Steve: I agree that there are differences based on gender, which is why it's valuable to get different perspectives. Otherwise we end up with segregated threads and entrenched views, and entrenched views are partly how we got here! I think that part of the problem in my M is that my H is a ridiculously hard working breadwinner and I ended up as an unappreciated SAHM, and we lived such separate lives both of us felt resentful of each other and unvalued and lacking in understanding of the other person's perspective. In any M there are inequalities and misunderstandings and these creep in and multiply over time, sometimes these are gender-based and sometimes they're power-based, and the two interact.
Steve: I valued reading your thread because your description of your behaviour pre BD was very like my H's, and it gave me hope in him changing. Getting a male perspective is good even if it's a LBH instead of a WAH, because there are certain ways of looking at a situation that you might understand differently from a woman. For example, my H has said to me frequently that his ego is everything, and that embarrassment is the one thing he cannot tolerate. He works in a hugely competitive environment (of mostly men) and it is really hard for me to understand from a female perspective, because it is SO male-oriented.
And oh, the bitterness is so hard to avoid isn't it? But I want IH to be better, not bitter. I found it empowering to step out of blaming and bitterness (though I have to admit to a right old pity party on the phone to a friend this morning though, thank goodness I didn't ring my H then!) because bitterness gives all the power to your spouse. So I'm sorry if I was a bit blunt earlier IH, I like Steve's explanation of you ranting to decrease pain. Natural, but ultimately unproductive I think. And it's so much easier to see bitterness and victim behaviour in other people than in ourselves, I usually have to spot it in someone else to make me reflect how I'm doing it myself.
