I'm confused and could do with some other views on this. My husband came home from work this evening and we sat on the sofa having a general chat about our day, the weekend, just normal stuff. All seemed fine, he seemed fairly relaxed for a Friday night (he works long hours in a stressful job and is frequently very tired at the end of the week). He then took the dog for a walk, I stayed on the sofa watching some telly. When he came back from taking the dog out, he came in the living room and seemed quite upset / annoyed; he began to tell me that I had done something earlier during our chat that had been upsetting to him, apparently I had asked his opinion on something and when he gave me his opinion, I disagreed with it. He can’t remember what it was, but he was pretty annoyed / upset about it, enough to come back and tell me that this was something I’ve done at other points over the seven years we’ve been together and I should consider changing my behaviour and stop doing it. I asked him to please tell me what the conversation had been about because I have absolutely zero idea what he is referring to, we were just having vague chats on the settee and nothing struck me as contentious so this is a bit of a mystery to me. He says he can’t remember so he can’t tell me. I am not sure how I am supposed to have a reasonable and fair discussion with him if I don’t know what we are discussing, but he says the specifics don’t matter, that I’m aware of my behaviours from other times so we can discuss it as an abstract. I explain that there have been times in the past where I do recognise this pattern of interaction between us, but that from my perspective, some of these have been a case of him getting annoyed because he doesn’t like being disagreed with. He says this is trite, and that he feels like I deliberately set him up by asking his opinion on things so that I can tell him that he’s wrong. This all went on for a while; it turned into a bit of a row and he’s gone up to bed. I feel super upset and confused myself now. I can’t understand how we can have a conversation about an incident if he can’t tell me what the incident was, that seems a bit weird to me – like how can I understand what might of happened or put forward my own perspective if I don’t know what happened? He feels that I’m being defensive and trying to avoid the issue by wanting to know what the actual thing was that has upset him. I feel kind of weirdly manipulated, but maybe I am in the wrong here? Do I just need to let him tell me that I upset him and accept that and apologise and promise to try and change my behaviour in future? Not really sure what to think. I am now dreading the weekend. There will probably be silent treatment – I tend to be the ‘let’s sort it out straight away and not go to bed angry’ type and he’s more likely to be pissed off/hurt/upset for a couple of days. Any thoughts would be great, sorry if this is too long – I’ve never posted anything like this before so a bit nervous. Not to give too much history but I come from a difficult family background so have always tended to assume everything bad is my fault, been in therapy for a couple of years now though so am getting better at not doing that (but don’t think I’m always blameless either!). Thanks.
AIBU?
AIBU to not know exactly what I've done wrong?
trulyconfuseddotcom · 22/03/2019 21:55
Yanbu.
My response would be, that you're not dismissing his concerns but it's not going to be possible to resolve it this time if can't remember what was said. The next time he feels it is happening ask him to tell you straight away so you can discuss it and get to the bottom of it.
I think that's the most charitable I would be prepared to be with my DH if he said this. In all honesty he sounds like an over sensitive idiot - how is he not embarrassed by himself;
"I'm very upset by what you just said"
"oh dear what did I say that upset you?"
"I don't remember....but I know you said something that upset me 7 years ago so this is clearly a pattern"
He probably can remember what it was but knows it sounds ridiculous
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