Can't talk to my wife

I'm meaning to respond to everyone. I really appreciate each person's replies. I will get there. I just have to share that I am feeling really defeated today. I try so hard to be the nicest person I can be. I know it's my self-esteem. I just want to feel good about myself again.

Maybe, when I feel strong enough to do that. It is a very precise letter that doesn't give the other person any wiggle room to deflect. All I can do is keep calmly and lovingly presenting the issue. Either I push her away or she changes, or I eventually get strong enough that it doesn't bother me any more.

You are on a right track. Hang in there.

Trying my best. Just want to cry right now. Im so tired. I don't want to give up. I feel like I can do this. I don't know how. I have to give it to my higher power.

Ya, I hate that "not enough" feeling because I was never really good with relationships. I feel like I try so hard. I know she sends me other signals that I could pick up and say, ok, I guess I am good enough. She hasn't left me for someone else.

YES! How do you combat that? What do you say? If it's a big deal to you, it's a big deal period. You can't handle your sister, why would someone say, get over it. It's like, thats why I'm reaching out for help! Now that I think about it, our marriage counselor made me insist it is MY problem. Well, yes, if I am reacting badly it is, but if I am calm and just stating how her behavior hurts my feelings then I say NO!

Ok, I see your point. I am an al-anon person so I can understand acceptance. I might just have to separate body image from sexuality I suppose. I am pretty sure she is not physically cheating on me. The two are just so closely tied together for me, especially being a man. I am very much a visual person.

I get why some people don't care. Some people are more open. If I was married to a model or a porn star I would have to be ok with other men gawking. This is not her business though. She works in an office.

Like MsLady, it's like, the little flirty behavior in restaurants or parties, it's not blatant in your face cheating. It is however triggering. I just see some couples where the one partner behaves poorly and the other just rolls their eyes and says, that's just Joe. He does what he does. What is that!? Maybe if we both did things that we each had to tolerate. She hasn't expressed to me anything that I have responded by saying, oops, sorry, gosh, you know me! I'm just guy111 I do what I do. I'm not going to be like that. I excpect the same from my wife. I don't think that's asking too much. I literally tolerate everything else she does because that is the one area I struggle really hard with.

Thank you so much for validating my thought and feelings. I need to know that I'm not insane, that I am a good person. I deserve basic respect.

Sadly many people are quite flirty with others despite being married and often even in front of their spouses. I am not a flirty type and married to not a flirt so I can’t always understand it. But it’s something people do and they don’t think much of it.

Now I don’t really know if their spouses are just open to that. They might be embarrassed how their spouses act but don’t want to cause a fight so they act like it’s no big deal. Deep inside who knows what they feel.

I knew this couple, he always flirted with women. I remember his wife asking him once in a restaurant “how do you think it makes me feel that you flirt with every waitress?” And he was just laughing

Some people put up with a lot of upsetting and hurtful things in their marriages if they don’t want to get divorced or constantly fight. It doesn’t mean they are ok with it. They are just putting up with it. Of course there might be people who don’t get bothered by such things, but I bet there are very few. I’ve never met people who are ok with their spouses flirting

PS people who just roll their eyes when their spouse acts like an idiot might be doing so out of embarrassment, not because they think it’s ok

Maybe it would help explaining what exactly she's doing (and I apologize if it's been said already) when she's flirting. If it's an innocent and subtle flirtation, I think we're all inclined to do so to a point, and we need to feel secure within ourselves to know it's nothing threatening to ourselves and our relationship. If you were to have a solid foundation between you two, this may not be an issue? I'm not sure.

My partner is particularly attracted to young women in yoga pants. What he'll do is track their privates as they move across space until they're out of his sight completely. He is no longer present with his family during this time. On my birthday, he stood up out of his seat and turned around, in order to continue watching a woman through a window, who had just left the restaurant (of course, in yoga pants). If I'm blocking his view, he'll crank his neck over me so he can continue watching someone in a sexual way. I can see his eyes scrolling up and down a young woman's body. Walking in parks and beaches is embarrassing.. total disrespect towards women, period. He claims he's "unaware" and must be doing so, "subconsciously".

Anyway, I'm mentioning my experiences as examples of what is NOT everyday "innocent flirtation" amongst 2 consenting adults. Is your wife behaving similarly? If so, you have the right to be concerned and upset.

At the end of the day, you'll have to question the severity of her behaviours and if she's truly being disrespectful. If not, then maybe there are other areas in your marriage that's making this scenario feel more threatening to you.

First of all a marriage counselor typically doesn’t specialize in trauma therapy. IMHO if someone struggles with ptsd their spouse should learn to how to be considerate of that. Ptsd is a challenging condition a person puts a lot of effort into managing.

Second, flirting with other men in front of your husband is bad manners and disrespectful. It’s inappropriate behavior period. It’s not unreasonable that your wife engaging that way bothers you.

It’s one thing if your wife is attractive and other men notice her and tell her she is attractive. But when a woman starts to pursue that attention on a regular basis she becomes a tease and most spouses don’t like that behavior.

The reason this behavior is offensive is because it typically sends a message of not being satisfied and content with ones spouse. Both males and females tend to dislike when their spouses engage this way.

For someone who struggles with ptsd from emotional neglect and abuse this behavior can most definitely be triggering. It’s inappropriate behavior to begin with and is not relationship friendly respectful behavior.

This reminds me of a movie classic starring Betty Davis called Mr Skeffington where she played a woman that only cared about how attractive she was and having different men pursuing her. Her real love was the attention and to just be dotted on.

What’s interesting about “classics” is how they capture behaviors in human beings that are in fact “timeless”. Every time someone talks about focusing on behaviors more than labels I do think of the many classics that did just that. If you were to watch this movie and focus on the behavior you would see just what I mean.

Betty Davis really did an excellent job in portraying this charecter’s clearly narcissistic behavior pattern of a woman who needed everything to revolve around her not seeing the emotional needs of others or even really caring.

Would be interesting to see what your wife would think of this movie. She may lack the depth to get it. One never knows.

The challenge of writing a letter the way you so desire is that when someone deflects to avoid self reflection they tend to always find some way to do so no matter how much anyone tries to direct them to self reflect. Often it becomes a part of their very character and that is often something many therapists will say is something that’s resistant to change.

Well, again, the severity of the behavior doesn't concern me. Everyone has their tolerance levels. I was using you as an example of behavior that people tend to roll their eyes at. This isn't my exact scenario. If we are swapping war stories then, yes, she does something similar. If she sees a guy jogging with no shirt on, she will blurt out "Naked Man!" I'm still confused as to what response she expects from me on that. My scenario is more about the vague acquaintances she has built up that she knows she can go to for sexual attention. But even this is stuff good intentioned people tend to shrug off.

But I just really need validation. I need a boost of confidence to say no matter what other people do, I am a good person.

Ya, you really can't change a person. No matter how hard you squeeze.

I really appreciate your understanding of my situation. You really put it in an fair light. I'm not looking to demonize my wife, nor am I looking to make myself feel better by trying to be right. It's more of a battle between our low self esteem defenses.

Of course you are a good person. Your wife’s behavior isn’t a reflection on you. Feeling certain way about what she does or doesn’t do doesn’t make you a bad person. Other people’s behaviors aren’t reflection on us

I now think there are some fallacies in Esther Hicks law of attraction philosophy but I did like the advice she gave on this Youtube video ( ) about how to not allow others to get you down:
It feels a little confusing to you because in your scenario here, you were feeling good until they were not feeling good and then they dumped their not feeling good into your feeling good then you didn't feel good so it feels like they are the reason that you don't feel good but there was something that happened before any of that happened and that was you had a vibration of expectation about what you were going to get from that person. You know what's really an important thing to realize is that your vibration is where you last left it on every subject so since that's something that often happens, it comes to be a practiced vibration. That's what a belief is, it's a vibration or thought that you continue to think. Expectation and belief are just practiced thoughts. So the remedy is you've got to think other thoughts even though those are the most obvious, logical thoughts and that feels annoying, it makes you want to yell, "Why do I have to do the calibrating--that's the one causing the trouble." We say because you are the attractor to you. Sometimes you have to step back away from it; it's nice when you can get away but while you are away, if you can do something to get out ahead of your next encounter by activating in yourself deliberately things about that relationship. In other words, we can feel that you're not ready to walk away from that relationship. Sometimes you are. Sometimes you trip over something so many times and you calibrate so often...when someone in your world keeps giving you the residual stuff that you keep trying to clean it up eventually you will clean it up enough that one of two things will happen: either they will join you in your non-resistance or the law of attraction will bounce them off. But what happens to so many of you -- you don't like the idea of being bounced off from anyone even though they are miserable to live with...So rather than hold your own, and call them to you, you calibrate to them and complain about it. So you just sort of kind of have to decide that it matters to you enough to feel good that you're going to find a way to do it more and more...

The part of the above quote that I think is helpful is that, in relationships, we can get into certain patterns with people that can be hard to shake. If we start seeing their flaws or feeling negatively about their flaws, it can become our main thought about them rather than what we love best about them then it wrecks the relationship. When this happens we really have to either keep trying to change our unhelpful thought patterns or walk away. I think is best to determine as quickly as you can whether you are going to commit to changing your thought patterns or walk away. The situation and your free will determines the choice. Don't be afraid to choose. In the past, I have struggled with choosing what I should do about this situations but now I realize that that stemmed from looking back to the past rather than forgiving everyone involved including myself (you can forgive but still walk away when it is appropriate) and moving forward trusting that I did the best I could and that it would all work out. So in the case of your wife flirting, try not to look back to the flirting in the past but try to value yourself enough to call it out when it happens or walk away if she goes over the line. Since you are choosing to stay, try not to expect her to be this way, but rather, decide what you will or won't put up with and stick to it as best you can. When you stand up for yourself in a reasonable way it will build up your self esteem immensely.

I like the idea of making a decision.

Personally I like to look at a situation in terms of serenity prayer: can I change it? If yes then I change it. If it cannot be changed, then you got to accept it and find peace within yourself to not agonize about it.

Third option of not changing the situation and not accepting it, is a guaranteed life in turmoil and suffering. And sadly that it how many people live their entire life. We only have one life and it’s quite short. Spending it in suffering is not the best option imho.

Now I believe people can change some of their behaviors in a compromise with their partner. That’s why it’s important to tell your partner what bothers you. They can change some behaviors.

But I do not believe people can change who they fundamentally are. And we shouldn’t expect them to. We are either accept who they fundamentally are or we find more compatible partners.

I think that one of the challenges you have guy111 is that you think that if something bothers you when it comes to someone else’s behavior that is disrespectful then you lack self esteem. That if you make an effort to explain how your wife’s behaviors affect you emotionally and she dismisses it and it upsets you then you have low self esteem and it’s YOUR problem or fault. After all, isn’t that what the marriage counselor told you?

Well from what you have shared your wife has a little group of guys she interacts with that feed her ego and she has a bit of emotional affairs with them. That behavior is something that would bother a lot of people not just you. It would really bother me if my husband was engaging a number of younger single girls that he flirted with because they tell him how handsome and sexy he is. It would also bother me if some marriage counselor encouraged me to think it’s my fault that it bothers me. Or that if it bothers me I must have low self esteem issues. That’s BS.

The reason different members kept wanting you to explain what your wife was doing that’s upsetting you is to understand what you are addressing better.

One of the things I learned in reaching out for therapy while dealing with my older sister is each therapist listening to me explain different challenges I faced is they all said I am dealing with a disordered person and the two disorders each therapist came up with were that she is either a narcissist or has borderline personality disorder. Both of these disorders are individuals that tend to have control issues and they are both very manipulative and tend to create drama. Along with that is in both challenges the emotions are typically all about them in their own ways they tend to have fragile egos and tend to create a false self. And they can both be self righteous. And both are prone to rages and both a can give a feeling of walking on egg shells when interacting with them. And they both need to feel they are the best or superior. Also they both pull you into their dance. Also they can both leave others very emotionally confused and exhausted.

I myself struggle with ptsd and I can understand this challenge you are describing of wanting your emotions herd. Often the truth is that you are in a relationship with another person who is simply not able to listen and respect your feelings. Not being able to change that doesn’t mean you lack value as a person. Healthier self esteem isn’t about giving up your own emotional needs. It’s not about your lack to figure out how to get someone to respect your emotional needs either. That’s why a carefully written letter tends to fail when it comes to the other person deflecting. This is the dance step that other individual does.

That's a really cool way of looking at it! I've learned to do that in areas that she just "bothers" me in. When she rants on me, it hardly affects me at all anymore. When I see the behavior coming, I immediately go into myself and think positive thoughts abot myself. Not her. Myself. I let just enough into my ears to only hear the overall issue she has. Like your author is saying, I used to have to "calibrate" myself to her mood. I could do it and come out undamaged at the end, but I was exhausted. As I learned to deflect with positive thoughts about myself I grew stronger and it took less energy. Now I can feel rested immediately after she has run out of steam. Then address her core issue without taking on any of the mud she slung at me. I feel like I'm made of glass. She throws mud, I wipe it off, pick it up, examine it and present it to her with love.

With the sexuality stuff I feel like I'm made out of a sponge. I immediately obsorb her actions and take them on myself and feel dirty and worthless. I then repeat her actions over and over in my head and feel worse and worse about myself. When I am calm I can recognize that it's just my past abuse and PTSD talking but it takes so long to come down from it. I am just now starting to feel ok about myself after her last triggering behavior 12 days ago. It drains so much of my energy. Like your author says, I must talk about it to her. I think after I finish this book on self esteem I will be ready to tell her how her actions made me feel. I can't let her reactions to my assertions affect me. This is the cycle.

Our past marriage counselor mentioned that she thinks my wife suffers from body dysmorphia. I'm guessing her excessive need for sexual attention is a defense mechanism to this disorder. Not to excuse her in the least. If my old bad behavior is inexcusable, so is hers. Just because she may believe what she is doing harmless or thinks I'm trying to control her doesn't make it ok.

Can I ask you something @guy1111? What kind of mud is she slinging at you over and over again? And what does she "rant" on you about?

Reacting emotionally in a seemingly negative way to someone ranting on you and slinging mud is not just because you have a past with abuse, or because you deal with PTSD. It's a natural emotional reaction to feel and to have in response to someone slinging mud at you. I am curious about the nature of your relationship dynamic and I am wondering and have the question in my mind of how healthy it is for you overall?

No one should be slinging mud in a marriage and/or ranting on someone repeatedly. Adults talk to one another and work out and discuss their issues together, in a fair and adult way. Sure, people may argue and fight even, but then a couple should be able to come to some sort of conclusion, consensus, compromise and resolution about the issue. Slinging mud is not part of a healthy relationship dynamic.

I also do not like that she tells you you're "controlling" when it's her own issue at play for sexual attention and sexual affirmation that she needs from other men. That's deflecting the responsibility of her own behavior onto you, and it's turning her problem now into your problem to solve. And here you are, wracking your brain trying to solve it for yourself, and feeling badly about yourself too. Although you've built up resilience it seems to her words towards you, a loving and healthy relationship does not involve hurting the other person over and over again.

Just some additional thoughts for you.

I agree. I know I can't change her. If I can get to a point where I can just calmly and confidently state my needs, be specific and short and not allow her reactions to affect me, I will be in a better place. If she never changes and I finally throw in the towel I will at least know that I tried my best and never wavered on my needs. She will have to move on knowing exactly why I left her. In the next relationship I can be more upfront and gentle about my needs. Supposedly their are women out their that understand that men generally have very sensitive egos and are content with the admiration of one man and hold their beauty sacred and cultivated for him. Just as some men know most women generally need to feel secure in a relationship that they will be taken care of and fought for above all others and not abandoned.

I'm not saying I do this perfectly, but when I fail I admit it and try to improve myself.

Again, not here to talk specifics, but my point was to compare my growth in one area "being yelled at" vs. tolerating strange behavior with single men.

Again, let's say when she's mad she just hisses and walks away. For some people with anger issues that could cause full on fit of rage. Now I say to you, all she did was hiss. You need to get your anger under control.

Fortunately for me, tantrums and the like don't bother me at all. I know that it comes from a place of hurt. I can see past it and look at why they are upset.

Growth is excellent to take note of -- but repetitive tantrums are not healthy in a relationship, neither is ranting, neither is slinging mud. That's all I can really say.