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They see it as maintaining individuality and not being controlled. I am objectively right. It sound like you do handle things differently.

That is what my husband and many men are missing. Very practical with concrete instructions. It Feels Like a Code or a Secret To me and others, it does.



Not sure if we should have to crack codes, or just speak using clear and direct language in our relationships. That article did for many people what the book had done for me. It removed the blinders many of us were wearing on the subjects of effective communication and empathy in our relationships. The result of individuals not sharing brains and nervous systems. I like the second-degree burn analogy,. If someone has a second-degree burn, and you lightly touch their arm on the burn wound, their painful outburst makes sense. Especially when it happens over and over and over. It Feels Like a Code or a Secret To me and others, it does. Since every conscious second of our lives is experienced through our own eyes in the first-person, it seems easy enough to understand how this happens, but I continue to choke on the sheer amount of assholery I see, hear, feel, and dish out myself every day despite the growing number of people maturing into the adults responsible for setting new standards of human behavior in the 21st century. And most people never had a parent or teacher or trusted adult explain this nuanced idea while emphasizing how big the stakes are. No one prepares us for the shit-storm that ensues when we get it wrong. So when , I felt a powerful compulsion to share my story and try to raise awareness about this. But—BUT—if we are asking men to step outside of themselves and exercise the humility necessary to listen, communicate, behave, comfort, respect, support, love in the ways their wives or romantic partners can understand and interpret accurately, is it not also fair to ask women or everyone who plays little miscommunication games for reasons few of us understand to work to more clearly or effectively communicate what is actually hurting or causing relationship problems? I can answer that question. I may not even know why myself at the moment. On the other hand, on those occasions when I have had the capacity to know why and the energy to communicate calmly why, it is invariably viewed as an attack. Defenses go up, excuses come out, gas-lighting occurs, and what could have been a learning experience and healthy exchange of words and thoughts, becomes a drawn-out fight over all the wrongs in the relationship. Communication requires at least two parties. So then trying to link the problem to a BIGGER general pattern, makes this WORSE. When you have a partner with limited communication skills, and little to no empathy, or any ability to look at the situation objectively, then no amount of communication—however calm—will make a difference to them. They will always view it as an attack. Good for you for making a tough move to help yourself. I hope to find a way to deal with this but it does feel hopeless when it happens. As if our asinine snap judgment is gospel indeed. Seriously…how can we all be so dumb and still walk and talk and look both ways before crossing the street. Liked by The most-frightening aspect of my personal life experiences is how I occasionally catch myself doing this exact thing. This thing that adversely and in some respects, permanently, altered my life forever. I still do it sometimes. The good news is that I can at least see it, own it and talk about it today, unlike the married version of me. So, yay, I guess. On the occasional self righteous ride, idiot me always gets an eye opening perhaps mini karma experience anti-view of my perception or lack there of. He is now 17, and I leave him lists of things to do after he gets home from school. Nothing big — empty the dishwasher, feed the cats, put away your laundry, etc. I came home from work one night to find none of the things on the list done — the cats were not pleased — and no note. Oh, and all the lights were on and the doors were unlocked. He gave me a hug and apologized. Does he backslide at times? But I think he gets it much more than his father ever did. And I am grateful for that. Liked by I had to break before I was able to start asking better questions and looking for better answers. That was what I, personally, needed to get from Super Selfish Guy, to Just Kinda-Selfish But Tries a Lot Harder Now Guy. Men and women alike need to learn to love themselves wholly, and communicate from that place. But my choice to remain silent on me. Many of them,even those who are genuinely good people,flat out dismiss women as delusional, as not worth listening to, as not important enough to accommodate. Liked by Thought provoking as always! First, I really think that this goes both ways, and often both ways at the same time, which is tragic but avoidable. In my experience, empathy and communication go hand in hand. My husband is your typical black or white thinker…. Do I regret it later? Do I apologize later? Most of the time. Yes, freedom of speech and all that, BUT, in my opinion see what I did here , there is no place for that phrase in what is supposed to be a sincere attempt to talk openly about problems in a marriage. When my husband says that to me, it makes me feel like he is not only dismissing my issue, but also telling me in no uncertain terms, that he is not open to hearing anything that might disagree with his opinion. Like When we embark on our lifetime relationships the notion of traditional dynamics and historical behavior and subsequent complacency need to be looked at by both partners. My wife and I were from seriously different backgrounds. I was a member of 1st generation Italian immigrant family raised with lots of love but with a husband-head-of -household mentally. We worked side by side in our family business and knew roles as proscribed by the needs of the greater good. Not all of it was rosey or fun or fair. My perception born of this environment was thought ,by me, to be the way it is. My sweetie on the other hand , was brought up by an abusive mother and detached alcoholic father. The mom would randomly beat the kids in direct correlation to how pissed she was at the father and the father would witness this and do nothing. As our relationship formed I was the Knight in shining armor , I was taking her away from that environment and providing a safe haven for always. Not so in the beginning. As my perception was applied hers seem to be a revisiting of the horrors of her childhood. Little things surly added up and them came my epiphany while living in the Hotel Pontiac. We need to completely throw ourselves into our relationships from the earliest stages…to understand where we came from and how we can move forward together. We are trying, but there are so many emotional scars sadly, scars we gave each other. Like you, I grew up in a household with love — pretty normal childhood. My husband, however, is a slightly different scenario. I have read articles about how a mother like this can truly screw her kids up for a lifetime. I really believe this is why he has the issues that he does. Although, he would never admit it. Truly it breaks my heart to think of what my wife and her siblings endured. The beatings alone where bad enough but to know that there were no heros…no aunts no uncles friends relatives of any kind and least of all their own father , that were willing to intercede. While we were dating I had to back down her mom on several occasions. But true to her beautiful soul ,my love swore she would never be that way…. If you two truly love each other it can and will happen. I chose to do my part to bring our relationship to full circle we have been talking more now than we have in our nearly 34 years together. We go on dates, we are planning some little day trips , we have hashed out a lot of the hurts that took place in our lives and marriage and put them to rest. We rewound the clock and the only time we are focusing on is the present and the future. Sure the ghosts of the past continue to sneak in and cause havoc , but we handle that now as a team.. Please never give up on yourselves , if you truly love one another than it is worth every effort to move past and forward.. Individual and couples counseling helped us quite a bit. I have great faith that you two will be alright. As I do with all who struggle with their relationships and all those that post here I will add you your husband and family to my prayers….. I recognize that early in our relationship, we both failed to honestly communicate our boundaries to one another. And good luck trying to enforce them at THAT point. And then tell him. It starts innocently enough. There are consequences to dishonesty, even unintended dishonesty. I can hardly blame my husband if he prefers to believe what he experienced over what I say — I created that monster and owning it means that I owe my husband some patience and grace towards how he responds. The best I can hope for is that he will take me seriously going forward. Can I live every day of the rest of my life in a marriage like this? Because I DO love him, I care about his well-being very deeply. Leaving him would destroy him he has HUGE abandonment issues and I refuse to do that to him. But your mileage may vary. Your marriage is not my marriage any only you can make that decision. My best advice is, as long as you have doubts, stay. There are no promises and no guarantees. If you can love, and you both clearly can, you make a choice and if you want to forge ahead, you stick with your partner another day. Sometimes it is gritty and sometimes it just requires a lot of grit in us. Sooner or later the doubt he has about himself kicks back in. So I can really relate with what you say about expectations for the marriage. Like anitvan, thank you for restoring my faith in humanity. Liked by Anitvan, your post stirs up a storm of emotion for me. We did so much the same, stuffing things down to avoid conflict. Jack, STH, and now anitvan….. In so many of your thoughtful and inspiring posts I have seen the warrior princess that you are and I have seen the sad come out of you as well. You have said so many beautiful things that give hope and new clarity to so many. Jack is correct , pondering the notion of what if this isas good as it gets is infact like slowly pushing a knife into yourself,thoughts we all get about pulling plugs and stepping away are manifestations of our frustrations and our need for seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. The emotional range and I do believe gritty is an emotion to me at least , shows willingness , willingness to change not who but how we are , willingness to forgive our spouses and ourselves , willingness to be more conscious , willingness to seek answers , willingness to be courageous willingness to redefine our love. Anitvan… your fighting spirit is exemplified in your comments about when you asked yourself what if this is as good as it gets and your answer was unquestionably courageous. Your commitment is evident and your course is of your own strength and character. I honestly value you all for the moments when my ghosts come back to haunt me …I can usually see something you have written and get some peace and comfort Liked by Ah, you also bring me to tears : A rough day unrelated to marriage has me following my poor husband around thinking out loud and needing connection to ease terrible stage fright. Liked by I hear you. Why do we fight against each other instead of fighting for each other? Why does it seem that we compete against our mate instead of supporting them? These things I will NEVER understand. A little less flawed is all I ask. Liked by What I experienced is that with time, partners start to keep tabs and who did what wrong. And this is so wrong for so many reasons! Now when a fight happened we would always go over all the things that happened in the past instead of solving issues and moving past them. I do believe this had a massive impact on how close we felt. Sometimes communication is about boundaries. I must have walked by him a dozen times. I cooked dinner one night, 3 chicken breasts. One each for myself and our two boys. He is much better now. It is very often not as simple as explaining what you want clearly and what it means to you. And that ignoring expressed concerns are potentially marriage ending. So yes, his wife on average would be better at understanding this. So the issue is mostly getting a man in a hetero relationship to understand that accepting influence is key to a happy relationship. There is plenty to do. Set boundaries to get attention etc. Because women often lack those healthy skills. So most of us end up trying to fix it at a later stage. The trick is that it after the early part of the relationship it a lot harder. And both of you probably are missing skills since you ended up there. So you have to learn new skills and try to change the system. I have had to work endlessly to improve my skill deficits. Praise improvements in his efforts to encourage him towards less defensivevess and stonewalling. Respond non defensively to criticism. Liked by And of course my black belt levels skills are mostly yellow belt skills on most days. I was just trying to express how difficult a position a woman is in this situation. It often requires HUGE skills and maturity unilaterally applied to get a man to change. The other option is being willing to get a divorce. With that leverage some men will be more open to changing to not lose his marriage. As I have said many times, women including me as exhibit a are often missing key relationship skills. They are, on average, better at accepting influence in conflict than men on average. Sex Like Sex is a whole big topic. Some biological, some cultural, lots of individual variations of course too. And trying to unilaterally do all the changing while being told that YOU are the core problem is like walking barefoot on glass. I can understand why so many women find it so painful they have to throw away the old shoes for their physical and mental health. Studies said that on average you are far more likely to get sick in an environment like that. Women more than men in yet another sad gender pattern. Yet another part of my story. The toll it has taken on my body and mind to unilaterally make the changes necessary to allow him to start to change is heavy. I have had major issues with depression and anxiety and significant health issues directly related to extended marital distress. I know this is common. I understand why women decide to leave relationships like that in ways I did not before. And I am privileged in many ways over that I acknowledge. It is not just as simple as a lack of commitment. My husband is willing to seek therapy. This is something many men refuse. Sadly we have had terrible experiences with couples therapist but he is willing to continue to seek help with me. So she is left to deal with changing the system by herself. Often with a man who is unwilling to hear his role in the system. Research shows that husbands like this will bat back suggestions for change with no acknowledgment or alternative suggestions. And this perfection needs to happen while the woman is in an environment set up to make that incredibly hard while she is prone to feeling mentally and physically ill. The toll for wearing those old shoes is very very very high. And the energy it takes to do all that leaves little energy for kids or work or whatever else one might need to do. Ideally the couple can get to a place of both trading in their old shoes for new comfortable ones. A different marriage with the same person. Like Liking this quite a bit Lisa…. Recommitting to join together in the partnerships journey. Success comes to the stalwarts and the courageous be it the intended outcome or a fresh start. Like Totally agree Louie with what you said. Were you like that earlier in your relationship? My meandering comments were to pushback against the idea often presented but in this case by Brian that the answer is for women to express their needs overtly. If you tell him he will listen and accept influence. In the common cases Matt writes about that is not going to work. Of course clear communicative is good and helpful. But as I have said over and over the real diagnosis is a lack of accepting influence. That requires a different cure then better communication IMHO. Like Was I like that earlier in my relationship? Oh I was a complete asshole! With all due respect, believing that overtly expressed needs , views, wants etc. The difference is in taking time to get clarity from your partners. Merely rolling your eyes endears you to no one…presenting a sincere ear does…. Like Hi Anita, I know you well enough to know you were not trying to shame those who get divorced. I admire and applaud your conscious decision to stay with your husband. I am trying to add that for the situation Matt describes in his dishes scenario it is not as simple as clear communication. That is the question Brian asked. The wife is required in that scenario to unilaterally accept influence. And that is the problem. Like my husband he may be a wonderful father, cooperative in other ways, a hard worker. But because that concept is not there the environment will be unhealthy for her. And her ONLY choice to getting him to learn to accept influence is her unilaterally applying a lot of black belt skills and maturity. Or being willing to leave. That is what I am trying to say. Like Anita, Thanks for asking. My husband does accept influence on many things. I think that is common in the average marriage Matt is talking about. Things that make sense to him. It has to make sense to him. I think this is common. The definition of how a relationship should work. If he unilaterally accepted no influence I would be divorced. Because it would be a simple choice. Research shows that abusive men accept NO influence. From the extreme of no influence to the more common middle ground of accepting influence in some cases and feeling like he is a good guy for giving that to her. The acceptance of a definition of marriage where you accept influence when it makes no sense to you or no sense FOR you with healthy boundaries is rejected as incorrect. Research shows women do it far more often. Women are not saints. They have many skill deficits. But usually not THIS one. Like Does that make sense? I think many men sacrifice in many ways. They can honestly say and be correct that they sacrifice a LOT for their family compared to how they could live their lives if they were single. The back and take of sacrificing your preferences for a person who has very different love languages and needs than you. So that when she asks you to put the dish in the dishwasher it is heard with the idea of its important to be open to it. Notice I did not say you have to do what they want all the time. That a give and take conversion can take place to work it out. That is what my husband and many men are missing. They see it as black and white. It crosses the line when his insistence on his autonomy disregards your right to have a say in decisions that affect you. Like Yes I understand. Many men feel because they have raised that way that masculinity requires protecting autonomy. Not being put in a one down position. That thst is the goal. I have sympathy for men. Accepting influence as required in a relationship is the opposite of man culture rules in many ways. Of course we all must be autonomous. Always hard to include complete she complex thoughts in short comments. Like Lisa — We accept influence as a foundation for a good marriage. Like Anita, I missed this comment earlier. THAT is what is true for my marriage and for many, many marriages. And let me add that Lisa did not respond with great skills and maturity. So a big part of this whole nightmare is me figuring out what a healthy relationship is and what skills both people need. So my responses to him gave him the same messages that he was giving me. So I have had to figure out my shit and try and change my interpretation of what he is doing to see it as a skill deficit. And then change my response to him to stop giving him emotionally threatening messages. So he can stop giving me emotionally threatening messages. Like having to learn to drive while racing down the highway with a giant truck trying to force you over a cliff. All the while your hubby is yelling in your ear what a shitty driver you are and its all your fault. I think so many women are doing all that and still told its their fault. And that makes it even worse. Most of them either tried to tone it down or matched it. Sixty-five percent of the men did not take either of these approaches. They did this in a very specific way: by trotting out one of the four horsemen criticism, contempt, defensiveness, or stonewalling. This is the opposite of accepting her influence. One way or another, this approach leads to instability in the marriage. Zero-sum is exactly the opposite of a loving, giving marriage. Love tries to outgive the other. It sounds like your husband is more concerned about what he may be required to give up in the transaction than in how he can show love towards you. Let me ask you this, do you think that he will ever be able to confront his own selfishness? Like I think Anita that the disconnect we may be having is that my husband is typical of many husbands. Obviously I may be misunderstanding based on what I have read but it seems he has a huge fear of abandonment and that is what drives things. Its complicated of course but most men are driven more by a fear of control and emasculation more then abandonment. And that is what drives the zero sum calculation in hetero marriages. They are not any more selfish then other types of people but their fear of control and engulfment and emasculation will cause them to operate with a one person system mindset rather than a two person system mindset. People who fear abandonment are also in a one person system mindset. The selfishness just looks different. The goal is to not be overly fearful or either thing and that allows you to operate in a two person system. Like So the answer to your querstion is yes I have addressed it. You just find a way to move into a secure functioning 2 person system. That involves accepting influence from each other on respond if ways. How do you do that? As I have said above it is very difficult. I have done a lot of things that have moved it to a more secure functioning relationship. The main thing is to figure out what they are afraid of. In your case abandonment, in my case control and judgement. Then you find ways to reassure and soothe those fears. Like The lens of my own marriage probably colours my understanding of the dynamic in yours. Like Anita, Oh yeah my lens is always focused on my experience. Ok to your question. Will he acknowlege his selfishness? Answering that is the same as answering the does he accept influence question. Yes he sometimes will acknowledge his selfishness. Often he correctly identifies it as a style difference that is causing some of his preference for autoregulating and preferring making decisions with a one system lens. But like so many men he does not a knowesge the underlying model that I am talking about in many cases. That the glass by the sink analogy. It could be many specifics I could give you. Most men responding to that post as you can see in the comments are seeing it as a one system problem. They see it as maintaining individuality and not being controlled. They will say as Brian did if she wound explain it better I would consider it. They will say what about my needs? Now I am like you husband. It is a common pairing to have a man who is afraid of control and emasculation married to a woman who is afraid of abandonment. They both are acting selfishly often. It was hard for me to see how I was acting selfishly when I was acting in a one person system fearful of abandonment. So I get his hard it is to see it when you are in it. And men have extra layers of baggage around having to protect their masculinity through not being emasculated by their wife. My husband is not someone who cares about that overtly. He will see HER as needy. Most men are raised to become independent and self sufficient as a condition of adulthood. They see that as healthy adulthood. I have a lot of sympathy for how men are forced to conform to this stuff to fit in. Unfortunately it screws up a lot of relationships of its not identified. There is a correlary of problematic stiff girls learn that screw things up too but women are raised at s very young age to live in 2 person systems or to at least see that as a good goal. And there lies the problem. Do you think there will be a point at which you would be able to accept the level of responsibility that is required to get your marriage to a point that is satisfactory for you? I feel like I would resent this for my lifetime as well. If we take this from the perspective of a job or a work assignment etc. What efforts have they undertaken on their own to expand their worldview of how a satisfying marriage should look like? I feel like continuing this education for men infantilizes them and perpetuates the unnecessary emotional labor that we women have been acculturated to perform. What are your thoughts on it? Like Hi Astrid, Sorry to hear you are in a similar situation. Ok to your questions. Although I use theories to understand things I am a practical person. Once I understood what was happening in my marriage I accepted the reality of the diagnosis and the cures available to me. I am getting a shit burger served to me on a big shit platter. But I also accept that if things are to change it will require me to do certain things that my husband is currently UNABLE to do. I accept that he has more skill deficits than I do in certain areas. Accepting influence is one of those. Now if he was not willing to make any changes that would be a deal breaker. I think too I have had to accept my skill deficits in certain areas that contributed to perpetuate the cycle. So I am working that angle too. Am I infanticizing him? Well no I require a LOT of that guy. I stretch his skill levels to even stay in the game. I am asking and he is willing to attend dialectical behavioral couples classes so he can improve his skills as one example. That class has very helpful to me to really see him. He truly cannot identify and describe what he thinks and feels it wants. I can identify what I think and feel and want quite easily and clearly. Therefore it is on me to do that while also having to play detective to figure out what my husband cannot tell me about himself. Do I resent it? I think many women come from that place so what they would do to correct that is different than what I need to do since I come from a place of feeling anger and judgment and contempt. That is what I am trying to learn new skills to correct. To respond more empathetically. What place do you typically respond from one up or one down? Like It does make sense, thanks for that. I think where I am is that I am not sure I am able to accept the reality of the diagnosis and the gamble I would have to take for the cure. I have at this point reached a certain level of exhaustion after trying to be diplomatic for so long that I am no longer able to respond, and rather revert to a lot more reactivity than I would ideally allow myself, so I think that in a way is where I know I am starting to reach the end. It is one thing for me to be mired in chaos, it is another thing for me to become chaotic. For me it is the ongoing resentment and that I saw marriage as a place in which two people would be working through their intrinsic motivation to improve themselves and to be better versions for each other. That means editing themselves, learning to modulate emotions, temper, not taking out everyday stresses on one another etc. Very little of that has materialized despite my giving the option for him to exit the relationship. For example I resent having to tell him, no you cannot blame me for something that is clearly your fault and unrelated to me, missing an appointment, losing items, etc. It feels like being a mother. That is the baseline that I will accept, not that I will spoonfeed him the answers to better emotional processing and self awareness. I identify with the feeling angry, unjust, outraged, disbelief. I have not gained more empathy, I am not sure how I would or could begin to do so. So I guess my question to you is how have you learned to empathize? How much of this just feels like laziness to you and the idea that it is our lot in life to do the emotional laboring for men? How do you fight against that? Like Astrid, I will reply to your thoughtful questions as best I can without knowing the specifics of your circumstances of how much they may differ from mine. The stage I am in now is after a lot of work to understand and why things had gotten so off track. In an earlier stage I would have absolutely have not been able to find it helpful to acknowledge the shitty unfairness or the skill deficits. I am not saying you would follow the same route I did and get to the same place only describing that I have been able to change my framing and feelings. For me, understanding is critical for me to change. I am an external processor so I find places like this to process ideas with others to give me more insight so I can know how to change. If you are interested we can swap resources that have been helpful to us. It is one thing for me to be mired in chaos, it is another thing for me to become chaotic. It takes black belt level skills to stay regulated in that environment. Very draining to stay even half way regimented. That means editing themselves, learning to modulate emotions, temper, not taking out everyday stresses on one another etc. Very little of that has materialized despite my giving the option for him to exit the relationship. I get it I really do. For me this is where understanding what was happening and why really helped. Was he like that when you got together? What attracted you to each other? Why did the dynamic between you change? When did it change? There are a lot of resources that helped me understand. A great one is an audio recording by Stan Tatkin called Your Brain on Love. It describes how we turn into emotional threats to each other. And we start to respond to each other as predators. He agrees with your relationship ideal. And he describes how people with the type of avoidant insecure attachments do not see that as an ideal. That then frustrated our types into doubling down and the cycles escalates until you wonder why you got together at all. Understanding what was happening helped me depersonalize it. That for me is a key to maintaining regulation and being able to respond consciously and not reactively. To understand the pain he is in that is not obvious to me since he shuts down so I can respond more empathetically. For example I resent having to tell him, no you cannot blame me for something that is clearly your fault and unrelated to me, missing an appointment, losing items, etc. It feels like being a mother. Part of a common pattern. He always feels judged she criticized etc. His dysfunctional response is then to do even less. Sigh the answer is to get out of the cycle starting with seeing it as a cycle. And I am sure you have very legitimate complaints about his lack of adulting in certain areas. I know I do. That is the baseline that I will accept, not that I will spoonfeed him the answers to better emotional processing and self awareness. I identify with the feeling angry, unjust, outraged, disbelief. I have not gained more empathy, I am not sure how I would or could begin to do so. So I guess my question to you is how have you learned to empathize? How much of this just feels like laziness to you and the idea that it is our lot in life to do the emotional laboring for men? How do you fight against that? Then there is the psychobiology of your things that make you feel safe in a relationship curiosity, working hard etc feel very threatening and are the opposite of what makes him feel safe non judgment, autonomy just guessing. The more you push for him to exhibit what makes you feel safe the more he is going to resent you like you resent him and he will push for what makes him feel safe which is more than likely the opposite of yours. So what to do? The easiest option is to find a really good couples therapist but that is hard in my experience. But maybe not depending on where you live? I guess you have to think about is this fixable? I my case, we have the very common patterns gone unfixed for too long. But it IS fixable in our case. I know because I research shit ha ha Is he willing to change? I have been focusing on lowering my threat level so mu husband can do it. Not the way I wound prefer but still. I am because when my husband is not emotionally my threatened I enjoy him very much. We have a long marriage and kids. We get along great as people. So ti me the answer is yes. The bonus is I am being forced to learn to be more emotionally mature and regulated. A look into our inner world is granted as a gift, we should not have to sit and plead our case for a simple task to be done. If we want to even look at this to see the double standard, simply look at how we would approach this situation when another person but our spouse asks us to do this…. Do we sit there and ask them to explain why we should be doing so? We simply do it because we understand that we are not living by ourselves and that the gesture of acquiescing to a simple request is a a sign of respect and b a sign that you are open to being influenced. Like To add to that, we should not expect our partners to divulge a more vulnerable part of themselves hurt feelings, not feeling like they matter etc. Like Anita, Adding this at the bottom. Like which movie to go to or how to handle a situation with our kids or where to go on vacation or whatever. If I ask him to travel less for his work for example that will meet with resistance to accept influence from each other. Only to be able to discuss and try to work things out in a reasonable way that takes both of us into account. Like I have been totally consumed by work, family and marital things for a couple of weeks…wow, lots of comments! When I was younger, I really wanted things to be fair. I wanted to be treated fairly. After just a little under 60 years on this Earth I no longer want things to be fair. In fact, I truly and devoutly hope they are not, or at least that I am not treated fairly. What I seek and hope for, and what I am trying to show others, is this: — to be treated with mercy, and with compassion. A few specifics later today. Like Hi Jack, I am not young ha ha. I agree with what you say. Mercy and grace and forgiveness are important. But they are not enough unbalanced. There is a long history of mistreatment and unfairness towards women historically in relationships too. That is what I am speaking of when I rail against the unfairness of the amount of emotional and other labor in my marriage. Basic decency and respect is what I am seeking. The mercy comes in being understanding of the human mistakes people make when making real efforts to change. Not in excusing the continued bad treatment. But those are my thoughts and motivations. Hence my bewilderment that it is somehow expected of me by many people. And my anger at the ridiculous unfairness of this setup. Why would I be expected to do more to be treated less well because I happen to be a female? I struggle with the concept. And I have gotten this shit from therapists MANY times hence my love for Terry Real who calls out the inequity and the damage that does to both men and women. Like Me too, I love Terry Real- I saw your one up one down phrasing and I immediately thought about that. His concepts are great. I however am not there yet with accepting that we need to do more just to be treated the same. I find the concept that we even have to accept that men are just where they are bewildering and that it is mostly on us to get them to where we want them to be. I mean, there are also cultural forces imploring us to be submissive, passive aggressive, indirect, vapid, etc. The part that I find most draining and bewildering is that this is the level of expectation that they would think is acceptable for marriage. It has to be up to us to keep things from getting bad, because their expectations are generally much lower. By the time their needs are no longer met…the relationship is usually on its way to divorce. I have no solutions for this, simply an observation of the state of most marriages I see. Like A quick response. I do not accept the inequity. The pattern got so bad because I also have skill deficits. So it is degendered for me to a certain degree because of that. If I want a better more intimiate relationship the reality is with them and my husband I must do more work in those areas. Like I apologize for butting in here ladies. I have come to the revelation,if you will, that there nothing more liberating and powerful in my relationship than treating each other equally. Neither of us has franchise over the other in terms of social expectations or traditional role nonsense. Anne is the same way maybe more so. Our life together had been redefined a long time ago… we both had some shitty spouse assholery going for us. We came to terms with us as partners…we talk more and keep each other grounded. It works…we are happy…we Love like never before. I shake my head at these nincompoops. The true alpha is a protector, kind spirit, respectful and generous individual that snubs the modis operandi of the candy ass, selfish punks. Conversely there is nothing more heat filling, more pride inducing, more sexy, more honorable than women that are strong, intelligent, caring, loving and unwilling to accept social norms. It is incumbent on us to show our children to be better, not just in terms financial or social success, but in their relationships. My daughter is super strong, super intelligent and will not accept any less than fair and honorable treatment. My sons are gentlemen but not doormats very respectful and inclusive in all their relationships. Men and women alike are short changing yet another generation if they are following the same and harmful gender role traditional relationship model. We need better…it works better. Like No apologies necessary Louie! We are all having a free flowing conversation here. And that both your sons and daughters are strong snd confident. You are right that it works better to have a mutually respectful marriage. Research backs us up. What has surprised me is how unconscious all this stuff. For both men and women. And yet somehow the patterns drift away from that. Matt does a great job of describing how it happened in his marriage. It takes an ACTIVE approach to prevent that from happening. And that is what is so often missing. I have raised my kids to be strong and conscious of all this stuff. It was heartbreaking to see how easily my very opinionated and strong daughter was sucked into a codepdendent relationship with a jealous boyfriend. We have worked on it and she has learned a lot about how to emotionally navigate better. It happens to very strong women. It amazes me sometimes. I am happy to hear you and your family have found a way for all to be supported and respected. It has to be up to us to keep things from getting bad, because their expectations are generally much lower. By the time their needs are no longer met…the relationship is usually on its way to divorce. I have no solutions for this, simply an observation of the state of most marriages I see. In the average marriage we talk about here women are part of the problem too. Usually women for cultural reasons has learned to just put up with stuff or handle it in anger or some combo of both which is what I did. Most women are missing a key effective skill of setting boundaries effectively. So the research says in the cases where the husband does not accept influence BUT the woman does know how I set boundaries in a healthy way to correct that early enough they go on to have a happy marriage. So in the average marriage it is a combination of a lack of skills that create the problem. Most couples wait 6 years after marital issues are dysfunctional until they seek couples therapy. Much harder to correct then. Also a lot of women then ate just fed up and DONE. Maybe that is our fault to assume those things should be automatically present. That I can at least claim that that is my basic expectation coming into this marriage. Maybe our stories are unique, I am not claiming that this is the experience of most women. We would not accept many of the less than stellar behavior of our husbands, had this been our women friends. If this happened, we would discuss it, say how upset we were, apologize for our part in the offense, and if there are real grave violations of trust, decide if the friendship is worth continuing. You have an extremely great point in that women have issues exerting their boundaries on a regular basis, partially because in most of our non spousal relationships, a the boundary is seldom violated because we are usually looking out for one another. The point I would like to offer however is what I wrote above: b that the boundaries we find ourselves having to exert to our spouses are those in which we are not challenged by with our friends. Can you imagine, in any scenario in which that happens among our female friends and what our reaction would be? I simply cannot because I do not have friends that I allow in my life to do that or rather that would do that to begin with. We do it when we manage up our bosses, we do it when we have to have a difficult conversation with our colleagues, we do it with our friends when unbeknownst to them, they offend us. This again is my experience, but I think my friends do this. Maybe that is our fault to assume those things should be automatically present. That I can at least claim that that is my basic expectation coming into this marriage. I feel that I have been very clear about the vision of what I wanted in the relationship. What I will claim responsibility to is this and to me this is another important lesson some women need to also take into account and what I am having a hard time forgiving myself for: I exerted my boundary. I said I do not think this is going to work; I said this somewhat early on. You need to think really hard if this is what you want, because in my opinion, this is not what you aspire to. And this is where I went wrong. I gave him a choice instead of walking away. I believed his words over myself. You can argue that it was about kindness and generosity and giving someone a second chance and all of that, sure. You have to weigh that however with how convicted you are about your belief over his words, irregardless of how true his intentions may be. Women also need to realize whether or not what they want in a guy is something he is able to deliver. So yes, you will have to do work, a lot of it, and a lot of it is elementary level work of collaborating, how to dialogue, how to engage in win win etc. Meanwhile, yes the husband will probably be open enough to go to sessions with you, maybe do his own therapy, but most of the continuing education will be led by you. Like Astrid, I actually agree and relate to almost all of what you said. The difference may be that it sounds like you have had experiences with females that were almost universally healthy in terms of accepting influence, not blaming you for lost sunglasses etc. I think you have been very lucky there. Good experience with female colleagues and bosses too? I ask that because we have less choice in those usually. I agree on average that women are better at being in a 2 person system that is the foundation of a good marriage. And that is why they often accept all kind of shittiness that men would not. Again let me absolutely acknowlege ALL the misogyny and horrible treatment that women have had to endure that has nothing to do with that statement. Who give and give and give. And they STILL feel guilty for not doing more. I have female friends who are just as avoidant as my husband. Who are lovely generous people in many ways but who change the subject abruptly when an uncomfortable topic comes up. I could tell you many stories about female friends and relatives etc. Supposedly there are just as many women who are insecurely attached as men. So from that lens women are missing key skills there too. Or use leverage to get change. Or walk away if need be. Anyway, I largely agree with you. I do agree with you and Terry and the research that it is usually the MAN in hetero relationships that is the major block. However we might have a slight disagreement that women are great at relationships. I disagree with Matt on this point too. Of course it ok to agree to disagree. But they are better than men in key ways as it relates to a 2 person system. Most humans are not very good at emotional regulation. Or dealing with a significant other who deals with stress in a very different way. I think I agree with 90% of what you said. Which is incredibly high for me on the Internet ; So let me recap: while it is a cycle it is the MAN who usually creates the block that women have to have skills to overcome. I absolutely believe that if my husband was better at accepting influence we could have made so much more progress on fixing our marriage. No question my skill deficits are there. I have a slightly different but similar enough. If I could go back in time I would at that point have insisted on intensive premarital counseling to address those issues. Because I think my husband is a wonderful man and I would choose him again but would have set firm boundaries around learning key skills from the start. Would you say you had a healthy family background so you knew? I think that is many peoples story. I have been advising my niece over the last few years who was dating and recently married about all this hard earned wisdom and cautionary tales we could now share. I think it has made a difference to her being spared from the things we have had to go through. So you are so right about people needing to know all this stuff. I also grew up in a family where my father did yield to my mother, even in very big things of her realizing her dream for her family. I took all of this for granted, I think. As for friends, the ones I choose to keep are universally healthy. My words back are I hear you. How would you like to help so that we can get this done. That to me is the boundary setting. This is not in my experience how men view negotiation, this is why we cannot have the same boundary dynamic with men as we do with women. Whatever our approach is, ie. Even Terry is asking this of us. You are right that Terry Real acknowledges that the wife has to do more emotional labor to get him to a better place. That is because the population he is dealing with are women like us. Women already in a long term relationship trying to correct to a better marriage. As you know Gottman identified 35% of men who do accept influence so this if not ALL men. There uses substantial majority of men who do know how to accept influence in relationships. Probably in my opinion because they grew up in a securely functioning family so that is what he learned as a default. There are many books and models and opinions out there. If I had known what I know now I would not be in the position I am in. I would not be commenting oj this blog. I would not be doing all the work I have had to do. Similar for avoidant ways of dealing with things. I was looking for someone who did not have a angry way of dealing with things. Because that was what u experienced. And I absolutely did a good job with that. You have to know what a healthy relationship is and what you need to look for. If you do want to have a relationship with a person who has an insecure attachment style it needs to be addressed early to correct it so that your marriage will be healthy. And so here I am. In the population of women who are faced with the choice of doing more or breaking up. A lot of that calculus depends on how much the guy is willing to change. Or also how much damage has been done. It would be asset loss at this point. I am almost tempted to hold a moratorium- for six months to a year dedicated to him taking the time to learn what he should have learned in childhood and to incorporate this into his life independently of me. As for me, I need fresh air to see if I'm just mired in keeping the marriage or if there's even feelings left. There's the other part of the resentment right…you make the commitment of death do us part, and then you're the one who has to file for it because the relationship even at this point has not reached his nadir, so he's not about to file for it either. And his nadir, as you can probably guess is not something I would allow myself to compromise my values for. It's a fucking bitter pill to swallow. Bottomline, I need to know that he can do this, that there's actual real substantial progress without me monitoring and being the guard and the boundary checker. I think if he shows demonstrable progress after a year by himself, then maybe I am willing to go back…but at this point, yea I'm pretty much ready to get out. I have no plans for kids, certainly if there were even 5% of a desire to do so, it is now at zero. Luckily we are both on the same page with this. I did read Gottman's 35% of men accept influence, and one of my first questions I have is what does that really look like, what does he consider accepting influence? Is it sitting there after hours on end asking for them to get it and then they finally do, or is it accepting influence from the get go? In my experience, I do not have one single girl friend of mine that I feel have found a match to their level of emotional intelligence with their men…this isn't a knock to the men; they're overall decent, honest, etc. Most of it, I believe is the result of systemic patriarchy. The invulnerability that has been inculcated into them does not make for a foundation of closeness and connectedness that's crucial for a well functioning marriage. And you're right, these problems do not surface to the extent that it will until you step into marriage. Our major fights after marriage, had it happened before the commitment, I would have zero qualms about having said that's enough you've lost your card of participating as a guest in my life. Our therapist blames most things on his anxiety, which is like the favorite word of the US these days to claim that they have anxiety…when really most of it is an unpracticed thing of not being able to detach your emotions from your behavior. Things I know I did even at 15, early 20s etc. This isn't unfamiliar to me, it's that I don't want to deal with it as a grown woman. How long have you been in your marriage ballpark wise? How and when did you feel like something was somewhat amiss? I want to let women know that patriarchy is still well and alive, that the days of gendered power imbalances aren't over, so that women who want to continue into their marriage can know to expect to do more of the emotional work or abstain from the marriage altogether…and certainly hopefully before kids, because at that point, you have to think about your dependent than simply your own unhappiness and sense of unfulfilled life. My husband will never have my emotional intelligence or my vulnerability. He is not going to suddenly learn how to be emotionally sensitive or empathetic, but in spite of all that, he accepts influence. The style of that can vary quite a bit depending on culture and preferences but that general mindset is the important thing. I know men in marriages who do know how to do this. And let me add my usual caviat that there are huge individual variations and more differences within the group then between the group of men and women. Or highly skilled emotionally etc. Being open and willing to work together to find common ground. Gottman studied people who gave different ideas about pâtriarchy too. In cultures or religions that believe in male leadership the men can still accept influence from their wives by respecting her point of view and opinions and factoring it in to his decisions. It is still the key factor to a happy marriage. And I say this as a person who has had some pretty severe anxiety I have had to with hard to overcome. My husband had severe panic attacks. The thing I admired about him is he never used that as an excuse. And he has made incredible progress through a lot of hard work. No question it adds another layer of difficulty. But like eveything else the key is to see it as something to overcome together in a partnership mentality. Of course each individual is responsible to adult as well. My husband like to be alone and think internally when stressed. I am the opposite. I like to brainstorm with others or vent. Neither of these is right it wrong but they are the opposite of what the other person finds stress reducing. Anyway the point is if your husband has a different way to deal with his anxiety than you do it can cause all kinds of issues if not understood and handled properly. It sound like you do handle things differently. I hope your therapist is able to help you both navigate this stuff. In the hands of a skilled therapist it can be worked out. That actually is good news. It gives you more flexibility to work things out with more distance as you described without having to consider how it would affect kids. How and when did you feel like something was somewhat amiss? The other answer is too long for this comment. We get along great as people. But our attachment styles are opposite. Partly as a result of that difference what we are looking for to make us feel loved and secure is opposite. It was noticibly early on but we had good enough skills that we could repair and get through well enough. In the last 5 years is when it became more obvious. We have made a lot of progress but more to go. Most of our intense frustration has been in not being able to find a good couples counselor. We were both willing to learn and they have been so unhelpful and in some cases truly bad. That is truly discouraging. But luckily I am good at learning from books. When it comes to the influence piece, what I mean is that does Gottman view having influence as a husband who does this from the initial get go, or does this mean that a wife has to convince the husband first…I find that 35% is believable for the latter, but I think to have a husband that is fully open to influence and dialogue, that knows how to collaborate without prompting and offers more than straight yes or no, is far less than 35%. Like The 35% is men who accept influence from the get go as you say. They are out there. My dad despite other flaws was one. There is a subset if the 65% that can change once the wife gets his attention through boundaries early on. There is another subset that requires professional intervention from someone like Terry Real. And another that will never change. Liked by Another way to think about the 35% of men who already know how to accept influence is that those are the happy marriages. Obviously this is incredibly simplistic but just for broad ideas with group averages. Like If you are interested in details of how Gottman determined the 35% number there are a lot of details of his classic studies in the book The Marriage Clinic. Lots of scientific analysis. The Science of Trustis very good too. He has lots of more recent research too. Probably can find a lot of stuff online if it interests you. Obviously we all have our own personal experiences that may or may not line up with group averages. Like I liked the science of Trust! And I have his mathematical modeling book Principia Amoris- I think his concept of influencing functions, husband and wife state at rest, those things are all very important to determining fit. Can we truly know this prior to marriage, or do we need to have a reassessment period after we get married so that we can ultimately decide if this is something that we want in the long term? Many of these wife and husband at rest states are different from what the boyfriend and girlfriend at rest states are. Men seem to be more open to influence in the beginning; I mean if bad behavior came out in the initial weeks of dating, most people would have ended it right then. So there is something to be said about how these behaviors manifest themselves over a long period of time. We are often taught to think of a healthy relationship as two seperate individuals who are each responsible to regulate themselves. We are taking Dialetical Behavioral therapy couples class. Now I like DBT. But the foundational premise of this couples class is each individual is responsible to regulate themselves. Gottman described the secret to a happy marriage as when the other person is upset the world stops and attention is paid. So many people confuse that with doing what the other person wants. I have so often heard women say I have to love myself before I can love someone else. Which again is true on one level but misses the point of the foundation of a secure functioning relationship where you soothe each other. Help regulate each other. Help each other love themselves. And to give a North Star to move towards behaving in ways that promote secure functioning individually and together. Instead you develop agreements between yourselves that ensures that you behave securely with each other. As an example my avoidant husband can learn to make sure he says hello and goodbye instead of leaving wordlessly. Far easier to change behavior than attachment styles. And I can learn to be careful with my tone of voice and not calling out his name to get his attention one of the great tips from Tatkin for avoidants. These agreements are the essence of accepting influence. Nice to talk to you here. Avoidants go into autoregulating mode when by themselves. So to abruptly interrupt that feels like a rude shock. Feels like someone wants something from you that feels burdensome. The way around the name trigger which is deeply wired is to use something other than their name. Hey honey, sweetie or whatever. The general principle is to give avoidants a soft warning that they need to go out of autoregulating mode. Say hey can you give me a few minutes later as opposed to right now or are you ready to go in a few minutes? I use texting a lot with my husband and son to give a soft way to prepare to get out of their autoregulating. And I no longer yell their names down the staircase. Or tell you you need to get up now. Better to have someone say it softly and more gradually and not say your name. It reinforces safety to an autoregulator. You can sometimes if you know what a correct diagnosis is and hiw to effect change. Like I absolutely agree that when the other partner is upset, the world stops and I listen. We do this for friends as well so we have some semblance of what is an appropriate level of taking care of someone. Lisa, how do you deal with negative bids for attention? Like The more you describe your relationship it sound like you would empathize with my husband. Neither is inherently right or wrong but because they are very different ways of managing your nervous system they feel very wrong and dysfunctional to the other person. The answer to your question is in this pdf. Obviously I have no idea. Like The conversation you two are having reminds me of myself, sort of, before I really started trying to clean up my life and my marriage. Around the time I started asking what was going on in our marriage I also started looking at my own habits. I decided it was almost an addiction, and sort of like drinking Clorox, and just stopped, cold turkey. Its hard to realize you have to be an ADULT and love yourself and not avoid conflict. I do wonder though if milennial men are less likely to tow these lines or what. Especially when you talk about this slow vs. Is that what can be equated as cold? Like I bought the full copy of that last year. Like Jack, Sounds like you have read quite a lot of relationship resources. Very practical with concrete instructions. Including cool flow charts for what to do. One of the best 20 I have spent. Along with a handful of other resources. Liked by Yes to all. Even an open-hearted spouse might get a little spooked if they found this excellent book sent as a pdf lying around with their name all over the text. Which I absolutely know is the opposite of true for me. How do you find them helpful in your process? Have you ever been accused of intellectualizing? Like No one has said that to me in so many words, but one of my therapists did strongly urge me to READ LESS. I grew up in a family with no physical or emotional connections where being your own independent individual was a cardinal virtue — a family of rigid one-person systems governed by black and white, all or nothing thinking. So perspective-expanding is good. And I would say this, too. I think they all contribute a lot, and their contributions are on the whole complementary. Well, that and perhaps a bit of marketing or understandable empire-building in a good way? I was reading something by Gottman John, not Lisa…heh the other day in which he was drawing some apparently pointed contrasts between his views and those of Schnarch and Johnson. Increased respect for your partner and yourself. Be aware of your pre-programmed defaults. Think in terms of two people, not yourself. Accept that things will not be perfect. Like The one that I think I disagree most with Gottman is the concept of the good enough marriage. One of the gigaWatt issues for my wife and me over the last couple of years has been how we feel about where we are. She, reasonably, wants to just know that I love her, and us, as we are, and enjoy the moments we have with some grace and gratitude. Gottman is a little bit of a sensitive area for me, and I read him with care because to be very honest when I have evaluated where I see our marriage using his rubrics we are a miserable, abject, hopeless failure and should have divorced each other decades ago. Because he was describing a marriage I longed for but was far, far away from. I had to read other people for a while. When I read his scientific books it was easier for me to not feel that overwhelming grief so I could focus on figuring out how to get out of this mess. Terry Real invokes anger so I have to only read that when i am not already angry. I guess all that is to be expected as part of the process. Some marriages are clearly bad enough that either or both of the partners is better off starting again with a clean slate, but I think a lot of us give up too easily, and forfeit something really unique because, very understandably and reasonably, we just ran out of steam. I speak as someone who has had a lot of times when the firebox got cold and there was little or no steam in the engine. From what you describe its sounds like Julie struck a wrong note in the seminar in her bad response rather than that being representative of their idea of the concept of a good enough marriage. A man was complaining that his wife was not as sexually Alfred and adventurous as he wanted. The wife had a history of sexual abuse and rape. She had done a lot of therapy and was invested in a healthy sex life for both of them. Terry Real told the guy: you have a choice to make. You have this desire of a sexually adventurous marriage. You are married to thus woman who will not be able to give that. You need to decide if your desire for that is enough of a priority over all the other good things you can get in thus marriage. If you decide the good things you have in your marriage with this woman is even without your ideals then accept that reality. Grieve what you are the going to have and then accept it and move on to appreciate the other good things you are choosing. I wish my husband had certain things that I would like. I used to try and change him to give it to me. Then I had to accept that I had to decide if what he is going to be able to give me is good enough. In my case it is. This is separate from accepting bad behavior and not accepting influence. Like I think this is a hard reckoning. My husband and I are the opposite for what we need to feel secure. The things he does naturally are the opposite of what I would naturally need to feel soothed and secure. My husband can improve his skills but he will never be that person. So I have to decide at the top of the flowchart. Is this a deal breaker? Dan Wile says when you get married you marry a particular set of problems. If I married a different guy that made me feel really secure he might be a superstrict disciplinarian which would trigger me in another way. Or he might be more clingy than I would like or whatever. The brain is like that. Of course there are some deal breakers. You just have to be honest and make adult decisions. No marriage partner is going to match all your needs and wants. You never really solve these differences. It could be one of the 5 most common differences listed in the Atkinson style differences. But in a good marriage you find ways to accept influence from each other and come up with agreements as Tatkin describes of how to treat each other kindly. Because they are perpetual differences they have to be constantly adjusted as new things happen or things change. Understanding that has been both sad for me. David Snarch talks about marriage as a crucible. It forces you to learn lessons and make choices. Way outside my comfort zone. Liked by I keep coming back to the question: what are my expectations, and are they realistic, achievable expectations? Or are they beautiful but unrealistic, unachievable ideals? Do I even have a practical ideal of what a relationship would look like in either case? But after work, they did get to a wonderful place — that did not meet his original expectations — but was wonderful nevertheless and, Real comments, better than most people ever get to with their partners. Like Astrid, Glad you found the pdf helpful. How much is gender vs personality? That book makes no gender distinctions in its advice which I think can be helpful to many people to just make it general. But while there may be catergories that stereotypically or factually even tend to be more male or female the approach emphasizes to just figure out what YOUR spouse is like and how to respond effectively. I appreciated this approach to a large degree. I find it helpful to understand the general trends so that I can better deal with the real job of understanding how to deal with myself and the one guy I married. Is that what can be equated as cold? I can only speak for my experience of course. That is separate how emotionally mature you may or may not be. How skilled you are at regulating your emotions. Sort of like being an introvert vs extrovert. Shaking my metaphorical fist to sky to declare my judgment at the unfairness at the situation. My hubby usually has the opposite style. Not acceptance as in its right but more that is the way it is. So when I am using my style that disregulates him. He finds that exhausting and negative. I find his intense style dismissive and cold. Neither of these styles are right or wrong. Now that we understand it better we are learning skills to be able to respond better to each other. He would double down on his style to try and adjust me. This unravels the moment he says something that does not meet those requirements. I try to remain diplomatic for several instances, but it wears on me. That is obviously my experience- and in my perspective, I feel like I can hold space for venting, just not in the frequency and the type and the manner in which he chooses to engage that discussion. So to your statement, unfairness of a situation in which I am directly impacted by, is something I can understand. Unfairness of a situation in which I fail to see a direct relationship, like again state of humanity, etc. I think a non easily upset person would not actually have an emotion register when minor conveniences occur…and I do feel it. Like Astrid, I wish I had more time to respond fully. Just a few thoughts. But that the dynamic between you as each other primary is perceived by him to be emotionally threatening. This book if you have not read it explains it all and how to deal with it. Seriously it explains why your husband does stuff you find inexplicable. I relate to your husbands position. The things you say are quite similar to what my husband says. PS I quite frequently rail about the state of the world or things I find unjust that have nothing to do with my personal experience. It is subjective whether one finds this helpful neutral or negative and a waste of time and energy. That is obviously my experience- and in my perspective, I feel like I can hold space for venting, just not in the frequency and the type and the manner in which he chooses to engage that discussion. Or it could be entitlement or something else or a combo. Do you think your therapist has a good plan to help you? The feeling safe allows a toddler to exert temper tantrums with their own parents that they probably would feel more ashamed of and uncomfortable with with his grandparents or babysitter. So, I can see it logically how it is emotional disregulation. I also feel that it places way too much on my action to get him to be more responsive rather than reactive. I also feel that it places way too much on my action to get him to be more responsive rather than reactive. I feel anger at being treated like shit. There is no hurt underneath the anger. I feel anger because I know I deserve better as an equal human being. There is a layer of gender shit in this stuff IMHO. Like I guess in many of these personality diferences, like the rubric that you sent, I think we all skew one way or another, right? I think that has to do with more of the influence aspect than not. You have to keep working and setting boundaries until both of you agree on the goal and actively work to get the skills necessary. You must agree to be in a 2 person system and accept influence and have good relationship skills to take care of yourself and the other person. After you have that, what you decide you need is subjective and you have to make conscious trade offs. It is realistic to expect things that relate to the definition of a healthy relationship. Other things are subjective. I think Gottman alluded to this in his discussion of metaemotion. This is easier said than done because I fundamentally believe that patriarchy in some respects has led men towards avoidant or controlling behaviors one extreme or the other , and women towards being almost too open to influence out of social norms to remain non-argumentative etc. So, many of these mismatches are unfortunately not just due to personality differences, but in the way we were actually brought up. For example, as a non-American, I came from a pretty egalitarian family, where my dad was if anything more influenced by my mother than not. Also, something that helped me a lot was my therapist asking me is, if you had the answer to what settling means, or if in my case I had the answer to what normal means in the confines of a relationship, how would that inform me of the next step? Say you found out you were settling, would that inform you of a different step? I started realizing that asking for what is normal got me nowhere. My two cents, please disregard as seems right from your chair. There are many factors at play to why someone thinks their own marriage is healthy, and not all of it is based on some objective scale. I agree with you there. I find it helpful because it tells me what the goal is. They take my blood and test a lot of factors. The same is true for relationships IMHO. When I was a young adult I went to a therapist and said I am here to figure out what normal is. Because I how up in a family that loved me but with certain dynamics that I knew were problematic. But it was hard for me to figure out which parts were in normal range or not. So I can recognize healthy and unhealthy in my relationships including my marriage and pârenting. I think if you are walking around with a resting pulse rate of 30 and your doctor had checked your heart and other functions and they are all healthy more power to you. You are freakishly abnormal to be healthy at 30 as compared by the average range of 60-100. But for millions of other people a pulse rate of 30 means something is seriously wrong. More power to them. But for millions of other people of you act in ways that predict unhappiness contempt, stonewalling, criticism, defensivevess, not accepting influence etc you will have a shitty marriage eventually. I see that as a helpful diagnosis just as I do when something is flagged as unhealthy in my physical exam. It shows me what has to change. There are variations of course. Just as there are variations within the range of healthy to my blood work. Your mileage may vary. They do not take that approach. From I have read it seems you had one of the many many couples therapy sessions that involved sitting on a couch being encouraged to tell what you hate about each other. We have had a lot of those types of sessions. It should not be that way. That is NOT what good couples therapy looks like. The therapist should have a concrete plan with clearly stated goals. Actively take charge of the sessions. Interupt and guide back to the session goal. Use research based interventions. Etc Couples therapy is very hard to do. But good therapy is incredibly hard to find. Harder than it should be IMHO. Like Awesome Lisa… when the Shit Hit the fan in our relationship we had several crummy counseling sessions with well meaning kwacks from local non profit organizations that offered services. Our parish priest,who had known us most of our lives, and performed our wedding ceremony suggested an older retired divorced counselor he had worked with through Catholic charities. But Nora knew better…she got me to place of strength and healing then reached out to Anne and asked for clarification from her on things we talked about…that opened the door. Before long Anne called me to tell me she wanted to go with me to my next session. She wanted to extend any feelings we had in common towards each other to be what was to bind us and move in a positive direction. I loved Nora and Anne did as well…. Nora passed away 10 years ago she was a crafty and skilled believer in the power of love and kindness and understanding. Like Hi Lisa and Merry Christmas. One by one she would find a particular thing we loved about each other and focus our attention to that piece in detail. Any negatives were delta with at face value and never made to have higher standing than the love part. They do not take that approach. I would have thought it went the other way? I am still trying to figure out how to concisely respond to your Q about Love Sense. Just started the Tatkin Audible book today. I would have thought it went the other way? I meant that therapists are trained to see analytical styles and problem solving as defense mechanisms. I have been told this by several therapists that is part of their training. As a result of that therapy is often designed best for a particular type of person. One who is not analytical or uses the problem solving style Atkinson talks about. People who want to talk primarily about how they feel about things in a discussion format would be more comfortable. Of course emotions are important. Men resist going to therapy for several reasons from what I read. Because the current common setup of talking about feelings is a skill most men are at a disadvantage to most women. So therapy also makes them feel incompetent. And to ensure that in an unstructured environment with no clear goals is a big hurdle. In general, skills based training based on research with a clear goal and structure is going to be a much better fit for most men. I happen to think a majority of women would also like it aka David Burns structured approaches. But I know there are many people who find a dialogue talking about things helpful so there is room for different approaches to help different styles. I just need to understand things to get myself to change. Like Lisa, this is Gold. I have been told this by several therapists that is part of their training. As a result of that therapy is often designed best for a particular type of person. One who is not analytical or uses the problem solving style Atkinson talks about. With that said, I think he comes close to it. My first therapist was phenomenal. I credit the impetus for my transition and who I am today, to him. You know the way I think about it? Everyone thinks and feels. This is incrediblly simplistic of course. We all use both. I like to think of it as part of the Atkinson style differences. Therapists are trained that the feel first method is the way to access primary emotions. So if you are an understanding first processor they will often label that as not deep enough. They will label it as intellectualizing or suppressing your vulnerable emotions. When in fact it is just another style. No doubt some people do use intellectualizing as a defense mechanism. But that is a seperate thing. Sounds like we have a somewhat similar style. Although in my case I feel intense emotions. I just figure out what they mean and if I need and how to change them by understanding cognitively. I use cognitive process to regulate my behavior and response to what I am feeling. Many emotions I feel I acknowledge and then work it out myself or sit with it for awhile before formulating a response. It is a rare occasion in which I react to emotions without processing. Also, I feel a focus on emotions is honestly counterproductive in many scenarios. It automatically puts the woman at the level of a lower position which may be again zero sum game and patriarchy at play. How do I know this? I have not seen a scenario in which a husband accepts influence and then asks hey so I did accept that thing you asked me, so why is that influence thing important to you? People use these types of questions to justify not doing it. Otherwise, that question would still be equally important before and after the action has been done. This is why many marital dynamics is about power and influence…with men playing the zero sum game often times, and women being taught to be open to influence. It sets up an unfair playing field with women needing to essentially audition their needs, priorities, importance to their men before gaining acceptance and influence. It automatically puts the woman at the level of a lower position which may be again zero sum game and patriarchy at play. I often assume a one up position when faced with the dishes scenario. They position is going to experience it as anger not hurt as a one down position would. I think that is part of the explanation at least in my case. Not all of course. Like Another thing about Terry Real that relates to the discussion about couples therapy. Even though he has more of a discussion style than Gottman or DBT or CBT there is a structure that is followed. I took one of his therapist training courses and there is a structure underneath. EFT is like that too. There is a very particular structure that is supposed to happen. Ditto for a lot of other models. Part of my issue is trying to learn to not use a lot of judgments of what people should do. That principle is foundational. That things that seem obviously wrong to me are usually not. Many many other people can be satisfied with doing things way I find wrong. My husband tells me that is very often what my attitude comes across as and is what I am bringing to our dysfunctional cycle. So I am trying to learn new skills. As I mentioned I am currently taking a Dialectcal Behavioral Therapy class. Very challenging to do it. It was my adult child responding in frustration. How to respond effectively to a situation or person who is not doing what I believe is correct or treating me fairly? Responding as an adult not a child adult who judges others? It takes so much energy out of me right now. I wonder if you relate to any of that or if uou have tools you use to prevent judgment and contempt you can share? I think comparisons are not all bad, and that I argue discernment is quite important. Contempt focuses on character and the essence of the worthiness of a person to remain as they are. To me, being contemptuous of others is unproductive, because I actually cannot be certain that a particular judgement of mine about their character is at all correct. I will never know. Even if I ask them, they may not tell me the truth. With that said, I think discernment is very useful. Contempt to me is about judgement of behavior and then using that judgement of behavior to relate it back to you. You need to have both to be contemptuous. Not sure if that helps. Like Astrid, You make some excellent points. That has to be separate from contempt for the person. As an example take the many sucky couples therapy sessions we have paid a lot of money for. I discern that the therapy ranges from ineffective to damaging. I think there is a good case for an objective case for this. That is presenting themselves as an expert. So somehow I have to be able to see that in a different way. I have the same issue with medical doctors. Often tell me information that disagrees with research etc. That includes my hubby and close family. Usually I am discerning the issues correctly. I am objectively right. My husband IS stonewalling or the doctor IS giving me incorrect info. The therapist IS doing ineffective interventions. The black belt stuff is for me to respond calmly and effectively to that stuff. Like Lisa, how do you normally respond in these situations? What immediately springs into your mind and is then unfiltered? This is where I think action precedes intention. I do think that how you then speak and discuss about said situation is what you can control. It takes a lot of practice, but it can be done. We have to do it at work else we get fired , we have to do it with people whose reactions we fear and who have real repercussions on us; the trick now is to commit to doing the same thing even though there may be no consequences for negative behavior. I also would examine if you are merely being disagreeable vs. Your husband is stonewalling, the diagnosis is wrong, what do you make of both of those situations…where does your mind travel afterwards? Can you step back and check if your assumptions about what those two things mean for you are right? Like Astrid, Yes I respond the same to doctors and therapists etc as I do my husband. Unless one is uniquely skilled in spy like abilities. We all have our things to work on and it depends on the position you start from which direction to go. In terms of the Big 5 personality traits agreeableness is not high for me. But I see the value of agreeableness to make people feel safe and not flooded so I am trying to learn it as a skill. Just started the Tatkin Audible book today.

Like Yes I tout. It has to be up to us to keep things from getting bad, because their expectations are generally much lower. Like my husband he may be a wonderful father, cooperative in other ways, a hard worker. Accepting influence as required in a relationship is the opposite of man social rules in many ways. My husband will never have my emotional intelligence or my vulnerability. I feel anger because I know I deserve better as an equal human being. So to your statement, unfairness of a situation in which I am directly impacted by, is something I can glad. Some people on the internet put their disclaimer using one sentence I have no idea what I'm talking about or something with I have no idea bla bla bla.