Compliments & Passive Aggressiveness..Work to do!

[25yearsmlc]

Mr Bond, I AM doing it. But perhaps you missed the post I wrote a few days ago about the history behind the compliments issue.

But now you'll tell us this long story that explains why it's your wife's fault that you have a hard time giving compliments. SIGH...you know, it's not as if more words = more validity..

So, when SHE SAID YOU DO NOT compliment her enough...Either she is lying or she's nuts...right? Hey, Let's look at YOUR OWN WORDS...

YOU said you wanted to "TRY and compliment her", "Try and seem sincere" and to give a compliment, "once a week" and

later you said you'd "begin complimenting her more, WITHIN REASON" (emphasis mine).

Despite the LENGTHY discussion and "history" below --

the only issue is, What are YOU going to do differently, NOW?


13 years ago, a year after I met my W, and when I was 21, I was critical of her weight gain. I was young and stupid and even though I didn't care about it for myself, I felt that my college boy buddies were laughing at me having a steady girlfriend who had a "few extra pounds" and not sampling the mass amounts of young college meat going around.
i approached it the wrong way with her and even though I back tracked a few months later after seeing that she was starting to resent me, and I spent 13 years telling her how beautiful she is, she never let go of that.

If we reconcile, I want to talk to her about that and clear it up once and for all!
What stops you from clearing it up now? Not as a tactic but as a normal discussion.

Is it possible you don't want to compliment her BECAUSE you don't think she really deserves it b/c of OM? ANd that's why you attach a reconciliation to the concept of explaining yourself and your behavior from all those years ago, which I can only assume you have never done. What's with that? You say you have had 13 years of compliments wasted b/c she won't let go of your cruel comments from 13 years ago.

Why not clear up your hurtful behavior from then, NOW?



I married her 5 years ago with A LOT more weight than when we met. She gave birth to OUR most beautiful baby girl in the whole world. I don't care about her weight!

why even mention it then?

I mean I want her to be healthy so we don't have problems later in life, but not from a vanity perspective. My W is a very beautiful lady and she gets hit on all the time when we are out together.

Examples of situations that I mentioned before:


Seriously...we get it.


She spends 45 minutes getting ready infront of a mirror when we are going out. She has the most beautiful face, and the most proportionate features, and the most beautiful green eyes I have ever seen. Her skin is flawless. She can literally go completely natural and she would still get hit on. Her hair is so perfect that she wakes up looking like she just brushed and styled it.

Just tell her these things when it feels authentic. "Flawless skin" should not be said if SHE is looking at a blemish, true. But when she looks HER best, let her know the specifics. I said "specificity = believability" b/c generic compliments that are vague are seen as lazy and don't have much weight attached.

IF SHE IS HEAVY in her eyes, then don't tell her she's not (unless she is anorexic or unhealthy about it).

But, she spends forever in the bathroom putting foundation on her perfect skin, outlining her perfect eyes, etc.. Then I keep telling her "Babe you are so beautiful. Other women would KILL to have your skin and eyes, and your perfect hair. You can go natural and look beautiful, and all the other women envy you for it.". You know what her response would be? "Are you kidding me? What about this blemish right here?" pointing to only microscopic mark on her face. "Look at my eyes.I look like I havent slept in days, and may hair is a mess!".

Perhaps she believes the REASON you tell her this about herself, is b/c you want her to hurry up. Your implication might be seen as saying that she's "taking too long", so maybe your ulterior motive comes up for her.

When she was pregnant, we had several other friends who were pregnant at the same time. They all went and did these arty pregnancy photo shoots and we were getting those pics in the mail all the time. I thought well what about my wife? She is beautiful. So I said "Hey baby lets go take some pictures of you and your beautiful pregnancy bump!". She said "Are you joking? You don't seriously think I am beautiful when I am the size of a whale do you?". I would answer "Well yes actually I do think you are beautiful with your big bump. That bump has my precious baby in it, and it is the most beautiful sight I have seen in my life". Sounds good right? The response? "You're just saying that. I look like Sh%t".

A lot of pregnant women break out or gain so much weight that they don't see themselves as beautiful, or womanly or fertile and desirable. I attended a personal growth workshop when I was pregnant with our 2nd child & I mostly credit that for my paradigm shift about pregnancy and attraction.

It was an adjustment for ME to make, but once I did, pregnancy was a lot more of a joy. And I felt attractive to my h and that made a huge difference in our intimacy during pregnancy.

So thats why complimenting got hard for me. If I over played the compliment, she would say I was just saying that. If i under played it, she would say well don't look too excited about it. I can't win.

You want to give up? Why not look at the comments YOU made above, about compliments. You seem to think they "cost" you something b/c you added the words "within reason" which struck me as odd.

Plus "aiming" for a compliment a WEEK means to me that you really did not do it often. At least not in her memory and HER MEMORY is what counts here.

Despite your examples (and you sure do give A LOT)...my advice is the same.


Recently, after BD, I came home one day and the whole house was spotless, all my laundry was done and folded, the bathrooms smelled freshly cleaned, there was dinner cooking and the whole house smelled like food, pretty much everything a good wife can do in one day she had done that day. As soon as I noticed I said "WOW honey did you do all of that in one day? The whole looks great and dinner smells wodnerful! good job!". She looked at me with a very plain face and said thats what I always do when you are at work. Of course at that point she is trying to show me that she is still doing her "job" at home even despite not being in love with me.

She got D3 dressed and looking SUPER CUTE for Christmas day. I said "D3 looks great! She is so cute! i love the clothes you picked out for her. Good work!". she said "All i did was get her dressed."

So maybe it is not me that needs help with complimenting, it is her that needs help accepting them as truths =)




You want to tell HER that when SHE says you don't compliment her enough, SHE IS WRONG.

This is you saying, again, that SHE IS WRONG in how she perceives things, and she is wrong in how things were in the marriage. You are not listening to us.

SIGH...

look, when she does what MOST people do in our culture, which is to play off a compliment b/c it's seen as us being humble,

hold your hand up a bit and tell her "Wait a second w, I really want you to hear this. I need my feelings acknowledge and I really FEEL this is true"...and then say it.

I will keep trying to seem sincere with the compliments. Like you all say, it takes months of consistent work for a WAS to even start to believe a change.

look at your own wording here^^^... I don't think you mean what you say to her. And I guess she picked up on it.

Recently I stayed with my mom at my sister's house. I wanted to give my sister a compliment. Here's the deal.

My mother has vascular dementia and my sister is a saint. Since I only see them a few times a year, I didn't realize how much my sister does for my mom, on a day to day basis

AND how much harder it is for my sister b/c my mom is declining & getting weirdly emotional and confrontational. So I told my sister how much I appreciated it. My sister began to interrupt me to say "oh no big deal..."

BUT I held up my hand for a second & said,

"No wait, sister, don't deflect. Please take this in b/c I want you to hear me & I want to KNOW I've said it.

I really didn't "get it" until this last visit. What you do for our mother is SO HARD and so HUGE and you do it lovingly, 24/7, it's a rare thing to see.

I admire you for this and for being so loving about it. I really think you are who I look to, when I ask myself if I'm being as good and loving a woman as I can be, b/c I see that you really are."

She blushed...but she heard me.

She sort of coughed and said "well thank you" and then I hugged her and we both got a little choked up.

But that^^ is what I mean by getting through to someone. It's longer than most, but it covers a lot more than a typical "looks good on you" compliment.

And when the natural response is to pooh pooh a compliment, it's not always neurosis on the recipient's end. It's a cultural thing.

Plus, if your w is beautiful, she probably hears the generic "you're so hot" comments often. She still needs them, but she also needs sincerely felt words of affirmation that are related to other things and that are specific enough to be taken in.

My sense from you is that there is SO MUCH analysis going on and so much of your "find the secret CODE" that even just an ATTEMPT at "seeming to be sincere" was a goal of yours!

Sorry SM but you come off as a tactician who is strategizing. IF it is words of love that you want to express, who cares about HER reaction? Just express the affirming comments when appropriate.

When the emotions are positive and loving, let things flow naturally.

When the emotions are negative or anger based or fear based, DON'T.