How can I get him to say sorry?

[birdsnotbees]

My DH never says sorry. Whenever we have a row or I pull him up on something, he immediately launches into a list of my "crimes", the upshot of which means I'm not allowed to criticise him. So this morning for example, he unfairly shouted at me as he was running late & stressed. I told him he was being unfair. He told me he I was grumpy in the morning so should "get over myself".

It happens over and over. I will happily confess to not being perfect. I don't actually nag him. And when I am wrong I say sorry & try and change my behaviour as a result. But he never does. He won't take responsibility for his own behaviour and just deflects all the time by trotting out a long long list of all the things I've ever done wrong.

I have tried tackling him when we're not arguing but he does the same. He can't see it. And it doesn't help that I've got to the point now that I quickly lose my temper when he does it- which he then twists into me being hysterical. I'm not but I am so fed up. It's getting to the point where I'm starting to question our relationship - over something that should be so small. I feel so bloody lonely.

If you've read this far, do you have any advice?

I do that, whocansay, I've tried repeating over and over my original complaint. He just doesn't hear me and carries on down his own little path.

Just because he has had a crap childhood it doesn't give him an excuse to treat you badly. He's an adult who can make his own choices and is responsible for his own actions.

It seems this is much more than never admittting he's wrong isn't it?

It is about him neing in control. Controlling you. And it is deeply unpleasant

And it reminds me very much of my xH. I never solved it sorry

I just don't know what to do. Surely there must be some way out of this?

There's nothing YOU can do to "make" another person change their behaviour. You can't make another person do anything: either they want to, and do, or they don't.

The only thing you can do is decide when you've had enough.

He's not changing - that much he has made clear.

So there's nothing I can do??

Have you tried stopping the discussion and walking away? Have you tried telling him that you will talk again when he can behave like a rational human being?

I'm not at all surprised this makes you angry. He knows exactly what he's doing, by the way. It's not you.

I don't have a plan B. I don't want to split my kids up from their dad. We can't afford to split up. I'm on marriage no. 2 as it is; my first divorce (pre kids, thank god) nearly finished me off. I can't even bloody drive I'm that useless, I run a business that is barely breaking even & have parents who are needy and ill. What I need is someone to look after me not another sodding divorce.

Yes, whocansay, it makes me very very angry. I have to work hard not to throw things at him. He doesn't care how he makes me feel. He used to but not anymore.

This kind of passive aggressive shit is really hard to deal with.

I've always been a "have it out and then make up" kind of person too but my marriage taught me how to be a sulker - purely to eal with the 3, 4, 10 day silences from my ex. It's so unhealthy, this silent treatment, because nothing gets sorted out. Ever

It is not the mark of a gentle person OP. Like whocansay says, he knows what he's doing nd he does it because he knows it works. And he won't stop as long as it keeps working

You clearly have a lot going on at the moment, so I suspect there is a general lack of support. Would he consider counselling with you?

You are not useless - you are doing your damned hardest, but working against someone who has a 'win/lose' mentality. No matter what you do: walking away, ignoring him etc, his mindset is one where he needs to be in the 'right' no matter what, to him, apologising would mean losing. You cannot reason with that.

No one 'wants' to split up when there are children involved, but stay and accept that this is what your children will learn about relationships.

I would say that he fears saying sorry because of his upbringing. perhaps admitting fault as a child led to severe punishment.

I used to also fear saying sorry - trying to deflect the blame whenever I could - or making up excuse after excuse. i am getting better and the one thing which helped was knowing that when i say sorry the issue will be over.

You need to tell him you love him and want to help him to be a kinder person. that you will love him no matter what he has done wrong and that an apology means the end to the argument. if he can see this - he might be more willing to do it. if he hates arguing as you said.

Also - with me - it sometimes takes me a while to realise i was at fault - because I am so defensive it makes me blinkered. Sometimes a day later I realise my guilt and then apologise.

You may need to state your case and wait until he is ready to apologise in his own time.

"he immediately launches into a list of my "crimes","

You merely stay calm and say 'We're not talking about me' over and over.

Then, "If you can't take responsibility for how you talk to me, and accept that perhaps there is room for improvement, then it leaves us with very few options, doesn't it? How DO you suggest that we maintain respect in our marriage?'

Ultimately, if he is this aggressive, there is very little you can do. you can't force someone to be a grown up, or be nice, or treat you acceptably. you can however choose to accept it or not.

Stay calm, don't gift wrap the shouting thing to him. Don't lose control. Try to find that Icy Cold Fury, it's super! Allows you to be really laser clearheaded. The more crazy things get, the calmer you get. Most empowering.

He's doing this already, but it's used as a weapon against you. Watch and learn.

Stay strong.

He is deflecting. You call him on something & he says you are grumpy or brings up something from 10 years ago. Immediately, the argument becomes about you, rather than the issue you raised with him. I'm not expert, but maybe you could do the agree & persist thing, where you say:

"You could be right that I am grumpy in the morning (so not agreeing but accepting his point) but I was asking you about X" and repeat your first assertion again.

Thanks everyone. Am feeling a bit tearful so off to sort the kids out & do some work for a bit. Thanks for letting me rant; I've got no one I can say this stuff to and knowing I'm not alone is a help.

I'm on marriage no. 2 as it is.

AND this is why you put up with this? no love, that's not good for you sweety.

Your self esteem is shot to pieces, perhaps from marriage No 1, perhaps from other things. You didn't learn your value somehow.

You are the only one here that matters, you and your kids, and living in a home with all this going on will only teach them to have the same kind of shit going on in their lives.

Work wise - can you get a job that pays better? Do you have siblings to share the load with your parents? Could you get driving lessons?

You are not dead yet, but life with a man like this in your life, I can see how you might think you are.

(((HUG)))

im not sure you can change him either :/ the only possible thing that gets some people to change is realising they're on the verge of loosing the people they love but that's not something to play games with. If you say it you need to mean it.

But like others, Im not convinced that this is the only problem from what you've said. Just been reading the Red Flags thread and im afraid your husband shares some of them

"And also a total douchebag when it comes to saying sorry."

Sorry, but no.

First of all, douchebag doesn't cover it.

He's not just being an objectionable twat, he's being a total bully. His behaviour towards you is emotionally abusive. Just because it happened to him doesn't mean he gets to take it out on you (and eventually his own children when the get old enough to point out his faults).

Second of all, it's not just saying sorry, is it?

As Vivacia pointed out, if he just didn't like saying sorry he could just not say sorry but be nice in other ways and wait until you weren't mad at him any more.

But instead whenever you criticise him for anything he goes into full-on assault mode - shouting, dismissive, stonewalling, criticism.

It's not that he can't admit he's wrong - he needs to make YOU wrong, he needs to bully and browbeat you into accepting his view of things.

That is not just being a douchebag about saying sorry. That is about a being a domineering, abusive bully.

It is not fair to your children to grow up in a home where their father treats their mother in this way.

It's appalling.

I'd let him sulk, because if he thinks eventally you'll back down, it's going to confuse him if you don't. Sulking works for him, don't let it. You say you'd end up never talking to each other, are you 100% certain there's not a point when he'll want to make up? If he's never going to want to make up then he can't really care about you. So ignore the sulking. Don't apologise. It might take a week, but it won't be forever. If it looks like forever, then perhaps you are right to question your relationship.

This type of behaviour can happily sit alongside low self esteem - he can't bear the idea that he is at fault because that threatens his fragile self esteem perhaps. However what it comes down to is unending arrogance and selfishness. My XH never says sorry either. I had to strong arm him into apologising to our son when he accidentally hurt him, DS has a strong sense of right and wrong so he was very affronted when he wouldn't say sorry. He was trying to be sweet with DS and jolly him out of it but DS just wanted a 'sorry' and he really didn't want to give it. In his case it stems from a total lack of boundaries or discipline growing up. He was never really taught how to behave or taught to listen to others and be humble. It's very deep rooted.

My ex was like this too. Never said sorry once in 15 years. I once challenged him about it. He said he never apologized because he never thought he was wrong. He was also very passive aggressive, and a sulker.

I'm afraid I cannot suggest anything to help because in 15 years of trying I never found a way. There is no way.

If someone always thinks they are right, you are wasting your time.

When we divorced he accepted no responsibility for any of our marriage breakdown.

Every morning that I no longer have to wake up next to him, every holiday I go on that doesn't involve momentous sulking, every day out that I come back from feeling energized and glad to be alive, rather than sad and depressed, I do a little air punch and silent whoop.

Why put yourself through it? Nothing is as bad as dealing with life's problems with an emotional vampire at your side.

I was going to give some advice (my DH never used to actually say he was sorry and would try and smooth things over with a joke)

But your DH doesn't seem to listen, let alone acknowledge his mistakes, let alone apologise. And he is blaming you. I think this is pretty intractible

Dh has a wonderful habit of turning round arguments on me.

My strategy for this is to try and remain focused on the thing I want to discuss and counter his "you did this, you broke that blah blah" attempts to derail by repeating "we are not discussing that. we are discussing x,y,z"

It's very difficult.