Marital Pressure

I am someone who puts an inordinate amount of pressure on myself. However, in doing so, that means everyone around me has a resultant pressure on them. My husband gets the worst of it.

For a long time my self-confidence was so low, the amount I would beat myself up about any wrongdoing was too difficult to bear. You would think that would lead to a timid, mild-mannered wife, hanging out in the background. What that actually looked like was aggression, making sure all wrongdoing could be manipulated into his wrongdoing.

I wish I could lie and say that doesn’t come naturally to me. It’s something I picked up on and spent years perfecting. I didn’t know I did it to defend myself from the mental beat-down later.

I am so happy to say that now when I get a short answer or an angry or dismissive tone, my reaction might first be to think, “What the hell is his problem?” But before anything flies out of my mouth I can ask, “Are you okay?” To be honest, it started as a way to save me from that mental beat-down of what I did wrong to create this situation, and it’s also so I can understand him better.

Now, if I am the one who brought on that bad mood, I can apologize, explain why I had a harsh tone (usually because I’m focused on something else and I HATE getting interrupted - working on it) to create his reaction to my reaction.

The key is giving yourself time before you respond.

I used to be an incredibly reactionary person. If something rubbed me the wrong way, I would either retreat and try to get out of there as fast as possible (flight), sit quietly and have that mental beat-down or incredibly harsh judgment towards that person (freeze), or snap back and try to hurt them before they knew they’d hurt me (fight).

React instead of respond.

Nick is an incredibly patient person. I am incredibly not (again - working on it). What that means is when I ask a question, I expect an immediate response. One of my tactics to not be reactionary is to count to 15 in my head before asking, “Did you not hear me or are you thinking about your response?” Now that he’s aware that that’s what I do, he usually responds before the 15 is up to answer this exact question.

There are so many flippant remarks I wish I could take back, so many unharmful things I’ve said with a hurtful tone, many facial expressions that give away how I feel. If I’d simply learned to respond instead of react, there wouldn’t be as many things I’d need to beat myself up about.

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Resources:

Marriage & personal counseling

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For once I don’t have any books for you today. This process is something I learned after extreme marital tension, which drew my attention to my flaws. I knew there had to be something severely wrong with me in order to make the mistakes I did (and not think twice about them at the time), so going to therapy was an easy decision to save our marriage.

On starting therapy, she showed us our differences…including in our top values, discussed boundaries with me, and pointed out when I talk I respond with “I feel” while Nick responds with “I think.” We are so different, even down to the way we communicate. No wonder we had problems! If you can’t effectively communicate with your partner, that means brushing things under the rug, never truly getting your needs met.

There is another way. I promise. I’ve lived the marriage that lacked vulnerability, neither person really understanding what it takes to work, my manipulative side coming out, being reactionary to every perceived slight. But I’m happy to say I’m currently living a wonderful marriage. However, it takes A LOT of unseen work.