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My husband and I have been married for 3 years. Our relationship has been rocky from the start in that we come from two different schools of thoughts and value systems – our therapist recognizes that he has more aggressive childhood baggage and I bring a different, albeit less sensitive one.
We fought hard to be together and make this marriage work, but we clash and have different opinions on almost everything. Our ways of working, our style, pace, approach to problem solving is very different. He is very Type A, very OCD, almost ALWAYS stressing about things that are not under his control. On an average day he will complain about incompetent tele-operators, hold/wait times, technology malfunction, road rage, GPS shenanigans – basically he’s constantly frustrated and angry with stuff not working out as expected. We get it – life is unfair. Probably more so with him, he just has bad luck with the most simple things going awry. He is also very high energy, always wants pumping music on, is a morning person, loves to socialize and always be on the go.
That being said, I’m unfazed by these things, I am very Type B, I like my life calm, tranquil and it (used to) take a lot to get me agitated over stuff I can’t control. In recent years I have consciously slowed down the pace of our life and prioritized slow living. I used to mold myself to him, and generally my nature is people-pleasing and conflict-averse.
Lately, I have been feeling that my husband’s anger has turned more habitual and his melt-downs have increased in their intensity. I have complained of his impatience and stressful nature for a while and while I think he is a narcissist due to self-esteem issues inflicted to him by his father (while he was growing up), I haven’t had the courage to tell him. All the signs are there. I’m tired of putting myself in an environment that is constantly rife with conflict, negativity and whining.
My husband has wisely pointed out that his problems seldom have anything to do with me. He isn’t directing his anger at me. I usually stay mute or try to help him through whatever has him stressed out and frustrated. But it takes a toll on me and makes me feel like my life isn’t going the way I envisioned. I get overwhelmed and sad for having to share my life with him and I’m not sure if I have it in me to not let this behavior affect me.
We enrolled into couple’s counseling and our therapist is going into deep-rooted childhood issues now, I feel like that’s a long-term process. Last week, my husband and I had a misunderstanding that ended in him taking some forms out of my hand and ripping them to pieces. I felt like that was the last straw for me and I told him I had reached my threshold and didn’t speak to him for 2 days. I guess I wanted him to not take me for granted and realize there are consequences to his temper tantrums. The message was lost, and instead, he got mad at me for always hanging the sword on his head for threatening to leave or not being able to take it anymore.
It became a fight of massive proportions and when we were calm enough and talked about it, he claims that I lack self-care and self-love that makes me off-balance and feel overwhelmed at his constant fury over things. I should be able to rise above and not let his stress, stress me out. He thinks that if I take up yoga again and start waking up early morning and eat healthier, I’ll feel better about myself and stop hating on his attitude. I agree with him somewhat, but I feel strongly about my self-esteem. I feel good about my inner (and somewhat outer) self when I look in the mirror. I pursue and self-teach my passions of photography and cooking almost on a daily basis and I’m doing well at work. I don’t think self-love is an issue here.
My husband says he is also working on his issues but I haven’t seen any improvement in years – he also blames his genes on that, but I don’t agree. He wasn’t this bad when we were dating – but he says situations, time, and living with someone 24/7 will change your outlook on a person.
So in the blink of an eye, he told me that the problem is not him but me. That 90% of my problems stem from him and his demeanor but 90% of his issues are directed at situations that have nothing to do with me. His outbursts are very frequent and his language is very crude – it is just difficult to ignore it.
I just don’t want to share my life with someone who is so caustic and manipulative. I attempted to make a decision to leave but couldn’t make up my mind – I am so confused.
Hi GL and Anita,
First off, I wanted to thank you both for taking the time to read through my troubles and providing me with your thoughts. I realize I was unclear about a few things that might make this easier:
GL,
I don’t believe the issues have been bottled up, on the contrary, I speak my mind often and the trouble is that the same issues keep popping up with little respite. I do believe in speaking my mind in a timely manner so I don’t give him constructive criticism or critical feedback in the midst of one of his outbursts. I don’t want him to feel that I am judging him while he is already upset over something. I want to help him overcome this problem – so while he is in the midst of a being angry or stressed out, I stay quiet, tell him that I understand and empathize with his issue and try to help out or take it off his plate.
We have improved our communication and we are mindful of using phrases like “When this happens, I feel…” or “This makes me feel this way because…” rather than accusing each other completely.
I find him manipulative, in that he is telling me I have a self-esteem/ lack of self-care issue because of which the constant stressful environment stresses me out. I think it isn’t fair for him to shuck the responsibility of being the perpetrator of unbalance/ anger in the first place. After our big blow-out with him tearing the forms, he has been holding me accountable for following a set routine with gym and waking up early etc. whilst there has been no mention of what he is doing on his end to resolve the problem. He has also taken to being distant and cold because he says he is hurting. He is apparently tired of me telling him that there is a consequence of putting us through this stress/ anxiety-laden environment and it might end in me not being able to take it any more. That makes me feel that all his words of love and expressions of unconditional love amount to nothing. In the face of me telling I have had enough and he needs to do something about his temper and negativity, I have to pay the price and deal with his hostility and practise a higher degree of self-care and self-love. This is starting to be more of a punishment and less of a fix.
Anita,
Thank you for taking the time to write back to me. I want to clarify a few things – when I say we come from two different value systems and schools of thought, I was trying to provide some context on how we are as two people and not describing his anxiety as a school of thought. We approach problem-solving differently, we deal with people and relationships differently, our approaches to work and managing our time is not the same. He embraces and sometimes creates conflicts to address an issue, I am more of a diffuser and tend to nip issues in the bud. I am far more diplomatic and he believes in being direct, sometimes abrasive to unassuming people (he swears a lot, it’s not an issue for me, just shedding some light on some ways in which we are different).
That being said, I absolutely believe that being angry with long hold-times on a call, back-and-forth over insurance claims, throwing the remote control or phone or GPS because they’re not performing as expected, tearing forms etc are a CHOICE. I get angry, I have extreme emotions, we all do, I don’t fault him for being anxious or stressed, it’s natural and I empathize – my problem is the way he chooses to express it. And ‘chooses’ is the keyword here. I channel my anger in many different ways so it doesn’t affect our dynamic and the stable environment of our household. When he sees me distressed, he automatically goes into a problem-solving mode. It affects him, he wants to fix it. When I see him distressed, I also want to help and fix it – but it is very difficult to reach him because of the frequency and intensity of his reaction.
We have been in therapy for our issues. We are reaching out to get professional help but in the interim I don’t want to feel like I’m being punished for bringing these issues to light.
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