My wife and I have been trying to get past some problems we've had for a long time. Lately, I have lost most of my desire to make things better. I feel quite hopeless in the face of what feels like unsurmountable problems. I have struggled through recovery alone. At this point, I feel like I have pretty much recovered from the affects of the A. However, some of the problems that I feel led up to the situation are turning out to be just as hard to overcome.<p>I have been a conflict avoider and repressor for a large part of our marriage. Some of the reason for this is my fear of how my wife would react, based part on how I see her react when other people confront her and part on how she reacted early in our relationship to me. I have come to understand through recovery, that this has caused a great deal of resentment in me and resulted in me withdrawing and not meeting needs and all the resulting terrible things that happened.<p>My problem is that I can't express any negative feelings I have to my wife. When these feelings are about something not involving our relationship, I generally get a rant on how horrible <insert whoever or whatever> is for causing these problems. Sometimes the topic simply gets shifted to something thats currently happening to make her feel bad. The whole experience feels very bad to me and I regret having shared how I felt because it results in even more issues.<p>If the negative feelings have to do with her or our relationship then it's much worse. Everything about me, my voice, my facial expressions, my words, my body language are love busters to her and make her feel blamed or judged. I usually don't even realize when this is happening.<p>There are clearly times when I've been disrespectful and judgemental in our relationship. Some of them I can easily recognize and understand (interrupting, criticizing, telling her I think she is wrong about something). However, in trying to go through the lovebusters material with my wife, I am finding that many of the things that make my wife feel judged are things that i don't understand at all. Things like 'facial expressions, body language, disagreement'. Sometimes she will tell me, 'I'm really feeling judged right now'. Which is good, but my problem is that I have no Idea what it was that I was doing that was judgemental. I have tried very very hard to understand.<p>One thing that i feel contributes to this problem. My wife is a very concrete type person. She likes to have things spelled out very clearly in specific terms, usually in terms of solutions or suggested improvements. My problem is that I don't always know the answers or solution. I simply know how I feel. Many of our interactions end with her telling me to just 'tell her what I want her to do'. If i do tell her specific things then she will argue about how it's unresonable for me to expect her to do or not do them. (I am getting all bad feeling simply writing this because it is clearly something that would make her feel judged.) I have survived a lot in our relationship, but this one really has me feeling hopeless. I cannot rationally understand it or even predict what or how she will react to things I say.<p>I have lots of struggles having conversation with her. She will tend to say the same thing many times, and then move on to another topic without even a sentence break or a chance for me to say anything. At a time when there is a pause, I'm usually so confused about what the conversation is about that I don't know what to say.<p>In most cases, I feel I have to interrupt to be part of the conversation, which is a lovebuster for her. And many times my feelings escalate when I feel they are not being heard.<p>We have some other problems as well, but this problem seems to stand in the way of addressing most of the others.<p>Worst of all, I am starting to feel that I have lost my love for her. Through all of our problems, I have never felt this way. I have always, even at the bottom, found love for her. Now, I am afraid that it is gone.

I would strongly suggest that you show your
wife this message that you have written. I think
you describe your problems very well and your wife
should be aware of what you are thinking. If she chooses to ignore it then at least it will not come as a surprise to her if there are changes in the future. This may be a wake up call to her.
It is interesting that since she was the one who
had the affair and put your health at risk; it is
not her who is trying to reestablish the relationship which says a lot. Good luck

Unfortunately, I WAS disrespectful and judgemental last night. We were on our date nite and trying to work through the Disrespectful Judgements lovebuster. After trying to discuss the above information with her and having the above mentioned problems I found myself in LB'ville again. We tried for over an hour with little progress. She asked me if I wanted to stop talking about it and I said yes so we tabled the entire subject. The conversation changed to how she never has these types of communication problems with my mother. That my mother is always respectful and nice to her. She had been drinking heavily through the evening and was very tippy.<p>On the way home she started asking what we were going to do next. If I would be willing to do a phone counseling with Dr. Harley. I said I would be and she asked if I would set it up. I said I would, but appeareantly said it in a disrespectful way. Soon she was crying and yelling at me about how this is her number one love buster and that I didn't even care. Over and over.<p>By the time we got home I was angry and told her that I had no idea how to talk to her and then told her to just FO and got out of the car. She got out and tried to hit me, missed and left. As she was leaving I called her a 'drunken bit_h'. This morning I told her I was sorry for the bad things I had said.<p>She told me it would take her some time to get over it. I also told her that I was afraid that I had lost my love for her and it made me really afraid. She told me to just leave.<p>I just don't know what to do.<p>[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: saythewords ]</p>

You said you would set up the counseling appointment...do it, ASAP. Follow thru on that, and apologize if your tone came across badly.<p>Go order the book "Lovebusters", if you have not already.<p>You guys simply need help in learning to express things in a positive way, not a negative or disrespectful way. It can be done.

Thanks.
I have the book. And have scheduled the session (tonight).<p>The problem I am having is that many many times, I don't know till I've already done it.<p>In the example above, I totally understand how badly I behaved. I was totally wrong. I would say that it's the first time I have used fowl language or shouted at my wife for over a year. But most of the time I am told that she is feeling really judged and I can't for the life of me understand how I am doing it. Another thing that happenes is that if she senses any anger she tells me that I am angry with her and it is a LB for her. She is correct. I sometimes get angry. I also sometimes feel hurt. And sometimes feel a very low priority to her. I think that in many ways, the fact that I am having these feelings causes her to feel guilty and accused. I try to own the feelings. I try to focus on the feelings and why I feel the way I do, but it seems like it always boils down to her feeling very guilty and resentful. So I feel like clamming up.<p>I haven't found much in lovebusters that addresses this problem. I see and understand the thoughtful persuasion as being a good way to resolve conflict, but I can't help but feel that there is something in my feelings that causes my wife to feel blamed, judged and guilty.<p>And Thank you.<p>[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: saythewords ]</p>

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>But most of the time I am told that she is feeling really judged and I can't for the life of me understand how I am doing it.<hr></blockquote><p>It may be something as subtle as a stony look on your face, or a questioning tone of voice when you repeat what she says. Different personality types are very different in how they express feelings. My H often appears to be disapproving to myself and my son (both same personality type), when he often does not mean to convey that.<p>Can you ask her to give you a little signal whenever she sense you are doing "it", whatever "it" is? Tell her you want to quit sending disapproving signals, that you don't always realize you are doing so, and that ytou need her help to learn how to recognse and stop...

Thanks for helping me.<p>She does do that sometimes. She will say that she's feeling really attacked. This will happen sometimes in normal conversation. But if i'm shareing my feelings relating to her or our relationship then she usually says she is feeling blamed.<p>Perhaps one out of five times, I notice that I am actually feeling excited or upset. But I am trying to say things in a respectful way and not use angry voice or language. I try saying things to myself in my head a few times to try to hear how the words will sound. The rest of the time her statements come completely out of the blue for me. Worst of all, by that time I've already hurt her in either case.<p>I know that last night I was disrespectful and judgemental. I really wish I hadn't done that. I just couldn't stand it any longer and snapped back.<p>She made a post a while back which she asked me to read. It is an example of how things usually go... I made a mistake and replied to it in a way that made her feel really, really bad.<p>http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=000344<p>When I read it again, I can see that I might have discussed it with her rather than posting on the message board.<p>There are times when I feel that it is a defense mechanism that comes into play as a way of supressing concerns. I suppose the same could be said of me regarding not 'knowing' when I'm being disrespectful or judgemental.<p>We also had some trouble defining a disrespectful judgement. Is it really true that it is anything that causes someone to feel disrespectfully judged is a disrespectful judgement? Sometimes I feel that my wife had simply come to hate my voice, my actions, and my way of expressing myself.<p>Thanks you.<p>[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: saythewords ]</p>