My husband of 5 years and I have been in counseling for the past several months. As I see it, most of our problems are derived from an inability on his part to take my input and feelings into most of the major decisions in our life, and he ends doing what he feels is "right" for us, most of the time without even consulting me. His decisions are mostly based on "rational" and "objective" reasons while my input is seen as "emotional", and therefor not as important. I gave up many things in my life in order to be with him, thinking that being with him was what was more important to me. I'm regreting it now. It's gotten so bad now that anytime he makes even the tiniest decision without even asking my opinion makes me incredibly angry. I have a problem showing anger, and instead of confronting it I bury the pain inside me and clam up, sometimes for days. The conseling does not help; my husband is much more well spoken than I am and I feel the conselor isn't taking my concerns very seriously, and though I've voiced my concerns about his controlling behavior to him, he rationalizes it and makes me feel I'm not entitled to feel the way I do. My husband is convinced I am depressed, but doesn't seem to understand why his inability to involve me in decisions that affect my life as well would make me feel powerless and depressed. I know this message is long, but I figure the more information you have the better the response might be. Any comments would be most appreciated.

Ellen, don't worry about the length of your post - we get far far longer ones here.<p>What is it that your counselor has said (or not said) that leads you to believe he is leaning toward your husband? That is inappropriate for a counselor to do, I think.<p>terri

Terri,<p>Our conselor says things like "I believe H is not aware his behavior is controlling" (this after 5 months of once-a-week sessions in which we discuss almost nothing but his inability to involve me in decisions. She also says things like I should try to live the next week "as if" I believe he cares and loves me, but he is not given "assignments". I guess I have some resentments towards her because we've been going to see her for over 5 months now and we're not seeing an improvement. We've asked specifically for some kind of communication exercises to try to help us discuss things calmly, but she hasn't given us any. He picked this particular conselor because his sister and her husband went to see her years ago. But I have so little self confidence as a result of him not respecting me I'm afraid to suggest switching conselors. We are at the lowest point we could be right now. A few days ago I asked him to start sleeping in the spare room because I needed a place of my own within the house where I could go and not be around him, and neither one wants to move out of the house because we want to be here for our son (he's three years old). <br>I wrote H a long note the other night trying to explain why I asked him to stay in the other room for awhile, but as of yet haven't had any kind of reply from that note.<br>It's so difficult because he is a good, kind, generous person and a very good father. But we've not been meeting each others needs for so long now that there's all this resentment built up now on both our sides and I don't know if we can get past it. I hope we can. We used to be best friends, now I can't stand to be around him. Any suggestions?

Ellen,<p>I can relate to you completely. My H and I found out that sometimes it is the way we say things to each other that really matter. And both of us had to learn what was 'acceptable' to the other when we communicated opinions as well as desires. I have certain 'pet' words and 'terms of endearment' I use when asking (never tell a man) my H to do things.<p>We have also found out that because we are both really expressive people that sometimes we have to use e-mail to express things to one another. This way there are no facial expressions, tones of voice (although tones can be writtenly expressed also), no body language and we are not cutting each other off or up.<p>It seems like your counselor may be over compensating for being a female that understands the man's point of view. And as Terri said, she shouldn't be showing anything that looks like she is on either side. <p>Take advantage of the e-mail solution and see how that works for a while. Inform your H that he can only respond via e-mail to you. However, you need to be totally honest with your H and explain things very 'explicitly' so that there is no mis-understanding. Be sure to proof-read your messages before you send them so that you are making sense and are clear in what you are saying. You should also try letting you H know when he is being controlling, at those times. Don't cut him off in what he is saying, but as soon as he finishes, inform him.<p>Remember 'men are from mars, and women are from venus'. I say that to say this, men and women do not react the same way to the same things for the most part and generally speaking. Men cannot rationalize the emotions of women. They are logical creatures (not that we don't have or use logic) but that is their nature. So they see things as black and white, while we see the 256 shades of grey in between. Your H doesn't sound like he means to offend you but he doesn't know what to do with your 'emotion'. And to him your strong stance, excitement, determination, insistence and more can be (and are often), viewed at emotion/emotional.<p>It may not be that he is 'incapable' of including you, but rather he just doesn't know how without himself feeling that he is wrong. So how you present your ideas and opinions will help him with his 'inability'. And this is a part of giving and taking. He will learn to accept and consider what you are saying and before long he will ask you 'what do you think'.<p>My H once told me that my offering of opinions and giving of suggestions made him feel like I didn't trust him to make the right decisions or that he was incompetent. Your H may be feeling the same way and needs you to assure him that you don't think those things at all, but that you simply have ides and opinions also. If he believes he married an intelligent woman 5 years ago, then she is an even more intelligent woman now, just hear me out. The other thing is you may have to give your opinion a few times KNOWING that he is not going to consider it. Let him make the mistake and do not tell him "I told you so". In essence you are calling him stupid. Just keep giving the suggestions/opinions until he LEARNS that your advice really is good. Then he will learn to come to you.<p>I hope this helps you is some (even a small) way. If not, I will go back to the drawing board with you.

Ellen,<p>I have been married for 12 years and have had my share (and someone elses) of battles. I can relate to you completely. My H and I found out that sometimes it is the way we say things to each other that really matter. And both of us had to learn what was 'acceptable' to the other when we communicated opinions as well as desires. I have certain 'pet' words and 'terms of endearment' I use when asking (never tell a man) my H to do things.<p>We have also found out that because we are both really expressive people that sometimes we have to use e-mail to express things to one another. This way there are no facial expressions, tones of voice (although tones can be writtenly expressed also), no body language and we are not cutting each other off or up.<p>It seems like your counselor may be over compensating for being a female that understands the man's point of view. And as Terri said, she shouldn't be showing anything that looks like she is on either side. <p>Take advantage of the e-mail solution and see how that works for a while. Inform your H that he can only respond via e-mail to you. However, you need to be totally honest with your H and explain things very 'explicitly' so that there is no mis-understanding. Be sure to proof-read your messages before you send them so that you are making sense and are clear in what you are saying. You should also try letting you H know when he is being controlling, at those times. Don't cut him off in what he is saying, but as soon as he finishes, inform him.<p>Remember 'men are from mars, and women are from venus'. I say that to say this, men and women do not react the same way to the same things for the most part and generally speaking. Men cannot rationalize the emotions of women. They are logical creatures (not that we don't have or use logic) but that is their nature. So they see things as black and white, while we see the 256 shades of grey in between. Your H doesn't sound like he means to offend you but he doesn't know what to do with your 'emotion'. And to him your strong stance, excitement, determination, insistence and more can be (and are often), viewed at emotion/emotional.<p>It may not be that he is 'incapable' of including you, but rather he just doesn't know how without himself feeling that he is wrong. So how you present your ideas and opinions will help him with his 'inability'. And this is a part of giving and taking. He will learn to accept and consider what you are saying and before long he will ask you 'what do you think'.<p>My H once told me that my offering of opinions and giving of suggestions made him feel like I didn't trust him to make the right decisions or that he was incompetent. Your H may be feeling the same way and needs you to assure him that you don't think those things at all, but that you simply have ides and opinions also. If he believes he married an intelligent woman 5 years ago, then she is an even more intelligent woman now, just hear me out. The other thing is you may have to give your opinion a few times KNOWING that he is not going to consider it. Let him make the mistake and do not tell him "I told you so". In essence you are calling him stupid. Just keep giving the suggestions/opinions until he LEARNS that your advice really is good. Then he will learn to come to you.<p>I hope this helps you is some (even a small) way. If not, I will go back to the drawing board with you.

Ellen:<p>I'm a reformed 'controlling husband'. I never meant to control, but that was just 'my personality'. <p>Well, I realized how harmful it was to my marriage when my wife had an affair. I don't suggest this as a solution for you, of course. But things that I thought were beyond my abilities to control were actually quite controllable.<p>I did this through the counseling here at Marriage Builders. I'd suggest that you give Steve Harley a call and see if you'd like to try the counseling with him. I would also suggest that you order the books "Give and Take" and "Lovebusters" from this website.<p>Your husband has a problem with disrespectful judgements. His opinion is 'right', and he doesn't have the skills to listen to you or to learn how to negotiate. I'm sympathetic: as a 'highly-successful' Ivy-League Ph.D., I'm all-too-familiar with this problem: and it drove my wife crazy.<p>Lorraine has offered you some excellent advice. The things you can to to help is to be completely honest with your husband: to state your feelings and opinions clearly, and without LOVEBUSTERS (anger, disrespect, selfishness). I suggest that you read the "Policy of Joint Agreement", and see if your husband would also read it and try it with you. It states that you should never do anything without a mutually enthusiastic agreement between the two of you. I'm sure that you can't imagine doing ANYTHING that would fall under that category now, but you'd be surprised how powerful that simple rule is.<p>Part of the POJA is to learn how to negotiate safely and successfully. By successful, I mean that you both view the end-point as "win-win". At (almost) no time should a spouse gain at the other's expense. The only time that's OK is when the spouse on the short end agrees to a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain. There's a section on how to make negotiations safe and pleasant. I'd read that as well.<p>I'm betting that if your husband would learn to use the POJA with you, and if you both learned how to negotiate (and communicate) without lovebusters, your problems would be solved.

Thanks for the suggestions. Dr. Harley's books arrived the other day. Very good reading. Will check back in once I finish reading them and share them with my H. Thanks again.

I've started reading "His Needs / Your Needs" and the H is reading "Lovebusters". But we've come to an impasse that we can't seem to get around. H says he understands that I view most of everything he does as controlling behavior. He has asked me to help him by pointing out when he is being controlling so he can try to see what it is specifically that he does that makes me so upset. Problem is, I've been living with it so long that it's become reflexive for me to clam up and hide my feelings, because in the past, whenever I've tried to express to him that something he does hurts me, I've been given the brush off, or told that I'm too sensitive, or overly dramatic (which is funny, I think, because I'm absolutely not the dramatic type at all - quite mousy actually compared to his sister's dramatics). So, we're stuck. He says he can't change until he knows specifically what and when he's doing it. I can't tell him when he's being controlling because his past reactions have been ingrained into me, and tell me he's not really interested in knowing. I feel at this point that we need to separate for awhile until we can build up some positive energy and maybe try to remember what it was that we liked about each other in the first place, because right now all we can see is the negatives.<br>The books have been a great resource. So easy to read, easy to understand, and right on the mark. I see us in almost every example Dr. Harley uses (though neither of us has had an affair, the underlying causes are there). But I haven't finished reading them all, and when I asked H the other day what he thought of the book he was reading, he said he hadn't read enough of it yet to form an opinion.<br>So the problem I have as of the moment is this: I made arrangements for us to spend this weekend away (the first time we'd be together alone without our son along since he was born 3 years ago). But now I don't want to go with him. I hardly even want to be around him because I'm so tired of our problems. I think we've both used up all our "Love Deposits". How can we get back to place where we can stand to be around each other again? Would it be in our best interests to take a break from each other for a week or so? Any advice?

Hi Ellen:<p>My wife accuses me of being controlling. You already have had alot of good advice. I have recently read "Marriage - The High Calling" If you can have your husband read the men's section and the women's section for you, you may get some help there too. The site is<br>www.sigler.org/roach. Good luck<p>Gary