Your perspective on a re-occuring argument please.

[stepdad85]

I've posted on here once or twice asking for advise etc and I'm please to say on the whole my relationship with my partner has been much better recently.

I just want to know if people think I've been unreasonable tonight and if so how I can go about stopping this from happening again in the future.

I come home from work in a good mood, exited to spend the Halloween evening indoors with my partner. When I got home I tried to sit close to her on the settee and she moaned, saying that I was trying to fit into a space that didn't exist and that I'd make her uncomfortable, no problem I just sit on the other side near her. She's distant with me and looks upset about something, I ask if anything is wrong and she says she has a headache. I give her a cuddle to which she doesn't give back so I try to make conversation with her, she clearly couldn't be bothered to talk, gives one word answers and stares blindly into space. I got up and made us some dinner and we sat at the kitchen table to eat. Again I try to make conversation but after that fails we basically sit in silence. I ask her if she's sure everything is ok and she starts getting mad at me, says she can't be bothered with anyone right now because she's not well, states she can't even be bothered with herself. It obviously really bugs her when I ask her if she's ok.

I find it really hard not to take this personally because she cuts off all emotional contact with me when in this sort of mood. We've ended up having a big row because she states I'm being unreasonable for turning this into something about myself.

I don't want to turn this into something about myself. I'm not asking her for attention, I'm just asking for her not to distance herself from me and cut off all emotional contact. She's made me feel like I'm not normal for this behaviour and that I should understand she just can't be bothered because shes not well. Thing is she expects me to be around and be supportive of her but its hard when I feel like she'd rather I wasn't there.

I just don't know how to act when she's in this sort of mood, if I give her space she will get angry and say I'm being funny with her, if I try to talk it out that makes it even worse.

Reading this back I realize it makes me look clingy and annoying, I just don't feel like it's unreasonable to ask her not to cut me out completely. Instead of her being concerned that it makes me feel this way it makes her angry and that bothers me. If the shoe was on the other foot I'd simply reassure her that everything was ok, give her a quick kiss and tell her not to worry.

Am I at fault here?

The thing is if I'd just left her to it and did my own thing I know that would be a problem for her too.

That struck me, so she'd be pissed at you if you left her alone (why didn't you make sure I was okay? Something to that effect?) and is fuming at you because you tried to cuddle her and make conversation. Then shoves off and gives the classic 'Out' when you're worried about where she's been. Also stating she can't even be bothered with herself has me ringing the depression alarm bells, too.

obv it is up to him what he chooses to deliver

That is the key.

It doesn't appear to be the case with the OP however. His wife seems to demand certain behaviour and then constantly moves the goal posts

So it started with a (mild) headache? She's blowing this way out of proportion, OP, and I suspect she's doing it to pressure you to cave in and say sorry.

You were dancing around a bit yesterday trying to do the right thing. That's not being annoying or clingy, that's classic walking on eggshells.

I agree with Emma and others: this sounds like EA to me.

The atmosphere has settled now and everything is back to normal thankfully. I figured I want this to work so I'd tell her about my concerns with EA etc.

To my utter disbelief she also had genuine fears that I have been trying to manipulate her emotionally. She has also posted on a forum asking for advice and on the flip side everyone is stating I'm the one with a problem!

She stated I'm constantly craving attention from her and that if shes too tired to give me any I'll make her feel guilty by sulking or being off. She states it's got to the point where shes worried about coming home if shes shattered because she knows I'll be upset if I don't get the attention I need, so she feels like shes walking on eggshells. Instead of talking this through with me she bottled it up and obviously started to believe I'm deliberately trying to make her feel bad if shes tired or unwell or something, hence her hitting the roof the other night when I kept asking if she was ok.

The thing I can't really understand is that I know I'm not trying to make her feel bad and I also know I'm not a huffy person. Telling me I make her feel like she's walking on eggshells seems unbelievable to me. It's her refusal to see herself in the wrong that really bothers me. Yes I may have been a bit out of order the other night but her reaction far outweighed my behavior in my opinion.

I've put it down to a communication problem for the time being but I'll be keeping a close eye on mine and her behavior over the next few months.

How much baggage from previous relationships is playing out in this dynamic, even from your parents etc.?

If you both want this to work it may be worth seeing a therapist (not a counsellor btw) to see if you can unpick the dynamic.

I know when my dc were little that dh and I had very little left to give each other and when he did used to do his sulking thing it had the opposite effect on me - I refused to pander it because I didn't want a man child. Often I would need complete peace, silence and no-one near me as I felt utterly drained.

Took him several years to accept that sulking is unacceptable, however him saying I need to go and chill on the x-box for half an hour was ok when he needed space. I have also had to learn to keep a lid on my unpleasant traits.

Learning to be better partners to each other takes time and good communication from both sides.

I'm not convinced by her claim that it's all your fault and you're the one who's emotionally abusive. It's a classic tactic of abusive people to say that. It also reminds me of something that people with personality disorders do - there's a name for it which I forget, but basically they project their feelings and behaviours onto other people. I wonder if she might have narcissistic, borderline or another personality disorder... Might be worth looking them up just in case you recognise the behaviours.

Of course, no one is perfect and you might have partly contributed to the problem, but it can't be 100% your fault. From what you've written here, it sounds like you're self-aware and you think about whether you did something wrong or could deal with things better next time. Nothing you've said about her suggests that she is the same.

If you're still unsure and things don't get better, you could find a good couple's counsellor (if she agrees to go, that is, which could be unlikely). It's not usually recommended in abusive relationships, as there is a danger that the abusive person will manipulate the counsellor to take their side and/or use the sessions as another opportunity to criticise and blame their victim. But in this case it might just be helpful for a professional to assess the problem and the dynamic between you, and give you their advice - jointly or separately, depending on their assessment! It would be essential to see a very good, experienced counsellor though.

PS If it's true that she's posted on a forum asking for advice (I'm not hugely convinced) then of course everyone said she's in the right and you're in the wrong. She gave them her side of the story. In her head, it's all your fault, so in her version of events, it's all your fault. Consciously or unconsciously, she is probably lying to herself and to them. And if she's not lying, she's being very selective with the parts of the story she shares.

I agree that 99% of the time posting online will result in everyone agreeing with you, I've tried to be as honest as I can because it would be pointless otherwise. I feel like maybe I don't realize how I look and act to her sometimes, maybe I can be a right jerk without knowing it? I know I can be a bit jealous or needy but I know this about myself and keep a close watch on it. I certainly never put her down, stop her from doing anything or shout and call names etc.

The strange thing is that when she's not in one of these moods she is the most caring, affectionate person I've ever known. I trust her completely and everything is perfect up until one of these big rows, hence why i stick around. I've got it in my head now that shes a manipulator tho and I need to be careful not to put normal behavior into this category. If I'm wrong about her and end up walking away it could be a massive mistake.

You mention that more than one previous partner has found you too needy, clingy and manipulative. This suggests to me that you are needy, clingy and manipulative, and you don't seem to realise that when someone asks you to back off you should back the fuck off rather than sulking and saying it would be wrong if you did that, as well.

What occurs to me, reading your description of how you thought it was going to be 'your night' and she wasn't in a good mood, is that perhaps sex is a problem here? Do you want more sex than she does?

Because if there is a mismatch in libido then it can be easy to fall into a situation where the one who wants more sex is constantly trying to schedule, engineer opportunities for or keep on and on and on talking about sex, whereas the other is going to withdraw more and more because any kind of friendly or affectionate gesture leads to 'YAYTIMEFORSEX SEXNOW SEXNOW SEX! NOW!' from the other person.

I can sort of imagine that you have been implying or even saying that once her son is away it will be time for sex and lots of sex, while she's been dreading the fact that you will run through the door with your cock out, hence her not wanting to be anywhere near you when you arrived.

No problems in the sex department actually, we have a evenly matched sex drive. I'm definitely more affectionate tho and their is an imbalance their.

This is going to sound odd but please bear with me.

I've recently extracted myself from a very toxic friendship where there were roles sort of like this. On the face of it, I had your DW's role. I'd dread contact with XF, and towards the end I'd blow my top, she claimed she could never do right by me.

But, in the two sides to every story thing, there were reasons I was blowing my top. XF was doing things I'd begged her not to do with me or to me, nothing too bad but more like 'we have to agree to disagree on this because we clearly have different view points and this issue angers me, please let's stop talking about it' way. XF would back off for a while then prod and prod and prod at me. I'm not proud of my reactions, and I always apologised when I went over the top, and again begged to let certain things be. XF punished me with the silence if I didn't agree with her on everything. She did a lot of underhand manipulation that's hard to explain without going into every little thing.

Yet on the surface its me that people would probably call abusive.

So, the point at last. I appreciate you are trying to be honest with yourself but is there something you are doing that maybe she's asked you not to do, but you've shrugged it off thinking its nothing? Maybe as small as 'please don't try to cuddle me as soon as you get home'. Could you ask her to detail what you do that makes her feel the way she does - however do that both ways. The good old when you do x I feel y way.

I'm not suggesting at all that the other posters are incorrect in that she's not abusive, but there does look to be something in both your behaviours that could be addressed.

When I talked upthread about asking her what behaviour she would have liked from you, that is what I was talking about.

Perhaps when she is feeling like that she wants you to go away for a couple of hours and completely leave her be to get over it. Sounds like that is something you would find very difficult to do and would take personally rather than accepting she may just need space to recharge at times. Even if you thought it was going to be a "date" night so to speak.

I've never treated anyone like she treats you.

She sounds unkind.

Well, that's great. You started looking critically at her behaviour and, by a minute into conversation with her, she had you feeling sorry for her and looking at your own behaviour again.

It is a bit of an EA trick to listen to something, not take it in, but reflect it back as she did: "I've been thinking the same thing about you." My XH used to flabbergast me with things he had apparently bottled up (and I felt bad that I hadn't even had a hint of it), which I've no doubt now were just made up on the spur of the moment. They were so hard to believe that all my energy went into the necessary brain contortions involved to believe them. I needed distance to see things more clearly and that didn't come till later.

I can't stand moodiness either so I would be annoyed too. I have 3 young dc and when they were really little I'd get them to bed and dh would get home from work wanting cuddles. I found myself pushing him off and felt really bad explaining that after a day of 3 dc hanging off me I just wanted to not be touched. We all need space sometimes but that doesn't mean she has to be rude about it. For now I would leave it - you don't sound like you'll get anywhere tonight. If it keeps happening then you'll need to talk and decide if you can tolerate it.

She's summed up what I've written on this and other threads of yours. You seem way too clingy when she's been clear she needs a bit of space and that would absolutely do my head in.

As I said up thread, you're like my DH and your DW seems similar to me. It takes communication to make it work and if neither of you can be honest about it either because of eggshells or trying not to rock the boat then you won't make it work.

"I agree that 99% of the time posting online will result in everyone agreeing with you, I've tried to be as honest as I can because it would be pointless otherwise."

Well it depends what you post and where... I don't think it's quite 99% on AIBU!

But it sounds to me like you're being honest and admitting where you might be wrong. I just don't think she'll have done the same (if she did post online).

From the way you post I think she has really messed with your head and made you think everything is your fault.

Unless of course she tells you nicely that she needs space, but you disregard that and still try to talk/touch her etc, in which case that's not on... But that's not how you described it.

OP since she is willing to post online, do you think she would be willing to come here and post her side? Maybe it will help sort things out and get the communication going in the right direction.

Oh god no don't do that! This isn't jeremy kyle

Terrible idea! Would just mean her invading his space to think things through in.

She's not feeling well.
On top of that, she now has to pretend she is feeling OK because if she doesn't, you will keep pestering her asking and her what is wrong.
Sometimes people need space.
She flagged it up. She let you know she wanted space. You responded by getting in her face even more.
Why would you ignore what she needs? Why wouldn't you just say OK - I will leave you to it. I bet after an hour she would start to feel better.
Nobody can be happy and affectionate 24/7 - sometimes people feel down.

PS - I agree with her - she was low and upset and, instead of helping, you did try make it about yourself.

I suspect here (as I've suspected before) that EA is thrown around too much. You could just have a communication problem. You're empathy is unaligned and you don't understand each other enough so that response matched expectation. If each of your behaviour is incomprehensible to the other and each is accusing the other of EA, then perception and intent simply dont match. Unless this can be improved through communication you may not be compatible in this way.

If she is "in a mood" just go to the pub with your mates, everyone's happy!

A lot of people are blaming the OP and taking his partner's side. I can sort of understand this pov but what doesn't make sense to me is the fact that the OP is willing to accept he's done something wrong, apologise and modify his behaviour, but his partner doesn't do any of that. She literally blames everything on him. That's a massive red flag to me, so I'm wondering why some of you don't seem to have a problem with it? Do you really think she's always 100% right and he's always 100% wrong?

If she is "in a mood" just go to the pub with your mates, everyone's happy!
Exactly.
This is not EA - at least not from her. This is woman who is a bit down and needs some time to herself - but is not being allowed that space because her DP thinks she should always, at all times, be affectionate and put his needs and what he wants first. His very presence should be enough to cheer her up.