Reply to I don't know how to be a good wife

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "I don't know how to be a good wife"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. To respond to some points.....his parents relationship is horrible, and we have tried therapy multiple times.

The things I'm noticing are things he has both said, "I need you to just shut up sometimes", and things he acts out (praise issue). The praise is not for things like taking out the trash. I praise those behaviors a lot. He needs praise that I think he's smart, that he is good at his job and such. The flip to this is that he also finds giving me praise very hard. It feels like he holds a deep insecurity, and I feel emotionally burdened to stroke this insecurity regularly.

Examples of things I'm supposed to shut up about would be something like, not saying something if he is speeding in rainy weather. For context, we were in a car accident because of his driving so I feel nervous in the car with him. Or if we are in a disagreement he will say,"I need you to just shut up".

I imagine these are the types of things people just suck up. For some reason I just can't.[/quote]

OP, is it possible that you are a nagger? I would probably find it annoying if my husband was criticizing everything that I do. Take a moment to sit back and think how often you criticize/complain and how often you uplift. Not everything requires a response. Some women have a tendency to expect our husbands to do things the way we would do them, and criticize when they don't. You may not like how he drives, and it may be unsafe, but it's not up to you to keep criticizing him about it. Either don't allow him to drive you around or, if it's that big of a deal for you, divorce. But you cannot make someone think/do things that you want them to do.[/quote]

OP here. I was thinking more in terms of weekly, daily, monthly. It's easier for me to track that way. For instance, if I criticized him once every other day for something like speeding or not taking out trash, is that a lot to others? Is more like once a week more typical? I dunno. I will start paying attention to how often I'm doing this. It will be helpful to know how often others do it.

OP here. This is a good point about nagging. What's a reasonable amount of criticism? As in how often is it healthy to criticize? I could be off about this.[/quote]

Didn't someone already post here about the positive to negative ratio?  It's supposed to be like 4 to 1 positive to negative.  With kids, spouses, colleagues at work.  4 positive statements/interactions per negative one.  But the fact that you are so convinced that other people are sucking this all up has me concerned.  If he's pretty good about the 4 to 1 ratio with you, if there are a lot of good times and just a few annoyances, then yeah, suck it up and ignore.  But if it's ALL sucking it up, well, that's no way to live. [/quote][/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics