for 10 yrs and married for 2 yrs.

The weird part was that it sounded like a stranger venting about his ex-wife. I didn't recognize the anger in his voice - the resentment - the lies - oh the damn lies, I can't get them out of my head.

My husband had always been my biggest supporter and encouraged me to do things I enjoy, i.e. horseback riding, taking classes etc... (we both work full time) and I encourage him to do the same.

During this conversation my husband was so angry and resentful to me for doing things for myself and made it seem like I do it to hurt him. Saying I spend frivolously when I'm the biggest saver and he's the one who has the issue. He spun everything around on me with lies I still cannot believe I heard.

We obviously discussed it and he blew it off as just a venting session - a guy thing - in other words I was over-reacting.

The problem is that I don't know which one is really him. The one screaming about me or the one who lovingly tells me to do what makes me happy. I feel like he tricks me into doing things so that he can resent me. It sounds ridiculous but I don't know what else to think.

How do I trust him? I'm devastated and hurt. I have always had his back and would never do what he did to me. He is aware of how hurt I am and he says that he's ashamed at what he did... now what?

Hi Dreamergirl, welcome to Marriage Builders. I so sympathize with you but want to introduce you to a new paradigm. A complaint is an irritation in a bad marriage and an opportunity for improvement in a good marriage. <---------Just think on that for a moment.

A complaint is like getting a bounced check notice in the mail. No one likes getting them but the alternative is worse.

If your husband is not honest about his complaints how will you know what to change? The biggest issue here is his lack of radical honesty about his feelings. He was wrong to tell his friend instead of you.

A big problem I see is that both you and your husband feel that you have to encourage the other to do what they want whether you like it or not. That's a recipe for making yourself very resentful, and also a recipe for building incompatibility in a marriage.

If you read through Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts on this website, you'll see that his recommendation is that couples be each other's favorite recreational companion. That doesn't mean that you never do anything apart, but it does mean that you might need to work to discover some common interests until the best part of every week is the time you spend together, not apart.