One of us is spectacularly wrong.

[user1471456416]

I'm married to a lovely man, he is kind,caring and brilliant dad to our children.
However, he has this horrible habit of not listening to or acknowledging my opinions or thoughts on things. Sometimes trivial, sometimes bigger choices that he just gets on with.
Over many years of marriage this is the only
thing we ever argue about because it makes me feel so inadequate and simply ignored as though my opinion just isn't important enough to be considered.
For example, bigger things such as moving house he will not even entertain because he simply doesn't want to move. I,on the other hand would at least hear him out and at least think about it.
He doesn't even let me finish my sentence before he says no to anything he doesn't agree with.This sends me crazy and I've told him many many times it makes me feel worthless and ignored.
So, the problem. We have a large family and are fairly broke. Everyone's fed and bills paid but little left for luxuries.
I specifically said let's not get expensive gifts for each other for Christmas because we're trying to save for a caravan holiday in the summer. Please could we put any money we had away for the holiday.
I was very clear about this, explaining how we could then have a better holiday for us all.
Despite this, I got a bottle of expensive perfume, which he's bought me several time previously and each time I've thanked him and gently said but please don't buy it for me again and he's gone and spent several hundred pound on a necklace.
I'm so upset! Mostly because he has completely ingnored my wishes again, despite me telling how sad it makes me feel to be ignored. Also he's now really cross and hurt because he keeps saying how he was just trying to do something nice for me.
Something nice would be putting that money in the holiday pot as I asked.
Now I've got perfume I don't like and a necklace I can't return.
But mostly I'm so upset he's just done what he wants again and now I look spectacularly ungrateful.
I can't find the words to express how insignificant I feel when he does this. I know he doesn't do it on purpose but now we've fallen out and I feel crap about myself.

God he sounds suffocating. I'd lose it if someone stood next to me hovering while I was cooking.

How often does he do the cooking alone?

We share all household jobs. If anything he does more because he worries about working such very long hours. He feels he has to make up for time away. So when I get up in the morning he's already up and cleaned the house and/or done the shopping.
Somwtimes I feel sorry for him, he just can't sit and relax. He's constantly asking do you want a drink, shall I get you something, are you warm enough.
His mom was very domineering and even now him and his siblings jump when she wants something done.
His love and adoration for us all is clear to see but how he expresses it is too full on.
With regard to the necklace I was very upset about losing a diamond he'd bought me years ago and I'd spent days searching for it, it was very sentimental. He was just trying to replace it for me but equally I'd asked him to. That money could have made a big difference to our holiday fund.

Hmm. NewNN is making some interesting points here, OP.

I don't know why he behaves as he does, but I can see that it is causing you a lot of frustration and irritation. Do you think counselling would help? It does sound as if there is a deep-seated issue here.

Ern, sharing housework is the norm. Dont base his greatness on doing the norm. Thats basically saying he is great because he isnt shit and entitled when it comes to housework.

Just seen your last post - sounds like he suffers from deep-seated anxiety. Professional help definitely needed.

I don't base his greatness on the housework, it's never in question that anything regarding home and family is shared.
I just can't make him see that buying me gifts or items I don't want makes me feel ignored and disrespected. He just sees it as being lucky enough to be able to treat me to nice things. Although when I confront him which I do every time he agrees he should have listened.
He reminds me of Dory the fish........"mustn't but things,mustn't buy things ooohhhhh look something I can buy her"

OP, would you consider counselling or (cheaper) a marriage course?

It sounds like you have a fundamentally good relationship and it could be even better if the two of you addressed these issues together.

Maybe it would help practically if your finances were organised differently? So that he can treat you from his own, separate pot if he wants, while you know that he will not be dipping into the family money? And maybe have a separate holiday fund which you pay a certain amount into every month?

That's just the practical side, though. My ex's problems definitely came from his relationship with his parents - they were always right and he was wrong, so he was constantly trying to prove to them that he was right, which ended up with him acting just like them. Sounds like your dh might be condemned to a life of trying to be Good, too.

Having enjoyed some counselling myself I'm a big fan. If he agrees, make sure he goes to a properly qualified counsellor, though. Mine went to someone I later discovered was a self-taught business coach. I had a session with her myself and it was nonsense.

Doing something kind, caring, considerate to surprise you and make you happy would be to put the extra money he had earned into the holiday pot instead of buying gifts and say on Christmas 'surprise-look how much we've got in'!
If strangers on the internet can figure out from a few paragraphs what would make you happy, it makes me sad for you that your DH chooses not to do this.

I bet if his boss in work asked him not to do something, he wouldn't just go ahead and do it anyway.

It doesn't sound like he has any respect for you.

Going back to your OP, there are some points that just don't add up with the rest of your descriptions of him. Reading your subsequent posts, it's easy to agree with you that he is a people pleaser and that his actions are sweet but misguided. However, when you talk about him refusing to even discuss a house move or cutting you off mid sentence if he doesn't want to hear what you have to say, those are not the actions of somebody who values your opinion or wants you to be happy. If he is so suffocatingly, overwhelmingly eager to please you in every way, it seems very odd that he wouldn't even have a discussion with you about something that would potentially make you happy on a much bigger scale (i.e. moving house).

His dismissal of your feelings on the big topics is a huge red flag, no matter how many nice little things he does for you.

If you try and read back your posts as if they were written by someone else, you may see what we are seeing. It's not possible for somebody to be a "people pleaser" or "kind and caring" whilst also continually making you feel "sad" and "insignificant" even after being told several times that they do this.

My stbx dp is like this. It has driven me insane.

He never agrees with anything or does anything I want to do, if I want something he does the opposite. A lot of what he does is hard to complain about because on the surface it looks kind and/or generous.

Like, my ancient car had an issue. I decided to buy a new one, which was fine as I had the money. Meanwhile, without even asking me, dp bought all the required parts and started repairing it, even though the parts cost more than the car, was "worth". When he said he would fix it I said no, don't bother. I looked up the cost of parts, decided to sell, researched and sourced the new car.

Next day, he had gone out while I was at work and got the parts. I said I don't need them, send them back. Day after I was working at home, went into kitchen and noticed him on the drive, asked what he was doing "fixing your car", I went nuts at him. Why he won't just listen to me I have no idea. I got £100 for it part ex and the parts he put on it cost £70.
Also, after he nearly got me killed from "fixing" the brakes and forgetting to replace a nut, I have told him not to touch my car anyway.

He just would never listen. But how can you complain to your friends "my bastard bf fixed my car"? (etc - this is just one example. The biggest problem is always food, I get in from work quite late and am trying to diet, so always just want soup in the evening, but no, I get home and he has made toad in the hole, or some other shit, as a "treat" - not helped by the fact he's a dreadful cook. Then he gets a strop on when I don't eat it and heat myself some soup).

I think it's unsolvable and you need to decide if you can live with it and therefore just accept it, or not whereby you have to leave.

I bet if his boss in work asked him not to do something, he wouldn't just go ahead and do it anyway.

He might, actually. My exDH (who was described as a people pleaser by his counsellor during our divorce) was frequently in dispute at work - and had a number of formal grievances made against him due to his apparent determination to do what he believed would be best for others.

People pleasers seem to be motivated not by what they hear will make others happy, but what they believe will make other people happy.

The motive is not to "make others happy" it is to "do things that I believe will make them happy" - and often, when the act is not received as they hoped, they redouble their efforts, in order to meet the need in themselves.

Interestingly, my ex also avoided discussions about issues he knew we were not aligned on - I remember him shutting down any conversations about minor home improvements and actually telling me it wasn't fair on him for me to talk about suggestions/plans for the future if I didn't 'mean' them. He said that us discussing things hypothetically left him feeling under pressure and stressed.

Later, I realised it was all part of his placing expectations on himself to somehow "fix" what he perceived was unhappiness on my part. If I said I thought the living room might look good painted green, for instance, he instantly needed to "make me happy" by painting it green.

I had an ex with chronic debt problems who bought me unnecessary and unwanted gifts. It made me terribly stressed as I knew it had a negative impact on her finances. She was controlling and a bit unhinged. I escaped as soon as I could. She was super romantic or at least that was her excuse for various behaviours. Never would she accept she had any issues. She was just a romantic.

What I'm saying op is this type of behaviour is wearing and unpleasant. Not the sign of a nice well balanced person. So no wonder you're unnerved by it.

But how can you complain to your friends "my bastard bf fixed my car"?

Yes! This! I so can relate to this!

Sadly, he's now doing it with DD. She mentioned to him in passing that she liked a particular music track that was on the radio. He spent loads of time and money buying her the full back catalogue of the artist, even though she said she wasn't interested, and then insisting she listen to it when they were in the car together "because he was happy for her to listen to her music".

How is he at listening to what other people think and want? Do you ever notice that he seems to value what his parents / workmates think more highly than what you think? Does he express enthusiasm about other people's ideas and "forget" that you told him something similar, for instance?

i would say it is abusive, especially as you have repeatedly told him what you want/don't want. He is showing you who is boss and that basically you don't matter which is why you are left feeling insignificant.

Do some reading on emotional abuse, Google it. I also found The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans very useful in identifying abusive behaviours.

I really think this is one relationship issue where we'd near to hear his side of it, I'm not seeing what others are seeing, to me it reads like most things he do irritates you and that he is trying to please you with surprises and spoiling you a bit.

Do you actually love him? Are you in love with him?
Because being with someone you don't love often means that you're irritated by everything.

he is trying to please you with surprises and spoiling you a bit.

But he's not LISTENING to the OP when she says that's not what she wants.
Of course it's irritating when you preempt an action and ask that your spouse doesn't do it, only for them to do it anyway, claiming that they wanted to spoil/surprise/make you happy?

Yes I understand that NewNNfor2017 but if he feels he always does things that are wrong then maybe it's his way of trying to be nice whcih doesn't work out for him , I just think people are making huge leaps here and his version may be entirely different

This reminds me of someone I used to be with. Constantly buying me things I had mentioned in passing but didn't really want and then going out of his way to present them to me. Then when it came to something I actually did need him to do, he wouldn't do it despite promising he would or he would sabotage it so that I didn't benefit. Weird and controlling behaviour and it was all on his terms. It puts you on the back foot all the time. Not sure if that is the same as op's situation.

But how can you complain to your friends "my bastard bf fixed my car"?
This times a million.

my friends think my ex was so thoughtful and romantic because of all the over the top gestures that were his trademark. ive got a houseful of clothes, shoes, bags, random crap that I didn't ask for and didnt want.
I'm glad you can pull him up on it, that never went well with my ex.

We get on very well and I'm very secure and happy in our relationship.
It's only this one issue.
I think it's about him always wanting to be a provider and ensuring we're all happy.
He closes down conversations because he worries about our finances and doesn't see the point in moving house when we have a perfectly fine house.
Also because he's exhausted from working 12-14 hr days and would be unable to watch someone else doing the things I'd like doing.
I employed someone over the summer to decorate and he really struggled to watch someone else do it. He kept saying how it was his job and how he'd be quicker, neater and cheaper. He ended up taking over and I helped too and we did it ourselves but I had to push and push to get it done but he gives in graciously.
He's really upset with himself today. We've had another chat and he seems to get what I'm saying but insists he just wanted to treat me.
He's promised to never buy me anything ever again unless I ask.
So, we shall see. I'm still pissed off and puzzled but it's not the end of the world. He's apologised many times and so I'll accept his apology.
(Maybe now is the time to suggest a house move ;-)
Thanks for your help and support.

Well, when you've taken your fingers out of your ears, opened your eyes and stopped saying, "la la la, I can't hear you", we'll still be here, OP.

Just remember that

How can he be a lovely man when he couldn't care less about what you want? He thinks you're less than him