Think of the last time you insulted your partner....

[2600degrees]

Did you:

• Do it spitefully, or did it just come out?
  
• Did you think you were fair?
  
• Did you apologize and validate that you hurt your partner?
  
• Lastly, for Women, did you know it's a running joke with men that the best place to be put down or insulted is with their wives? And that you are running up again't our self-respect, and it's dangerous?
  
• 
  

 

Sigh.

[Dahl]

Hello, 2600.

 

So. 'Sup?..

 

Can we help?

[Wiseman2]

What did she say to you?

[2600degrees]

Its a pattern folks. I love this woman, but she has a behavior that really bites me hard.

 

We'll be talking about something, really anything, and she'll level some kind of blame on me, or throw me under the bus on some decision we made together. My reaction can run the gamut. Sometimes when I'm really tolerant, I'll ask for her to explain why she thinks/feels the way she does and try to work through it. Other times, frankly I friggin blow my stack. My issue is...(me here), when I get blamed for something unfairly, or someone (doesn't have to be her) white washes my behavior in a negative way, you know, bull negative stuff, it really sets me off. Especially when there is no warning. It's like it comes from out of no where.

 

It's a real effort to remain calm and not come back hard, even spitefully. I swear to everyone here, I really really don't instigate most of these escalations. I like to think of myself as a loving, considerate partner and my approach to communications (I think) tries to not be unfairly confrontational. I am self aware of which battles to fight for, and which are just not worth it. I'm not a nit picker. She can be. We had a small tiff this morning, and it just brings back MANY of these other instances. It's depressing. Thanks for listening.

[Matt3939]

Can't answer any of your questions cause I'm just with myself and I haven't acquired any split personalities. Even if I had id hope unlike the movies. They would be cool and we would have a lot of laughs.

[2600degrees]

Can't answer any of your questions cause I'm just with myself and I haven't acquired any split personalities. Even if I had id hope unlike the movies. They would be cool and we would have a lot of laughs.

LOL thanks for the levity.

[j.man]

Can you give some examples of insults? Lot of subjective terminology here.

[Dahl]

I'm sorry that you're feeling this way, 2600. It sounds dead maddening.

 

I applaud your self restraint and composure, particularly when you are combating what sound like cyclically, circuitously mounting frustrations. I appreciate how tough it is to maintain your cool, and I think you'll never regret not allowing your dignity to be bullied and battered.

 

Have you floated different communication tactics past your partner, and if not, do you think she might be receptive to the idea? As far as which techniques to use, I'd recommend you a/o the two of you explore and construct those processes, since you seem to have an organized, productive perspective on these exchanges and she may be more amenable if she feels involved in building these strategies from the ground floor.

 

I don't wish to sound vague here. The options are virtually unlimited, from any number of mix and match, mash-up approaches to trial and error.

 

Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck. Keep being true to your integrity and know that is no small feat.

[2600degrees]

Sure. I'll give two (insults, blames, etc.):

- We visited San Francisco for her Birthday a couple years ago. We agreed early on to visit both the city and Napa. It was a birthday gift from me to her. Upon leaving San Fran, and driving across the Golden Gate, I took the exit to drive up the coast and she told me she didn't want to do that. I reminded her we'd talked about the drive and it was important to me to go (never having been there). She attacked, saying she'd only gone to San Francisco (the city) because I wanted to, and the food tour was my decision (and she would have picked another), etc. These were all things we (I thought) had been excited to do and agreed on mutually. Thrown...under bus and gas lighted.

- W/O going into too much detail on my past, I had an disastrous affair back in my first marriage. I cut it off after several months, and went back to my wife, and we split 2 years later after going to counseling. I had personal counseling for this decision, and to deal with terrible guilt for more than a year. I take full responsibility for what it did to my then wife, my marriage, etc. My current wife knows all this. I'm totally transparent. So last year we are spending time with a friend of hers at our place, having a few drinks, and from out of nowhere, she says about me to her friend..."you know...once a cheater, always a cheater". ! Talk about driving a stake through my heart, in front of her friend.

 

I've got a long list of these things, I'm sorry to say. It doesn't feel like a list, but let's face it. it is. And I feel terrible for not being able to let this stuff go. Is it me?

[2600degrees]

Fair or not, and being totally open here, it is affecting my opinion of relationships and women. Totally unfair, and emotional, but it is. I feel like marriage may not be right thing for me. I think a lot of people get these feelings.

[Matt3939]

Now that I have more information. I'm sorry she keeps bringing up past issues. That isn't fair at all I let them go. I've dealt with this and it drives me insaine. My last relationship she criticized everything I did before her. I should have never answered her questions. All small stuff I'm 40 I've had relationship's anyone has. Most would be estatic to know my boring past. That cheating comment is wrong if you have changed. Sounds like she can't let stuff go and it will haunt you thru her till the end.

[Dahl]

Gracious, 2600! That is beyond harsh. And, no, I don't find the comments regarding your past remotely reasonable - or, flatly, rational - to say to you in any context.

 

Further, I don't know that you're being unfair in your thinking, at the moment, because I strongly doubt these are ideas you fully subscribe to. You sound too intelligent, even-handed and compassionate to carry this current quagmire with you into your future, far less absorb it into your personal ideology on relationships and the opposite sex.

 

I think, instead, that you're exhausted from the base, cruel and all too frequent personal ambushes and that you have, rightfully so, hit your tolerance for being the target of someone else's unfiltered, unwarranted and wholly unacceptable ravings.

 

Do you have the opportunity to get yourself clear of this, even if for a brief break? You need some peace and restoration. You've more than earned it, and I'm concerned for your long-term well-being if you're denied it at this point.

 

Now I'm vastly impressed with your self-control and collected responses. Good on you, 2600.

[Wiseman2]

They sounds like arguments and power struggles especially the SF trip and rigid plan that was supposedly for her birthday. the cheating slur was nasty and it sounds like the lack of sex is getting to both of you and creating even more tension.

 

It's almost a chicken and egg thing with so much power struggling, seething resentment, etc. and thus problems in and out of the bedroom. less drinking and partying would help calm tempers. Also there seems to be accumulating and compounding slights and hurts that never resolve from Years ago. You seem to be doing a lot of injustice collecting keeping a list etc., Why?

 

Why not try marriage therapy before you look into divorce, ...or she does.

It was a birthday gift from me to her. I reminded her we'd talked about the drive and it was important to me. she'd only gone to San Francisco because I wanted to. I've got a long list of these things

 

"The tendency to itemize every unfair knock we've ever suffered is known as injustice collecting. Sometimes the injustices are personal, as in, "My boss unfairly promoted Rick over me." This kind of self-talk leads to anger. At other times, the catalogued outrages lead to overwrought generalizations, such as, "Nothing ever goes well; this is too unfair." This type of thinking leads to hopelessness and rage.

 

Enough grudge holding and soon you'll see more iniquity than actually exists. The injustice collector becomes a trigger-happy perceiver. If you walk down the street recounting the affronts you've suffered lately, you'll kick up quite a cloud of dejection.

 

Injustice collecting springs from a sensible motive: the monitoring of fairness as a form of self-protection, an impulse that evolved among social creatures who depended on one another. Nursing grudges may have raised our odds of survival and reproduction, however unconsciously."

[2600degrees]

I get it. It's hard to erase the "list" when she keeps adding to it. Just how I feel.

I don't want a divorce, I want to fix this. We have two counseling sessions scheduled in the next couple months.

 

So...I want to understand where you are assigning accountability here. Using your argument, in power struggle its not about taking responsibility for each persons part of the struggle, its more about accepting bad behavior from your partner and being a doormat to find inner peace? Explain.

[browneyedgirl36]

The last time I insulted my partner? Never. Not once in two years. I've had no reason to.

 

Now, did I say something, inadvertently, that hurt his feelings? Maybe, but if I have, he hasn't told me, and if I did, it wasn't intentional at all.

 

I see you've posted another post explaining the situation...I'll take a look at that one!

[browneyedgirl36]

Fair or not, and being totally open here, it is affecting my opinion of relationships and women. Totally unfair, and emotional, but it is. I feel like marriage may not be right thing for me. I think a lot of people get these feelings.

 

Well, it sounds like she may just be a highly critical person in general, someone who focuses on the negative, and the worst in people.

 

Try not to let this color your view of ALL women -- or marriage. This particular woman may not be a good partner for you. Is she depressed? Are there signs of unhappiness in general with her? Does she seem angry a lot of the time? Maybe she's just profoundly unhappy to begin with, and you're a convenient scaptegoat/punching bag. Counseling would help, but if she won't go, and this all continues, you'll have to ask yourself whether or not you really want to live this way for the rest of your life.

[pippy longstocking]

So last year we are spending time with a friend of hers at our place, having a few drinks, and from out of nowhere, she says about me to her friend..."you know...once a cheater, always a cheater".

 

If I had a pound/dime/dollar whatever , for every man in my life who has thrown my past in my face I would be getting a face lift and boob job on my yacht as we speak , but to do it in company like that is beyond despicable .

[pippy longstocking]

Is a dime and a dollar the same thing ...ahh never mind .

[2600degrees]

It was less even about that moment, which really hurt. It was when I asked her about it and she blew it off, rationalized and blamed it on the drinks. I told her how embarrassed I was and her response was "I'm sure didn't even remember me saying it". This...is why...I am having a hard time letting go of some of these things. There is no good resolution. She (most of the time) avoids taking responsibility for these things she says. Sigh. It's...so....not how I operate.

[pippy longstocking]

It was less even about that moment, which really hurt. It was when I asked her about it and she blew it off, rationalized and blamed it on the drinks. I told her how embarrassed I was and her response was "I'm sure didn't even remember me saying it". This...is why...I am having a hard time letting go of some of these things. There is no good resolution. She (most of the time) avoids taking responsibility for these things she says. Sigh. It's...so....not how I operate.

 

well it was total disrespect and humiliation for you mate ...there is no one here who would disagree with that ..and the old * it was the drink* excuse just carries on over generations of people doesn't it .

[tattoobunnie]

Did she apologized about the cheater line after you brought it up to you, or have you not said anything, and been stewing on that comment ever since then?

 

Have you ever considered she totally wasn't talking about you at all?

 

With the San Francisco trip, did you ask her what she wanted to do for her birthday, or did you just pick stuff you wanted to do, and ask if she wanted to do it? I think you alot of the trouble you bring into your relationships including your past wife and current wife, you may not be listening, and hear what you want to hear. And projecting what you want to hear onto them.

 

I don't think you should let it go - I think you need to talk about it. Because obviously, those moments are keeping you drowning. You have things build up, and at moments explode. If you were I, I'd take a course in communicating, and make an effort to talk about things that bother you right then and there, and when she's talking, don't think about what you are planning to say, just listen to what she is saying. You are on the defense 24/7.

[indea08]

She sounds awful. Self-centered. Ungrateful. Pessimistic.

 

Your comment where you described specific situations makes me want to ask: Does she even LIKE you??

 

I mean, she married you, she loves you because you're her partner...but does she like who you are??

 

Unnecessary jabs like that ("once a cheater, always a cheater") are pretty low blows, and make it difficult to want to be with someone. I mean, if she knew about it in the beginning and decided to continue seeing you, then she has no right to ever bring it up again...clearly it stays in her mind. What's that tell you about her opinion of you??

 

I really don't see why you want to keep her...

[2600degrees]

The San Fran trip was her wish. It was my gift to her. We agreed to go to the City together, She even picked the Air B&B. She asked which foodie tour I wanted to go on based on alist of preferences. I gave her my opinion, she booked it.

 

I called her out on the "once a cheater" comment the very next day. (not that night because of our Guest). She was talking about me when she said it.

 

I respect your insight, and I'm aware each of us can see things through our own "prism", but I really don't think I'm being unfair here.

 

Your post seems very one sided. I admit I need to get better at letting these things go. I just want this to be a two-way street. I can't keep feeling like I'm being attacked unfairly. We have things to work on but I can't feel like it's all about me and my problem to solve alone.

[2600degrees]

She sounds awful. Self-centered. Ungrateful. Pessimistic.

 

Your comment where you described specific situations makes me want to ask: Does she even LIKE you??

 

I mean, she married you, she loves you because you're her partner...but does she like who you are??

 

Unnecessary jabs like that ("once a cheater, always a cheater") are pretty low blows, and make it difficult to want to be with someone. I mean, if she knew about it in the beginning and decided to continue seeing you, then she has no right to ever bring it up again...clearly it stays in her mind. What's that tell you about her opinion of you??

 

I really don't see why you want to keep her...

 

I want to work this out. I love her, really. Marriage is difficult, and has its ups and downs.

[tattoobunnie]

The San Fran trip was her wish. It was my gift to her. We agreed to go to the City together, She even picked the Air B&B. She asked which foodie tour I wanted to go on based on alist of preferences. I gave her my opinion, she booked it.

 

I called her out on the "once a cheater" comment the very next day. (not that night because of our Guest). She was talking about me when she said it.

 

I respect your insight, and I'm aware each of us can see things through our own "prism", but I really don't think I'm being unfair here.

 

Your post seems very one sided. I admit I need to get better at letting these things go. I just want this to be a two-way street. I can't keep feeling like I'm being attacked unfairly. We have things to work on but I can't feel like it's all about me and my problem to solve alone.

 

If you feel that she is always attacking you and throwing you under the bus for no good reason, then it sounds like you two are incompatible. I mean, if she apologized for saying that line, then it might be time to let that go for your own sake. Sure, I have my own prism view, but if you feel that you are always in the right, and that you are just the victim with what's going on, there's not much more to say. But I doubt doing the same thing in your relationship is going to help you here.