Argumentative spouse
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Anonymous
This. Stop discussing the small stuff. I have never brought up clothes shopping with my husband and we now have teens. He is too busy and really does not care. |
Anonymous
You sound like the kind of argumentative asshole described in the first post. How unhappy is your life on a scale of 1 to 10? A 12? |
Anonymous
| fault goes both ways. it takes two to tango. |
Anonymous
If 1 is the happiest on your scale, I'm actually a 1. Because I didn't marry and then have a baby by an asshole I didn't really love. I'm not one of those women so desperate to have a baby that I marry the first sperm donor who steps up, and then complains when life sucks later. 
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Anonymous
NP here, if you are so happy, why are you such a bitch? Who gets pleasur rout of kicking someone while they are down? OP I agree with the posters who say run less things by him, spend less time with him (or the time that you do spend, be actively engaged in something else), and reconsider divorcing sooner rather than later if that is the route you are planning to take. At best your husband notices your detachment and misses his sparring partner and then you can fill him in on the new world order, or you get a little peace and distance while you plan your divorce. |
Anonymous
Because I'm sick of women coming on this board bitching about how their husbands suck when 99% of the time they knew what they were getting into when they got married. SHE made the mistake of marrying a dick, then made the further mistake of having a baby with him. She is solely responsible for her situation. Period. I'm not going to have a pity party for someone who made their own conscious choices. Stop settling for sperm donors. And if you're unhappy then pull the plug. But don't bitch about someone's personality after you dug your own grave. |
Anonymous
Go away. You're annoying. |
Anonymous
No one cares what you're sick of though because it's not about you. You're free to not read or respond to the post. |
Anonymous
That's helpful. |
Anonymous
Whew, you have some serious mental problems. My heart goes out to whoever is saddled with you. |
Anonymous
| I struggle with a spouse like this too. He is a lawyer. i end up defaulting to letting him "win" because the constant arguing stresses me so much. but then i rear up other times because I am tired of going with the flow and losing my voice on decisions. I tell him how much it stresses me - I did not grow up in a house with arguing like this - but he thinks its normal way to be. I do worry it will eventually lead to our unraveling |
Anonymous
| 10:14 here again - and no, i rarely saw this side of him while dating. It became evident with full intermingling of our lives. certainly not enough to "know what i am getting in to" in advance |
Anonymous
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People argue because the people they argue with engage with them. If you stop engaging, there is no argument.
Make decisions for small (and even many large) things on your own. Do what makes YOU happy. For most things, you really don't need his input. If you need his input on something, don't even mention what your opinion is first. For example, if the issue is your child's pants (although you really don't need his opinion on that), just say "DC needs new pants. Could you please look into some options and tell me what you think we should get/order the pants you think we need?" If it's something a little more important, like, I dunno, travel plans, same thing. Ask him for his opinion first, or if it's something you don't really care about, just tell him to go ahead and make whatever plans he thinks is best. Meanwhile, work on making yourself happy. Something about seeing their wife all of a sudden dressing up, going out, doing things they enjoy, and being around less makes men sit up and take notice. |
Anonymous
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You don't have to leave things to him.
Take care of the small things yourself. Don't announce that you're buying your son boots. Buy them. And when he starts an argument over what you bought, just say, "I hear what you are saying, but these are the boots I bought." And then walk away. If you don't have time to do something on your own, just say, "Would you order Larlo some boots?" And then live with what he picks. If he engages you in a conversation, say, "You can order them or I can order them, but I'm not arguing about it." And walk away. You need to make it clear that you are not arguing over this stuff. He can take care of it. You can take care of it. But you are not arguing. Walk away. Every time. But in addition to that, start doing some of this stuff on your own without discussing it with him first. If/when he gets upset, you say politely and clearly, "if you want to be included in the process, then we need to find a way to do it without arguing. Your choice. But I'm not arguing anymore." You have to be consistent. And you have to work really hard not to get pulled into the argument. When he's ready to talk, perhaps you can come up with a system of division of tasks. If he gets tasked with something, it's his choice. If you do, it's your choice. No other input. For the big things, you still have to engage, but you don't have big decisions on a daily basis, so at least this will eliminate the daily bickering. |
Anonymous
+1. First response had it right: argumentative asshole. Nothing to add to this discussion. OP, my husband was like this when he felt powerless at work and it was exacerbated when pressure at home stepped up with a new baby. Pressure was mounting to perform at work, which made him less able to help out at home and he kept "anticipating" my disappointment in him by asserting that disappointment first. The problem lessened when the Great Recession forced him out of his job and he took a lower-paying position that gave him more flexibility in parenting. (Maybe) not a solution for you, but more recent adjustments we've made could help. I conceded that certain decisions were in my realm, others were in his. Money and household budget was the biggest hurdle and we haven't cleared it yet, but have a much more amicable approach after agreeing on our priorities, what role each of us has to play, and making weekly adjustments based on needs. Childcare is the next biggest and there's just no such thing as a 50/50 split. It's always going to be 60/40 or 70/30 or even 90/10, shifting back and forth and changing as often time needs, work demands and available help changes. As soon as you think you have something figured out, it changes again and you just have to roll with it with trust and understanding that one or the other of you will have to step up or step back as needs change. But the needs have to be clearly stated and understood by all parties. I think the biggest contributor to our argumentative household was lack of trust. We just didn't trust each other on the basics and that meant knives out...on the basics. If you believe your husband's only objective is to start an argument, it doesn't matter what he changes, that's what you'll see. My husband believed that my primary need was to be right - on everything - and he approached every discussion and decision-making issue with the intent to prove me wrong. He even went into couples therapy with that belief, pretty much ensuring that it wouldn't work. Stalemate. Every last argument - whether it was about financial planning or what to put on the grocery list - moved quickly to him saying I just wanted to shut him down and be right. Ironically, it's exactly how I felt about him. In the end, better communication, and better understanding about what stands in the way of it, really is the oil in the machine. It's not easy, and it takes practice but for us, I had to start regularly admitting when I was wrong, leave him with decision making in areas where he's better at it, and trust that we both wanted to move past stalemates and could figure out a way to do it. Each of you also has to make a conscious effort toward stress remediation for yourselves and give the other space to do that. I wanted to take DH's gym membership off our household budget because he only went once/week, which worked out to $20/visit. But it's his stress reliever, so we built it into our budget and schedule and cut back on other things. |