Husband wants to bicker about every little thing.

[showersandflowers]

Me and DH usually have a great relationship but we're going through a phase where EVERYTHING needs to be a low level argument. And the bickering is realllly dumb. Example: he's literally just dropped a small bowl and it broke. I said we have more of those in the garage and he instantly snaps back "no, we don't need it". I said "well I eat most of my meals out of those bowls" and he snaps back "no you don't, that's a lie" with a scowl on his face. I let it be at that (for the record, I eat my breakfast and lunch out of those and we only have 2 others, which are in the dishwasher but it seems pointless to argue...)

And repeat. About everything. He has to turn everything into a little confrontation. Nothing serious, just disharmonious. It's knackering.

Any suggestions for getting back on track? I asked him gently yesterday if anything was wrong and whether he wanted to talk about anything or why he was bickering with me and he just argued back that he wasn't...

My 14 DS is like this. It’s so tiring and makes me stop wanting to talk to him. It’s bloody miserable.

Sorry I’m not much help but I feel your pain.

@Birdseyetrifle that's exactly it, it's teenage behaviour!!!

It is so knackering. I literally asked him if he'd had a nice day the other day and he turned it into a bickering match about how his day was worse than mine 🥱

My DH only yesterday said why do you say 'ok' everytime he's made a comment..
For exactly the same reason.
We've had some humdingers after what I thought was an innocent reply..
He's very clever with words and I tend to get flustered.
Latest? We've both been sneezing a lot over the last week. He said he thought it could be hayfever. I'd already googled it to find out if it was possible in late 6os (not impossible but unusual) and as usual just said ok..
Well..I've just come down with covid so said you'll probably follow soon.
He said it's not covid it's hayfever. I said ok..
When he got the chills and a cough last night I was feeling pretty rough and he accused me of not caring because I'd just said ok.. (I wanted to say I told you so but I knew it would lead to a row..even if I said it in a joking way!)
I agree it's exhausting second guessing myself..

Why not tell him what you're telling us, rather than tiptoeing round the issue?

'I feel like you challenge me all the time.'

If he says 'I don't', he's actually challenging what you've said, so you could ask him to respect your point of view. Then what would he say?

He's clearly annoyed or resentful about something. If he won't tell you then it might be worth just asking him straight out?

Same !!! I was putting the dog in the car the other day and I'd forgotten there was some polystyrene on the back seat. As I got to the car I said oh I'd forgotten that was there. He snapped at me that he'd only put it in there because he thought we were going to the dump. I said I wasn't moaning I had just forgotten it was in there.

He snaps all the time.

It is bullying behaviour indicating contempt.

Stop engaging, withdraw, detach emotionally.

They know exactly what they are doing.
They are not happy and are using you as their emotional punching bag.

You really need to start protecting yourself by spending as little time together as possible.

If asked why, simply state the truth "you have made it very clear that I annoy you and I have no wish to be around you when you behave like this".

This. He's teaching you to not speak.

You really need to start protecting yourself by spending as little time together as possible

That's a bit much, and certainly not a healthy way to resolve conflict in a committed relationship.

Can you tell him you want to make time to talk about something? He'll probably push back, but say it's important and you want to make a time when you're not in a rush or going to be interrupted. Then set out your concerns, and say you can't keep living like this. Ask him for a solution. Perhaps he's depressed, having trouble at work, money problems, an affair... If he says he wants to mend the situation, then suggest counselling. See how that goes.

I agree with the PPs who say you have to sort this out. Don’t just withdraw and live separate lives, what’s the point? Tell him you can’t live like this anymore and the bickering has to stop. You’re happy to work through the reasons why it’s happening and try and help, counselling even. But if he can’t stop then you’d be better off on your separate ways.

Thanks all. I'm going to try again later to ask him what's wrong and if there's anything he needs to get off his chest (he's probably going to get annoyed at me for asking...) but hopefully we can get somewhere with it. Like I said, we're generally really good and this has only been a few weeks now, so hopefully it's not too far gone to be a habit.

We do have a 2 year old DD and that can obviously be quite stressful at times because of her current (but very normal!) boundary pushing behaviour. Like a lot of men, he would rather carry on all sullen than open up about what's going on with him.

It's not conflict. It's demeaning to stop her talking.

It's conflict. She says one thing, he says a different thing. You're defining a potential reason why it's conflict.

I do think sometimes men don't realise they are so stressed when they are.. and they genuinely are baffled when you ask them what's wrong because they aren't as in touch with their emotions. Obviously this is a generalisation and doesn't apply to all men.
But I do sometimes have this probably with my DH. He will be very tense and snappy but if I try and talk about it will just be in complete denial.
I'm not perfect either and can be grumpy as anything sometimes too.. but I do feel I have more insight into my own emotions and behaviour.
For me I just have to remind myself that we are all human and do get snappy sometimes and it doesn't help to escalate the situation by responding in kind.
I remind myself this is a man I love who loves me and has been there for me at the lowest points in my life.
So when he's being like that I try my best to completely detach. Just walk away, don't say anything snappy back or even say anything.
Obviously there's a point when it becomes abusive if he's actively trying to start arguments all the time and that's not acceptable and I'd be questioning the relationship then...
But if it's just every now and again he gets a bit snappy because he's stressed but can't really explore that healthily.. then I'd just give him a lot of space and then perhaps try and discuss it at a point when you can see he is happy and calm again.

If it's conflict the aggression is all from one side. What's happening here is attack and defence.
OP I think you need to stop trying to justify yourself, it won't work. He wants to make it all your fault and if you justify one thing he'll just move the goal posts and attack something else.
So in the bowls examples, when he said you don't need extra bowls you could just say, Well I'm going to fetch them anyway because I want them accessible.
Btw does he always like to micro manage every little thing like the number of bowls in the cupboard? Because that's a worrying trait.

If it's conflict the aggression is all from one side. What's happening here is attack and defence

'Attack and defence' is the perfect definition of conflict!

Nothing unhealthy in not allowing someone to bully you and use you as an emotional punching bag.

In my post I suggest she tells him the truth, she doesn't want to be around him when he picks on her.

We teach people how to treat us.
He's got it into his head that he can treat her badly.
She can accept it or she can push back hard and make it clear she will not tolerate it.

He sounds like a petulant toddler having a prolonged strop.
Tedious.

Nothing unhealthy in not allowing someone to bully you and use you as an emotional punching bag

No. But there is something unhealthy in refusing to spend time with your spouse because they've been in a shitty mood lately. Some concession needs to be made before simply avoiding him for the rest of your life. Unless avoiding your spouse for the rest of your life is your goal, obviously.

His behaviour isn't perfect. But whose is? We can't all just avoid our partners as soon as they fail. OP has said it's 'nothing serious, just disharmonious'; he's not using her as a punchbag.

@Parisseb I bloody did. Obviously he didn't bat an eyelid because it wasn't about the bowl now was it?

@NotbloodyGivingupYet yes, I have been just "yes dear"ing his conflict and carrying on and it seems to be helping. His mood is turning for the good.

@Fifteentreefrogs Interestingly, I tried directly asking him if there was anything he wanted to get off his chest and obviously got a snippy remark back but then a few hours later we started talking about his work and he completely unloaded about things he's really annoyed about (which are justifiable, the main one was that it's a small business and the boss just bought himself a Ferrari a few days after announcing that they can't afford to pay people more to help out with the COL crisis...) and after that he seemed a lot lighter and cheerier. Annoyingly, it was just dumb luck that we got talking about the exact thing that seems to be causing him a lot of stress, so it might be hard to try this again in the future to try and suss out where his stress is coming from.