Why do I do this?

[Truth25]

I grew up in a very dysfunctional and emotionally abusive family. I don't think I would ever heal or recover but I go on. Had lots of therapy along the way, but have just accepted that this was my lot in life. If I look back on my life at just 40 years old and all the trauma, it just saddens me.
I am married to a wonderful man who saved me in many ways and life has been good since then. He isn't perfect, in fact has a complex about never being wrong ever.
If i think anyone is upset or angry with me, I cannot handle that hanging over me. I am deeply in a state of anxiety, need them to be ok with me and will just apologize for the sake of making it right for me. This is so wrong, in combination with someone who is never wrong.

Dh and I had an argument last night and yet again I am fighting the urge to say sorry, just so that I can be ok. Why do I do this? Please help me understand. I am tearful, emotional, anxious, up from 2am and just want to send begging messages to apologize. I am just exhausted, tired of doing this, tired of life itself.

I don't want to do any therapy right now, just need to understand a bit why do I do this, anything I can read, anything to comfort myself that I am not abnormal. Please be kind.

I'm no therapist, so read my reply with that in mind, but I have had similar experiences myself.
Your unhappy and anxious childhood has left you in deep fear of love, friendship, or approval being withdrawn. You're scared of being cut adrift from those you care about because of something you've said or done. That's no way to live, as you know.

You can't do this alone. I have had brilliant and unexpected support by posting on Mumsnet. It may help you feel better. Temporarily.

Therapy might not suit you. Even if you had therapy, you still have to do the work yourself.

Thank you for replying. I do know I have very deep issues. If you were rejected by your own mother, that will mess you up. I can't do therapy right now because my dc are going through stuff and I can't break down dealing with my own stuff. Hoping MN can give me some temporary coping advice.

I think you're really brave, OP, because you know that you could probably get rid of the horrible frightened feelings by apologising, but you're listening to that part of you who knows you don't owe an apology and trying to just be with those difficult emotions. There must be a battle going on inside! Does it help at all to imagine the scared, distressed part of you as very young, the vulnerable part we all have who feels our fears of being rejected or punished or abandoned? That part of you had very good reasons for her fears, and needs reassurance that she's safe now. It's like the adult you, who reached out here for some support, can offer her some compassion, reassurance, comfort. You must be feeling really overwhelmed but you still managed to come here and ask for some help, I think that's bloody brilliant.

Being married to Someone Who is Never Wrong is incredibly toxic.

Your current emotional reaction is normal for someone who is ‘never heard’. This will be exacerbated by your childhood experiences.

I was married to someone like this, I thought he was wonderful too. Because he was never wrong, I started thinking I was the one who had something wrong with me. I also couldn’t bear to be out of ‘favour’ with my ex and I would be overwhelmed with emotion until we were ‘friends’ again.

This marriage did not help me flourish. I became less confident over the years. I lost my self esteem and became a worrier, anxious and an over thinker.

You must be allowed to voice your feelings and emotions in a marriage. Eventually I became scared of my husband and stopped voicing any opinion that was different to his. Because he was always right, I must therefore be always wrong and thus far inferior to him. Eventually there was no equality in our marriage and he felt justified to be very angry with me whenever I disagreed with him, or even when I thought differently to him. I had to leave.

If you have ever thought to yourself “if only I could find the right words to express how I feel, he would understand I am allowed to have this opinion/view/idea”. This is a red flag. Obviously if your arguments are about facts ie what is the capital of Ghana? and he just knows the right answer everytime - this doesn’t apply.

I didn’t realise how badly I was being treated because of my childhood where I wasn’t listened to, or emotionally taken care of or even taken notice of.

I would start with your husbands behaviour. Once you feel validated by him, I suspect the past treatment by your mother will have less power to hurt you in the present.

Im very sorry if you feel I’m picking on your husband, but I’ve had a lot of therapy and I’m still picking up the pieces of myself after my divorce.

I grew up similarly in an emotionally abusive home. I was treated differently from my siblings and I" didn't count" in the family.
And this left me seeking approval from people most of my life. I couldn't bear the thought of people not liking me. And I constantly looked to see whether my behaviour was what they wanted/ expected rather than what was best for me/ was what I wanted.
I did a really helpful CBT course when I was in my 40s - I'm quite old now. And that helped me for a long time to alter my thinking : that in reality for the most part other people's opinions didn't really matter and in fact, they mainly weren't even noticing or thinking anything of , what I was doing. That really it was only the opinion of a very small number of people that really mattered: in my case just my DS and my DH.
Although the effects of CBT wore off over the years and I'm now attending a Clinical Psychologist I still can dip into what I learnt in CBT and find it helpful.

You seem very self aware OP. In fact not only very aware of your own thoughts and behaviour and their causes, but also very aware of your DH and his personality traits
It does seem extremely unfortunate that given your need to please people you have married a man who is always right. In fact is it because of your upbringing you have ended up with this type of man?

If he thinks he is always right I feel that is quite a barrier to you being able to sort our your need to not upset people. Because how is he going to behave when you are more assertive about your own views and needs?
Seems to me it's not only work on yourself to put yourself first but also relationship counselling that will be needed to make your relationship a partnership of equals. If he thinks he is always right he is very much in need of therapy himself imo OP.

It's extremely common and normal that we end up in relationships with people who make us feel something familiar from our upbringing. So if you grew up in a family where you felt unwanted or that you had no voice or choice, then it's no surprise that you would be drawn to a partner who has to be right all the time. It's not a conscious thing, we're just drawn to what feels familiar. The dynamic of you being blamed or told you're wrong, then having love or safety withdrawn until you apologise or give in, is possibly incredibly familiar to you on a subconscious level.

@Imgoingtobefree

You have voiced my thoughts, on reading OP’s message, precisely. Only more clearly and with more depth than I would have done.

a) the business of saving is never that simple. your past doesn’t change. But please don’t - essentially - blame yourself for having natural emotional reactions to things. It’s not your “baggage” or trauma talking, it’s the part of you that needs love, care and affection now

b) someone who is never wrong will rob anyone of their confidence, joy, raison d’etre, self sufficiency, calm / peace of mind, little by little, day by day. No matter what their childhood was like or how much therapy they do to find sticking plasters.

Be kinder to yourself and stand up for yourself even more than you think you can. Your kids will learn from it, in time.

It sounds like you're experiencing flashbacks. What's happening is you are triggered by the situation and are then flooded with feelings you would have experienced as a child.

In that moment you are feeling like a powerless child and you are resorting to strategies you used then to feel safe.

There are four reactions: fawn, fight, freeze, flight. It sounds like your strategy is fawn. That means you try to appease the threat. You apologise and try to soothe things over because you want the danger to end.

These strategies no longer serve you but because you're experiencing a flashback, you're unable to control your reaction.

I don't know if you've been diagnosed with anything but CPTSD might resonate with you. If it does Pete Walker's book CPTSD from Surviving to Thriving might be useful.

I've been sitting on my hands today. I'm dreading this evening when dh is home from work and the atmosphere will be tense and cold, the kids will pick up on this and then it's straight into the weekend like this. Exactly like how I grew up, except there was screaming matches and us children living in a state of anxiety as to when it would start.
I would do anything not to go through that. The problem with me apologising all the time is that by default I became the 'problem'. So it goes back to the previous times that I was wrong but actually I wasn't. I think I will always be that child that never healed.

Dh is a really good person, will support me in absolutely anything, hands on dad, will do anything to make me happy. I guess his own upbringing is very dysfunctional as well, in that his self esteem was destroyed so any slight remark he takes is so extremely personally and defensively.

I wonder if there's another option, not just either you apologise or the stony atmosphere? What if you are upbeat and cheery, almost as if nothing has happened? Then your DH has the option to stop sulking and move on, and starts to learn that you're not always going to back down to keep the peace. It will take a while for you both to get used to a new dynamic, but I wonder if it's worth a try? Step out of the usual script and be light and easy, as best you can. Let him sulk if he wants to, but he might just get bored of it when he doesn't get attention.

Would you both be up for a bit of couples counselling? Learning how to disagree well is a great thing for relationships, and it sounds like you both didn't get a great foundation for that through no fault of your own. Having a few sessions where you can unpack what the usual "script" is for you both when you disagree, and learn one that works better for you both would be a great investment.

Make this the time you show yourself that you can break the cycle.

Be as normal as you can with him tonight. But vow to yourself that you will not apologise simply to smooth things over

No one is always right and he must be able to understand that, no matter what childhood issues he has. Does he understand that on an intellectual level? Does he ever apologise after the fact? Or does he just insist that you are always wrong?

I'm not convinced he would do anything to support you. He won't admit to ever being wrong and when challenged, gives you the silent treatment (a form of emotional abuse) and creates tension and anxiety for the whole family.

Couples counselling might help, but it's not a good idea when one partner is abusing the other. So do bear this in mind if you decide this could be a way forward.

I am very troubled with the way you present your husband. You are basically blaming yourself for everything, even here on MN, you say the problem is you, your upbringing, not your "perfect" husband.

I am sorry, but I am going to say this and you can take it however you want. Even though you did not give us a lot about who he is, I would say that he IS the problem, not you at all.

Not sure why you say you do not want to go through therapy because you want to be there for your kids. The truth is exactly the opposite, if you want to be there for your kids, you have to take care of yourself first.

Best of luck OP.

This. You have to put on your own life mask before you can save anyone else. A man who is always right is also going to affect your children. Is he defensive with them too?

I agree with the PP that said your response about your husband is concerning and so sad. Even from the outside it seems like we can see something you don't.