Reply to my wife's thin skin

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I dont know why everyone is piling on you. Your wife sounds insufferable. I had this dynamic with my husband. We did therapy together. Basically he grew up with hyper critical parents so would go on the attack when he felt criticized. by ramping up the stakes in this way- by escalating a small thing into a big thing---'fine, I'll never do/ask for X/Y/Z again!"  he was essentially shutting me down and punishing me daring to have a difference of opinion and putting ME on the defensive so he wouldn't have to be. THere were times I would say  "Im upset that you did X, or I was disappointed that..." about a specific thing and his response was "Yes, I'm a horrible husband and a total failure, blah blah blah." And the conversation would rapidly go from me being annoyed or upset by something he did and trying to express it to me having to defend myself or saying "you're not a horrible husband I didn't say anything like that, etc."
y.

I once removed a piece of cheese from a plate he put out for company because I saw that it had some mold on the side and I had also bought some nice cheese that was't on it and he took it as criticism of his..i dunno...cheese plating abilities and stormed out of the house.

The other twist for us was that while he was hyper sensitive to perceived criticism from me, he actually had no issue being totally blunt with me when he was the one with a difference of opinon. I still remember when I said something and he interjected loudly "WRONG-O" and I thought--wow, if I ever did even one tenth the amount of straight out disagreement he would freak out.

Fortunately we did some therapy around communication. I understood his triggers and tried to find ways to convey my disagreements, etc, without it being so hard for him, but he also learned to hear what i was saying and considering it before reacting to some primal sense of being attacked. He also learned to take some time to consider what I was saying and what was an appropriate response...

There are still shades of this--I am super careful about how I express difference--but we are in a better place. We did do therapy though. [/quote]

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