People pleasing and resentment

[PPSWife]

Hi,

My DH has recently come to the realisation that he’s a people pleaser and he doesn’t want to be this way any more. He thinks it’s a learned behaviour from his father who was the same way with his mother and also a product of coming from a family that is very conflict averse. He’s slowly started to be more honest about what he thinks and feels and I’m really proud of him for making this change. I had always sensed and told him that I didn’t feel like I always really knew who he was. He never understood that until he came to the realisation himself that he is a people pleaser and he wasn’t being authentic.

He has however started to question whether he wants to carry on with our relationship. I think there is a lot of resentment towards me because I am ashamed to say I took advantage of his agreeable nature, particularly in the early years of our relationship when I had my own insecurities and I wasn’t very mature in how I handled them. At the same time he wasn’t able to set boundaries around my behaviour and wasn’t able to express healthy anger because he was scared of how I would respond. I think we both accept that we are both to blame here.

My feeling is that this is a resolvable issue and I want us to work on it through marriage counselling. He seems less sure. He has said he wants to separate for now and then he will think about whether to pursue counselling. I think he feels like he doesn’t know who he is any more and needs time to figure it out. He has also discussed divorce, children, finances etc so I think that’s a real possibility for him, even though right now he’s just asking to separate.

I was wondering if anyone has been through anything similar. I do think he will come out much happier eventually as an authentic person but I don’t know if it possible to overcome resentment and save our relationship?

@PPSWife that is a very transactional way of looking at things and I can see why your dh is needing space. Firstly he didn’t “make” you want to kill yourself. Secondly, the fact you forgave him for making you feel how you felt is not some kind of emotional credit you now have in the bank that you can spend.

The conclusion that you love him more than the other way round is juvenile, emotionally blackmaily and claustrophobic. You can love someone an enormous amount but be unwilling to accept the impact of their behaviour on your self. (I would also query whether someone “too wrapped up in their own pain” really does love other people - my DH came out with the same line and I find it enraging as to me the definition of love is being attendant to the other).

I have not decided whether to continue with DH or not. Intellectually I’d like to, for the sake of our children more than anything. But emotionally I am too worried that I am in a marriage with someone who will destroy me if that’s what they feel they need at some point in time. Forgive me, but you sound similar. That is a very scary place to be from a spouse’s position.

@PPSWife I can't really say for your husband, but if I had my DP listening, not just reacting and getting defensive and taking what I was saying my needs and boundaries seriously, I doubt I would have got to this point of emotionally closing myself off.

I also agree with what @angeltulips said.

@PaintedEgg This is so insightful, so thank you so much. I didn’t realise how deep the resentment goes with people pleasers. Even if someone uses your coping mechanism unknowingly, there’s just still no room to be able to forgive them? I think you’re right about the reason why there is no incentive to try to work on things.

I will tailcoat the comments about "credit" because this is something my ex did

He'd use things he did for me / because of me as a leverage against me whenever I tried to stand up for myself. It felt like I had a debt to pay off to him - even though realistically I owed him nothing, just like this man does not owe a proof of love to you @PPSWife

When I was leaving my ex (initially a dragged out process because I felt bad for him despite his abuse), he would have used similar arguments, eventually saying the same thing - suggesting he would like to off himself. To leave I had to accept that this may not be an empty threat and that he may end up going ahead with it, and I had to be ok with it - and I was.

Push someone too much and they wont care anymore

it depends on the person really - or you may forgive them but no longer love them or even like them.

Besides, relationship dynamics are very hard to change and it is often easier to start afresh then try to repair an already broken relationship

things from past accumulate - you may be over something, but each similar situation only adds to the pile for the other person

to them each time they have to let things slide, back down or accept insults is another time they had to do it - and with each time the feeling of just wanting to be far away from that person gets stronger

It does sound as if he has emotionally checked out of your marriage already and won’t be coming back.

Whether this is because of what has happened between you in the
past or because he has met someone else ( or both ) only time will tell. You would be wise to prepare yourself for the possibility that he will “ move on“ to another relationship very quickly .

I think you should go ahead with the counselling /therapy you have planned for your own sake, not to “ fix yourself “ so he will have you back.

Lots of people leaving marriages talk about finding themselves / authenticity / not living a lie anymore / being true to who they are when they are in fact having an affair. I know you are sure this isn’t the case with your husband , but just keep that possibility ( However small ) at the back of your mind.

Please don’t beg him to stay with promises of doing / being better. It won’t work if he’s determined to leave . And you will feel even more humiliated later.

@angeltulips Again, very insightful so thank you for sharing.

I do think you’re right about me viewing relationships in a transactional way. I remember now many years ago that was something my husband pointed out to me about me (and my family). I need to spend some time thinking about that some more.

One thing I don’t doubt is that there was a lot of love, on both sides. It may seem like it was a very unhappy marriage because I have focused here on the things that have gone wrong. For the most part we have loved each other a lot, but that has clearly been punctured by moments of hurt.

You mentioned that your husband only decided to make changes when faced with the prospect of separation. In my case at least, my husband cannot point to anything that I have done wrong since 2019, so that was long before he realised he was a people pleaser and raised his unhappiness with me. Anything that has happened after that is to do with him not saying what he wants out of fear. That’s not something I have any control over.

I do think there needs to be some acknowledgement of his bad behaviour in all off this. I think you are only seeing things from the perspective of the person you can relate to ie the people pleaser, but that’s ok. It’s hard to get a balanced view here. Some people are telling me he’s completely in the wrong and making out that I am a pushover and others think I am completely in the wrong. I think the reality lies somewhere between those two positions.

If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been separated, do you think it’s helped at all and are you having therapy? If you are working on your people pleasing habit, doesn’t that diminish his ability to destroy you? Sorry for the all the questions but I feel like I’m learning a lot from both you and PaintedEgg about what might be going on in his head.

@PaintedEgg Besides, relationship dynamics are very hard to change and it is often easier to start afresh then try to repair an already broken relationship

I get this. But I think when there are children involved there is perhaps some incentive there to at least try to make things work if it is at all possible (like angeltulip has said she feels).

Out of curiosity, how would you have wanted your partner to have been with you? The only thing I think I could have done is sought help much earlier for my issues.

@PaintedEgg @angeltulips Also one other question, which I’m asking respectfully and genuinely, do you feel any sense of responsibility yourselves or do you think the blame rests entirely with your partners?

It’s unclear to me what his bad behaviour is on the context of where you are today. All you can point to is that he came on strong and then when you were in your early 20s he dumped you? Is it that he came on so strong that is the “bad” bit? I’m totally open to seeing some kind of terrible behaviour but it isn’t clear from your posts.

Regardless, you decided to reconcile with him and “forgive” him - except you didn’t because you expected him to sit there and absorb your emotional dysregulation (which is what? Shouting? Crying?) while being grateful you’d forgiven him. You say you haven’t been like that since 2019, I would not discount the possibility that’s because he’s figured out how to avoid triggering you and has been doing that. I may be totally off base. But he sounds like he’s detached from the relationship as a means of survival. I did the same.

The more you post the more you describe what sounds like a very dysfunctional dynamic. BOTH of you play a part in that. But getting out of it we require you both to reflect, separately, on whether you want something different. You sound quite happy with the way the relationship was. He clearly isn’t.

I have had individual therapy and couples therapy too. The couples therapy has been slow and frustrating because by and large my husband does not see the relational dynamic I’ve described. He is transaction, “well I’ll do this and then you’ll do that and then it’s fixed”.

The separation has helped because it’s enabled me to detach from instinctively putting him first all the time (which is what I’ve learned to do in our relationship) and find a better sense of who I am just as me. A chance to breathe and think without the responsibility of feeling like I’m managing his happiness too (which is how it feels when we’re together - he just wants things to be better and is flummoxed when I don’t play ball).

I am sure I am empathising with him, and I have no idea if our situations are at all similar. But I would
encourage you to LISTEN to what he’s really saying.

Sorry I just saw your follow up question. I think I answered it. But in case it wasn’t clear - yes it is a shared responsibility, this is the dynamic of the relationship and it requires 2 people to participate in it. It’s what our therapist calls negative fit.

what I am struggling with is that for me really the only lever I had was to walk away earlier. And I resent that falling on my shoulders.

I think you're looking for who is to blame/who is responsible, when, unless a crime has been committed, life doesn't work like that. You have hurt each other. He is hurt by what you did in response to you hurting him. It's impossible to tease out who is to blame, there. There are strong reactions due to earlier experiences, there are decisions to remain silent rather than voice concerns, there are all kinds of nuances. Relationships aren't about trying to assign fault and blame, when things go wrong. They are about trying to relate to each other.

So, he thinks he wants to leave... can you relate to that, without assigning a bunch of blame and responsibility?

Absolutely feel responsibility myself - I know a lot of my issues steam from agreeing to do something I don't want to do and then being angry at others for "making me" do it (even if they didn't, they've just asked and agreed)

However, people I'm close to know this about me - they know I back down easily and I did quite spitefully point out to one person recently that it does not count as "us making a decision" when they make it and leave me no choice but to agree, then blame me for being angry when it turns out bad. Was I mad at myself for agreeing when I knew I should have held my ground? Absolutely. Did it make me less angry at them? Absolutely not

OP, you need to let go. You need to think about what it is about this relationship you are so desperate to hold on to. Is this about winning? Is this about wanting to prove that he is 'wrong' about his feelings? Is this about your own abandonment issues and/or need for control? Your need to be right?

You are really focussed on keeping score about who's done things 'wrong', whose behaviour is 'bad', who has been worse, etc. It's not that black and white. He is not happy. Why do you want to make someone be in a relationship with you when they are not happy?

If it's over, it's over. It sounds very over to me.

Use your couples therapy to work towards an amicable separation and a healthy co-parenting arrangement.

OP, you need to let go. You need to think about what it is about this relationship you are so desperate to hold on to. Is this about winning? Is this about wanting to prove that he is 'wrong' about his feelings? Is this about your own abandonment issues and/or need for control? Your need to be right?

Many women who are married with children want to make it work for their sakes. We all know many fathers who have little to do with their kids once they leave, who don’t parent them, support them or even seen them very often . We don’t want that for our kids.

I don’t think that’s desperation, I think that’s perfectly reasonable.

I'll add one more thing about the taking responsibility / seeking who to blame

Even if your partner acknowledges he is part of the problem - so is the relationship he has with you.

When I left my ex it did not magically fix my people-pleasing or insecurity, but it fixed my frustration of having to be around someone whom I disliked and resented so much. I was unable to run from myself, but I sprinted from him and that solved part of my problem.

So it doesn't matter who is to blame if leaving makes one's life better

@angeltulips Yes, love bombing me, dumping me all of a sudden and moving on immediately is the bad behaviour from him. I don’t think it’s really fair for anyone else to invalidate my feelings around it. It was extremely painful for me. I didn’t forgive him off the bat either. I told him it was going to be a very slow and painful process to win my trust back and he said that he understood and was willing to do whatever it took to show me he was committed.

I don’t think he stopped triggering me after 2019. Something did happen last summer that gave me those same feelings of insecurity but I managed it in a much more controlled way then I would have in the past. I have made changes in myself over the last couple of years but it’s all self-work so it has been a slow process.

It is a dysfunctional dynamic. I do want to work on it if we can. I’ve always wanted him to be more authentic. I am listening. I am willing to see where I’ve gone wrong. I do want to know if there’s anything I can do better, which is why I’m here asking you these questions. He doesn’t really want to talk about our relationship though. He’s more interested in talking to me about how angry he is with his mother for some reason. At least with her he lets his anger out on an almost daily basis.

How long have you been separated for now if you don’t mind sharing?

@PPSWife I don't think you'll be better off even if he comes back...

You are right that dumping you all of the sudden was a nasty move and it's normal that it still affects you. Trauma is trauma

But it will only get worse now that he pulled that twice

@Bunnyhair @FL0 Its about the children but also the connection that we have. We both realise it will be almost impossible to have that again with someone else.

I do want to know if there’s anything I can do better, which is why I’m here asking you these questions. He doesn’t really want to talk about our relationship though

You're aiming at different things.

@PaintedEgg

I know a lot of my issues steam from agreeing to do something I don't want to do and then being angry at others for "making me" do it (even if they didn't, they've just asked and agreed)
Is it possible to be in a successful relationship with someone like that?

And yes I have thought about how I could manage going through this again, but I also know I’m a lot better in terms of my trauma

But you don't want this again. You're wanting to recreate something that ends up where you are now: unhappy. This is the situation that is caused by the two of you trying to have a relationship, and it's harmful. Why would you look for a similar connection, or want to continue this one?

@Watchkeys No of course I wouldn’t want to re-create the same thing again. We are different people now and if we were both willing to work on it I do think we could try to re-create something better.

@PaintedEgg Did you find with your ex that you just switched almost overnight? Went from being very loving and appearing very happy to suddenly talking about ending things?

Also do you ever think that you hold on to grudges and resentment more than the average person does?

I honestly don't know - I'm not the right person to ask given that I would only have my own, biased view. From what my husband tells me it is annoying because it can be seen as "changing one's mind" and you have to be very aware of your partner's patterns because effectively you cannot trust their first response. Which sucks for everyone involved.

However, I still think both of you can do better. Not because either is a bad person, but because what you have right now sounds more like trauma bond than genuine love. You both have a lot of resentment for each other and it will only get worse, and it will all play out before eyes of your children.