I get hurt, I clam up, relationship suffers

[FirehouseRock]

I (late 40's m) can be very sensitive. My wife (late 40's f) of 25 years regularly says things that hurt my feelings. I'll say "what you just said has hurt me." She'll double down and say it again. I clam up and lie awake for hours wondering how someone that loves me can treat me the way she does. We went through another iteration of this last night.

She will apologize, but in the same or the next breath, she'll say something that makes it clear to me that she thinks I'm at fault in the first place. I end up never really feeling loved.

She feels like I make the situation impossible for her. She apologizes, but it's never good enough. My standards are too high, impossible to reach. She feels like I have a double standard with her, that I don't live up to myself.

We've been to counselors. I always end up feeling like if we keep going, the relationship is over.

She comes from a family that blows up at each other, will raise their voices at each other, and then they'll just move on. Early in our relationship she would raise her voice at me. She has lost it on me and thrown something at me, told me to f off on different occassions. This was years ago, and she wouldn't do those things now. But every time something like that happened in the past, I never felt like there was any kind of closure, that she understood the damage she'd done. Now, when she hurts me in a small way, I clam up, always hoping she'll understand how the years of this has left me feeling unloved. I communicate this to her, but I'm hurt and I'm carrying myself around like I'm grieving. I feel abused by her and she feels like my clamming up is trying to control her.

And of course, it probably is. In my dream world, when she hurts me, and I communicate it to her, she stops, apologizes and then tries to make it right. I don't even know what that means to "make it right," I just want to see her really try. I want to see her take full responsibility for her actions and try to fix what she broke. She thinks that having apologized, I should just move on. I feel like I had a plate in my hands, and she came by and smashed it. After I explained why smashing the plate hurt me, she apologizes, but tells me I shouldn't have been holding the plate so loosely, and doesn't do anything about leaving me with a smashed plate. She hates these kind of analogies. Her apologies come off as meaningless, and push me away. I go dark, and then she feels pushed away by me. She feels like her complaints never get addressed because I will always take offense at her delivery, if she has raised her voice, or said something unkind, and I've ended up hurt. We've been in this cycle for years now.

All of this feels very petty, but I spend my life feeling mistreated and unloved.

I left one night years ago. Was going to stay somewhere else. I realized that if we split up, it would mean my boys would be raised part time by someone else and I couldn't live with that. I came back home within a half an hour. So, I promised myself I wouldn't leave while they were at home, and I would do my best in the relationship until they left. They've both finished school now, and will probably be leaving home in the next couple of years, and I'm feeling like I've run out of time. I do love her and hope to grow old together, but I also want to live a life where I feel loved by my partner.

I wrote all this out thinking it might help, not sure if I will post it or not. Feeling desperate. Maybe one of you will have some good advice. I'm sure I've misconstrued her feelings/voice here, but have tried to not be only one sided.

I think, if you've already tried counselling, I'd be thinking about leaving. It sounds like neither if you makes the other feel listened to or happy.

You should be sprinting to a solicitor's office. Don't live the next half of your life feeling the way you do. Your marriage is toxic, and any good times can't undo the abuse you suffer with. You've tried, it's not going to work, and it's ok to want better. Being single is better.

I find it hard to know what’s really happening here. I have no real sense whether she is aggressive or whether you are passive aggressive.

My confusion stems from one the one hand:Why do you love her if she’s so awful mixed with what do you think is stopping her leaving when she knows she’ll never be good enough.

You say she’d never change- but also that she has, (the f-off type rows have stopped). You also have no sense of what would be an acceptable closure for you: apology; full acceptance of all responsibility; fully achieving not hurting your feelings in the future; and no right of appeal or even reply. That’s actually huge.

Of course she hates the smashed plate analogy- what does the plate represent here: is it
your relationship? A smashed plate gets put in the bin. If it’s a plate and it’s smashed put it in the bin.
maybe the plate represents your feelings: massively brittle and quite unsuited to daily life.
So let me ask you: what does the plate actually represent and if it’s smashed how come it magically is available to be smashed again the next time? I do think it is a rather melodramatic analogy to use.

I think clamming up will kill your relationship. If every little thing is perceived by you (or maybe posed by you) as an annihilation attack. What the hell is in it for her if she is expected to shut the fuck up and be the bad one for daring to speak.
Can you articulate how she might legitimately make a complaint about your behaviour. I can imagine she has years of frustration and resentment building up. How might she legitimately say “I feel upset and resentful that your feelings are the only ones that matter in this family”. Does your mind instantly go to delegitimising it because she used the word “only” rather than “prioritised”.

She feels like I make the situation impossible for her. She apologizes, but it's never good enough. My standards are too high, impossible to reach. She feels like I have a double standard with her, that I don't live up to myself.

The rest of your post suggests to me that she is correct in her analysis. The level of reparations you want is punitive. And it does seem like you have double standards as a minimum to the extent that your grievances are aired and hers are not. (Possibly others). You definitely are maximizing the expressed hurt to gain a moral superiority in the relationship- your first sensitive is “I can be very sensitive” what do you want others to do with that?

Are you equally sensitive to slights in all areas of life - have you quietly ended friendships/ let them slip because of this. What about the kids : do they see you value emotional resilience or do they see hear you talk about sensitivity in a way that makes it seem an admirable or special quality.

I know it seems like I’m on her side, and I’m not necessarily, it’s just that you are the one that is here.

You are just going to get response after response saying she is right, you are wrong and it’s okay for her to abuse you because you deserve it and drive her to it. Given you say you are sensitive why would you post on a board that hates men and takes any chance to rip them apart?

Look up co dependent relationships OP. Sounds like you're in one. You're trying to change your partner into someone they are not. You cannot control them, only change how you react and respond to that behaviour.

What an excellent response.

Where does OP say that they are male?

First sentence. He's a 40 yo male.

I’m a blind tit. 🤣

My ex was like this, it never got better until I was a shell of myself. Leave, you deserve better.

Thanks for the thoughtful replies. I'm not good with forums and don't know how to quote bits properly. Sorry for the mess that follows. Also, I'm sure I'll come across as defensive on some of this. It is what it is. I really appreciate any and all feedback.

It seems I've painted her as a monster and she really isn't. She definitely has some aggressiveness to her, and I am sure I have some passive aggressiveness to me. I don't think it's one or the other.

She feels like I'm trying to punish her when I go quiet. I'm not. No part of me will feel better by making her feel worse. I'm usually processing and trying to find the right words, but I can get stuck there.
I don't expect her to be able to not hurt my feelings in the future, but I want a relationship where I can point it out and have her take responsibility for her actions.

I am definitely trying to control some of her actions. Or at least trying to reason with her so that she'll control them.
I do have some sense of acceptable closure. When she hurts me, I want her to understand what she did that hurt me, and take reaponsibility for her words and actions. Not just saying that she is sorry, but actually being sorry in a way that helps me believe she's going to try not to repeat the pattern.

That plate analogy, the plate is my feelings, not the relationship. I always want her to be a part of fixing them when she broke them. She doesn't seem capable of this, so eventually I piece them back together myself.

Why do I love her? She has a lot of great qualities. I came on here whining about one facet of our relationship that I need some help with, and so she got painted in quite a poor light. She's loyal. She's smart. She's creative. Our entire relationship isn't spent with me feeling this way, but every time the cycle hits, I feel ground down a little more, and can't find a way forward.
Why hasn't she left if she doesn't think she'll ever be good enough? I don't know. I don't make a lot of money, so it's not golden handcuffs. She is prone to depression and starting over would be daunting? She says she loves me, but it is rare that I feel loved. I'll ask her.

I don't think I've ever had a response from her where I felt like she fully owned her actions. For us to move forward, I've taken a couple of days to process, eventually I just swallow it and move on. But, every time I do that I think it hurts us.

I am fairly sensitive to slights in all areas of my life. I won't spend a lot of time with people who are generally unkind if I can help it. Having said that, I am much more sensitive to slights from her.

I may have double standards. It's hard to tell from here. She definitely does get her grievances aired, but if she does it in a meanspirited way, I need to deal with that first.

Not sure if the kids see me valuing emotional resilience, or fetishising sensitivity. Probably a bit of both. I'm going to ask them and see what they say.

As to posters being on one side or the other, I'm not fussed. If you've got something good to say, maybe I need to hear it.

I didn't respond to this...

"I think clamming up will kill your relationship. If every little thing is perceived by you (or maybe posed by you) as an annihilation attack. What the hell is in it for her if she is expected to shut the fuck up andbe the bad one for daring to speak.
Can you articulate how she might legitimately make a complaint about your behaviour. I can imagine she has years of frustration and resentment building up. How might she legitimately say “I feel upset and resentful that your feelings are the only ones that matter in this family”. Does your mind instantly go to delegitimising it because she used the word “only” rather than “prioritised”."

She definitely feels like what you're describing here. And yes, I delegitimise what she says sometimes because of the wording or tone she uses.

She could legitimately make a complaint about my behaviour and still treat me with kindness and respect. If she said "when you do X, I feel Y," I would be very receptive. I have a hard time getting to her complaints because they are brought with a raised voice and exagerations. I will repeat her exact words back to her and she will say she didn't say them.

She's definitely not expected to shut up, or be the bad one for daring to speak. If either of us speak to the other without kindness or respect, it makes it a lot more difficult to get at the issue.

What's key in all of this is you saying you don't know what her 'making it right' would look or feel like. Catch 22 for both of you then. She apologises, which is her way of trying to make things right but that doesn't work for you.

You need to think about when in the past someone has made amends to you that felt genuine and healing. That sort of behaviour, if it's within the bounds of reasonable request, is what you could ask of your wife.

If you love her and want to stay in the marriage, you might also want to learn some resilience tactics too. You could make a mental list of all the things she does that demonstrate her love for you. She may show it in different ways. Does she hug you often or remember to buy your favourite food? Does she pick you up from the station if it's raining and she's home and you're not? What do you still love about her behaviour and your relationship with her as it is today, not as it once was?

You say she no longer shouts - that is her moving away from learned behaviour patterns from childhood, to accommodate your needs. Have you met her half way and learned to be a bit more dismissive of her overstatement?

Ultimately though, if the relationship has got into a pattern of her belittling and criticising you and you stewing over it, that can't work for either of you.

Why does she do it in the first place? Why constantly put down someone you love? What sort of things are you talking about?

She feels like I'm trying to punish her when I go quiet. I'm not.
It's not your intention, but it's how she feels, is that right? So your behaviour makes her feel like she's being abused, and her behaviour makes you feel like you're being abused?

To be honest it sounds like you don't get on well and that neither has the energy to try to see the other's viewpoint. You only stayed so that you could keep on seeing your children full-time and that reason for staying is about to vanish. So it's unclear whether you actually want to try to work on it any more.

But as you're presenting this as something you want to fix, could you give us a couple of concrete examples of the kind of argument you mean? Who says what, how does the other react?

I’m going to point out another double standard that I see in what you have written.
She feels like I'm trying to punish her when I go quiet. I'm not.
You want your intentions with regards to your actions to take precedence over her feelings, but when the boot is on the other foot - well it’s already clear that your feelings take precedence over her intentions with respect to her actions.

Have you ever noticed that before, and do you think you could limit yourself to intentions or feelings so that she might get a fair crack at the whip?

It also isn’t clear but have you ever given a heartfelt apology for stonewalling her/processing things for days and made a commitment not to do it again.

I have been in her position and I felt like every ‘bad habit’ I eliminated just became an excuse to demand more of me . (I.e. if you could just do X, became if you could just do X and Y, the X, Y and Z and so on for decades.)

Could you make the first move? Can you be the bigger person and say. (whichever of the following are true).

1. I want us to grow old together but we cannot continue to communicate like we do.
2. I’m sorry for shutting you down and I am here to listen.
3. I’m sorry for not accepting your apologies in the past, I know it must be disheartening to have an apology rejected and I wont do that again.
4. Whatever that is clear, concise and truthful.

Having said all that, you (each of you) should really think about walking away.

Some perceptive replies here.

Some things to consider-

You can't change her, and shouldn't expect to. You can change yourself. You have power over yourself, you have none over her. You have responsibility for yourself. She also has responsibility for herself and can change herself but not you.
Your power is in your ability to work on yourself.

What concerns is she raising? Are you listening and considering them or rushing straight to feeling hurt by her presentation?
Is she's asking you take the bins out without being told, and you are diverting the discussion to your hurt feelings then that isn't helpful. Address the issue that's being raised.

Raise your feelings separately.

Obviously I don't know if this is true for you, but there's a cliche about not needing to nag if people would do what they are supposed to do without being nagged. Are you forcing her into combative communication styles by ignoring anything gentler?

Confession- I swore at DH and shouted, early in our marriage, because he simply didn't seem to hear me when I only 'spoke' to him. He was shocked. I've not needed to do it often since. He doesn't hear me telling him that something is important to me, if it's not important to him. Could you be falling into that mistake too?

By the way, only you know if any of this is accurate. We're only listening and imagining the other side.