Burying your head in the sand to avoid confronting issues.

[ArabellaArmstrong]

Anyone else do this? Over the years of my marriage I have avoided discussing lots of issues with my husband because I don't have the energy to deal with his reaction. I'm not just like it with my husband I'm like it with others too. When I left home at 18 I spent weeks worrying about how I would break it to my Mum and kept trying to imagine the conversation and I never actually told my Mum until my boyfriend came to collect my belongings so it ended up being a quick "Bye Mum I'm moving out today!"

Last year I decided that I was going to be brave and confront issues rather than avoiding subjects. I told dh that I had spent years bottling up my emotions and was no longer prepared to do this. From dh's point of view this resulted in him feeling "got at" and he felt that I just wanted to argue all the time.

I now feel like I'm back at square one and just feel weighted down. There are a couple of things that I want to tell dh about, nothing significant just a couple of social events that I have in the diary but I know that he will over react and I just don't have the energy to deal with this so what do I do? Do I cancel my plans to keep the peace? Do I walk on eggshells and then spend the next month arguing because I've annoyed him or do I tell him to "Fuck Off"?!

OP please read up on emotional abuse. The live bold and bloom website has a list of 30 behaviours. I'd place money on your DH doing at least 10 of them.

You don't have to make huge decisions, just make an agreement with yourself to look at your relationship honestly. Refuse to suppress what your gut and your mind tell you.

I imagined myself in a huge plastic bubble where his reactions could be seen but not reach me...

Don't push it to one side for later....

Whether there is love...well maybe, but there is much more co-dependence and obligation

www.hiddenhurt.co.uk/emotional_abuse.html

www.helpguide.org/home-pages/abuse.htm

www.drjoecarver.com/clients/49355/File/IdentifyingLosers.html

Good links

I defer to his opinion because I don't want the children to have to live in an atmosphere of arguing and sniping. He has asked me if I want him to leave but if he does we will all be in the shit financially, I will have to move the kids out of their schools and away from friends because we will all have to move. If I wait a while things could be manageable and workable. I thought that this period where we get the finances in order would also be an opportunity to see if he would change. Perhaps I tell him this? I feel guilty that he is kind of on probation without knowing this. I've been on MN long enough to know that you get your ducks in a row before making life changing decisions.

I'll have a look at those links. Thanks

Keep reading. Keep thinking. But please stop minimising.

Do I do that? How?

You are succumbing to guilt

None of the blame is yours.

The hoops you jump through to just get through a day. It is clear he isabusive from the outside and yet you have normalised it. It's not normal.

OP please read up on emotional abuse as much as you can as well as all the links posted.

The more you read, the more you'll see that what's happening to you isn't just "pretty dysfunctional", it's abusive through and through and no way to live your life.

I would suggest that as you look at what is happening in your marriage and try to get your head around it you would be wise NOT to share your thoughts with your husband. It is hard enough to process without him gaslighting you and doing what is commonly called the "headfuck" or if you are more gentile "spaghetti head".

ref "gaslighting"
VERB
to cause (a person) to doubt his or her sanity through the use of psychological manipulation
everydayfeminism.com/2015/08/things-wish-known-gaslighting/