DH cannot let go of anything

[neverendingjoy]

Hi all, am new to MN, have been reading lots lately though and increasingly worrying about my own relationship.

Without wanting to go into huge detail, DH and I have only been married 2 and a bit years. We are already expecting our 2nd DC next month. It has been a difficult couple of years with becoming parents, building a home (literally) and job issues. We also live overseas in his country so have cultural differences etc to contend with. However, we have achieved a lot and mostly have worked together and now we are in a much better situation than we were 2 years ago. We have both been giving our all to this family and we expect a lot from each other.

We argue, sometimes really badly and yesterday we had a big discussion/ argument because I was feeling upset/emotional/isolated/low and told him this hoping for some love and support but instead got a defensive/ indifferent type of reaction. I tried to explain in various ways what I was feeling and what I needed from him (basically a hug and a 'lets talk it all through, everything will be fine' type response) but after a lot of frustrating talking he basically started rehashing things from the past couple of years that he is not happy about, seemingly justifying his response to me by making out that I have done too much to let him down and therefore he can't bring himself to be nice to me when I need it.

I pointed out to him that for everything he is holding on to, I could equally hold on to things he has done to hurt me but that that is just a recipe for disaster and not a happy marriage. No-one is perfect and you have to let things go and move on right? We are not talking about major wrongdoings here, just both of us have had a lot on and therefore were not able to give the other as much support as maybe we would have liked.

He says he cannot let things go and that this is the curse of having a very good memory (!) This is not the only thing that he uses his great memory for, he also has a tendency to remember every detail I tell him and will bring things back up, sometimes turning them on me in a pretty unkind way. He has even done this to my parents, my DM recently commented that he seems not to like them as he is trying to goad them/wind them up about things a lot. She also commented that she didn't think he would much like it if others did the same to him- sometimes about quite personal or sensitive matters.

Am not sure what to do, I just feel very unhappy with his lack of understanding. He admits that he is at fault and that he needs to work on this not letting things go, but I am not sure that he really gets it.

Sorry, I went on far too much there.

He doesn't sound very nice. What your mum said is worrying.

Do you think he always has to be right?

Yes he always has to be right, he finds it very difficult to ever apologise for anything and he says the only reason I say I am sorry is because I get bored of the argument and want to get it over quickly. This is quite true as I know he could carry things on for ages, not speaking and holding a grudge and for me to do the same would only drain my energy and create a very unpleasant atmosphere.

That sounds dreadful.
Do you mean he gives you the silent treatment?

What I told my mum, and what I do believe is that he thinks that winding people up in that way is a kind of bantering thing he does with people he likes and is comfortable with. Her comment to that, which I can very much understand was that she preferred it when he was being polite as he can be with people he does not know very well.

So you're constantly the appeaser. This is always going to be the case until you stop appeasing and he stops demanding you appease him. And he's now complaining that you ARE appeasing him - that takes some doing!

He doesn't actually give me the silent treatment, but will be cold and detached and make things very uncomfortable- he says I should at that point leave him alone so he can calm down but I won't let things go and keep trying to get him to talk.

Last night he was particularly annoyed because after starting this discussion in the afternoon and getting him to say that we could talk about it after settling DD later on, when I came downstairs, he just kept watching TV and surfing the net. I didn't want to push it again and instead waited for him to instigate a discussion but he didn't so we ended up starting to talk again when we went to bed. He then started falling asleep mid-discussion and when I was annoyed by this he got really pissed off that I was trying to talk about it so late. He said I should have started talking about it earlier and when I said that he could have done the same, he said he 'didn't know how to start it'.

Why can't you let him go at that point? He's told you what needs to happen, as long as you get to talk at some point why does it have to be right at that point?

But regardless of that, the winding up of people would really annoy me. I know some people like that and I can't abide spending time with them. There's a mini point scoring going on, and everything gets justified as 'I was just having a laugh, it wasn't serious'.

That's a fair point, I do need to learn to let it go, I guess I do get very impatient and want a quick fix and sometimes that's not possible.

But can you not see the doublethink here? Sometimes it's your fault for not leaving him alone and making him talk. Then last night it's your fault for leaving him alone and not making him talk.

You are always in the wrong.

That is true tribpot. I am always in the wrong and what really frustrates me is that if I do leave it, yes he will calm down and then go back to normal but nothing has been resolved and I haven't received the love/ support/ help that I was reaching out for in the first place. I therefore don't really feel satisfied and he continues to harbor resentment for my 'outburst' and will add it to his wonderful bank of faults that I am accumulating.

I think part of the problem is the way that I approach it. He goes into defensive mode because he thinks I am blaming him or expecting him to DO something, when actually I am just upset and want him to give me a shoulder to cry on. The reason it comes across like this is because I am triggered off by something that he says or does and instead of him standing back from it and thinking what is behind my reaction, he just takes it at face value and thinks I am being really unreasonable about something minor.

I have a tendency to not really be in touch with my emotions and probably am quite hard to deal with at times because of that. I had similar issues with my DM growing up and I guess that's why it hurts me, I just want a hug but I make the people closest to me feel like that is the last thing they want to do. I thought I was making progress though as I kept telling him how I felt and not blaming him in any way but I guess the damage was already done by that point because the way the conversation began was with him saying something that felt critical and me rising to it.

I guess I am just disappointed because when we got together one of the things that really made me fall for him was that he seemed to understand me so well and to be so kind and sensitive, really attentive to my needs so I know he can be like that. He is just choosing not to be because he is upset with me for all these things that he feels I have done wrong and says he cannot move on from.

It seems that to 'resolve' these conflicts you must be in extreme control of your emotions at all times - and he must not.

How frustrating for you, you can't seem to win.

I'd be very concerned about his view of things you have said in the past and how he can't get past them, it's almost like he is telling you he doesn't like you very much and will keep the grudges alive, that's worrying.

Why don't you try writing it all down and leave it for him to read in peace - sounds like neither of you are listening to each other as it all gets a bit heated etc - don't be too hard on yourself, we've all been there, sometimes it's just impossible to communicate with your partner successfully.

Write it down, he surely can't be defensive about an honest written letter.

Writing it down is a good idea, I will give that a go.

Yes he does not have a great deal of control of his emotions, he is very quick tempered and quick to get tearful. I also get very angry at times though and can totally lose control from time to time. What a pair...

He sounds very tiresome, and rather like my exp. A list of crimes was often wheeled out, most of which were imaginary. Take care of yourself OP.

The whole remembering thing concerns me. I have heard that line too. It is like he is setting you up to be accused of not remembering things correctly. gaslighting. One day he will point put that he remembers things perfectly, don't you remember, so what you think happened can't be right. It is a total mind f##k.

Yes it is really annoying to repeatedly hear these stupid accusations that I know full well are unjustified. One of his favourites is that when my parents came to visit a few days after our DD was born, I was just out of hospital after a pretty traumatic birth here in this country where women are treated really quite badly in the hospital. I was hormonal, a new mother, tired, getting to grips with breastfeeding etc and I confided in my parents that I was finding him a little difficult in that he was so preoccupied with sorting the house stuff out that he wasn't really there for me in the way I want. Each of my parents separately had a gentle word with him about this. From their point of view, they were about to leave their DD in a strange country with no family or close friends, isolated in a new house with no way to get around independently and they were worried. From his point of view he was being talked about behind his back and then attacked twice about something he felt was unjustified. I know my parents and they would have only said something in the most tactful way possible.

I cannot tell you how many times he has brought this up, now 2 years later he still finds it 'unforgivable'. Never mind that his own mother would happily do everything for him and he lives 10 minutes down the road from his own parents.

But why is he bringing it up with you? You didn't ask your parents to have a word with him, you can't do anything about it now, they (I assume) do not feel they stepped over any boundaries in asking him to care for you. And there is absolutely nothing you can do to fix that 'mistake'. So he's just berating you for the sake of it, quite frankly.

I am very concerned by the fact when you first met he appeared to be so sensitive and empathetic and is now (basically) withholding that behaviour to punish you for imagined wrongs. Like he's dangling the promise of good behaviour over you if you can just manage to please him enough.

Do you know which people do that? Abusers.
The people who don't do it? The ones who love their spouse.

I know, and he says that the reason he is no longer like that is because he is tired of being that like for other people. He seems to believe he has this great understanding of people and unfortunately he does seem to use this to push their buttons and when it suits him, to charm them.

I feel like such a fool being in this situation. I told him when we were having that talk that if we are this incapable of caring for each other then we may as well just end this marriage now. He was upset by this and says he never wants that to happen. As I told him though, I think he has grown up watching his father treat his mother like shit and her just carry on and now he has a very deluded view on marriage. For better or worse does not mean you can act like an arsehole.

He has said before and has even told his mother that one of the reasons he wanted to be with me is because he could see that I would never allow him to behave how his father has behaved and I would put my kids before anything else. What he doesn't get is that there are many ways to treat someone badly.