You know, I love him. To death. But it seems like I’m always doing something wrong or apologizing when it seems like he should be apologizing. Honestly and truly, this isn’t something like he’s a total maniac and I’m ignoring it – I know I get bitchy, it just seems like he always manages to “one up” me and turn whatever transgression I had into a slight against him. I’m really wondering if anyone has any advice/insight.
Sounds like a control issue. This is not a good thing. How long have you been together? Was he this way before you got married?
Yes. I know what you mean.
For starters, you’ve got to stop allowing this to happen. I know, it’s really, really hard. Sometimes it seems so much easier to accept the blame yourself. But what you’ve got to remember that accepting blame is fine…as long as you are, in fact, at fault. Don’t allow him to shove responsibility on you for what is not yours.
I go through this with my own husband a lot. It’s not that he’s a jerk–he’s just has a great deal of difficulty seeing outside of his own personal box, and accepting responsibility for his errors. There always seems to be someone or something else that he can blame things on, no matter how trivial, rather than simply saying “Oops, my bad,” or “damn, that was my fault, I’m sorry.”
I didn’t used to argue too much with him, mostly because even though he doesn’t accept responsibility for his own failings, he really wasn’t a full-out jerk about it. But now…well, now I’ll argue until I’m blue in the face, to try and get my point across. He still doesn’t get it, but hey, at least I’m not shouldering blame when I don’t have to.
Feel free to email me any time, **Igloo. **
I had two ex-partners like that and I also believe it’s about power and control. People like that want to always be right, and always be the victim of you. You can’t get ahead if you’re always wrong and always trying to make up for it. You’re no longer on equal footing that way. (Both of them had hungry egos too, perhaps it’s an ego thing?)
Both times, it seemed to be a gradual thing, as things became more serious and our lives more intertwined. While casually dating, both men seemed very fair-minded. Well, that changed, and it never got any better, and that’s why both are exes.
What happens when you stand your ground and don’t back down? (I found if I stood my ground, the men became violent–yelling, swearing, throwing things, stomping about. Until I backed down again.)
I’m not entirely sure what your situation is, if it’s like my experiences.
Thanks for your responses.
The nuts and bolts of the relationship are nothing dramatic. He just gets pissed off and is a dick. I would never act the same
way. He is a lot more verbally mean to me when we have fights (everything is…you always do this) and he manages to make our arguments always seem relationship-threatening, although really don’t think that’s what he intends. If I try and talk it out with him, I end up aplogizing. At this point, I love him dearly but am concerned that this constant inequity (is that a word?) is going to drive me to get over it. Which I don’t want to do.
I used to be like that. It ruined every relationship I had. It made my partners miserable (not to mention myself). It’s a bad thing, and I am ashamed of it.
It’s a very manipulative thing.
How did I change? For one thing, I met a really rational person who had his act together and reacted with complete puzzlement when I tried it. I also took a good hard look at the relationships of a few other people who behaved like I did–and it became clear to me how ugly it was. I realized I had a choice–that I was choosing to be a cranky hag, and that I could do things differently.
No, but I’d love to have Cranky as a spouse.
<rimshot>
Yeah, I’m gonna get in trouble with both Cranky’s husband and my girlfriend for that, so let me add that I’m kidding. (If it helps, I’ll slip Cranky $20 and a bottle of peach Schnapps.)
I think that learning to have non-poisonous arguments is a key element in maintaining a lasting and happy marriage. Someone has to start doing things differently, and since you’re obviously unhappy with the status quo, you’re the natural one to begin. One way is to start looking at yourself and your reactions and thinking about how you might be able to change the “script” of your arguments so that both of you are less likely to fall into the same old pattern. Think about where the argument usually turns and what you might be able to do to redirect it so that you might be able to come to some agreement instead of rehashing the same old ground.
I’d suggest sitting down with him when you’re not arguing and bringing this issue up in a non-confrontational way. For instance, using constructions like, “I feel this way about this situation” instead of “You make me feel this way” can help you get your point across with less likelihood of him becoming defensive. One positive thing for both of you to do is to try to get away from the habit of assigning blame when you have a conflict. Try thinking of it as a problem that both of you need to solve instead of a fault that one of you needs to correct.
This is a skill that takes time to learn, and both of you have to be willing to work at it. I know that “See a counselor” is a Dear-Abby kind of catchphrase, but this is one area where short-term marriage counseling really can make a big difference in the quality of your relationship.
My husband and I took about ten years to get to the stage where we could quit yelling at each other and blaming each other for things we were unhappy about. We still argue and have conflict, of course, but we worked out a way to do that without one of us having to “win” or “lose” when we fight. It wasn’t easy, but once we were both able to accept that the other really, truly had both of our best interests in mind, it became much less of a challenge to come to agreements.
The bottom line is, if you love each other and you want to stay married, both of you have to be happy. That means that it’s in the best interest of each of you to help the other to be happy as long as that doesn’t make you unhappy. It’s like compromising, but without either of you giving up anything that’s essential to your wellbeing. If he keeps on “winning” because he yells louder than you do, you’ll both eventually wind up losing.
My wife has a cranky spouse.
Shhhh! You’ll wake him!
My husband sometimes behaves in the way that you describe, Igloo, but not nearly as much as he used to. Working through it has been one of the things that has made us closer.
First, I had to change the way I reacted to him. I would suggest that you bite your tongue off before you say that automatic “I’m sorry” again. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t apologize when you are in the wrong. But “I’m sorry” was becoming almost a mantra for me.
When he is snarly, remove your attention from him. And don’t just pretend to. Just don’t rent him space in your head! My husband and I travel well together. But I take along a hat with a turned down brim just so that I can have my “space” in case he gets huffy. The hat and sunglasses are as good as a “Do Not Disturb” sign. My sister has starting doing this too.
But let that wall down quickly as soon as he begins to mellow and become a decent human being again. Give him lots of attention then!
It also helps not to have too many expectations of one another. When y’all find out how to do that, please let me know. 
Thanks, again, for your responses.
I definitely think my way of dealing with him has to change – it’s just that he’s wonderful at making me feel like I’m the one that’s wrong. Truth be told, I think he gets sick of being married sometimes (we have only been married for a year and a half and he was single for a long time – 40 years, including when he was in diapers). It’s hard and strange for me because I am not a doormat, I’ve always been the one in “control” in my relationships and it’s really odd to be in a place where I see with my own judgment that he’s out of line and not being able to do anything to stop it.
It would be nice to sit down when we’re not arguing and deal with some of this stuff, but those conversations always turn into an argument. He doesn’t take criticism well and, apparently, I’m horrible in my delivery.
I have one of them, too. To his credit, he’s realized that he tends to get cranky a lot, and has been working hard not to be such a mean snappy fuck. He’s the type that if any one thing is going badly (work, he’s sick, he had an argument with a friend…) then his WHOLE LIFE is bad.
He’s also good at trying to tell me I’m in the wrong, but I’m stubborn and hard headed so I argue back if I think I’m not the one who messed up.
Like I said, he’s much better than he used to be. I can’t take all the credit - he’s the one doing the hard work and trying to change himself. But a couple things seemed to help. One of the big ones was sitting down and addressing his crankiness in general, when things were calm and we weren’t fighting. He was very able to understand that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to going through life with a mean snappy fuck as a partner, and him jumping on me for very, very minor issues was not making me want to spend a lot of time with him.
Another thing that seems to help is to directly address the stuff that comes out of his mouth that really gets to me when we fight. One of his favorites used to be to accuse me of “getting off the topic” when we fought, and throwing “red herrings” into the argument. From my perspective, he labelled any opinion that differed from his as a red herring, so it made discussions fairly one sided. I finally told him that if he was going to use this line, I wanted a written agenda before each fight so I knew what the topic was and I could prepare my argument to fit within the guidelines. We both giggled over it and I don’t thing he’s used that tactic since.
In the interests of my own sanity, I try to spend some time during fights trying to remember the funny things he says. If you think about it, a LOT of the stuff that comes out of people’s mouths during fights are pretty funny when you take a look at 'em later, after you’ve made up. We’ve had some good giggles talking about how he was going to pack up and move out because I left my socks in the middle of the living room floor and such minor problems.
My spouse and I both have cranky spouses.
Even though I’m the male, I’ve been informed that I’m cranky about 3 or 4 days out of every month.
Ok. I have been thinking about the way I respond to him instead of just trying to get lost in my pity party.
I definitely add fuel to the fire because my response is usually to be all over him – “I know you’re mad – let’s talk about it” which really, really annoys him. Sometimes I’m so aching to exercise my combat weapons that I keep prodding. But how do I just let things go? How do I just say (to myself), this is just one of those things that he’ll get over; it doesn’t need to be a huge fight?
Have you ever asked him when he’s calm and happy what a better way to respond to his crankiness would be? ie, if “I know you’re mad, let’s talk about it” pisses him off, maybe he could suggest something that doesn’t.
My father is like this, and lately it disturbs me to go home because of the way he acts towards my mom (at times).
If I may pop-psychologize for a moment, I think that people who are always all over others for every tiny “transgression” are lacking a sense of self, or feel a bit worthless for some reason.
If your husband wont go to counselling with you, you might want to seek counselling for yourself, just to get some perspective that is a little more… hmmm? professional than what we at MPISMS can offer.
I’m not a spouse, but I tend to get very cranky. It’s not a manipulation or control issue, but when I’m upset or frustrated about something, I have a bad habit of taking it out on someone I know will love me even if I yell at them, like my boyfriend or my mother. Very bad habit.
[checks mirror to make sure that Igloo is not, in fact, bodypoet]
[writes note to self: lieu is a guy(!)]
My spouse started out cranky and progressed into the Kingdom of Meanness over the span of several years.
Until I kicked him out. Now he’s the model of reason, because he wants to come home. If and when he does, I can assure you that he will be a Changed Man, because otherwise he doesn’t stand a chance with me.
But I don’t mean to imply that you have to kick your husband out, Igloo. What I found was that changing my mindset solved a hell of a lot of this issue. I made a few major decisions, including:
*I’m going to do whatever is healthy for ME first. His needs are important, but not as important as my own emotional well-being.
*I’m not going to indulge his bad moods, his crankiness, or his spoiling-for-a-fight attitude ANY more.
*I’m going to make peace a priority, and what I’ve realized is, peace doesn’t mean giving in. It sometimes (often, in my case) means *not getting drawn into a fight *in the first place.
What it all boils down to is this. If I walk in and those Cranky Vibes are flying through the air, I give him one–one chance to interact positively. If he gets bitchy, I remind him that I’m not going to argue about this (the laundry, the dinner, whatever) anymore, and I walk out. If necessary, I leave the house, or send him home (he’s staying with friends). If he tries to start a fight with me, ditto. If he makes mean remarks to the kids, Instant Kibosh. In short, I’ve developed a zero tolerance policy for meanness.
Your situation is somewhat different, but the basic problem is similar. Life is too short, honey. Get some counseling, stop apologizing, and listen to that inner voice that is nudging you. (The one that says he’s being unreasonable, not the one that says to throw a coffeepot at him, okay?) When you start thinking to yourself “He’s blaming me for something that’s not my fault,” that’s a red flag to you that you need to get OUT of the situation before you fall back into your old pattern of apologizing and feeling guilty.
It’ll take some work, because you two have established this dynamic for a while. It can be done, though; you just have to be strong and consistent. I recommend counseling for everyone in almost every circumstance, but it really could help you here, because you need to learn different responses to his manipulations (and make no mistake, he IS manipulating you).
Email me anytime, I’m usually around.
Best,
karol
Athena, I have asked him and have not really been able to nail down a tangible “solution.” He insists that he has not had the type of meltdown reaction to other women that he has with me and, given this, I’ve tried to explore what they were doing that I’m not (or vice-versa). He has said in the past that my voice gets really irritating when I confront him; I talk too loud and it comes off as being really confrontational. (I think I talk to loud anyway and would guess my hearing isn’t the best).
Hello Again Actually, I think he would be up for counseling, and we even talked about it before we got married because we had a lot of the same issues. We just dropped the ball and never did it. Now, I feel some sort of shame in going…almost like I’m admitting that we have serious problems, which I don’t want to admit.