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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How can I diffuse defensiveness in my husband? Before you blame me, it isn't me. I've examined my behavior. I'm not blaming him or nagging him. And he is the the same thing to the kids. It isn't that we are blaming him for anything. In fact, he got defensive this morning when I offered to do a service for him. It's very frustrting to not know how he's going to respond to a simple request (such as "can I get you a cough drop?" or "would you like me to call the guys who mow the lawn?"  literally that level of interaction)

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I notice that you tend to phrase things as simple requests.  Try changing your comments from questions/requests to statements to see if he reacts better to those.

Instead of "can I get you a cough drop?" try "I noticed you have a cough."  You could add  "I hope you're okay."
Instead of "Would you like me to call the guys who mow the lawn."  try "I notice the lawn is getting high again."

These statements call attention to whatever it is, but do not demand a response from him.  And it leaves it up to him if he chooses to respond.  He may feel that the questions/requests feel demanding that he stop what he is doing and respond when he may not want to.  For people who have attention issues and want to maintain focus, interruptions, especially ones that demand attention and response, can be particularly annoying.  So try communicating in statements where he can choose to respond or not rather than demanding a response from every interaction.[/quote]

Interesting thought.I definitely am more straight forward than my husband is and also sometimes jump into the middle of a thought. This could be part of the problem.

Regarding the cough example, the interaction started with "are you ok? you are coughing a lot" ...  he said he wasn't. Then he said "Jesus" under his breath.

To a PP, How does he want to be treated? I has said he'd prefer that I ignore anything he does that is just a given. But to me, none of it is a given. Just because taking out the trash isn't a big chore it still saves me from doing it myself. He isn't obligated to do that, and it is nice that he does it.

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I'm the PP you are responding to.  Here's my 2 cents.

Gratitude like you were taught is for unequal situations.   A host thanks a guest for doing things that are courtesies and beyond what they need to do.  A guest thanks a host for doing things that are gracious hospitality.

But between equals that share responsibilities, you don't need to express gratitude.  Unless you believe that the shopping is your job that he is doing for you, or that he is offering you gracious hospitality for shared household duties, you really should not be thanking him.  You are setting your household up to be unequal that doing shared chores and duties need to have gratitude expressed.  Unless this is a household job that is assigned to you and he is doing you a favor by doing some of your share of the household work to give you a break, you don't express gratitude.  If shopping is a shared responsibility, then either one of you, as equals, can do it, and does not require thanks.

This is the same argument that is made frequently when it comes to childcare.  Many people have flagged that mothers should not have to thank fathers for doing their share of childcare duties.  Too often, the assumption is made that childcare duties are the mother's jobs and that men are "babysitting" their own children when they do childcare.  Or they are helping to take care of their own children when they do childcare duties. But this isn't the case.  If a father comes home from work and has to take his turn doing childcare duties or household chores because the mother has been doing everything for the last 12 hours, then the mother should not need to express gratitude for him doing his fair share of the work.

If you worked in an office and you had a coworker that did the same work as you and you both got about half of the tasks in that category, would you be thanking your coworker every day for doing her half of the work?  When you thank him for basic chores and responsibilities you are setting up an unequal situation rather than a situation of coequals that are sharing duties.  You should reframe your thinking from the unequal balance that your mother taught you when it was a parent-child relationship to one of equals.  [/quote]

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