My husband and I have been arguing a lot lately about everything. Our arguments spiral into these really long metacognitive conversations and I’m beginning to feel like we fundamentally do not speak the same language. We’ve been together 17 years, married for 10 and we have two kids, ages 2 and 8. I think about divorce a lot but I’m not working full-time and don’t feel financially independent. He REFUSES to get counseling. Our arguments usually end because he tells me to “calm down” or he walks away and stonewalls me and refuses to talk. He also calls me “a pain in the ass” or “neurotic” because it’s hard for me to let something go until it’s really worked out. He often tells me I’m angry and argumentative or that I pick fights with him but I’m trying to reach a greater understanding so we can get along better. He‘d be happy if we just talked about the weather and never got into the nitty gritty stuff you HAVE to address in a close relationship. Sometimes I hate him and wish I were on my own and sometimes I don’t know how our family would function without him. I’m tired of fighting but I feel my concerns aren’t being heard. Has anyone dealt with a spouse who won’t get counseling. I’ve tried but he won’t do it. He’s a black and white thinker and feels that our problems should be worked out between us.
You’ve been complaining about your marriage for a long time.
I first met my husband when he was 14 and I was 17.
After more than 40 years of knowing each other (we had our 30th anniversary last summer) - we can finish each others sentences more often than not and we don’t need to say a lot anymore.
We know what the other is thinking - we like companionable silences.
In your relationship - is it really about achieving a ‘greater understanding’ or are you just enjoying an argument because you like to argue?
(What the heck is a metacognative conversation? Who talks like that?)
My sister enjoys bickering, arguing, fighting - she doesn’t understand why others find this to be unpleasant and tiring.
I don’t think any relationship requires me to be anyone’s sparring partner.
I really think she has ODD - oppositional defiant disorder.
No matter what you say to her - you’re wrong.
She’s been like this her whole life - way before ODD was identified.
If you look up ODD her picture should be included in the definition.
If fighting is what you like - find a sparring partner.
I mean it - join a gym and take up kick boxing.
Take the arguing out of your marriage and it might turn out to be a lot more workable than you think it is.
Talk to a counselor about the possibility that you might have ODD - and see if therapy will help you to navigate your relationships any better.
You can still go to counseling on your own. Work through your own feelings, and possibly get the confidence that you need to leave if that’s ultimately what you want to do.
Based on your past posts I think this is a good idea. You seem to be looking for others to make you happy (your husband, another man, another baby.) Maybe what you really need to do is start making YOURSELF happy.
I keep seeing this going around social media…something like this: why don’t you just sit back, relax (perhaps remain calm and give in a little - my words) and let them be WRONG. You don’t have to be right all the time and you don’t have to agree with him all the time either. And if he doesn’t want to go further than talk about the weather-then let him be him. We are not all the same. I put up my dukes every now and then and realize it makes my blood pressure go higher, my heart racing and I don’t win anyway. So I stopped a long time ago and I have been married just about twenty five years. My husband is not one to want conflict so he avoids it. I find that it doesn’t matter if I have to make some decisions or resolutions that he doesn’t want to reflect on …they are made and done with and we don’t look back (because all you get is regrets)…and back to my husband- he in my opinion is the nicest man on earth. We don’t need him to verify every conflict.
So you have choices here. You can get your own counseling and find out if he really IS a big problem and you are a victim, you can start some other ways to take care of yourself, or you can get a full time job if you think you should be on your own and take care of your children by yourself which is really no fun but you can prove to the world how ‘right’ you are.
I think this all depends on how you are with your husbands ( this is just a paragraph into your life and just your point of view. I am sure he will have another version) is this relationship worth saving?! ( forget about finances for now) many people got divorced not working at all… it will be a little tough but not impossible.
Personally I do not believe in counseling. ( neither do few of my friends… meanwhile many Americans do… and yet why is divorce rate so high?!) I believe in working things out face to face… sitting down and telling how things are… and if you guys do manage to keep your emotions at bay…,maybe you can come to resolution… one way or another.
Also only you know what your personality is like… are you a perfectionist? A none stop nagger? Do you always have to be correct? Maybe he is not a talker? Maybe there is another approach to making him listen? Maybe he and you are ready to go your separate ways…this is something that needs to be discussed. You and him. ( and if you feel counseling can help you… go by yourself… maybe that will help)
Good luck!
I think you should get counseling for yourself. Talk this over in a safe place with someone who can help guide you to figure out what you want. As you know, you can only change yourself, but sometimes when one person in a relationship changes, the other person changes in reaction. This isn’t to say that you’re “wrong” or need to “fix” anything about yourself. But you’re unhappy, and you can work with someone to figure out what the way to happiness looks like whether or not your husband is on board.
You need some peace in your life. Go to a counselor to get help with being able to “let go” of things that aren’t worked out. Get a handle on the entirety of your finances so that you can make some decisions. You may find that he leaves and you won’t have a choice. Forewarned is forearmed.
Honestly I got to the point where I did not give him a choice, I had the separation paperwork filled out and was packing up the house, the only way I was staying was if he agreed to counseling AND gave it 100% (because it won’t work if both people are not putting in 100%). He went and we worked really hard for several months, but it ended up saving our marriage. We learned better communication skills, how to listen without judgement, and how to take a step back and see things from the other persons perspective before reacting. We learned how to better annualize our own emotions and consider what the other person may be feeling as well. In short, we learned how to communicate about all that deep important stuff you are trying to talk to him about. I am not saying too give him an ultimatum, especially if you are not ready to follow through with the leaving part, but I am staying that life is way to short to be unhappy so if you are unhappy figure out what you need to be happy and go for it, whether that is with or without your husband. Best of luck!
The problem is, it seems, that you both want to do things your way, and you want the other one to work the same way. Aside from your marriage, your 2 children are learning to deal with conflict and argument by watching you and your husband do it badly.
I think your husband needs to learn to fight fair - that means to stop talking about what you do wrong and to learn to talk about how he feels. And how he feels can’t be “I’m angry because Bella is a neurotic pain in the ass.” Maybe you wouldn’t keep bringing things up over and over and talking about them so much if they simply got dealt with. It sounds to me like you don’t feel listened to. That’s hurtful, and it devalues you. You also don’t feel valued because he’s the financial earner. Being tied to someone financially is a bad reason to stay together. You need to feel like an equal, and he needs to see you that way. Now, maybe you need to learn to fight fair as well. Using words like “metacognitive” can be off-putting, you know.
Go to counseling for YOU and to figure out the finances and how to raise 2 kids in a supportive environment. Right now, they are learning that women who don’t earn enough are lesser humans, and that the way to solve problems is to give the cold shoulder and walk away, or to keep harping on it until divorce is inevitable. They will learn how to treat a partner and be treated by one from what they are observing. Is that what you want? I don’t think so.
I think you can certainly give him an ultimatum about going - but not until you know why you are there and what you want, and have figured out a way to approach him more effectively. He won’t make the first move, I get that. So you have to. But you need a safe and objective space in which to talk about you and your needs.
Jumping into divorce won’t solve problems if it’s not done properly - and no one will heal that way. That includes your children. They need a whole, healthy and fulfilled mother. They also need a father who feels that way about himself. I don’t know if your husband can get there but you won’t know unless you try. You at least need to find a healthy way to split up - and you need an ally for that.
Bella
You both are the problem. You’re both Type-A personalities and demand to have things YOUR WAY. There is no compromise.
You already have a foot out the door because you’re thinking of divorce.
You go to counseling for YOURSELF and learn how to communicate without having to have it your way ALL THE TIME. It looks like you follow him around yapping at him to get a “better understanding” and all he feels is you at his backside all the time.
Stop needing to have it YOUR way all the time. STOP contributing to the fighting. IT TAKES TWO to fight. Look at the example you are giving your children. Is this really what you want them to see as a “marriage”? Stop making this about you and what you “MUST HAVE” and need…listen first. you might not be LISTENING to your husband and what he’s saying because it’s NOT what you want to hear. It happens a lot with people who need to have it their way! Your husband needs to listen to you as well. But I fear you both feel you’re right and won’t stop to listen.
Breathe. Back off and breathe.
Go to counseling for yourself.
Merry Christmas!
Oh honey… lighten up! Seriously… not everything needs to be talked out. Yes, there are things that need to be addressed at times and there are certain situations that require immediate action. Drug abuse, abuse, etc… But, all the little stuff is just that little stuff. The surefire way to drive a wedge into your marriage is trying to hash out every detail all the time. The fact you say you HATE someone who you promised to love and that you are thinking about divorce all the time… well, if I was married to someone who felt that way to me I don’t think I would want to talk about everything with them either. Why would I? How could I trust someone to care about my feelings when I knew they hated me? You need to get a life. Stop looking to your husband to be your source of happiness and hating him when he doesn’t meet your needs. Barring any serious issues, if you would learn to be happy with yourself, you would probably see a change in him. Might take a little time. If anything, worse case scenario is you would learn to be happy on your own, which you will have to do anyways if you get a divorce.
Why does every little thing need to be talked out? What are you such a control freak?
You both need to learn to communicate better.
You need stop insisting that every detail be hashed out. You don’t need the nitty gritty to have a close relationship. You just don’t.
Get counseling for yourself. Learn how to back off and stop with the incessant nagging.
My hubby and I go out for coffee and just bring up kid stuff that’s weighing on our minds, or if his family was crossing the line, he’d talk about how he was dealing with it … If I needed to get something off my chest with my side, I got my ten mins to vent.
Our own stuff? We own that. That’s 90%. We don’t hash it out, or talk about endlessly. Men men hate talking endlessly, and tune out.
I too can’t stand talking nitty gritty - analyzing stuff past the obvious. My sister, who can be argumentative, loves to. She can’t let go of things. It can sound a tad self absorbed.
That can lead to a lot of unhappiness. Accept what you can’t change and move on, etc. It’s not someone else’s responsibility to make you happy, that whole thing.
Sometimes it’s best to go to counseling on your own (a session or two) just to unload and get perspective. You sound very stressed. Might be helpful.
Most couples don’t need to go. Unless you have a specific problem you need addressing - it actually isn’t that helpful.
It’s best to say how you feel to your spouse than to accuse them. Focus on the issue, not the person. For example, “What can we do to make this issue/problem better”? And both of you come at it from different angles.
Leave it to him to figure out how he will help. You do what you need to do. Listen. Ask him what he needs from you to make issue better, and vice versa.
Coffee dates to just handle the regular marriage/parenting stuff. Same approach. That seems to work for us.
Good luck 
So worked out your way? You think that this is helping in the long run so ya’ll get along better? It doesn’t appear to be working!
I don’t like people who talk at me all the time either. I have a different opinion as does my husband. We have to compromise. It does not sound like that in your household.
Maybe your concerns are being heard but he just doesn’t agree with you?
Personally, I don’t think either of you know how to communicate to the other. I visualizing a woman tailing her husband just talking without any knowledge that she is repeating herself all the time.
If he won’t go to counseling, you should. They can help you with learning different communicating styles. I would also recommend that you get a job. It sounds like you have one foot out the door so you need to start looking at the big picture.
Good luck.
i get that you want to dig down and unearth the fundamental problem and address THAT, hence the long metacognitive forays. i’m a talk-it-outer.
but sometimes what needs to be solved is much simpler and faster, and so i also understand your husband’s exasperation with everything turning into a huge long deep rabbit hole.
even when it’s NOT simple and fast, the rabbit hole is chancey place to delve.
financial anxiety is a real and pertinent problem. but it’s a terrible reason to keep a family together. if that’s really all there is left, you need to work more and figure out how to support yourself and the kids if there’s a chance your husband might go deadbeat on you.
it’s a pity he won’t go to counseling, but if he’s up to his ears in psychobabble he does have a point. however, telling you to ‘calm down’ is about the stupidest thing he can do. not once in the history of Everything has telling an upset person to ‘calm down’ actually worked.
i’m sorry he’s calling you names and stonewalling you. that’s so unhelpful. but i suspect your attempts to ‘reach a greater understanding’ may have tipped over into nagging, which is also unhelpful.
you sound exhaused and frustrated. i’m sorry. it’s hard to make great decisions from that place.
please keep in mind that your kids are learning conflict resolution from watching you two, so it’s about more than you and your husband.
there’s nothing stopping YOU from going to counseling, not because you actually are neurotic or any of the other ugly labels he slaps on you, but because it will allow you to be heard by a neutral third party, and, more importantly, can give you the tools you need to communicate more effectively. your desire to dig down to the nitty gritty is admirable but since you’re not succeeding at all, you need a new approach (or several.) this is where a good counselor can help your marriage even if he’s not participating actively.
i do think counseling gets bruited about as a cure-all too often, but when you’re running into a brick wall and becoming disillusioned and frustrated, it’s at least an avenue to try. since he won’t, you’re the only one left.
think about it more as a way that you can learn to communicate on his level.
i mean, it’s that or just split, right? make sure the kids see you giving it a fighting (forgive the awful metaphor) chance first.
khairete
suz
If he will not go to counseling with you go on your own. The only one that you can control is yourself. If you work on yourself and he sees a change in you maybe he will decide to go with you. Or maybe if you work on yourself most the problems with resolve.
Oh wow. I’m sorry. This sounds like my husband, back in the day. Nothing was ever allowed to be discussed and thereby worked out. And unfortunately, things occasionally need to be discussed and worked out in a marriage. It’s just not always sunshine and roses.
I have often said that I wish that I’d really pushed for counseling, instead of it letting it continue for years, because we really needed a third party to moderate our discussions (or lack thereof). But if your husband absolutely refuses counseling (has he said why?), my only other suggestion is that you approach him with the issue, and let him make the decision on when and how the two of you will work it out. In my experience, if you just approach this type of husband with the issue, he gets defensive and shuts down and that’s the end of that. So, you have to allow him to determine when/how it will be discussed.
Example: You: “Honey, I am really feeling a need to discuss ______. There are some things we need to work out. When would you be willing to have a discussion about it?” And then if he says Tuesday at 10:00 p.m., you have to be willing to wait until then. At least then he has some agency in the discussion, instead of just suddenly being attacked by a nagging witch who won’t just let him peacefully enjoy his Sunday.
If he says something like, “I absolutely refuse to discuss that topic,” then you have a major problem on your hands. If you choose to try my tactic, you might begin it with the comment that, “When people get married, vows traditionally include the phrase ‘for better or for worse’. That part of the vow is included because there are almost always difficult issues, which unfortunately need to be addressed. In our (and any) relationship, we need to be able to occasionally discuss difficult topics, and be able to come to a compromise. A compromise usually means that each party wins a little and loses a little. Are you willing to have discussions with me about difficult topics, in order to reach a compromise that leaves us both contented?” And since, as you say, your husband feels that your problems should be worked out between the two of you, then he needs to be willing to actually do the hard and painful work of actually working them out.
I really wish I’d had the above conversation with my husband before I allowed him to get away with many, many years of stonewalling, refusal and withdrawal, that left me with a lot of resentment. Though happily. he has finally grown, and we are now allowed to discuss things, and over time, the past is beginning to fade in my memory.
Reading comments below: I don’t know you, maybe you’re a needy, high maintenance PITA who is always getting annoyed over some triviality, and nagging your poor husband to death. In which case, lighten up. Or maybe, like me, you’re pretty easygoing, but you have a handful of really reasonable requests that your partner should be able to hear, not sweep them under the rug and never address them. If you are the latter, you have a valid complaint.
I Seriously just joined to answer your question! I have a different answer and you’ll have to do some work. Don’t dismiss this, until you read it…
Search “is it still gaslighting if my partner has Aspergers”.
Search, Is ASD my relationship problem. Search Neuro-diverse couples.
Search Cassandra Syndrome…( a side effect of being with someone with Asperger’s syndrome)
You’ll have to decide if it is similar to your situation(s), which (If so) probably happen so frequently you need to keep a journal to keep up, or risk loosing yourself in the river of unresolved feelings and issues you’ve forgotten. You’ll also have to balance this possibility against true narcissism. The difference (In My Opinion) would lay in the realms of intent…is it intentional to keep the wheels spinning/or is it defensive because of unintended fouls? And of course, I could be wrong! Unfortunately if it is as I suspect…no one, AND I mean nobody…not one single person is going to understand. Best of luck.
Do you love him or not? You need to answer that question before deciding how to tackle this issue. I have seen your posts about having crushes on other men, and you generally seem unhappy with this man, and contemplating divorce. If you love him, go to counseling and go into detail with the counselor as to the types of conversations you have with him, how often, and how he has responded, to see if there’s a better way to communicate, and get perspective as to whether you’re too aggressive or he’s just too nonchalant. I don’t know enough about your communication style to say who is right or not, but it does sound like he’s minimizing you, using terms like “calm down” or “neurotic” puts you down. Is it deserved though? I don’t know.
I don’t know how often you try to argue every single little point, to the point it is argued and over-argued to death for several days. Or if you chase him around the home and don’t let him relax after a long day at work and stressful work situation, or if he’s checked out of his marriage and finds you annoying because he’s moving on and you’re just a nag. Your posts seem to indicate this is somewhat recent, and hasn’t been going on for the 17 years you’ve been together. What’s brought this on? Surely, you were able to communicate 17 years ago, or you wouldn’t have gotten married and been married a decade, so what has changed in your communication style?
Maybe he feels ignored, as if the only time you want something from him is to argue, and there’s nothing positive ever said to him, nor is he shown desire on your part, just confrontation and he’s sick of it because it brings him down. Maybe he feels you’re not worth listening to because he lacks respect for you as you’re “just the housewife” and have nothing valid to say (that was my dad’s view of my mother, as he was the breadwinner and so therefore, all decisions, especially financial, should only be made by him), maybe you’re bored at home and have all this time to think up of things to throw at him and need a job and some hobbies to keep you busy. I don’t know. Only you know the answers to these things, as well as whether you want to try to fix the marriage, or if you’re done.
Getting a job may not hurt though – most people these days fight over income. Having an extra income, some time away from each other, and other things to keep you occupied may be healthy and resolve some of these household fights. Even if it doesn’t help the situation at home, should you decide to check out of the marriage, having the job and income will help you and your kids get on your feet throughout the separation and divorce, assuming that’s the only reason you have stayed with your spouse all this time…