Do you speak to your partner nicely ALL the time?

[holycrumpet]

Not sure if the thread title is right, my head is a bit woolly (got a cold).

Posting here because I need some perspective and I know I’ll get blunt answers. Fully prepared to get flamed.

For those of you who are married or in serious relationships, how do you speak to one another on a day-to-day basis?

As in, do you speak to each other 100% respectfully/politely/nicely/kindly 100% of the time?

My reason for asking:

Lately my DH has been taking issue with the way I speak to him. If I come across grumpy or annoyed, if my tone is anything less than kind or respectful, he has a problem with it.

Now I fully get that I should speak to him kindly, I’m not disputing that. My point is that although we should all be kind, we’re human. When we’re tired/poorly/hungry/upset/frustrated etc, when we speak before we think, our tone of voice and our words may not be soft and full of love. That doesn’t mean I don’t love and respect him.

I’m 40, heading towards menopause (mum got it early, think I’m peri or at least on the way) and my job has been stressful lately.

I’ve explained this to him but I’m not trying to make excuses. These are reasons as to why sometimes I might not think before I speak. My tone reflects my mood. I’m trying to be better but I’m not perfect yet I feel he expects me to be. Hence my question. Is this normal in a marriage (18 years together if that matters) or does everyone else speak to their other half nicely/kindly/politely all of the time?

My other issue here is that when he speaks to me in the ways he takes issue with when I do it, I tend to let it go. It doesn’t bother me, at least not as much. Because a) he’s my husband, b) I understand he isn’t doing it to hurt me, there’s a reason and c) he’s human. So I don’t pull him up on it every single time.

Finally, I feel like him making an issue of it almost every time is telling me I can’t show my emotions. But I think maybe I’m feeling a little sorry for myself here. I’m poorly and tired so maybe this is clouding my judgment.

Can someone give me a little perspective? Are all your relationship conversations polite and kind? Or do you sometimes snap at one another and if yes, do you let it go or does it become an argument?

I moan, but not directed at him.
Do you talk to anyone else the way you talk to him?

Sometimes I guess, if I'm feeling tired or whatnot. It isn't intentional but your post suggests I should be more aware of the way I'm coming across.

What do you mean by 'moan but not at him'?

Generally we speak nicely to one another. But we both have moments when tired / grumpy / stressed / unwell when we may sound a bit “off”. Usually the other one would no why and ignore it as it’s clearly not meant horribly. It’s not frequent though.

I woudn't say I speak kindly 100% of the time, but maybe 90%! Unless he is the cause of my bad mood, then I make a concious effort not to let me feeling grumpy carry across in how I speak to him, and we are both open about feeling stressed/fed up about things e.g work, so that we can comfort and support each other.

I can understand how your parnter might feel if it just seems you are constantly in a mood with him, rather than the world.

Do you speak the way you speak to him to your friends or colleagues? Or is he the only one you snap at when you feel tired, frustrated, hungry etc?

Yes, I think so. I mean I’m not perfect, so there’s moments that I’ll be grumpy/short/snappy, but they’re probably less frequent than once a month, and enough that he is quite worried about me when it happens. He’s typically the same. We’re both quick to check in that the other person is okay, and to apologise.

I don’t think I’d be thrilled if I felt DH took his frustrations out on me just because I was there, that doesn’t seem too loving. I don’t expect him to mask his emotions or bottle everything up, but I do expect him to treat me as if he likes me! I’d be seriously unimpressed if he snapped at me because he was hungry or tired.

I think when you're in a very long-term relationship, it can be easy to not be kind to the people that you love the most.

If he's telling you that he doesn't like the way you are speaking to him, and you think that perhaps you do have a tone then consider whether you are actually being fair to him.

Yes. There have been a tiny number of times one of us has had attitude in their voice. Usually followed up with some variation of "I'm sorry, I'm not having a go at you I'm just so stressed with ..."
Or the other will say "hey don't talk to me like that please" and will apologise.

You don't get to take your bad mood out on the person that loves you.

This is what I meant.

I guess for me there are two slightly separate things

Sometimes I am not happy and chirpy and I don't feel like I need to hide that from DH or pretend my emotions don't exist

But I don't really ever speak unkindly to him or rudely to him

So for example, if I have a tough day at work, I might say "urgh xxxx really annoyed me" and have a little whinge about it

But I wouldn't take it out on him by being rude to him, not saying please and thank you, ordering him around or otherwise being unkind

A good 95% of the time we are nice. If either one of us is feeling off or unwell then we just talk about it. We do daily check ins with how we are feeling, it works for us. We are in the thick of young kids it's easy to feel disconnected and drift apart if we don't.

Generally we're respectful and kind. However, if he's behaved like a fucking cunt I have no issue in using those exact words. This happens rarely.

No. Usually if I’m being a bitch he says I need to go for a run, or if I’m really being a pain in the ass he says I sound like his or my mother.

if he’s in a bad mood he turns into mr sarcastic and I tell him he needs to go for a run or just get out and walk the dogs.

No - but we both know each other well enough to know that there's no malice behind it, if that makes sense. We're just confident enough in our marriage to know that we love each other regardless of what mood we might be in, or how that might come across.

I personally feel it's unrealistic to speak 100% kindly to someone you live in the same house with long-term, but I'm sure I'll be shot down for that looking at the previous answers

I’m SO guilty of this. I love my partner to pieces but god I can be a grump and he gets the brunt of it!

Once or twice a year either of us might have a grumpy tone and then get over it and apologise. But we are very conflict avoidant so I wouldn't assume it is something to aspire to.

No, we can both be a little bit cunty on occasion, but never nasty and we are both happy to apologise if needed.
I've lived with the bloke for 15 years, tempers can fray sometimes if either or both of us are tired, ill, stressed, in pain etc.

Nobody is 100% perfect 100% of the time. I think it probable that your DH knows that and I’d be surprised if that is what he expects of you (if it is, he is being ridiculous). I suspect you know that nobody always behaves perfectly too.

What you have written makes me wonder how frequently you speak to him in a way which clearly upsets/annoys/offends him. It could be that he feels that you are like this more often than not/very frequently and he is fed up of it. He is clearly expressing that he is unhappy with the way you speak to him at times. None of us can say if he has a point or is over-reacting/looking for fault with you for another reason/not admitting that you have reasonable cause to be annoyed. I think you’ll need to do some honest self-reflection here- do you honestly think there is a problem with your behaviour, or not? What you do depends on the answer to that question.

it does not matter that you don’t mind if he snaps occasionally- we do all have different thresholds/tolerance levels for these things and that is ok (within limits- clearly being towards the far end of either end of the spectrum is more problematic). it’s clear that there is an issue between you caused by his objection to your behaviour. If you feel he has a point, you need to look at what you can do to change something to minimise the issue (recognising that no-one is perfect). If you don’t think he is correct, you probably need to address that with him directly to move forward.

In retrospect this was one of the end signs for our relationship, but it was him not me.
He stopped every saying please or thank you, no niceties at all, and when I pulled him up on it he just got angry that I was picking at him, and he was stressed/tired/depressed/whatever. I felt entirely taken for granted and lost interest in even trying to be nice to him as there was no reciprocation and the whole relationship fell apart.
Just another perspective.

Does he ever snap/moan at you?

Either he has a point or he's deflecting his shitty behaviour.

You could do the same to him and see his reaction?

Yes we speak to each other nicely and respectfully all of the time. I'd take issue with being spoken to like shit or snapped at.

Nope. Not proud of it, but I can be a right cow He also has his moments. We ideally should all be perfect, but are mere humans.

Yes most of the time, of course we both have our moments due to stress, tiredness or pain but we get over them quickly, apologise, work it out and move on.Life would be pretty miserable if we didn't. We don't make huge issues out of small nit picky stuff, we joke about them and make changes instead . When bigger issues do come along we know we're not mad at each other, it's the situation that's the problem if that makes sense, so we don't waste time bickering we just get on & sort it. My first marriage was nothing like this , we were horrible to each other!

Sorry OP, I didn't read your post fully before replying. :(

No! We're the closest people to each other so we see all parts of each other, even the shitty, grumpy parts. We're not rude or nasty to each other though.

Unrealistic imo to speak nicely to each i💯 of the time!