Back to Square One?

[mamabird]

He HATES feeling that I'm critical of him. He goes on about how in my eyes he can never get it right, how he's never felt loved by me, that I just don't get him and never will, that he's given up on me ever understanding him, etc... All this to say that I'm wondering if any of you can see how I can 180 some of these complaints.

I've heard this too in my sitch. Our H's seem to be a lot alike - very SMART but very irresponsible in a lot of ways. It's easy to fall into that mother trap. My own H has a disaster for a mother, and I wish I'd realized the potential impact of that before we got married. I would love to just let him fail at things but unfortunately they have real impacts - not paying the bills, not filing business expenses for example... these are things that have to be handled properly! Now we are in mountains of debt because of his irresponsibility around our financial situation. In these cases you HAVE to step in.

One time when my H wanted to cut out on a responsibility, S8 and I called him out on it and he actually got on his bike and rode home (we were at the park) - like a little kid! You said in one post that you would treat him like more of a man if he acted like more of one, and I know I feel the same.

Regarding the rest of it though - how do you do the 180s - well, I'm giving my H his nightly back rubs (which you could do while you watch the Good Wife I guess). I am hoping that makes him feel more loved, and I think it's gone a long way to improve things in our sitch. I come from a long line of criticizers so I have had to force myself to be more loving and accepting and less negative. It is hard to do that, especially when they do really super dumb, annoying stuff. And in those cases, you have to have your boundaries and be calm. For instance, I made dinner on Friday and then my H went out for the evening, and left all the dishes on the table. I was irate but I just called him on the phone, calmly, and said, "That's not cool." No yelling, no arguing.

One of the toughest things I'm dealing with now is finding the balance between making H feel loved and giving him his space. And making him feel loved but detaching enough to bring him hither (so far nothing is working on that front). It seems like the more I do for him the less grateful he is, and the harder I have to work to stay on balance.

Continue to be kind to him because I think what you're doing is working well enough for the time being.