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?

But he doesn't even want to talk to you about it, let alone work on it.

This is a harmful dynamic for any children involved. They are learning that a normal relationship between adults is a struggle. They will recreate this in their own adulthood. The best thing for them is a peaceful household where people are open with each other, and feelings are dealt with with an air of understanding and acceptance. They pick up on everything.

I’m curious about why you think your dh holds onto resentment for longer when you still hold a grudge about something he did at the very start of your relationship (how long ago did he leave you)?

and apart from that I’m curious about why on earth you are still together. You don’t sound like you’ve ever been happy in this relationship (being regularly triggered and traumatised by a dumping years after the event when you have managed to get married and have kids in the interim sounds absolutely miserable for you). He sounds completely over it, for reasons he will not share with you.

what is there to fix? It sounds absolutely horrible and exhausting for both of you.

it probably looked like this from his perspective. He even said that to him it looked like we were "figuring things out" and were making good progress. From my perspective it was more sense of obligation to do a right thing (try to talk things out), while inside my blood was boiling. When it got to a tipping point I left within two days, filed for divorce, and even started dating again. Even my family found it odd how ok I was and only negative emotion I've shown (and clearly still showing) is a strong dislike for my ex.

and I absolutely hold grudges - I will remember a d get angry for things that happened years before

Ok consensus here seems to be the relationship is over. Thank you everyone. There’s a lot to think about and process.

I feel devastated for my children. We had given them such a happy childhood so far. I don’t believe that this is best for them, but I’ll have to accept that this is something I have no control over.

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.
Why is he so angry with this mother and what do you mean by he lets his anger out on her almost daily?

@CarlRogersCat I can’t go into specifics here but she did something (with good intentions and based on her own limited worldview) that turned out to be very wrong and it’s created a lot of issues for him. He’s stopped seeing her but he sends her messages almost every day about how angry he is with her.

Op our couples counsellor said something i thought was very helpful. She said that when the chips are down, the prioritisation that will drive decision making is

needs of self
needs of the children/the parental couple
needs of the romantic couple

with respect I think you need some individual therapy to decide on what your needs are. For whatever reason you have stayed in a relationship where you have felt incredibly unsafe for years, going on to marry and have children with someone who is a trigger for what sounds like a fairly extreme set of trauma reactions. Is this really what you want? Is this a good thing for your children to see?

I would focus less on what your dh wants/needs right now and spend some time on yourself. Why are you so traumatised by this long ago dumping? What is your dh doing to still make you feel unsafe?

your relationship may not be over, but it sounds like you need some serious time apart to work on your selves. I agree with a PP that you sound more trauma bonded than in love at this point.

@angeltulips I’m starting individual therapy this week.

I’ve said it before but I think the relationship sounds a lot worse on here than it actually was. I’m focused on the negative aspects right now. Those trauma based reactions happened fairly consistently in the first year of our relationship and then maybe once or twice a year at the most in subsequent years. It’s simply not true that we have been miserable all or even most of the time. The only thing I won’t know is when he has suppressed a wish because he’s trying to please me eg he told me the other day that he only went to his friends birthday get away for two days rather than three because he thought I would be upset about dealing with the kids on my own all weekend. If that sort off thing was happening a lot, then I wouldn’t have known because I can’t read his mind.

And yes it might be more of a trauma bond.

I guess the question is - would you have minded? I ended up in this dynamic with DH. In the early days he would say yes to eg me going to play sport on the weekend, then huff and puff about when he was going to get his time on the weekend, be moody etc. It was so unpleasant and stressful that eventually I stopped going. When it all blew up and we went into couples counselling his response to this was but you didn’t even ask / I didn’t know you even wanted to do it. But I had modified my behaviour to my own detriment to manage and satisfy his needs and moods. Do you see how it’s a dynamic?

we don’t know your situation. Either your dh is going through some mental health challenges that are totally unrelated to your actual relationship, he’s had his head turned and is having an affair, or there is a dysfunctional dynamic at play in your relationship that has been escalating. Only you can guess at which. But you do need to reflect on your own role honestly if you’re to have a chance of understanding. And at the end of the day if he doesn’t want to be with you or work on the relationship, there is nothing you can do about that and you need to let him go.

@angeltulips I think I would have said something like “it would be good for me to get a bit of a break on the weekend too” but if he had insisted that he needed to go all weekend I would have just got on with things. I don’t think it’s fair for me to not be allowed to say what I think and feel. I can see how a person would modify their behaviour, but I also think you have to take some accountability if you’re not asserting yourself in the way that most people would if something was really so important to them.

I think there are both mental health challenges unrelated to our relationship at play and there was a dysfunctional dynamic at play historically which he is now fixated on (maybe because of the mental health challenges or maybe because he hasn’t recognised the changes I have made and is still living in fear so from his perspective nothing has changed).

I think it’s pretty clear that I am reflecting on my own role in this and yes if he’s at a point where he no longer wants to work on things then there is of course nothing I can do.

Oh my goodness if you weren’t female I’d almost think you were my husband.

“ you’re not asserting yourself in the way that most people would if something was really so important to them” is the crux of the issue. Because most things aren’t that important. I don’t want to “assert” myself everytime I want something. I just want to do it, not have my other half get snippy or moody or transactional or immediately jump to what I should be doing for them in return. I spent big chunks of my life thinking about whether various things were “important” enough to decide whether I want to enter into tit for tat. It is an exhausting way to live. And I have decided that I don’t want to live like that anymore. I want to live in a world where when I decide I want to do something my spouse assumes that I’ve decided to do something because it is of value to me, appreciates that and doesn’t immediately jump to making sure he gets his piece of pie in exchange.

my husband refused to see this until I blew up our marriage. It sounds very similar to you two. The horse trading is a horrible basis for a relationship.

And one final thing - you talk a lot about things not being “fair”. Perhaps also think about what is kind. And loving. In a long term relationship things are rarely fair on a day to day basis. What’s important is that you both know that the other one will support each other. This doesn’t mean that things will always be transactionally equal all the time.

saying that your need to communicate how you’re thinking and feeling at all times is just another form of emotional dysregulation - you want your spouse to take on the burden of your feelings all the time. No marriage can survive that.

I think I used to be like you describe - that's how I was in the early days of marriage (and a bit before that). I would just go to this strange angry sad hysterical place, and find myself saying all sorts of things and even leaving the house to wander around the streets in the night-time crying and having dark thoughts etc. My dh had actually done nothing wrong - by which I mean that at most he would have said something in passing that could be taken in two ways and I chose to take the worst possible way (even though he would immediately clarify) and then I would think about it and talk about it until I was in this state. It might literally just be 'I enjoyed my day by off work by myself' or something like that.
Then at some point it would end and I'd feel filled with remorse and want to repair everything. I didn't know it happened to other people too, and I didn't know the official name for it. Me and my dh used to call it 'escalating', and once we'd named it and talked about it I found it a bit easier not to do it. And after about a year or so of marriage I had changed and now there is nothing more than an echo of it left (I sometimes still feel strange and sad for a short time but usually wait for it to pass - and both in the past and now my default state is happy - indeed I think I usually am in an unusually joyful state). I think it is very likely to have been hormonal in my case - it often was connected with PMT. Getting pregnant might have been what changed it for me. I'm interested that for you also it stopped happening at some point - does the timing fit with pregnancy?

@PPSWife you've accused him of not loving you enough, have you loved him enough to not make him fight over everything? Did you even know when things were important to him? And if you did, did you just ignore them unless he explicitly told you about them?

Part of the reason why he may be done talking to you is because he is tired of having to "assert himself". He is your husband, you're were supposed to love him and he was supposed to be important to you. Did you act like he was?

@angeltulips It sounds like you want someone who is a pushover and who represses what they think and feel, in the way that you did? It’s pretty common in most marriages that women end up taking on more of the housework and child work, so expressing that I would also like a break when I work just as hard during the week as he does, is really not unreasonable in my opinion.

@badger2005 That’s really interesting. I’ve never thought off hormonal issues. I started birth control for the first time when we began out relationship and yes like you the first year was the worst. It stopped in 2019 about 5 months after the birth of our first child. I still take birth control though. Who knows?

Ah. Oh dear.

So when you expressed tinkly laughed bafflement as to why your dh wouldn’t ask you about going away for 3 nights, in fact the reason is that because he knew that you would in fact be unhappy with him doing so as you don’t believe he should really have gone away for 3 nights and that to get what he wanted he would have to have a fight with his wife who does more around the house and so really should have first dibs on down time at the weekend. So in fact he behaved in a totally rational way.

you can insist your way is the right way but I can promise you it’s unsurvivable to live like this. Your marriage is over.

Sorry way too many in facts in there !

@angeltulips I’m not sure it’s survivable to live with someone who cannot accept someone else expressing their own need. It seems like you may have swung too far the other way now? Both people should be able to express their needs and wishes. It doesn’t have to be a fight.

@PaintedEgg I do think I made him feel important and any needs that I was aware off I tried my best to meet. I didn’t figure out that he was a people pleaser but neither did he until recently. So if you’re asking if I went out my way to find out if there were some needs that weren’t being expressed, then no. I just assumed that whatever he told me he needed was what he needed and didn’t think there was anything else going on. I’m not sure if I could be expected to go probing for more, without the knowledge that I now have.

I think this is where nuance comes at play - even people pleasers sometimes express some level of dissatisfaction or desires that don't exactly align with their partners. In general one of the advantages of a loving relationship is that both partners sometimes do probe a bit more, even out of regular concern - or offer to do things the way the other person may want / prefer

@PaintedEgg Neither of us have ever probed each other. He’s aware of my needs because of what I have volunteered to him and vice versa. I think your talking about deeper needs right? Not the more mundane, every day stuff like “I think we should go to Greece on our next holiday, what do you think” If it’s the latter then yes I definitely always took into account his preferences

it's both really...and if we are being honest, someone who is already prone to backing off and holding grudges may not always be fair, so even a slight oversight on your part may have been recorded in his mind and carries a lot more weight than necessary

The thing is though, what is the purpose of expressing that you feel you’d like a break on the weekend? Your dh would have proposed something that meant you didn’t get one. So did you expect him to modify his proposal? Or just go on his weekend with a sufficient degree of gratitude at your sacrifice? Genuine question. FYI if my husband asked if he could go on a weekend my response would be that I was glad for him to have some time away with good friends and that I was happy to support that.

at the end of the day, you can think I’m wrong or a pushover or whatever, but your problem is that your husband clearly agrees with me. So you’re at best incompatible because I can promise you he won’t change his mind on this stuff.

I think this misses the point, things don't need to be fair and equal in every moment. You got x, so I'm having y, type thing.

Over the course of a long marriage we have had months/years where my husband is struggling, so I take on the lions share of the household. Other times I have struggled for months/years, so this is DH's time to support me and do the lions share.

If my DH (or I) wanted a weekend away, the other wouldn't be thinking "Augh, I want a weekend off too [sulky, whiny tone]". If DH was carrying me at that time, I'd think he deserves. If I was carrying DH at that time, I'd think he needs it. And vice versa if it was me going away. It wouldn't create any negativity.