Me (M27) and my wife (F25) are getting into "fights" almost every day. We've been married just short of 4 years.
The reason 'fight' in in quotation marks is that these discussions are really one-sided... basically, it starts with an offense I committed that day, and then she goes down the rabbit hole and vents about all of her frustrations with our relationship and with me as a husband. We usually go for anywhere from 30-90 minutes (sometimes even more) about how I'm useless and not treating her fairly. It's getting to the point that every time we are alone I start wondering how long it will be before this discussion starts, and how long it will go today.
This is a really long list, but, these are the kind of things that are usually included in her venting:
-She hates me using my phone for any reason in her presence, she says it's because I'm prioritizing my phone over her as a person. I agree that she should be, and is, the most important thing in my life. But, sending a text to my boss or to a friend, or de-stressing with a mobile game doesn't mean that my phone is more important than her.
-She feels neglected any time I am with my friends or family (I try to hang out with my brother once a month or so, and I occasionally play online with my cousin, but 95% of the time I'm with her from the time I get off work until we go to bed)
-She is frustrated with my hours at work. She stays home all day, and spends almost all of that time alone. I've been working 60+ hour weeks sometimes, and she is frustrated when I am gone all day, especially whe I am tired or distracted when I get home
-She hates that I masturbate, even though she will only have sex with me 2, maybe 3 times a month. She says it's hard to be intimate when she is constantly frustrated with me and hurt by me (this is actually a pretty big deal with some real-life context of our religion. I've been seeking professional help and improving)
-She is hurt that I have a hard time associating with her family (her parents were abusive to her, and she is willing to make nice with them out of fear and for the sake of her siblings, but I dont know how to do that)
-She feels disrespected because I don't do enough housework
-She feels that I don't understand how difficult it has been for her to move to another state away from her (abusive) parents and her friends
-She feels like I have changed and deteriorated as a person since we met. That I am no longer the man I was when she decided to marry me
-She is frustrated that I haven't been taking very good care of myself (not enough sleep, too much caffeine, neglecting my spiritual well-being)
-She is feeling a lot of stress because she has chronic pain, and we're living paycheck-to-paycheck, and the house is constantly messy
-She is stressed because she thought she would marry someone with a degree instead of a blue-collar worker. Also someone who is very industrious, like her dad, not depressed and constantly struggling like me
-She thinks I'm lazy and incapable of being responsible (there's some truth to that)
-Any time I mention my own mental illnesses, she says that I'm just making excuses and trying to get away with being lazy.
-She thinks I'm unaware and unfeeling of her emotions, that I'm too selfish to care about her needs
-She consistently takes things that I do as offensive, even if I have no intention of offending her. Example: last night, we were getting into it again over all these things. It was after midnight, and I remembered that I have to be back to work in the morning, so I said "hang on, let me check my alarms real quick". After I checked them, she was hurt that I was thinking about work when we are trying to have relationship talk...She said that it was proof that I don't care and that I don't love her. She was so angry that she rolled over and would not speak to me anymore. We both eventually fell asleep.
You can imagine how hearing all this, and other similar things, every. single. day. is leaving me feeling deflated and defeated and unmotivated...and is making it really hard for me to kick myself in the ass and start doing anything that will help the situation. I end up... pretty much shutting down when she starts into it. I feel like I have to just weather the storm and survive the tirade. She often comes and apologizes afterward and says it's just because she loves me and knows that I can be better than I am. I definitely agree with that part, and we usually feel really connected in the after-fight discussion. But, those post-fight "real talks" are getting less and less frequent
Any time I try to talk to her about how I'm not intending to hurt her feelings, she gets hurt because I'm "ignoring her feelings". She says that my intentions don't matter, only her pain. She wants me to acknowledge her feelings and then explain how I didn't mean to be hurtful. But, anytime I use that format she requested, she says that I'm being fake and that I still don't actually care about her feelings.
She says that the "overall pattern of abuse" of me not caring about her feelings and neglecting her is more important than the specific things I do that are counter to her accusations (like, "you never do any housework, therefore you don't care about my feelings". 'But today I put gas in your car, cooked us dinner, and took the dog out to play...'. "Yeah, today you did, but I'm talking about every other day". 'What things did I do on the other days that you discounted?'). So, the specifics always get overlooked, and this general sense of unfulfilled needs is the only thing that matters.
I love my wife... and I'm trying! There's only so much one man can do, and, sometimes just making it through my workweek just about maxes me out. She is convinced that I don't really love her, and I'm getting exhausted trying to break through her mindset and mental illness to prove to her that I do love her even when I fall short of being the partner she needs. I understand that a lot of her feelings of being neglected come from her depression, and from literally being neglected as a child. I have my own depression too, and, sometimes that means that I'm going to fail my husbandly duties even though I love her and want to help.
TL:DR... Um, My wife and I are having the same fight EVERY day about how I'm a bad husband, and...I don't know what to do about it. Specifically, I don't know how to break the routine of having this fight, I don't know how to help her understand that I love her even when I fail, I don't know how to talk to her when she goes on this daily tirade, and I don't know how to be a good enough spouse that she doesn't have to feel like this.
Hats off to anyone who made it to the end. Any kind of advice about ANY part of this would be greatly appreciated
Submitted June 22, 2020 at 04:20PM by Anonymous_RP https://ift.tt/3hREwm7
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