How can I consistently improve my tone of voice?

[Hetts1965]

I talk to my fiancee as though he was one of my children. My tone of voice is, to be honest, completely vile and unpleasant. I am very stressed but I don't think that is a good enough excuse. he told me today that he refuses to have a relationship with someone who belittles him and talks to him like a child with a very aggressive tone of voice. he is doing everything he can to work incredibly hard to pay for practically everything regarding the house at the moment as I have been unable to work as hard due to looking after my mother and moving into his house with my 13 year old daughter in the last few months, he's even building bedrooms for my older children, and I'm helping when I can but not enough. I do everything around the house as well as trying to run my own business but nothing he ever does is good enough. I ruined my last marriage with my tone of voice and now I'm going to do it again if I carry on like this. I have tried so many different things to sort this out over the years, meditation, mindfulness, hypnotherapy, exercise, but don't seem to be able to do anything consistently and I'm not sure why. My daughter has even started saying to me that my tone of voice is horrible and that's why she speaks to me like she does. I love him to pieces and am so scared I am going to ruin everything all over again.
Please can anyone help me?

I have problems with this. If something is very important to me I talk more loudly, and get a kind of emotional edge to my voice. (This gave my EA Ex an excuse not to listen to the actual content, but to divert any discussion onto my way of speaking.) It's hard to control, but I do try!

I think the way to go must be some sort of detachment as I am speaking. Although with "reasonable" people I've found that a bit of self-commentary/apology can defuse things if I notice what's happening - "sorry that came out in the wrong tone of voice"

Oh, and I used to do it at work, too - despite desperately trying not to, and knowing that I was irritating one of my bosses (usually).

Are you depressed? Your comment abut never being good enough leaps out at me. I am my most bitchy and horrible when I am feeling panicked and inadequate

From your post, I suppose it could be due to lots of things.

Did you talk to him like that before moving in? Or is it that you feel you are having to do everything, even though he's (apparently) busy building extra rooms?

Regarding what you can do, have you tried transactional analysis? It helps to make us aware of what we say and how, in relation to the roles we adopt. It sounds like you are adopting a strict parent role and putting everyone else in the rebellious child role, which they may instinctively adopt.
You could get a book about it or actual therapy to do exercises to change to the adult role. It might be useful for them as well, so that you all collaborate in improving your relationship as a family.

You can try giving your partner a code word, so that when you get like that he simply uses it, without having to explain and then you have a chance to re-phrase or think about the feelings behind it at the time when it happens. My partner and I used to have the word 'orange' to redress some bad habits we had, mainly cynicism in front of our daughter. You also might try analyzing your parent's communication patterns, my mother was often horrible to my dad, so I used to tend to over step boundaries too - now much better. Good luck.

Do you speak to everyone like this?

Friends? Siblings? Parents?

If your first marriage ended over this and you still haven't changed, maybe you can't change. I would have thought knowing that would have been the biggest motivation for change. I'm assuming your Ex told you several times before it ended, yet you didn't stop.

Usually that tone of voice comes with anger. It sounds like you do this when you get comfortable with someone, because you clearly didn't use that tone when you first met these men... Or it wouldn't have progressed to marriage or engagement.

It's more than the tone, it is abusive, much as you won't want to hear that.

There's no way in the world a man world could come on hear saying what you did and not be told her DP was abusive.

You need help. Tell your GP everything you've said here. A referral to a therapist may be required.

ZOMBIE THREAD
ZOMBIE THREAD
Resurrected by someone advertising their website.

Mmm - I don't think you can get a prescription from the GP to help you respect your fiancé.
That's your basic problem OP - you don't respect him, you look down on him, and it comes out when you are stressed.
So unless you talk to strangers and work colleagues and friends like this (which would suggest a gargantuan degree of conceit - which some people have) - I think you need a partner you can admire?

Down with zombies ffs!