Spouse who never takes my side

[Anonymous]

You have had too many things happening to you that you need to bring up. I'm sure there are more. I have crap happened but I don't dwell on it.
I'm not saying she is right, but I am stuck at the crap coming your way constantly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You have had too many things happening to you that you need to bring up. I'm sure there are more. I have crap happened but I don't dwell on it.
I'm not saying she is right, but I am stuck at the crap coming your way constantly.

OP's spouse has entered the discussion

[Anonymous]

My husband thinks I never take his side. First, that's not true. I really do stick up for his position if I feel he's right. I just am very fair, though, and have a talent in seeing both sides, so I'm honest with him if I think he's wrong. (We are board of directors in a non-profit together, so most times this is what it's related to. Our personal relationship doesn't need us to "take sides" too often.) Maybe you're just wrong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry. I had a horrible labor day weekend fighting over this very thing. My DH and I went up to our weekend house and we passed a woman out walking her dog as we approached our house -- a woman who has been aggressively awful to me (and to other women in our friend group before me). Unfortunately, she is the wife of one of DH's best friends. We were in separate cars (transporting new furniture so needed two cars), him in front of me, and he stopped his car, rolled down the window and greeted her. We fought horribly. I felt he wasn't on my side and didn't have my back.

I don't know what to tell you, but it feels awful.

Holy sh!t I have your back on this. I'd be livid. I'd have driven around him and continued on. If he really put himself in your position with her actions toward you, he would follow suit.

We had a really aggressive neighbour situation and my husband CANNOT be the 'bad guy' (ie, make a firm boundary with people/he makes excuses/gives them a million chances) so he would let them pull him in to their drama. I literally had to say to him "Do you want a happy relationship with this **** or with your wife?' and he got it. He got better at reading people/seeing the writing on the wall when you can't make people happy-so that was the benefit.

Same situation with OP and his wife. Some people only cause drama/drag you down. He needs to gain insight on which side he falls under.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry. I had a horrible labor day weekend fighting over this very thing. My DH and I went up to our weekend house and we passed a woman out walking her dog as we approached our house -- a woman who has been aggressively awful to me (and to other women in our friend group before me). Unfortunately, she is the wife of one of DH's best friends. We were in separate cars (transporting new furniture so needed two cars), him in front of me, and he stopped his car, rolled down the window and greeted her. We fought horribly. I felt he wasn't on my side and didn't have my back.

I don't know what to tell you, but it feels awful.

Holy sh!t I have your back on this. I'd be livid. I'd have driven around him and continued on. If he really put himself in your position with her actions toward you, he would follow suit.

We had a really aggressive neighbour situation and my husband CANNOT be the 'bad guy' (ie, make a firm boundary with people/he makes excuses/gives them a million chances) so he would let them pull him in to their drama. I literally had to say to him "Do you want a happy relationship with this **** or with your wife?' and he got it. He got better at reading people/seeing the writing on the wall when you can't make people happy-so that was the benefit.

Same situation with OP and his wife. Some people only cause drama/drag you down. He needs to gain insight on which side he falls under.

PP here. Thanks. I didn't drive around him but when he drove on I glared at her, shook my head and kept driving. Very middle school, but it helped me feel a bit more in control as I raged inside. You are getting right at the heart of it with this whole "cannot be the bad guy" thing. I spent a lot of time after explaining how that meant he'd actually been the bad guy to me, his wife, but I'm still not sure he gets it. He really can't stand this woman either, but he can't handle not being "nice." Which is funny, because we are both litigators and can be aggressive as hell with work. Ugh. It's so frustrating. Long weekend ruined.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry. I had a horrible labor day weekend fighting over this very thing. My DH and I went up to our weekend house and we passed a woman out walking her dog as we approached our house -- a woman who has been aggressively awful to me (and to other women in our friend group before me). Unfortunately, she is the wife of one of DH's best friends. We were in separate cars (transporting new furniture so needed two cars), him in front of me, and he stopped his car, rolled down the window and greeted her. We fought horribly. I felt he wasn't on my side and didn't have my back.

I don't know what to tell you, but it feels awful.

Holy sh!t I have your back on this. I'd be livid. I'd have driven around him and continued on. If he really put himself in your position with her actions toward you, he would follow suit.

We had a really aggressive neighbour situation and my husband CANNOT be the 'bad guy' (ie, make a firm boundary with people/he makes excuses/gives them a million chances) so he would let them pull him in to their drama. I literally had to say to him "Do you want a happy relationship with this **** or with your wife?' and he got it. He got better at reading people/seeing the writing on the wall when you can't make people happy-so that was the benefit.

Same situation with OP and his wife. Some people only cause drama/drag you down. He needs to gain insight on which side he falls under.

This could be part of it. In my 20s I'd be at a friend's house telling one of these stories and it would always end up in a misunderstanding. That's what happens a lot of the time at work, where there's confusion about something. It's like my life could really be an episode of Seinfeld, people misread my face all the time, maybe I don't like being the bad guy, but part of my job is that I can't be the bad guy so I can just sit there and smile while you try your way. It doesn't hurt me, I'm paid by the hour. So I'll sit in a meeting and make a suggestion, "well, if this is a discrete data set and we're looking for a shortest path, we could just use doubles Dijkstra have that done in no time" and before I'm finished I'm interrupted by some big name telling me we need some big machine learning algorithm to use up the gpus. So they didn't do it my way, wasted money, sad

[Anonymous]

OP, if everyone is an a-hole, it turns out that YOU are actually the a-hole. Maybe your spouse is seeing a pattern where you are constantly butthurt about things happening at work and she’s trying to help you grow up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, if everyone is an a-hole, it turns out that YOU are actually the a-hole. Maybe your spouse is seeing a pattern where you are constantly butthurt about things happening at work and she’s trying to help you grow up.

That's how you take it? It's more like if you had ever gone to a conference talk and heard a question given to the presenters. Sometimes it's understood and answered easily, but normally it takes some back and forth. That will cause the audience to think they may be sparring, until after when they apologize and clear the air. It's misunderstandings. I have these all the time at work because people don't understand my work but want to ask questions. There's only so much I can dumb it down. If it's not their area of expertise they're going to stumble. Misunderstandings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am this spouse.

Can you explain why you do it? Genuinely curious. IS it important to you to disagree, to feel you have a voice?

It’s bc he often behaves like an ass/jerk and I’m trying to get him to see that maybe there’s another perspective besides his own. I’m pretty circumspect about blindly taking his side bc it’s totally possible the other person has a point and/or he ITA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are you? You seem to love playing the victim at work and home.

My thought as well.

OP, do not listen to these idiots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, if everyone is an a-hole, it turns out that YOU are actually the a-hole. Maybe your spouse is seeing a pattern where you are constantly butthurt about things happening at work and she’s trying to help you grow up.

That's how you take it? It's more like if you had ever gone to a conference talk and heard a question given to the presenters. Sometimes it's understood and answered easily, but normally it takes some back and forth. That will cause the audience to think they may be sparring, until after when they apologize and clear the air. It's misunderstandings. I have these all the time at work because people don't understand my work but want to ask questions. There's only so much I can dumb it down. If it's not their area of expertise they're going to stumble. Misunderstandings.

OP is this and 19:50 you?

If so, I think you should sit down with your wife and ask for SPECIFIC feedback of what you can do better in conversations so that they stay as conversations-not verbal sparring. Take it in- and don't disagree... just make sure the feedback is as basic and specific as possible. It sounds like there is some ambiguity in what you do for work (and various personalities/specialties/educational levels perhaps) which is working against you here- so if she has SPECIFIC feedback of things you could do or NOT do- this might really be effective for you.

She may have lost her filter/ability to be patient and kind because the repetitive nature of the issue is making her crazy and you haven't listened/heard her in the past?

I'm the one who suggested counselling as it is a very bad sign that she has contempt toward you. So I don't lightly defend her behaviour. Ie, if everyone you deal with is an idiot, they aren't the idiots.