Quote:
Originally Posted by geez
In a nut shell today my husband asked me if I was going to return some water bottles I purchased and I told him yes. He asked me why I decided to return them and I told him that the cap/valve doesn't work properly so they are going back to the store. He then said: "it's not user error?". I of course took his reply to mean that I don't know what I'm talking or how to use the bottles.
My reply: "no it's the engineer's error" (my husband happens to be an engineer) and then the argument starts from there and he said that I'm sensitive and he can't say anything right without me getting angry at him?
I told this to my T and she said that I'm sensitive to things he says to me and I explained to her why I felt attacked.
I hope some of that helps give everyone a better understanding of the 'situation'. I think in some cases I am 'sensitive' in a bad way meaning I think people's intentions are bad when they may not be. I guess I don't know the difference or I assume anytime I'm questioned I'm feeling like my emotions/feelings are being attacked or invalidated.
I think my T is trying to get me to understand my sensitivities and feelings. I don't think that she was trying to invalidate my feelings (that's what I'm telling myself to feel better) but it sure felt that way to me but then again I've jumped to that conclusion before and I have been wrong. 
Thank you for posting Dr. Muffin and I agree that intentionally pushing someone's 'buttons' and then telling them they are sensitive is abuse. I grew up that way so I know what that's like. |
Wow, that argument sounds SO similar to my engineer ex b-f. Are engineers some other species or something? (sorry
). To me, any normal person would understand that "It's not user error" is rather rude and inconsiderate. What I learned with my ex-bf, is that some people are INCREDIBLY oblivious about feelings. He is just almost totally logical and much more aware of the water bottles (or whatever object the argument is about) than of the person he's talking to. (Gotta appreciate how good they are at fixing stuff tho.) I got to the point I could feel sorry for my ex-bf for not knowing how to understand or pay attention to people's feelings like a "normal" person would. And I could understand that he genuinely didn't have a clue why I got hurt and upset. He didn't mean to upset me, it just never occurred to him to think about whether he'd upset anyone. The lack of effort to pay attention to people's feelings isn't really acceptable either, but understanding he really didn't know how to understand people helped some. Hopefully your husband isn't as extreme as my ex, if he's even the same at all (IDK). If you think he might be similar, one thing that helped me understand and deal with stuff better was reading about my ex's MBTI personality type. There's a lot of info online.
BTW, couples therapy was excruciating sometimes when it felt like t was blaming me when I got upset with my ex. I'm glad I did it tho.