is he being unreasonable?

[newfashionedmum]

DP gets annoyed when I don't express myself clearly - if we are trying to discuss or agree something and i use vague language it frustrates him as he feels i'm not respecting his time and putting enough effort into thinking about what i'm saying. He gets quite confrontational and condescending in his language and tone of voice. I find it really rude and upsetting. Which on the face of it i THINK is really unreasonable - but the way he feels about it is that I'M being inconsiderate because I'm being sloppy with my language and I'm wasting time.

reading this back i think he sounds like a complete twunt. i think i've maybe misrepresented him a bit. But he does get really frustrated when he's trying to just get on with stuff and i (or others) slow him down. can anyone identify with him and say he's not BU?

I think I know what she means by the not efficient thing (correct me if I'm wrong, OP!)

He probably means that because she's being vague, the task at hand ends up taking three times longer than if she had just explained it more clearly in the first place, instead of needing extra clarification/extra explaining.

Yes bupcakes you are right. LRD and Vivi you are all being really kind and not at all harsh or judgy! I really appreciate it as am feeling a bit fragile at the moment.

new - oh, I see now.

Yes ... I know people like that. I find it quite upsetting too, when people insist you defend something in a casual discussion. But TBH, he should not be saying that you caused anything by not wanting to get into a long technical argument.

I think some people do like to 'win' in a conversation and there's nothing inherently wrong with it ... except when you are in a conversation, if the other person does not want to be debating, it's not on to carry on interrogating them.

Have you said this to him, the way you said it to us in that last post? It comes across quite clearly and I think he needs to know that this is upsetting you.

I am like your DH but have worked hard to rein it in...I DID and sometimes still do, sound like a tit when I harrumph and get annoyed at my DH for taking ages to say ...well...not very much at all.

I realise he thinks out loud a little...it doesn't make him less intelligent than I am. Your DP will have to accept his faults and then try harder!

Well if it makes you feel any better, OP, your thread has struck a chord and I'm going to have a little word with myself about trying to be a bit more patient with Mr. 'Pru.

i told him tonight it makes me want to run away and find someone kind.. that was probably not a good thing to do. he said 'i know'

I'm not criticising you BTW with my last post. I just know what your DP's frustrations are as they are the ones that I have with my DH.

You do need to tell him that he upsets you, though. If you feel that he is being confrontational, that is because you feel confronted. Tell him that you can appreciate that the vagueness might be irritating to him but he needs to deal with it in a way that is less upsetting for you. Ask him if he means to be a bully, see what he says!

You are welcome new!

Bup - yeah, I can see what you're saying and see why it would be a minor irritation ... but ultimately, it'd only be minor I think. It's not really on to make a big fuss about your time being wasted with your partner, like that.

I think the issue is partly to do with whether or not you can expect a partner to change for you. You might expect a child to correct an annoying habit of not telling you enough, but when it's an adult and your partner I think you sometimes just have to accept that this person is like that and you chose to be with them.

he says he feels bad that i've been so upset this week (its happened 2 or 3 times) and told me he loves me. I just find it hard to accept his love when he's also so prickly sometimes.

Don't make yourself feel bad for saying that to him. It's ok, because it is genuinely how you felt and that matters a lot!

"I realise he thinks out loud a little...it doesn't make him less intelligent than I am."

My DH does that too! He speaks out every little thought he has, even terrible ideas to do with DIY like "Oooh, flock wallpaper would look great in our TINY bathroom." Then he wonders why I go "WHYYYYY? Why? My brain hurts, stoppit!"

LRD, I tell myself that all the time (the thing about not changing your partner) and I do try to live by it. It IS hard however, for instance, when I am knackered getting into bed at midnight after a full-on day and he says "Oh so and so's mum said something nice about DS in the playground today" and I say "Aw what did she say?" and he goes "Well, I was a bit early and I saw so and so's mum but then other so and so's mum came up and so and so was being a bit naughty so we laughed about it then OH YEAH the christmas fayre that's on saturday, just remembered so and so's mum has donated a bottle of champagne, we must get a raffle ticket! Then the doors opened for them to come out and so and so's mum said I could go first..." At this point I said "Darling. I am going to sleep" he said "NO NO let me tell you what she said. She said "DS is a good boy."

:(

I don't know if this makes sense, ok? And I am not excusing his behaviour at all because TBH, it is quite out of order, even if he has the best intentions.

But, I was in an emotionally abusive relationship with my ex. And then with my new DP, I was so bloody determined not to be taken for a ride, I found I was adopting ways of behaving that were actually quite harsh. I wouldn't say I ended up adopting the emotionally abusive behaviour I'd had from my ex, because I very consciously didn't ... but I was so, so keen not to get hurt I would be constantly thinking 'I mustn't let him think such-and-such is ok with me, it's not!'.

It could be your DH has started out wanting to insist his time is valuable/he deserves to be communicated with with respect ... which is true ... and taken it too far?

As I say, this does not excuse him but might perhaps help him see what is going on and why you feel upset.

Obviously you do not want to hurt him, but I have to say, having come out of an emotionally abusive relationship really does not mean you cannot yourself be out of line in your behaviour. In fact it can sometimes mean you are a bit wobbly and more likely to need to watch how you treat your partner.

LRD it cuts both ways though - accepting who we are i mean - and he has changed a lot since we were first together. But I think its not gone far enough - and he thinks i don't appreciate how far he's come.
TBH maybe if i hadn't been making allowances for the traumas he'd been through i perhaps wouldn't have stayed with him. But i did and we have a DD and I really think he can still change that bit more - i'm not ready to give up on him as a very very best friend. I think he sometimes forgets to still be one to me.

Bup - oh god, I sound like your partner! I'm a right motormouth ... luckily DH is too!

You are right, it is hard to live by 'don't expect them to change'. It's one of the things I keep on reminding myself a lot ... I think everyone needs to TBH.

I think, in a way, it doesn't necessarily matter who's right or reasonable -- what matters is that you two seem to have different modes of communication that are not very compatible. He wants 'get to the point' conversation while you are, admittedly, sometimes imprecise in your speaking (not that that excuses him being rude to you though).

It doesn't sound like a very comfortable state of affairs. In a good relationship you should be able to just, you know, talk. Or, even if you do have different styles, you should be able to joke about them and generally accept them.

I think you need to address this directly if you do want to stay with him. You should be able to express yourself without him being cruel to you.

I think dreaming is right about addressing this directly.

It's not the end of the world if you do always communicate differently ... but there needs to be an understanding that neither way is 'worse' than the other, IMO.

ooh LRD cross post - but you know, i think you've maybe described him and me! i am determined not to be subjugated, he is also maybe trying not to have his life controlled by anyone else, or something... I talked to him really early in our relationship about power dynamics and he looked at me like i was crazy - refused to accept that power struggles were a fairly normal part of a relationship. Is that denial or isn't it? His father was very abusive towards his mother, physically and mentally. She divorced him but not for that behaviour, only when she found out he was having an affair!!

Yes, exactly, LRD.

DH and I communicate differently but we've gotten used to it, adapted a bit, and have plenty of jokes about it. We probably couldn't do that if one of us was convinced our way was the best and the other way was stupid.

Oh I can talk for England. However, I'm not a fan of skirting about things. I like concise. DH and MIL will tell you all about the ins and outs before getting to a very thin point of a matter. For instance, MIL can incorporate details of her BIL's gluten allergy into a conversation about pot plants. Just total, irrelevant information.

Never knew that I didn't suffer fools well until I married into their family.

OP, I'm getting annoyed on your behalf. You shouldn't feel so beleaguered and attacked in a casual conversation with someone who's supposed to love you! Whatever his past traumas are, you also deserve to have respectful communication, and that's a two-way street.

You may be being what he considers vague, but he's being accusatory and confrontational towards you - he's actually the one going into attack mode on this, and a conversation about ebay shouldn't be like a cross-examination situation! You've had lots of good advice on the thread so far, so I'll just add that in your shoes, were I in the mood to be flippant, I would be tempted to look pityingly at him, tut and say 'Oh dear, can't you keep up with my thought processes?'

DP has been to counselling in the last year to deal with some of his issues (mainly that he was drinking a bit too much) but doesn't think his father's behaviour is relevant

I've no idea if it's denial (helpful eh!).

I think power struggles probably are a very normal part of a relationship. But actually until you wrote it I probably would not have thought to say it quite like that. It is certainly something that we're not really encouraged to think about, at the romance stage and all. So maybe he does not want to see it as a power struggle as he thinks that would make it seem a 'bad' relationship ... and it's therefore easier for him to always believe your arguments are about who is 'right' instead?

I'm not really sure, but what I do think is that he needs to understand you are upset, and that it is ok for you to be upset. It's rotten arguing with someone who will not accept you're hurt because they care too much about being right - but it's also IMO usually something that does not happen deliberately. I'm really hoping if you can talk to him about how you argue, maybe sometime when you are not actually arguing about something, then maybe you will come to some better understanding of what is motivating each other?

bupcakes do you have entire topics that you dare not raise with your MIL?

I can't mention cats to my MIL or else she will go on for 20 minutes about all the dramatic interactions between the cats in her neighbourhood. It's like the 100 Years Cat War up in there.

(I do love her though!)

right i'm rambling now! so will turn in and just thank you all for your help and advice - its nice to know he's not the only one like that, and i'm not the only one like me, the major challenge seems to be how to get us to be able to see the funny side! will work on that one.