Quote:
Originally Posted by Rostou
Thank you very much for your reply TRNRMOM. I have been both unwell & very busy and couldn't reply here before now. But I did manage to see your reply hours ago and have been thinking deeply about what you said.
I agree that I should in future work hard to use "I" statements. I will have to do it carefully or he may take information from them to hurt me later. Sometimes his goal seems to be to hurt me. I'll be thinking about how to do that.
I'm glad your counselling helped. We have had it on a number of different occasions & I did learn important things. Unfortunately my husband didn't seem to learn and also he didn't engage in the sessions at a personal level and used the opportunity to blame me. Also he was very angry afterwards when I think I was just sharing how things were for me; he said things like "You couldn't wait to sink the boot in." One counsellor refused to see my husband again and we found two had cancelled on us when we turned up & this made my husband very angry & he wouldn't try counselling again after it happened a second time. I found that the exercises that were set to talk to each other at home were very scary because of how angry my husband got with me.
After your reply, I have resolved to review good communication methods and to try my best to master them and to ensure that I am living true to them.
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i've read your reply to me several times before this reply to you; my husband early on thought that it was me who needed fixing and he went willingly, only to find that he had to own much responsibility (mainly step-kid issues years ago) but if he and i found what i called a speed bump in our marriage and i suggested counseling for a third party to intervene, he went willingly and has always worked on trying to resolve our issues rather than blame. we went thru the mirroring exercises and i guess we love each other enough and want this marriage to last, that we both put forth the effort to resolve, with or without a therapist. it does not sound like your hubby is willing to put forth the effort of therapy after several therapists decided not to see him (that should be a major red flag) yet i do not feel it gives him license and free will to talk down to you, dismiss you, or treat you `less than' and prob. once you decide to confront him about his abusive words or actions (which might be new behavior on your part) his abusive statements and put downs will escalate; but i would never allow my husband to treat me this way and maybe if he doesn't like your unwillingness to take his ongoing abuse, well, then just walk away from him...go to another room and tell him you no longer will allow him to put you down, or if you need to leave the house, do so. he sounds like an angry man who doesn't want to be in the wrong or be told what to do, and he may never change...so it's up to you to decide whether you will continue to accept his words/actions, or find alternative ways to deal with him...maybe ask him how he would feel if you constantly criticized him about who he is as a man, a parent, a worker, a son, and get him to really think about that question; maybe in his past he was criticized by a parent growing up or gets criticized at work; i'm just throwing things out there but if you have children, he certainly isn't modeling good behavior and those children will pick up on the dynamics between you and him...keep me posted and good luck.