Constantly being told what to do

[Pickle48]

I've NC'ed for this, not sure why as its so outing but hey ho. There are other issues in my marriage but this is something that's bugging me. Because I cant seem to find a way to solve it.

Over the past number of years I feel more and more like a schoolkid in our relationship and I don't know what to do or how to fix it.

This is a bit random but an example. Had a delivery and it came with one of those gel ice packs in them. I thought it seemed silly to throw it away, especially as I do a lot of sport and they are useful for injuries. So I put it in the freezer. DW asks what it was doing in there, so I explained. Next day I find it in the bin. I asked why she did it and she said we didn't need it. I said I had explained why I wanted it and put it back. A week later I heard my wife complain again that "it made finding things in the freezer hard" and it ended up in the bin again.

And again. My parents sent me some presents and they had bought a box to put them all in. Im not talking some random cardboard box, its purpose built and decorated. Before I had even said anything my DW said "don't think you are keeping that". Then again this morning I was asked "why is that not in the recycling yet"

And before you ask. We live in a big house, its not cramped. I am not a hoarder, but I hate throwing stuff away when they could be reused. But its not just this - I get told what to do in other areas of life as well. For years I have just backed down. If I try not to back down it just ends in an argument. What do I do.... (aside from leave)

Yes. Eckhart does seem a formidable intellect. We find happiness within yes. The other type of happy relationships is unique, because there happiness can only be found by making another happy. If that other refuses to be happy it becomes an emotional nil sum. Be well Pickle.

I'm not passive aggressive ... I'm aggressive
Except for the whistling, she does sound actively aggressive. I presume she sees passive aggression as more cowardly or sly, and herself as straightforward and honest. I personally think both of these types of aggression can be equally damaging, just in different ways.

Don't forget that any time she criticises you or how you treat her, that is another example of why she might be happier with someone else, and you can point it out to her as such.

She says her love language is doing things like booking restaurants, going to things like theatre, holiday or events.

In other words, organising stuff she wants to do.

@Koios

Thank you. I was an abuse victim like OP, and I escaped, and I read and I read and I read and I had counselling for a year which I cried all the way through. If I can help save someone else some of the work of doing that journey, I will!

The counselling taught me that there was nothing wrong with me. The only thing I had to change about myself was to realise I didn't need counselling, and to get rid of my partner.

Eckhart

Its the hardest choices that take the greatest courage Eckhart. Pickle to. He sounds a nice guy. You would make a good councillor Eckhart.

I also have been finding counselling very hard. Initially it was working through the depression but its moved past that now. I've found that she isn't a shoulder to cry on, she is very tough on me at times.

For example, when we talked through the example where I got accused of ignoring my DW not answering within a few seconds - my therapists view was that "well wasn't she entitled to say what she did given you were ignoring her." Initially I said "perhaps, but there are people I work with who will often pause and wait and think before answering and I don't start shooting off at work to them. I would give it a while and then maybe say "sorry, did you hear that" or something similar."

I get it, she wants me to see it from the other person's perspective. But having got all of your judgements I felt stronger this week - So at the end of the session I told her that no, actually, there is no way that how I was spoken to was acceptable.

I clean the car say every three weeks, inside and out. I'm not perfect, I may not get every bit or there may be the odd streak but I do my best. I constantly get told by my DW "next time, take it to the car wash and get it done professionally". To be honest, its a 15 minute drive there sitting in a load of traffic, a 20 minute wait and a 15 minute drive back. It takes around the same time to do it myself, and I don't mind doing it TBH. Its good to get fresh air, and do something productive. That's just how I feel.

But when I say to my DW that it undermines me when she says that, because it makes me feel inadequate, she said that "I'm only saying it to make your life less stressful".

And then the doubt sets in. What I thought was previously an act of undermining is now an act of love. And then I get told that she can't live with me because she doesn't know what to say. When she tries to help I reject it, but when she doesn't help I complain I am being rejected.

My therapist doesn't ever take my side once. In fact she will might say "do you not think its a sign of love, that she wants to lighten the load on you".

I have been very clear with my DW. Six months ago I said very clearly that I need two things to stop. Firstly, that you need to stop controlling everything I do. I was trying to fix something the other day - I am very practical and I knew what I needed to do. Just as I start the job, she came over and told me what I was doing was wrong. I told her she needs to leave me be, and not treat me like a kid.

And then secondly, she can't keep flipping it into "being loving or helpful". If I need help I will ask for help (which I do sometimes). If I want to clean the car myself I can!

I just don't understand why someone feels the need to tell someone how to do something the whole time. I could count on one hand the number of times I have told my DW to do something over a decade. She leaves the toilet seat up which I do find annoying, but I'm not going to constantly tell her. Its not worth it and I appreciate that people are all different. It doesn't impact me, so I put it to the back of my brain years ago. I just don't understand.

I just don't understand why someone feels the need to tell someone how to do something the whole time

Because it means that the result of everything, all the time, is that she knows everything and you know nothing, and have been put in your place. Your partner's ego, believe it or not, is very fragile. She needs constant affirmation that she is better than somebody. That's why she loves you. Because you allow her to make you smaller than her, less knowledgeable than her, your needs less important than hers. That's why your relationship can never work. She needs you to be a piece of shit so that she can be better than you. That's why you feel like shit: because it's what she needs.

Keep an eye on your interactions through this lense. Have a look at how she always ends up perfect because of how you've failed. That's what you give to her. That's your role.

I can't understand what the hell your counsellor is doing, unless she's trying to provoke you to get angry. Angry is what you need. Anger, when you find it, will be a proper rocket under you. The day you leave will be the day when you scream (or at least think) FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING FUCKER IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU, I'VE GOT FUCKING FEELINGS TOO!!

If that's not what your counsellor is trying to trigger in you, she's not for you. You've gone to her because you are being massively invalidated, and she is invalidating you further.

@Pickle48 my mum is like this. It's really difficult to live with. I have to constantly assert boundaries because otherwise she wants to treat me (and everyone else, including her husband) as an incompetent child. It's a horrible dynamic and one tjat is very demoralising. Well done for starting to see the wood fit the trees.

Your therapist sounds a bit suspect. What was her reaction when you told her you though your dw was being unreasonable?

Your therapist might be friends with your wife!

Your therapist is shit. It's their job to help you work stuff out for yourself, not to second guess what your wife might have been thinking.

I had a similar experience. 'Must be lonely up there on that pedestal' usually shuts them up for a while.

Ok, don't flame me. It was actually someone at work who initially suggested I get help - they themselves had mental health problems, had known me for years and maybe could see some signs. But I don't have a massive friend network and nobody I could really ask for advice. But I went to the GP and that got the ball rolling.

I was very lucky that I am covered through insurance, but it did give me limited choice. I had no idea what a therapist was, what the different types were. In the end I just went with the only available one at the time as I was so desperate. I have stuck with her. My friend asked how I was getting on a while back and they suggested that I would have been better with a man.

So she draws upon psychoanalytic and psychodynamic approaches, (as well as humanistic, attachment and mentalisation based therapy). We focus a lot on early childhood, the impact it had, relationship with parents growing up etc. Maybe this isnt what I need right now, although I do think that going through some of the issues from when I was younger does help me understand the present more.

My current programme with her ends in a month, and I wont renew it. When I told her that my DW had accused me of making her out to be emotionally abusive, the therapist said "it doesn't matter whether it is or it isn't". She also once said "sound like every woman in your life has failed you". (Because my mum had asked me not to end up in a mental asylum FFS).

And then again this week, when I said I think I see things more clearly now and her response was that "yes, you may have a better knowledge of the situation, but the dynamic of the relationship where you see all of your DWs words and actions as aggressive and so you don't accept love and warmth, which makes you distant, which makes her more aggressive etc, still exists". I was thinking last week, what would happen if I said that I'd been punched ... I wonder what she would say to that. Would she still say that I was unable to accept love.

I agree - she isn't going to tell me what to do but it can feel like a constant fight to validate what I feel and to defend my position that I feel at times I can be treated like $hit.

In a way she is right, do I have to "label" it. No not really. But it would be nice for someone to say maybe "yea, it sounds a bit like you are on the receiving end of some unhealthy stuff here" if thats what they thought. I am unhappy and come to the realisation that my DW wont change. So the only way to break the cycle is to leave. I just feel very ashamed to talk to people - to admit to them that I am in this situation.

Its hard in lockdown - I'm worried about calling my family (my Mum's actually improved now and is more supportive) but my DW will always ask about what I talked to my parents about. I just brush it off at first and say "oh you know the weather etc", but she will ask over and over about what we talked about. But again I always saw this as positive - oh she is taking an interest in me and my family, but now I'm wondering whether its more than that.

That sounds strange alright, I'm seeing a psychotherapist although I am very interested in some psychodynamics, ie defense mechanisms, but my psychotherapist has never told me that i am interpreting my feelings wrong!

That is not something I'd expect to hear from a psychotherapist. My parents' parenting of me was very neglectful (emotionally) and they constantly gaslit me and projected their low self esteem issues on to me.

you deserve to feel heard. You should go in to that therapy session and say what you feel and not be told that you are ''wrong'' to feel what you feel.

ps, being persistent in the question ''what did YOU talk about with somebody ELSE?'' is a boundary violation imo.

I wouldnt' have seen that a decade ago.

Tbh my mother used to ask me what I talked about with my therapist when I first had therapy about 14 years ago, and I didn't tell her. I fudged a bit. But instead of thinking ''who do you think you are feeling entitled to know what i talked about with somebody ELSE'' I felt ashamed that I wasn't comfortable sharing that with her, or ashamed that I had things I felt that weren't ok to say to her (because of her reaction. It would have been shaming).

I had a boyfriend (covid shut us down) but he was very, very blunt. He communicates very directly. But he was never ever contemptuous so I think the notion that you're interpreting your wife's statements wrong because of your childhood is a bit questionable.

Her issue as a psychotherapist should be to investigate why you feel the way you feel, not to tell you that you don't feel the way you feel because your lens is wrong.

If it turns out that your lens is cloudy due to your childhood, then a psychotherapist is supposed to go back to that, heal that. Then the rest will follow.

If you value your own right to get a service in exchange for what you're paying the psychotherapist, then please don't rule out finding a new therapist who will validate you.

What you need is to be validated. You need somebody to hear you and understand.

ps my therapist doesn't just nod nod nod and plamas me, she has advised against sending a letter, she has advised against buying in to a punitive silent treatment. so it's not a case of somebody sitting opposite you nodding at everything you say no matter what.

Sounds like she is over-applying attachment theory to me. Does she have a point about love and warmth do you think?

I suggest maybe reading Attachment by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller so you can see what the therapist might be getting at. But at the end of the day, even if DW is not emotionally abusive you aren't compatible and its making you unhappy.
You will take your own patterns into the next relationship so its worth understanding those, what triggers certain things etc. But doesn't mean you should stay with DW.

Who do you think is flaming you?!

But it would be nice for someone to say maybe "yea, it sounds a bit like you are on the receiving end of some unhealthy stuff here" if thats what they thought

The problem with this is that it's a symptom of why you have the problem you have in the first place. You're looking for external validation. What you need to learn is to validate yourself. So, not looking for what's happening to you to be categorised under good/bad, or healthy/unhealthy, but rather, recognising 'This situation is not healthy for me. This behaviour crosses my boundaries. I personally am not happy with this'

I have a friend who can't be touched in a particular way (an innocent way, like a touch on the knee or arm), because it's how her childhood abuser used to touch her before sexually abusing her. She had a partner, years ago, who kept touching her in that way, and when she explained why she couldn't stand it, the partner said 'Well, I'm not doing anything wrong', and continued. The partner was right. There's nothing wrong/unhealthy about a touch on the knee or arm. But my friend left the relationship because her boundaries were being crossed. And it was the right thing to do. Otherwise she would have had to continue putting up with something she couldn't bear, in her most intimate relationship.

Do you see what I mean? Labelling the behaviour and getting people to agree is beside the point. Your preferences, and you making sure they're met, is the priority.

john bradshaw on audible has a few really soothing books on the family structure and also shame
I found them quite soothing. DEtoxing shame from your childhood is going to help you stand up for yourself.

it would be nice for someone to say maybe "yea, it sounds a bit like you are on the receiving end of some unhealthy stuff here" if thats what they thought
Therapists are not there to tell you what they think, though - so she shouldn't be saying anything like this, just as she shouldn't be telling you your wife is being nice to you.

You do not have to prove that one of you is right and the other wrong, or that one is the goody and the other is the baddy. Not to us, not to the therapist, not to yourself. Feeling as if you have to prove that is just a sign that your relationship is unhealthy.

I've just read the whole thread and just wanted to say what an open and self aware person you are. She is gaslighting and emotionally abusing you and clearly has absolutely no respect for you. You've looked at your part in the dynamic but she simply blames you for her behaviour.

I'm glad you're moving out, when you recover you'll find that most people will appreciate how kind and hard working you are and won't emasculate you like this.

it's all tied up though.

Needing the therapist to give you permission to feel you have been on the receiving end of unhealthy treatment, rationally he knows it but he needs permission to feel it. That's what leads a person to therapy!

Rationally the OP knows he has been on the receiving end of some shitty treatment but still does not feel entitled to have an emotional reaction to that.

ps, and sometimes your psychotherapist will validate you. Not because they're setting out to validate whatever notion you have but because their clarity gives you perspective.

Example, my parents were generous to me financially and they now behave as though obedience and gratitude are the same. I feel guilty if I don't do what they want me to do. My psychotherapist said to me ''gratitude is a very narrow emotional range''. And I felt validated. It helped me a lot. It was soothing. I let go of some of the guilt.

The point may not have been that she validated me. But she put it in a way that allowed me to draw on my own validation?

I get what Echart says completely though. You have to eventually get to the point where you don't need validation. But an early session with your psychotherapist, I think they can validate your decision to seek help and they can validate the feelings that brought you there.

In terms of therapy - have a read about schema therapy or CAT - maybe those approaches will feel more helpful to you.

@WiseOwlRelaxing

ps, being persistent in the question ''what did YOU talk about with somebody ELSE?'' is a boundary violation imo.

I wouldnt' have seen that a decade ago.

Tbh my mother used to ask me what I talked about with my therapist when I first had therapy about 14 years ago, and I didn't tell her. I fudged a bit. But instead of thinking ''who do you think you are feeling entitled to know what i talked about with somebody ELSE'' I felt ashamed that I wasn't comfortable sharing that with her, or ashamed that I had things I felt that weren't ok to say to her (because of her reaction. It would have been shaming).

I had a boyfriend (covid shut us down) but he was very, very blunt. He communicates very directly. But he was never ever contemptuous so I think the notion that you're interpreting your wife's statements wrong because of your childhood is a bit questionable.

Her issue as a psychotherapist should be to investigate why you feel the way you feel, not to tell you that you don't feel the way you feel because your lens is wrong.

If it turns out that your lens is cloudy due to your childhood, then a psychotherapist is supposed to go back to that, heal that. Then the rest will follow.

If you value your own right to get a service in exchange for what you're paying the psychotherapist, then please don't rule out finding a new therapist who will validate you.

What you need is to be validated. You need somebody to hear you and understand.

ps my therapist doesn't just nod nod nod and plamas me, she has advised against sending a letter, she has advised against buying in to a punitive silent treatment. so it's not a case of somebody sitting opposite you nodding at everything you say no matter what.

The sessions with this therapist sound like counselling's version of Napoleons retreat from Moscow. Pickle already had someone at home if he wanted to be told exactly how he was always wrong and what to do with his life. I showed it to number1 daughter. PhD phycology now teaching at MCR UNI. She shook her head and laughed pointing out it was just reinforcing Pickles underlying issues. Wise owl relaxing is correct, while therapy is not passive it should at least help you.

So much to reply to :)

@Eckhart And this is one of my issues that I need to work on. Constantly apologising, admitting weakness etc. Even on this forum, I should be brave enough to stand by my decisions and if anyone criticises them then listen, understand but defend myself if needed. I shouldn't start my post by immediately asking for forgiveness.

And then those talking about attachment. So this is when I face a bit of a dilemma. Is it cause, or effect. Yes I find it hard raising stuff with my wife - and this has got worse over time. So it took me a few weeks to pluck up the courage to admit to her that I was getting professional help. Why is that - well I sometimes feel that I get judged, or criticised. So then I dont raise things. And I think its a valid feeling - at the beginning of lockdown I struggled. I broke down and my DW just said "man up a bit, everyones going through this"

[Im really opening up now] As the sex has become less frequent, I have found it less enjoyable. It's hard to explain, but emotionally I don't feel relaxed - I felt anxious and just wanted it to be over. Then when I said that I wanted to start having a family, the pressure became immense because we were having sex so infrequently that if I didn't finish then it was pointless. She only wants sex in a couple of positions and I find they aren't great for me. I have suggested others, but she tried once and didn't like it so that was that. And then I found myself not finishing and that in turn made it worse and worse.

And yea, I have changed. Over the summer I started to tell her all of the above, about the lack of enjoyment and the pressure I feel. She said that she was hurt by what I said and that the relationship will never be the same again. And then again more recently when I asked her and she said that sex was a low priority in the relationship for her, and she followed it up with "and if we are going to talk about that, then we need to talk about you not finishing".

Its like a knife - I feel I've given her a explanation, and it was very hard to admit my weaknesses. But I feel I have a lot more self awareness now - I pull back from basic intimacy like hugging because I worry that it will lead to sex, and I don't want the pressure anymore.

So what's my dilemma. Its that maybe I am closed off, maybe I am unable to receive love. And what happens if I leave this relationship only to find that I'm equally closed off, and that actually the sex doesn't improve.

she will ask over and over about what we talked about. But again I always saw this as positive - oh she is taking an interest in me and my family, but now I'm wondering whether its more than that

She wants to know whether you've exposed her abuse