DH has just listed all my character flaws and told me I need to be a better person.

[FoxtrotFoxtrotSierra]

A bit of background - I had a stress related breakdown a couple of years ago and am still in therapy to try to resolve a lot of the issues that led up to me being ill. It's not been easy, for either of us, but I thought we were coming out of the darkness.

One of my big issues is my family, particularly my mother, who treat me as the black sheep/ scapegoat. It's not great for the self esteem to be undermined all the time by those supposed to protect you! Recently my mother has behaved in an entirely unacceptable way and I am trying to process it (both on my own and with my therapist) and was discussing what we do practically with DH last night. He came out with "It's not my responsibility to come up with solutions to your fucking problems". What a charmer!

Understandably, that left me reeling and he has this morning presented me with a four page document outlining what's wrong with me - pessimism, sense of duty, guilt, low self esteem - and that he needs me to work on all of this to "break patterns of behaviour" (being sucked back into the family fold and getting upset, yes I want to stop this too) as my issues are affecting our marriage.

I am so upset, I know I have some problems but who doesn't? I would never tell him his problems were nothing to do with me - I thought that in a marriage we were a team, evidently not.

I don't know what to do now, I feel really alone and attacked by him.

I think he's handled it very badly - he's not your boss, your owner or your parent and you don't have to get better for his sake. However, it is possible that he's not really a bully, but someone who is getting worn down, as Perspective suggests. It's not your fault that you are ill, of course it's not, but if he is generally supportive then perhaps he's not a total knob, just reaching the limits of his ability to cope. Talk to your therapist about it, maybe s/he can offer some practical suggestions.

Is it possible that you may benefit from a short course of couple's therapy? So you can work through what he is saying, and why the way he is saying it is pants? Because I agree, this sounds like a good guy whose own resources are too stretched to behave well. He's being an arse for all the reasons solidgoldbrass sets out, but we all do inappropriate and idiotic things when reaching the end of our rope.

4 pages though! FGS. You only need one line for his: "my DH writes me 4 pages on why my low self-esteem is shit to deal with." Talk about counter-productive behaviour.

Yes to everything needsomeperspective said. He sounds like he has reached tipping point to me and perhaps need some support himself.

Did you speak to your husband OP?

He is a complete and utter arse. You do not give someone who has had a breakdown, ongoing therapy for self esteem a bloody four page letter outlining all their supposed faults.

You are in therapy op. what more does he want you to do? Seriously I would be telling him to take a running jump.

That is a godawful way to do things, I am sorry that you have had to bear the brunt of that.

Yes it is hard to live with someone who has emotional problems, and can lead to having emotional problems himself, but that is still a very poor way to approach it.

You do sound like you are already trying to work with a therapist on things, so being hit upside the head with something so personally critical is not really helpful and you are going to have to communicate that with him.

We all have flaws, you do, I do, he does. Your therapist does even. We're not bloody human without them, however there are ways to approach things, and to be blaming you solely for marriage issues by way of a personal attack is only going to make that marriage worse.

I would personally very calmly thank him for his views, tell him you are working on it with your therapist, and if he believes there are marriage issues, you are willing to also work on those issues with a therapist, but that you would not welcome any further character assassinations because as far as you know a marriage has two participants and since you didn't see anything about him on there, how was it meant to be helpful to the marriage?

If he thinks you're so flawed, you should probably not stay married to him. No relationship can be successfully built on 'I'd love you if you were different'. He doesn't have to understand your problems, of course. Partners are not therapists or counsellors and he may simply be unable to do or say the right thing. You have to be honest with each other because, if you need support and he can't or won't give it then you are on a hiding to nothing.

I think he is trying to help! You firstly said you were annoyed that he said your problems were your own and now he's sat down and listed your issues and wants to discuss ways forward through them you're still annoyed.

Maybe (because of your low self-esteem) you can only see the negative in him and his actions. I read your post thinking you were going to say 'at least he's put some thought into it now'.

I've been where you are now and it's sooooo easy to see bad in virtually everthing/everybody.

Playing devil's advocate here but has your h ever offered a possible solution to your mum situation (eg going NC) but you won't do it so he's sick of offering the same advice? I ask because a relative will call and talk for hours about his problems and never take advice or make changes themselves so over time I've stopped offering advice and just nod along(relative is distant so rarely have to do it)

The 4 page document is cruel and bizarre. I wonder if your h has made one of himself and how long it was?

I am reading a book at the moment and i mentioned it on my thread. There is a CHAPTER on this. Men listing off their partners faults. Seems quite common alright.

An x of mine dumped me with a character assassination in 1999 and it was the most painful thing that's EVER happened to me. And the 'bf' after him was abusive, but STILL to this day, being dumped with a brutal character assassination was the absolute .

After he'd delivered his character assassination of me he got to move on to pastures new with a clean conscience though.

"I don't know what to do. I feel really alone and attacked by him".

I'd finish it with him. You might be alone but far less lonely, and when you do things on your own it will raise your self-esteem.

Very good post from Perspective. I also think that your husband is possibly worn out trying to be supporting and understanding. You work with your therapist, and you expect your husband to counsel you too. I think he has possibly just reached his limit of how much his life has turned out to be about you and your problems. Maybe you need to stop involving him so much, or maybe he need some counselling himself, offloading with a therapist how to deal with you.

You say yourself you are going around in circles about your mother.

I think he has approached it badly but might actually be in need of help himself or reaching a limit.
The last thing you needed I'm sure but if you are going 'round in circles and getting upset, he might think he's helping solve your issues. Very badly executed though!

Mostly I think he's an arse - but I can sort of see that he's done it with a view to "helping you fix things" because you've asked for practical help. Of course he's gone about it completely the wrong way - focusing entirely on your issues instead of looking at things from a more "whole" perspective.

However - if you're feeling attacked, unsupported and generally unloved as a result of it, I'd tell him so and see how he responds. If he's an arse about it, then maybe time to call it a day. If he is a bit shocked at your reaction, then maybe there is still some hope.

My DH has a habit of trying to fix things when I'm talking to him about my family issues (which are not under my control at all, they're something my Dad has to deal with) - bit pointless trying to tell me how to sort things out when I can't! But it's his "thing" - he can't discuss things in an abstract way, he has to find solutions. Drives me crackers, tbh - and has made us both quite frustrated and angry about it, so we don't discuss it any more. (But that's ok because it's not directly my problem).
My point in bringing that up is your DH has probably had it up to the eyeballs of you going round in circles with your Mum - which isn't terribly helpful of him - and he might be reacting to that situation.

I hope that there might be something useful to you in this post and I really hope that you do talk to him about your reaction to his list - and possibly put your own together so he can see how it feels!

Thank you for all your posts. When we'd both calmed down last night we spoke at length and I think we have an understanding, which we've managed to define as the difference between help and support. I get help from my therapist, but DH sometimes tries to "help" too. He needs to come at things from a support viewpoint. His bizarre document was to try to help him talk me through what he sees as my issues rather than an attack. Though he sees that it probably wasn't the right way of doing things.

I think he is worried about me spiralling down into despair so often treats me with kid gloves and doesn't put his worries on me. If we'd discussed this months/weeks ago he wouldn't have been so frustrated and we possibly could have done it with less emotion. He has the opportunity to have counselling sessions through his work so is going to see someone about the issues he is having that have resulted in us having problems.

It sounds like I'm blaming him for everything here, but I really do understand that it is something where both of us need to take action. I thought I understood how hard it is for him re my illness (though it really is minor these days) but I didn't. Some of the posts on here have really helped me to see that. That said, I am a lot more robust than he thinks and he needs to stop seeing me as ill.

Re the mother thing, we've tried NC amongst other tactics and we're still seeking a solution. He tends to not suggest anything because he doesn't want the conflict with the wider family, which is something that frustrates me so I need to work on it.

I expect I won't run out of things to say at therapy this week!

God, what a pig, he has still managed to make you think this is all your fault :(

He's being a prize knob. There's saying "I think we need to work on some of the things that are causing you issues" and then there is printing off four pages of insults. I'm furious for you.

You're in therapy, you're trying to sort things out - what the hell else does he want you to do?!

'I think he is worried about me spiralling down into despair' - so he writes a four-page dossier of all your faults?

Your illness is 'minor' and you're a lot more robust than he thinks you are. Hmm. So why's he so intent on bringing you down? Does he like it when you're falling apart? Just a thought.

Glad you managed I talk it through.

I totally get the point he made about not wanting to worry you or stresss you and so bottling things up until they all come out in a rush. Because of my husband anxiety I do too often "protect him" from my own worries and anxieties then find myself getting overburdened and resentful of him which can result in a mental character assasination and me being very peeved at him without him really knowing why. It is a fine line to walk between not worrying him unecessarily and taking on all the worry myself.

I hope the two of you find a balanced way forward and give each other some good mutual support. Good luck with it all.

God! He wasn't listing her faults - he was listing her issues. Do people want marriages to break down on here? And believe me - im all for leaving shit marriages but everyone seems so 'bastard leave him!' almost like its a gameshow

Not everyone 24joy, I think she got a fairly balanced array of advice.

I can really relate to this....

I was scapegoated and abused as a girl. I started therapy and self help in my early 20s. In my late 20s/ 30s I was with a lovely man, just at the stage where things with my family became untenable and I cut them off. It was really painful to think it thro and I talked about it a lot. He eventually got sick of it and told me one day. It wasn't as big a deal as your situation is because I had done most of the work by the time we met.

But my advice to you is as follows -

Boundaries. Really explore them. What is yours to deal with, what is both of yours and what is not yours? That goes for your family too - what from them do you take on?

Learning to behave differently is hard and takes a long time. In 5 yrs you will look back on this and the issues you are struggling with will be nothing.

Really pull back from your husband. Stop putting things on him. Stop confiding worries etc to him and leaning on him.

I think believing is one of the hardest things ever - believing that you are not whatever your family say you are - and it takes talking thro over and over. Get a journal. You cannot take a broken back to your hb and expect him t fix it.

For the next few months, do more fun stuff with him and talk less about your problems. Learn to recognise when you need to change the subject. Learn independence of him.

Best of luck xx It is healthy to hear our faults and change them, once we have gone thro the pain and embarrassment of hearing them. We all have weak points. Abusive families batter us with them, but healthy families say them once and people take heed. You can do it. xxx

24joy OP refers to the list as 'character flaws' and refers to 'what's wrong with me'. Okay, she also refers to 'issues' but it obviously came across as a character assaination.

I don't want OP to LTB, I just think he's been really cack-handed here. The dynamics in a relationship where one person has MH issues can be really complicated.

Tallwivglasses - op may have said 'character flaws' but if you read what he actually listed it was her issues and how to work through them. Dont get me wrong - it's obviously the wrong way to go about it but i do think he was trying to help.

I think her initial response (ie very negative) is probably why he's getting so frustrated. I think their chat helped and i agree with op about definitions of help and support. I think they should got to therapy together.