Let it go?

[timetobebrave]

Last night I was telling DP a story about my childhood, nothing serious but something I would hope he’d be interested in. We were walking round the house tidying up at the time so it wasn't a face to face discussion, but while I was talking DP looked at his laptop and started replying to an email.

I stopped talking as I felt like he wasn’t listening to me and 15 minutes later DP hadn’t passed comment on me stopping talking or asked me to finish the story. I was feeling a bit hurt so decided to mention it (partly because this isn’t the first time something like this has happened). I tried to keep it light-hearted but explained that it hurt my feelings when he started emailing as I felt like he didn’t care about what I was saying.

DP's reply was that I was making him feel guilty even though he hadn’t done anything wrong, and that if the story was important I should have continued it rather than “testing” him by waiting to see if he’d ask me to finish the story. (I genuinely wasn't meaning to test him - I was giving him the benefit of the doubt that he might temporarily distracted and then come back to the story. And also debating whether it had bothered me enough to be worth raising).

I explained that I wasn’t trying to make him feel guilty, that I was telling him how I feel because if it was me I’d rather know if something I’m doing makes him unhappy in the relationship. He took this to mean that I was making the issue about the relationship as a whole, said he couldn’t deal with the conversation and went to bed.

What do you think?
Was I raising an issue that would have been easier to just let go?
Would it have been better to ask for his attention back straight away, rather than waiting 15 minutes?
Would you expect DP to have handled things differently?

Thoughts very welcome please!

Happens in this house all the time! I think you have to pick your battles and in this particular case, for the sake of harmony, I would just let it go.

Well it's a fairly basic requirement in a relationship to feel listened to and heard. It was making him feel guilty so he disengaged totally...is he like this a lot? Do you feel listened to? Heard? If not then he needs to realise you grow resentful and one day won't want him.

This is one example but a fairly regular type of situation yes. If I raise anything that could be vaguely interpreted as critical or negative he says things like I'm making him feel guilty or how it's always his fault. If he doesn't say that it's normally because he's got irritated, walked away from the conversation or pointed out something I've done wrong instead (such as I should just be letting things go not bringing them up). It does make it incredibly difficult to have a constructive conversation and very frustrating as I'm genuinely not interested in blame etc. I just want us both to be able to talk openly.

Looking back at the beginning of the relationship I wonder if I did raise things too often then and that hasn't helped... but that was a couple of years now and I very rarely say things that have bothered me anymore. But as you can see from this post am still weighing up whether there's times when I still just shouldn't have said anything.

I think his response to you raising issues is a way to shut you down and shut you up. You’re already raising things less frequently so his training has worked. The ignoring you is less problematic than the fact he won’t communicate with you constructively. I’m not sure how you resolve that with someone who can’t communicate however.

He's being childish saying you're "making him feel guilty when he hasn't done anything wrong". I can only read that in a sulking child's voice! Either he feels guilty because he knows he should have done better, or he truly believes he's in the right in which case he shouldn't whinge about feeling guilty. You can't win, can you?

I think you were right to mention this to him and to do so light-heartedly. I don't think it especially matters that you waited 15 minutes. He could then have responded constructively and light-heartedly. Instead, he said he couldn't deal with the conversation and ran away! That's pretty pathetic. Or let's put it more nicely, his relationship skills need work...

I absolutely agree that the communication issue is the problem moreso than the emailing example itself. The emailing issue probably is quite trivial but there’s been quite a few occasions where I’ve felt like he wasn’t interested in what I was saying so I thought this time I’d mention it rather than letting resentment grow. Unfortunately that clearly backfired!

I think he genuinely thinks I’m in the wrong for raising little things that bother me- i think he thinks I’m making too big of a deal out of things. We had a similar situation a couple of months ago where I asked him if he could put some of his things away rather than leaving them on the floor (I’d picked them up three times in one day) and in that situation too he got irritated and rolled his eyes at me for
raising it. He told me “we should just be letting the small things go”. When I then said please don’t roll your eyes at me he got even more peed off and started ignoring me that time too.

Its a good point though about why does he say I’m making him feel guilty if he thinks he’s not in the wrong. The whole thing just gets too confusing! I have to admit it did take me aback when within 30 seconds of me first saying about the email thing I was being criticised for “testing him” rather than their being any recognition of the issue I was trying to raise.

I'm sorry but I think he is emotionally controlling.

He disengaged from you because your story 'made him feel guilty' - that sounds like its designed to make you stop talking to him about yourself.

He claims you stopped talking as a test. But he was ignoring you, so why would you continue talking? That sounds like DARVO - Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender.

He would need to do a huge amount of work on his communication skills for this to not continue to cause issues in your relationship OP. How likely is he to be willing/able to put that work in do you think? And it would have to be him doing the work, this isn't something you can fix by approaching or 'managing' him a certain way, it's a him problem and he would need to want to fix it.

I don't think this particular incident requires this much thought tbh. If my OH is talking about something that is quite frankly, boring, then I will undoubtedly zone out!

Thank you all for the replies, they've really helped. I've started reading about DARVO as I'd never heard of it before so I'm hoping now I'd be more aware if that is ever what's happening. DP's comment about me making him feel guilty was in response to me mentioning that my feelings were hurt rather than to the story itself... but either way I agree that it stops me wanting to talk. There's no point telling DP that something upset me if his response is to tell me that I'm making him feel guilty, get annoyed with me and leave the room!

I find it hard to imagine DP doing much work on his communication skills unfortunately. Everything up to now has been about how I’m bringing things up that don’t need mentioning, making a “big deal” of stuff by not just letting it go etc. He was really snappy with someone in a shop last week and then stormed out and I was a bit taken back by it so didn’t know what to say… and even then he picked up on me being quieter and said “it’s ridiculous if you’re upset by that”. So if he sees it as me being in the wrong then I cant imagine him doing much work on his side.

One thing he has said in the past is that he may not always want to talk every time there’s a little problem, and that if I get to talk every time then that meets my need but ignores his need to not always have to talk about things. Which was an interesting perspective!

I used to be in this position, never really being listened to, anything slightly touchy being shut down, he used to leave the room or even the house. It lessened but only because it got to the point where I couldn't be arsed to really engage with him and was just relatively silent, occasionally I would try and sure enough it would result in a row. We are now divorced and a major part of that was feeling he just didn't want to listen to anything vaguely emotional. I just couldn't see myself wanting to grow old with him and I certainly would never take anything I needed support with to him. I think he saw my not bringing up any issues as me being happy but my silence on such issues was really a death knell.

Starting an email to someone else while you’re talking to him was was shockingly rude! I’m not at all confrontational, but that would have enraged me. He’s insulting you and dismissing your valid feelings. I could not stay with someone who treated me like that.

He’s diminishing you and training you to be submissive. Time to get rid.

Thanks so much everybody - it actually feels like quite a relief to hear that other people would find this difficult too. I’ve been getting frustrated and upset by how hard it is to communicate but then having self-doubt around whether I’m being unreasonable.

Funnily enough I was literally just thinking yesterday about how this happens less now than it used to but like @Amsooverthis said a big part of that is because I just don’t bother to say things as often anymore - as I don’t have the energy for the drama and wasted time when it doesn’t get us anywhere. Part of me thinks I’d like to go back to speaking more freely and then what will be will be with DP - but I think breaking the habit of being quieter will actually be a really hard habit to break now.

I am worried that if I ended the relationship it would totally blindside him - because I think he’s pretty happy given there’s very little conflict now and so I suspect he thinks things have “improved”.

I can see both sides. He should have listened, but I agree, you were testing him.

It's like if you call someone and the line drops. You don't know whether they've hung up and don't care, or if situations got in the way. Don't get upset with them if they don't call back, but if it matters to you, you call back.

It sounds as if the story you were telling either went on for too long or he didn't find it particularly interesting. So what? I have conversations with my husband that he doesn't find interesting, and vice versa. That's just life.

No-one "makes" us feel anything. His feelings are his to deal with and yours are yours. He's putting responsibility for his emotions onto you, that's not fair and disempowering him.

IMO the best thing is to share how we feel, people can't argue with feelings. So, for eg, "I felt hurt when I wasn't listened to". Keep away from using "you" and try and speak from the first person.

You, IMO shouldn't "let it go" as you are hurt. I would try and talk to him, as above.

Good luck.

Depends. If you were droning on and on about something he had no interest in and as you were cleaning at the same time you didn't pick up the clues that you were boring him with a dull story then YABU. If you were telling a short funny tale and he always disengages when you speak then you have something that needs working on between you.

Sometimes people don't realise that they never stop talking and it's impossible to keep listening and be engaged for the whole duration.

My ex was like this and it was one of many reasons why I ended the relationship. He never really listened to anything I said and was always on his phone or would randomly say something like 'wonder when my Mot is due?' when I was talking about something totally unrelated. I was never allowed to pull him up on this, he reacted exactly the same as your partner does. He hated me bringing up anything I had a problem with and thought because he didn't feel the need to, I shouldn't either. Basically what he wanted was a dynamic where we didn't communicate issues because that's what was comfortable to him. If the situation had been reversed and he had said he felt I wasn't listening I would just have said oh sorry, and engaged again. Your partner could have done this also, so actually rather than you making it a big deal, he's made it a big deal by not responding to your relatively minor upset in a caring and proportionate manner. Instead he's made it all about him.
Re not being listened to, it can have affect your self esteem, I used to be quite bubbly and outgoing before I met my ex and now I'm really hesitant to say much about myself or contribute to conversations because I always think what I have to say isn't important and no one will listen. Might be worth reflecting on your confidence now vs before you met him.

Well my DH and I both do this to each other I.e. drone on about something the other isn't interested in from time to time. We also have plenty of conversations where we pay each other full attention but that's usually when we are not also trying to do something else, like tidy the house. So maybe you need to pick your times.

However my DH never (well rarely) gets annoyed or blames me for it and vice versa. We know we aren't always in the frame of mind to listen to an anecdote, but we forgive each other our bad habits. I admit I get bored of him telling me about x who said y at the gym or whatever. But I guess we're too comfortable around each other to always filter our stories.