Terapin...yeah it's crazy when they talk about the anger and resentment. I am M almost 18 years and it is like I never did anything right. My W knew exactly where I was 20 years ago and that I didn't help her move out of her old house and we had only just begun dating.
If I felt half of what she says I was doing for 18 years, I would have been gone a long time ago. Strange psychological changes these people go through when they start acting like this.
She brings up an incident that happened at our rehearsal dinner the night before our wedding. She forgot a prayer book or something, and started crying. And instead of me helping her, I drove off to the dinner so I could start drinking with my friends.
I literally, hand to God, have no recollection of this whatsoever. I have a hard time believing I would drive away when she was standing there crying, and I know for a fact I didn't even touch any alcohol that night for fear of a hangover. But not only is she mad about the incident, she's mad that I don't remember it.
sorry T but I had to LOL on that story only in kinship with you my man as i could completely relate to my W doing the same with me. i'm sure my W could hit me with a book full of examples that i'd have no clue about remembering OR if somehow did, that they made mad. i shutter to think how long her list of grievances might be. like you it's not like i intentionally meant to P**s her off, we men may be oblivious alot, but i don't think ANY of us go looking to make drama with our W. the whole Mars/Venus dynamic i guess. completely get what you are saying.
Maybe she dreamed it. Bottom line is that it is her reality. So validate. Vow to do better. Move on.
Yeah I really don't know
Like one big thing was her being the one that was up all night with our son after he was born. She was struggling, and I would be sleeping. And that I didn't take any time off from work to help her during the day. Very true. But, she was on maternity leave, and I had just started a new job/career. I didn't have any vacation time to take.
I don't blame her for feeling that way. But I do think sometimes history gets rewritten for so long, it's hard to remember what really happened. It's going to be a fine line between owning my past mistakes, and pointing out the inconsistencies in some of her beliefs. But you're right, it is HER reality, and arguing about it isn't going to change it.
Married: 15yrs Ages: Me 49, W 44 Kids: S12 BD: around 4/14
Terapin...yeah it's crazy when they talk about the anger and resentment. I am M almost 18 years and it is like I never did anything right. My W knew exactly where I was 20 years ago and that I didn't help her move out of her old house and we had only just begun dating.
If I felt half of what she says I was doing for 18 years, I would have been gone a long time ago. Strange psychological changes these people go through when they start acting like this.
She brings up an incident that happened at our rehearsal dinner the night before our wedding. She forgot a prayer book or something, and started crying. And instead of me helping her, I drove off to the dinner so I could start drinking with my friends.
I literally, hand to God, have no recollection of this whatsoever. I have a hard time believing I would drive away when she was standing there crying, and I know for a fact I didn't even touch any alcohol that night for fear of a hangover. But not only is she mad about the incident, she's mad that I don't remember it.
sorry T but I had to LOL on that story only in kinship with you my man as i could completely relate to my W doing the same with me. i'm sure my W could hit me with a book full of examples that i'd have no clue about remembering OR if somehow did, that they made mad. i shutter to think how long her list of grievances might be. like you it's not like i intentionally meant to P**s her off, we men may be oblivious alot, but i don't think ANY of us go looking to make drama with our W. the whole Mars/Venus dynamic i guess. completely get what you are saying.
lol. Hey it may have happened. I don't doubt that. But it was never mentioned once until a few weeks ago. Maybe you're right and it is a man/woman thing. Like I can't imagine saying to her now, 'hey, remember that thing you did 12 years ago? No? Well it really made me mad, and I'm having a hard time moving forward in our relationship now because of it.'
Married: 15yrs Ages: Me 49, W 44 Kids: S12 BD: around 4/14
see that's what is so tough/sad/disheartening? honestly I do not believe any husband seeks to do less than make his W happy, but if/when we do something that upsets them/angers them for the love of God TELL US THEN! instead at least in my case and it sounds like your's, it was internalized and allowed to fester...for YEARS! i know for me if my W did something I didn't like, i'm either going to bring it up then or let it go at that time. there's simply no way i could carry it with me for years and hold anger about it. i mean good Lord we're married for life, for sure over the course of our entire lives we are going to pluck each other's last nerves and have no idea that we're even doing it. it's unrealistic to believe otherwise. BUT if/when I do pluck that nerve PLEASE tell me ASAP so we can address it.
see that's what is so tough/sad/disheartening? honestly I do not believe any husband seeks to do less than make his W happy, but if/when we do something that upsets them/angers them for the love of God TELL US THEN! instead at least in my case and it sounds like your's, it was internalized and allowed to fester...for YEARS! i know for me if my W did something I didn't like, i'm either going to bring it up then or let it go at that time. there's simply no way i could carry it with me for years and hold anger about it. i mean good Lord we're married for life, for sure over the course of our entire lives we are going to pluck each other's last nerves and have no idea that we're even doing it. it's unrealistic to believe otherwise. BUT if/when I do pluck that nerve PLEASE tell me ASAP so we can address it.
b I had an exchange with my D last week. She was upset about something a friend did. I said, "Did you tell her?" She said: "Uhh, no. We are girls. That is not how we handle things."
Think back to the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve are told by God not to eat of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden. Adam sees Eve getting chatted up by a serpent. They are near the tree. Next thing you know she is shoving a fruit in his face saying "here eat this!" Now if the shoes were on the other foot, Eve very well may have said "Hey, where did you get this? From there! I am not eating that!" But not ol' Adam. Chomp chomp chomp.
Yes, men deal with things head on. Women retreat inward because they are hurt and upset. We can either recognize that and deal with it. Or sit and bang our head against the wall over millennia of male-female differences.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
see that's what is so tough/sad/disheartening? honestly I do not believe any husband seeks to do less than make his W happy, but if/when we do something that upsets them/angers them for the love of God TELL US THEN! instead at least in my case and it sounds like your's, it was internalized and allowed to fester...for YEARS! i know for me if my W did something I didn't like, i'm either going to bring it up then or let it go at that time. there's simply no way i could carry it with me for years and hold anger about it. i mean good Lord we're married for life, for sure over the course of our entire lives we are going to pluck each other's last nerves and have no idea that we're even doing it. it's unrealistic to believe otherwise. BUT if/when I do pluck that nerve PLEASE tell me ASAP so we can address it.
Yep. It doesn't make sense to me.
Although I do wonder if they hold onto things to use as added fuel for other things. Like if you said something mean once 20 years ago. You've never said anything mean again until yesterday. She may say 'see, you were always mean. Remember 20 years ago? You haven't changed a bit!' That's a poor example, but in a lot of cases I think that may be true.
Here's a real example. A few years ago, due to work, kid, not having really any married couples to hang with, etc, we didn't have much of a social life. The past 2 years, I'd say out of 104 weekends, we had plans, events, parties, etc say 90 of those weekends. But I remember at the beginning of summer a couple invited us to go do something. I said I didn't want to, and W got mad and said 'we never do anything!' lol. Sometimes you just have to laugh
Married: 15yrs Ages: Me 49, W 44 Kids: S12 BD: around 4/14
steve, for sure men and women handle things differently as the example with your D shows, but in a MR how can any husband or wife deal with the resentments of their spouse if those issues are not raised in a timely and adult fashion. none of us man/woman are mind readers of our spouses so absent actively getting those resentments out in the open, how else can we address them.
i wonder...my folks have been married 50+ years, to this day both of my folks wear on each other's nerves but yet neither one of them ever took off. part of that perhaps is that in their time, other options for partners/the acceptance of D did not exist...but now with the interconnectivity of SM/text and D being common place, has forgiveness and proactively addressing these problems head on been replaced with internalize "what upsets me, once spouse drives me crazy enough, seek new spouse and leave" how could T meaningfully take actions to preclude in the future doing things that his W will resent him for years about if she does not convey those feelings at the time they occur?
Well I think it is cumulative. If you do something that they resent, they store it. Next time you do something similar it recalls that previous time. And so on. If you do something they resent, and then never do it again you probably never hear about it again.
Part of the problem is that we as Hs are creatures of pattern. So if we do something they resent, more than likely we'll do it again.
Look this is nothing new. As long as there's been marriage there has been adultery and bad marriage. If I could wave a magicwand and make it not so, I would. But I do think this is why DBing is so important. Trying to control what we cannot is what gets many of us into situations where we end up D'd. Dbing teaches us how to be content controlling what we can control.
For instance. At our old house when it would rain in the early spring we would get a lot of flooding on the property in front of the house, including over the long, asphalted driveway. I would worry and be irritable about it. Last spring instead of fretting over what I couldn't control, I did what I could. I bought a clean water pump, and pumped the water out to the ditch. My countenance was much better taking control of what I could!
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
steve, for sure men and women handle things differently as the example with your D shows, but in a MR how can any husband or wife deal with the resentments of their spouse if those issues are not raised in a timely and adult fashion. none of us man/woman are mind readers of our spouses so absent actively getting those resentments out in the open, how else can we address them.
i wonder...my folks have been married 50+ years, to this day both of my folks wear on each other's nerves but yet neither one of them ever took off. part of that perhaps is that in their time, other options for partners/the acceptance of D did not exist...but now with the interconnectivity of SM/text and D being common place, has forgiveness and proactively addressing these problems head on been replaced with internalize "what upsets me, once spouse drives me crazy enough, seek new spouse and leave" how could T meaningfully take actions to preclude in the future doing things that his W will resent him for years about if she does not convey those feelings at the time they occur?
Well for sure it's a different time now than decades ago. Even older people nowadays are falling into the 'it's all about me' and 'whatever makes me happy at this moment' mentality. Years ago there also weren't nearly as many outside influences. I could go on a whole political tangent about these things, but I won't!
I do know it's hard expressing those things to a spouse. And it's probably easier to just 'deal with it' rather than starting an argument. But I think, especially for women, that stuff builds and builds until it eventually blows. Other than proper communication, I don't know what the answer is
Married: 15yrs Ages: Me 49, W 44 Kids: S12 BD: around 4/14
T as you say proper communication is the answer. I guess for many of our MRs it was what also proved the most challenging for us to achieve for whatever reason(s). and i'm sure each spouse has their own definition of what "proper communication" is. it's just tough to read when both men and women become LBS due to resentment from their spouses and in so many of those sitches, the LBS whether man or woman did not fully understand or was made aware or was able to address the grievances that their spouse held against them for a very long time until it was too late. i hope your W is able to work through her resentments towards you T...praying for you and your sitch.
