Question
I am married 10 years with three children and we both work full-time.
My husband is a clear and strong thinker. He is a good person but has firmly-held ideals and is self-righteous, which makes him very challenging to live with. At home he is intense, single-minded and quite critical. To the outside world, and in my absence, he is great company to all. He has called me a control freak. I also upset him some years ago by telling a male colleague all my woes. I feel guilty about that, but sometimes wonder what my husband expected, with me being the main earner, carer for children and housekeeper, as well as wife.
I am a very hard worker both at home and in my business. I expect a lot of myself. And I have been annoyed, frustrated and angry about my husband's work for a long time. It has always been up and down, and requires a lot of financial support from me. It also takes him away on many foreign trips each year, leaving me holding the fort. I tell him I'm tired of it and that no other man would put me under this kind of pressure. I feel very hard done by at times and let my husband know it.
The children are beginning to sense the problems, with each of us in separate bedrooms from time to time, me crying, and no joy or happiness together. We have always had a rocky road, with umpteen arguments throughout our courtship and marriage. We went to counselling some years ago and managed to avoid a separation. My husband didn't like the counsellor's theories, however, and felt she was biased towards me. Instead he has repeatedly asked me to go back to counselling with someone else, but I have been defensive and stubborn and refused until now. My husband, for his part, has attended a number of counsellors to build himself up.
I am unhappy and cry a lot. I am unable to pull back from conflict and when I'm cornered, I repeatedly tell my husband that I don't love him and am only around for the children's sake. I feel constantly on the defensive because I see myself constantly under attack. Yet maybe I see it all wrong.
We've reached an impasse again. My husband tells me that it's either counselling or separation. I feel I'm seen as very 'damaged goods' and until I dance to his tune, I will remain work in progress - or else be left on my own. I am prepared to go to a counsellor, but think it should be mediation pending separation at this stage. Is there any point?
Answer
Your husband clearly occupies the moral high ground in your relationship. You, on the other hand, are permanently in the dock. You stand accused. You work your butt off and are always in the wrong.
This clearly suits your husband, because it allows him to ignore your concerns, complaints, tiredness, frustration and anger. It allows him, in fact, to bully you, without appearing to. According to the story-line of your relationship, he's not bullying, he's correcting you, the offender. Isn't that how it goes?
The important point about all this is that you allow it to happen. Your husband isn't being a monster. You have set the rules for your relationship just as much - if not indeed more - than he has. And no, I'm not blaming you. I am putting power into your hands, the power to change things.
People who expect a lot of themselves like you do are wide open to being criticised. Think about it. The voice within your head which drives you on is a hard task-master. You are bound to fall short. You're already whipping yourself on, without any outside criticism. You already have yourself in the dock, permanently. When criticism comes from your husband, you absorb it like a sponge. No matter how you may try to defend yourself, no matter how ready you are to do battle, just below the surface you're taking the criticism seriously. It strikes home.
Forget your husband for the moment and turn your eye inwards, because that's where the real problem lies. Why do you feel you have to push yourself so hard? What experiences in your past have made you feel so unworthy that you have to try and get everything so right? Or put another way, how are you going to get off the hook of all this hard work?
I know this sounds like it's all down to you. And in a very real sense it is. But please don't confuse that with blaming you. What I'm saying is that your husband is simply exploiting your vulnerability - and let's face it, that's what we all do to each other, to a greater or lesser extent. No, I'm not defending him, I'm just facing facts. Only you can change that vulnerability. That means battling with the terrible demands you make of yourself. And those harsh demands were learned at your mother's knee - figuratively speaking - not within your marriage. Somewhere along the line you learned that you were unworthy, that you could only be loved if you half-killed yourself with constant endeavour. That's a lesson you have to unlearn.
Trying to ease the demands we make on ourselves is really hard work. It's also infinitely rewarding. Think about it. Your husband calls you a control freak. At the same time he rides on your energy, indulging himself in a job which takes him regularly away but leaves the family financially short. Wouldn't it be wonderful to no longer be the exhausted, worn out, depressed and defeated work-horse who is by definition always in the wrong?
To get there, however, you have to let go, give up control, stop trying to determine the outcome of everything, put an end to your aspirations for perfection. That's very scary. Which is why you should start with small steps. Let something go, whether it's the kitchen floor, your children's lunch-boxes, or the lift to the airport for your husband. Just give yourself permission to opt out a little. Step by step let things go. Don't offer to do things. Decide that some issues are not your responsibility. Allow yourself to say no, charmingly, to certain demands. Become just a little forgetful. If you've made a list of things to do in town and you're tired, drop one. Don't go that extra mile.
That's what would be called a behavioural psychology approach to a problem. And it does have an important role to play. Experience dictates, however, that you also need to tackle the underlying pain and low self-esteem which drives you. You have to decide that you're good and lovable without having to earn it by wearing yourself out. And that involves more than merely getting into the bath for a long soak when you feel you're being baited, rather than doing battle - although that, of course, is a great strategy. Your fear of not being loved has to be faced, head-on.
And smile. Say thank you for things done. Remember, people who are hard on themselves are hard on those around them too. Complain less. Praise your husband and kids for things done. Ease up - on everyone, and most particularly on yourself. Break the circle of threats and counter-threats which you and your husband indulge in. Stop telling him you don't love him. Start appreciating what he does instead. Tell him you know things have to change. But tell him, too, that you're not ready for couple-counselling right now. Rather than resenting the fact that he went to counselling himself, respect that fact - and do likewise, just for yourself. Finding fault with your husband is not what you need from such counselling. Sorting out your own lack of self-esteem is.
Finally, resentment is the default mode of victims. Stop it. Accept graciously anything you're not prepared to change. At the very least put up with it quietly until you're ready to work on it, seriously and constructively. I'm thinking here of your husband's job, or your domestic workload. Nagging is the flip side of the resentment coin, and useless. So smile and stay quiet until you're ready to assert yourself, lovingly but firmly. Hard, I know. But there aren't actually any baddies in all of this. You and your husband are just two people locked into a painful and non-productive mode of interaction. Go change it.
