I see the "nice guy" as a branding of "co-dependent no more" for men. I haven't read the nice guy book but have been to the website. gb, would you agree?
Brit, I agree when gb says if your h doesn't work on himself and want to change that may be a deal breaker.
In my situation, I was a controller-fixer but I think I became more so because of the R. My H never really had ideas of things to do, at least not that he shared with me, so much of the planning was left to me. I planned and executed my a$$ off. It comes easy to me, I'm good at it. I got better at it and become somewhat obsessive. But I wasn't a tyrant.
This "I don't want to argue about it" line always sticks in my craw a bit. My H has said the same thing but we never really argued. Why? Because he didn't. He shut down. There would usually be 2 rounds, this is a great example: We had talked about putting solar panels on our house since it was built. It would make for great resale. I said: "Prices are really good on solar panels right now and with the rebates, etc we would only be paying $xxxx.xx. And then there's the lowered electric bill." H "That's a lot of money." LB "Yeah, but I think it would help with resale if we ever decide to sell the house, the energy efficiency will make it more sellable.. What do you think." This is where he shut down, stopped talking about it and we now have solar panels on the house. He was pi$$ed and that spawned the "disagreement" that led to his final bomb drop.
But the kicker is, he called the contractor who did the work, set the whole thing up and never once again raised an objection.
And this is how most of those discussions went. I would propose something, he might have a differing viewpoint or opinion, I would comeback with more of my side (usually with lots of research, controllers can't be unprepared). These were never really contentious.
And when he says he "just didn't want to argue", he's right but he also didn't want to take a stand, draw a boundary, communicate his side. And I think most women read that as "He doesn't care." And it really boiled down to if I didn't agree with him when he expressed a differing viewpoint he was done, the discussion was over. Again none of this was ever contentious.
When he did really have a plan, I usually agreed. In fact I can't think of a time when I didn't. New truck, OK; 64 Mustang, fine; golf club, OK; shooting club, sounds like fun; new bike, great.
So after that vent, I guess what I'm left with is, I don't want to get back in to "that" R. I want someone who, if he feels strongly about something, will say that and then be able to have me disagree and then come back with more explanation of his viewpoint. Not someone who says "eff it, it's not worth my time" but then resents the fact that it didn't go his way and thinks he's a "nice guy" because he doesn't argue.
I know my faults, I have not been an easy person to live with at times, I do like things to go my way, I can be controlling because I'm afraid of the unknown (less so now), I'm working on all of that and am a very different person than I was 14 months ago.
And I don't think I could tolerate that treatment now.
This was written on very little coffee, hope it makes sense.
Me 57/H 58 M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13
Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do. I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering. Caroline Myss
