Husband never just believes me

[Girlmom35]

Hi, I’d like to get some opinions on this.
My husband and I have been together for 7 years and have 2 children together. We’ve had our struggles since having children, mainly not communicating very well. We both have our faults and neither of us is very easy to live with. But we both try hard, make compromises, talk a lot and work through our issues.
He’s a great father, very hands on and responsible. He’s come a long way in that aspect and grown so much, especially since he comes from a family where his mum does everything. His dad doesn’t even make his own coffee or butter his own toast. But if I wanted to have a girls weekend away, he’d be more than capable to look after the children on his own.
So obviously I’m not looking for people telling me I need to leave the relationship. I just need to know if this is an issue I should stand firm on, or whether I should let it go.

Whenever I bring a problem to him, he’s very quick to dismiss it, which really gets to me. A clear example from last night was:
I found a little bug crawling on my forehead. I have long curly hair, so do my two daughters. They are of the headlice age, so naturally I think: oh no, I’ve got lice. We’ve probably all got lice. And my mind goes to all the things I’ll have to do to get rid of them, the washing etc. So I turn to my husband and say: “We’ve got a problem. I’ve just found something in my hair. I think I have lice.”
And his reply is: “you probably don’t”.
Me: “Look at it. I’m pretty sure it’s a louse.” I pull out my phone and google a picture of one. It’s the same colour and shape and I show him.
Him: “It’s probably nothing. Could be any kind of bug that fell into your hair while you were out.”
Me: “But look, it looks exactly like the picture”.
Him: “I don’t see it. Let’s not panic over nothing. You’re getting all worked up and it could be false alarm.”
Me: “I’m going to wash and comb my hair with the product. Could you help me look if I’ve got anything behind my ears?”
Him: “You’re overreacting. Just brush your hair and see if anything comes out. If not, you’re fine.”

At this point I was getting annoyed and I didn’t respond very nicely anymore. But this is the same every time I alert him to a problem. The children being sick, the dog having a sudden limp,… He never just takes my word for anything.
I feel like he’s always trying to minimize the problem, because it’s just easier that way. Everything would be a lot easier if I didn’t have lice, or if the kids weren’t sick and we wouldn’t have to miss work to look after them, or if we didn’t have to take the dog to the vet. But ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away.
He says he should be allowed to be critical and make up his own mind. But I don’t like having to waste time trying to convince him there’s a problem, when we could already be working on a solution. Is it so wrong of me to expect him to just take my word on something?

From what you’ve written I take it that you have a tendency to take every problem to him, and be quite dramatic about it. Going from something in your hair, to stripping and washing the house while treating everyone with chemicals.
‘Perhaps he wants you to work it out on your own, calmly, and only take it to him if you really need his help.

It sounds like you're very anxious and go from 0 to worst case scenario.
He didn't dismiss it, he was reassuring and calm. He suggested combing your hair and checking. It's wearing living with an anxious person who catastrophizes so maybe he is fed up a little with jumping to the worst case scenario and panicking too readily. You were spiraling from a bug the calm thing is to put the bug somewhere where it can't move/get lost and check pictures of lice then check your own hair before freaking out your husband and kids.
And then if you have lice, check your girls hair and then make arrangements. Also combing nits and lice is so barbaric and unnecessary there is Hedrin which gets of lice without combing. The parent's who insist on just combing and conditioner are the worst because they invariably don't catch all the lice and their lousy method leads to longer infestation because it's just not effective enough particularly in long and or curly hair.

In the same scenario to my DH

”I’m just popping to Tesco to get some nit stuff - I’ve found one in my hair which means we’re probably all riddled and need treating - see you in 20…”

I can see why it’s utterly frustrating but you don’t need him to ‘believe’ you. Just have your own agency and act on it.

I do tend to jump from 0 to 100 quickly. It's something I'm aware of and am trying to work through in therapy. It's a trauma response from my childhood, but I can understand it's not always easy for my husband.
But I do feel that he's a bit too much on the other end of the spectrum.
If it were me and I'd have to respond to someone who I felt was overreacting, I would ask questions. Not make statements. So rather than saying "it's probably nothing", I'd say "what makes you say that this is a louse and not something else?"
I'm just wondering if I'm being too demanding for wanting this too.

Hmm...I think you sound quite anxiety-inducing and peace-shattering.
My husband is an anxious man who goes from 0-100 over trivial matters too. He gets angry and indignant when I don't join in. It's pretty exhausting.
Could you be the same?

My husband is similar- never willing to see problems, and always ignores my warnings and worries. It puts me in the unpleasant role of being the person who has to look for trouble, be vigilant, be cautious, etc, which is not really my nature, but we polarise one another. Over 30 years this has caused significant problems. In the end he has turned out to be someone who did some terrible things because he refused to see problems and take responsibility for his own poor judgement.

So I think you need to ask yourself whether you are an overly alarmist person (your example could go either way, in my opinion), and whether your husband's cheerful positivity provides a good balance in your family, or whether he is genuinely someone who deals with problems by sweeping them under the carpet.

Even if you do balance one another well at this moment in your marriage, I would think this is something to be aware of and not allow to become a role that either of you plays over time, because roles like this often become a pattern which can make people feel trapped.

Sounds like I disagree with everyone except op 😂

If he had said let me have a look and helped you check your hair would you have been more or less anxious and stressed?

Did you actually have lice?

I missed your update while I was writing- so you are aware that you tend to be alarmist because of your own past. That is good. Maybe you are in a good position to make sure that the two of you are sensitive to your different responses and don't drive one another to extremes.

He sounds infuriating OP. He’s actively dismissing you and belittling your concerns.

I also think if he had been more "believing" of you that you wouldn't have gone into "point proving" mode and things wouldn't have escalated

You sound too anxious. Have you thought of therapy?

Sounds like there is room for you to both meet in the middle here. Personally your initial response to the bug was overly dramatic and if that’s how you regularly respond I’d probably react like your DH did. It can be exhausting dealing with people who take a minor event and blow it into a huge problem before they even know it is one.

you could have just said “ooh there is a bug in my hair can you just check to see if there’s any others” and then gone from there. He could/should be helpful and then take a look.

Currently you go into overdrive and I suspect he just doesn’t want hop onto the panic train.

Absolutely! That would have been exactly what I needed at that point.
I get triggered by feeling like I'm alone in dealing with these things, because then I get overwhelmed with all the things I have to pile on top of my already never-ending list.

Did you actually have lice though?

I did 😆

I would have started the conversation by asking my DH to check my hair as I think I found a louse.

Do you actually now know if you have lice?

My DH can be like this too. Like you say, I think it’s because life would be easier if the thing I was concerned about wasn’t true, so he just acts like it’s not true. Everyone saying you sound overly anxious etc are missing the point a bit… if he hasn’t dismissed you straight away, you wouldn’t have needed to labour the point. For me, an appropriate response to ‘I think I’ve just found lice in my hair’ would be ‘come here let’s have a proper look’. Then it could either be confirmed and dealt with, or discounted and you could all get on with your day.

If it were me and I'd have to respond to someone who I felt was overreacting, I would ask questions

Your DH isn't expected to react like you - he could reasonably ask that you should react how he does.

There are strategies you could deploy to lower your anxiety and it's worth learning these as it will also help your children as you will model coping skills. I had an extremely anxious and overwhelmed mum so have to work hard not to react how she did.

You are standing there with a piece of physical evidence that's potentially a louse, that he won't look at. Previously, the dog was seen to have been limping. Also previously, the children were seen to be being sick - you can't really deny the presence of vomit, and it happens for a reason that's usually illness-related! These are things that are actually happening, so I don't understand how some people say you're being over the top in the situations you've described.

Your 'agency' means you do all the work in resolving these issues, as you've said. Partnerships mean we communicate and share the load, he's not doing either with these situations. I don't see why you just get on with stuff single-handed. I'd find it belittling if he won't even look, and just decides he's right.

With respect, you sound like my MIL and it's exhausting having to deal with the constantly anxious, hence why FIL zones out to her and has many hobbies outside of the home just to avoid some of the never ending stream of catastophising, and why I as a dil avoid interaction. I'd suggest maybe start to be more pragmatic and practical in your requests to him and allow him space to input first before starting to get over anxious. It's hard work constantly having to manage someone who immediately sees everything as the worst case scenario.

Sorry, I’m with your DH too. Sounds like you went straight from 0-100 & who wants to hear ‘we have problem’. I would have played it down too to calm down the situation.

It’s just head lice 🤷🏻‍♀️

There’s a difference between playing down/calming a situation, and just pretending a situation doesn’t exist.

I have a DH who tends to do the same @Girlmom35 and I’m not sure people realise how infuriating it is.

Yes it could be ‘oh look, it’s lice’.
But it could be any other subject, from what plant it is or any other subject. The number of times where I thought ‘oh look, I was right then,wasn’t I?’ Is staggering.

So yes you can just say ‘im doing it’ regardless of his pov. But the fact is that he is being very dismissive of you and that hurts. Esp when it’s a recurring theme.
My own experience is that it simply leads to creating a huge gulf. Easy to see why too.
You raise something. You’re told you’re wrong/overreacting. So you do things yourself (as per PP advice) At some point you stop telling him stuff, asking for support etc… because you can do it all on your own right? It creates disconnection rather than connection.

I think this sounds like both of you have extreme reactions - yours are over reactions and his are under reactions. Surely in most couples, a conversation like this would be a) the woman NOT panicking and b) the man taking a look. So I'd tell Dh I am concerned we have lice. He'd take a look at my hair. Together we'd agree to look at the DCs.

But if you have form for catastrophising, I can see why it might be that he's under reacting becasue if this is the 100th time you've gone from 0-100 in 5 seconds, it might well be that there's an element of "cry wolf" here and so he jut tunes you out when you're stressing.