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Originally Posted by HopefullyLost1211
Hello Seriously Funny,
I am sorry you are experiencing marital problems. That sounds stressful and confusing for you 
When you try to communicate with him about your concerns, are you coming from a calm and non-judgmental place or do you tend to say something when you are feeling charged and heated? For example, a person will likely respond differently to: "It drives me crazy when you ________" or "Why do you always _____?!I am so sick of it!" versus "Hey love, I'd like us to check-in with each other. When's a good time for you?" Then after you pick a time you sit next to him (not opposite) and start with several things you love about him (do you love him? That was an assumption I made since you are married) and then calmly follow with "When _______ happens in our relationship, I feel ________ so I would like us to work together in order to improve things. Nobody is perfect, right? I know I'm not!  And I'd really like to hear things from your perspective too, love. I am sure there are things that I could be working on to improve for you too."
Have you brought up your views on his childhood and parents? I would strongly discourage you from doing that. Endeavoring to psychoanalyze one's partner is not the path to peace. And negative comments about our parents or upbringing generally don't go over well...if my partner commented negatively on my family I would not be too happy. I'm not assuming you did that but since you mentioned I thought it may be helpful to point that out. His upbringing is irrelevant to you, in essence, because only a trained professional can parse that out and only if your hub provides his consent for said professional to go there. Trying to do that yourself would likely add more tension and strain to the marriage. If that makes sense.
I think in your post you mentioned that he does go to therapy with you or did I misunderstand that? How is therapy going? What does the therapist suggest? I think it's a good sign that he participates in that...that does not sound like game-playing to me.
I'm not really sure why you are assuming that he's playing some sort of machiavellian game with you? Did I miss a piece? If he makes a lovely dinner for you but doesn't want to come to bed...perhaps there's a sexual or intimacy problem for him there? I mean I don't know. I'm just trying to help you troubleshoot.
Any relationship takes teamwork of course. You both need to contribute to the team effort. Stonewalling, if that's what he's doing, is actually a known predictor of serious marital breakdown.
Just so you know Seriously Funny, I always look at both sides in relationship troubles because there are always two people at the table. Though I am not negating or diminishing your frustration and concerns
Maybe you could fill in more info? How long has this been going on? How long have you been married? I assume things were good and loving at some point...did things slowly decline over time? What are the specific issues you are trying to resolve? What are the things you need to change on your side?
I wish you peace. Feel free to add more info or reply if you like  |
Thank you for your response. You are correct in the fact that I am usually upset when I confront him about an issue. My goal is always peace, but my husband is not really communicative: his father is an extremely quiet individual and his mother overcompensated by expressing his feeling for him (these are his words). So, when I try to express myself to him sometimes, I am countered with passivity or ambivalence. He will also wait for me to tell him what I think is wrong, so he can tell me how I’m assuming or how I have not given him the chance to open up because I am so impatient.
Recently, he did share with me that he has a perfectionist complex, which was exaserbated by his mother. She was a stay at home mom and everything had to be a certain way in order for her to feel purposeful. It would be remiss not to add that his father is an extremely intelligent man and to me, seeks every opportunity to minimize his mother’s intelligence or contributions, making her vigorously competitive, defensive and outspoken. If he did something less than perfect, she wouldn’t scold him but she would discourage him from doing it again so he wouldn’t be disappointed. He told me he feels inadequate and finds comfort in normalcy. He does not like change.
I empathize, but I do not enable. I believe if you have done something wrong to hurt your partner you should take accountability and not try to finagle your way out of the situation. I believe this to be his method of operation. It’s hard for him to accept that he has done anything wrong because his parents modeled this philosophy. He never got punished for anything as a child and to me did not learn consequence or have appropriate emotional cues because everything was rote.
You mentioned Machiavellian games. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Despite our communication problems, we do connect intimately. However, he recently told me he was not in the space for that type of interaction, due to our precarious state, and I appreciated his honesty. The next day, he was romantically playful,and I did not engage. I told him until we figure out our trajectory, we should refrain from exchanges of that sort. He said okay, but continued to cross the boundary. I still have not obliged. I think this is passive aggressive behavior. I think he just wanted to hurt me by saying he wasn’t interested. Then, when I didn’t get upset or react negatively, he started playing games to lure me. When I didn’t take the bait, he called me cold.
To his credit, he is trying to be more expressive. He is trying to identify his emotions and communicate them. However, in holding him accountable and not engaging, I feel like my marriage has evolved into some sort of chess game.
It’s so confusing at times. After my last post, I did talk to him about separating, but he said we could make it work with some patience, prayer and understanding. Certainly, this is everything I wanted to hear; unfortunately, I doubt his sincerity.