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?

Actually that's not at all something that happens.
I don't panic over things that are non-existent issues.

What does happen, and for which I've been in therapy for a few years, is that an actual, real problem arrises and my mind goes straight to all possible outcomes, potential obstacles, and I instantly start to plan strategies to deal with every scenario. Like I said, it's a trauma response. Growing up, anything and everything that happened in my house was my fault. So if I didn't foresee every potential problem and try to prevent them, there would be hell to pay.

I still feel a strong urge to make sure that every problem is dealt with quickly and very efficiently. My anxiety lies right there, when I want to tackle a problem and I'm unable to, or someone is unwilling to help me, or doesn't even believe there's a problem. Which is also why I feel very triggered when my husband dismisses things.

I'm not saying that this is his problem to deal with. But, I do have to say that out of a hundred times I mentioned a problem, probably about 85 or more of them will be actual problems and his dismissal or denial will have made matters worse or more difficult to deal with. Which just adds to my to-do-list.

OP you talked about childhood trauma. I get triggered by being ignored/disbelieved and it used to send me into a spiral.

To be fair I don't react like that any more probably because I surround myself with people who don't invalidate me.

Your post took me back to a time when I was little. My mum and step dad told me I was scratching my head 'for attention'. Turned out I had lice too...

I had a similar husband. I do not have anxiety and I'm as cool as a cucumber in a crisis. No catastrophising here. I think your dh is horrible and I see nothing wrong with what you expected of him, ie to just listen without dismissal.
My winner of an example was the following story, but there were many over the years. Please leave, it never gets better.
One morning when we woke up the bathroom floor ( tiled) was warm under foot. It was the middle of winter so it should have felt cold. In fact, it always had felt cool under foot previously, even in the middle of summer. I told Dh. He told me I was imagining it but wouldn't come and feel. The kids also said it felt warm. It was especially warm near the toilet. I waited for him to go shower etc and asked him if he noticed. He said no. I asked him to feel it with his hand instead. He told me it was all in my head and stalked off.
We were due to fly out on a two week holiday later that day. The bathroom floor only kept getting warmer throughout the morning. I went outside and around to the hotwater system. There was steam billowing out from under the house ( house had wooden floors and was on stumps). I went back inside to report that I thought there was an issue under the house with a hot water pipe. My husband refused to acknowledge me, refused to come and look.
I went to see a neighbour whose husband is a tradie. He came over and crawled under. Yup, huge leak under the house, spraying super hot water up at the floor boards. We turned the water off at the mains. He gave me a plumber recommendation. I booked the plumber to come out the next day. I left my house keys with my neighbour to let the plumber in. The neighbour ended up needing to cut the sub floor for the plumber as the leak was impossible to reach from under the house. The neighbour also repaired the floor after the plumber had finished.
If we had left on holiday with a leak of that magnitude spraying hot water at the floor boards for 2 weeks the damage would have been huge. My neighbour treated me with more respect than my own husband. Husband did not say sorry to me or even thank you to me or the neighbour.

I think any anxiety you might have has been caused by a husband who dismisses you, gaslights you and minimises any issue you have. Get rid of the husband and you'll get rid of the the anxiety.

I think this is a communication issue in the first instance and you both need to change the way you react. Secondly it's a division of labour problem. He needs to take more on on the "real" problem solving.

I haven't read all of the responses but my husband is like this as well. It's infuriating. He has Asperger's. Not that your husband does but just saying.

For what it's worth OP, I think I'm exactly like you and have been on a similar journey to try and adapt how I react to these situations.

However what I will say is that when I was having the exact same issue with my DH, we ended up having a very direct conversation (at a separate time to anything else going on) where I was clear that a) I understood he was most likely trying to de-escalate my response, but b) if anything, it was doing the opposite because I felt like all problems were 100% with me to solve and on top of that, that he thought I was being stupid.

He was really upset as he'd never thought that was what happened in my head as a response to what he thought was helping, and we now have an agreement that I continue working on improving my response (so not immediately trying to resolve all possible results!) and he in turn will verbally say that he hears what I'm saying, and what he thinks rather than trying to quickly dismiss it.

It isn't a dramatic change really, but just having him really listen to what I'm saying, and then giving a proper considered response, really makes me feel a lot calmer. It also helps because, in all honestly, despite my anxiety response to things, I'm actually very often correct but not articulating it well, so having more of a proper conversation means we can actually decide if something is wrong!! As a result, I respond more calmly to things, because I know it will be taken seriously if I do think its important. He then knows I'm only talking to him about important things which we need to figure out. Both are happier!

This is will help indicate which one of you needs to work on an aspect of their personality.

If your concerns more often than not turn out to have substance to them, then either he is too casual about everything or he'd dismissing you because he thinks you have a pink lady brain.

What do you think your DH should actually do?
You response made me think that you want your concerns to be validated and supported the way you are told to listen to a child who is having difficulty articulating and processing feelings. That is quite a high level of support.
It sounds like he does "watchful waiting" waiting for more evidence that there is an issue before flying in to action.
As an adult I would expect my DH to tell me about a concern re the dog or a potential issue (lice) but also to deal with it without needing support to do so. So if he thought there may be an issue with lice I would expect to be told but only after he had combed through his own hair first so we had a better idea of what we were dealing with.

I suppose any number of responses would have been alright for me.
Anything from: "oh, really? That sucks!" to "Can I see?" or "Is there anything I can do to help?" would have been just fine.

I'm perfectly capable of figuring out exactly what needs to be done, and delegating tasks to him when I need his help. But this happened at 10 in the evening and I didn't think that convincing him that I did in fact have lice was the best use of my time. I wanted to grab some product, wash my hair, comb it out, change my bedsheets and the couch cussions, put a first load in the laundry, go to sleep, wake up early so I could check and wash my girls hair before school, change their sheets, another load of washing, etc. And then maybe get to work on time myself.
And the more he refused to believe me, the longer it took me to get to work fixing things. All the while I was doing everything on my own and he wasn't helping.

I suppose I need to ask myself why I need him to believe my judgement, or feel that I need to have his approval before actually getting to work on things.
Maybe because I feel that a lice infestation (or any of the other examples) is a family problem, not a me-problem, and I shouldn't be the only one dealing with it.

Without knowing either of you it's impossible to really know if you have a habit of catastrophising or he has a habit of being dismissive, or both. However, in some men ithis is an extension of mansplaining.

My DH, who is one of the most 'new age' men you'll find (easily does more than his 50% round the house, the opposite of controlling, endlessly supportive etc) can drop into this. He stopped mansplaining a long time ago but occasionally just questions something I say for no good reason that I can see. I used to point out the evidence (and was nearly always right) whereas now I just look at him pointedly and tell him it's not compulsory to disagree and he's likely to look a dick when I prove him wrong as I usually do. That seems to work for about 12 months at a time.

I honestly think it comes from men being socialised to pontificate without questioning whether they are talking bollocks and so they automatically swing into question mode when women do it.

Your anxiety might be down to childhood trauma but you feeling you are catastrophising is down to your dh reaction.
id bet it’s him who constantly tells you that.
If it was catastrophising, you’d be right only 15% of the time. Not 85%.

I suppose I need to ask myself why I need him to believe my judgement, or feel that I need to have his approval before actually getting to work on things.

I think there are two different issues.

Needing him to believe your judgement is about being seen, heard and trusted. All of it are essential in a balanced, equal relationship.

Needing his approval is another issue. Maybe it’s simply an approval thing from low self esteem. Maybe that’s because you were told off if you didn’t answer properly. Whatever.

I wouldnt mix those up.

I'd say your different ways of dealing with problems is pushing you both to the extremes.

For you, you panic instantly becuase you get no support. For him, he disconnects immediately becuase it's just another overreaction. It's like you've both lost perspective in opposite directions.

You sound like me, OP. I’m in therapy 🤣

Yes to this!

You don’t need to waste time trying to convince him of something you know is right.

I think you need to make a habit of asking yourself the questions you think he should be asking.

He's not there to act as a filter in your brain.

I hear you OP. My husband would like to ostrich when any kind of thing crops up out of his comfort zone. He would be happy if I just take care of everything. Like a lot of pampered as children blokes I would guess. He's never been as bad as yours like.

I don't let that happen though. I pile more mental load on him and that becomes his sole job. He's pretty much nailed it. I refuse to be in charge of everything.

Yes it's pretty much yet again training a man but he had it too easy growing up.

Yes, that is absolutely a problem on his part.

Could it possibly be related to reluctance on his part to take time off work while he's willing to see you take the hit to your career prospects?

Exactly this. OP found a louse, showed it to her husband, asked him to check her hair to see if there were more, he refused to look, refused to engage.

OP is left having to buy lice remover, do the children's hair, do all the bedding etc., while he presumably gets to sit with his feet up. And this often happens when there's a family or household issue.

The only possible conclusion is that he does it in order to ensure she has to sort out everything and he gets to do nothing.

The reason OP gets anxious is that her DH is refusing to acknowledge her concerns and putting a stressful load of responsibilities onto her shoulders.

He sounds extremely defensive, not laid back at all, it’s as if when there does turn out to be a problem he will find it overwhelming, and keep it at bay as long as possible