Cobra, You seem to be taking an issue in your marriage and trying to impose it on my own, though I've told you that it's simply not the case here.
My H does NOT (I repeat NOT) want the responsibility of being more involved with childrearing decisions. You are assuming that I do not involve him, which isn't true. I pull him into our lives and he thanks me for it all the time. I could list examples but I'm out of time. He feels as connected as he possibly can given that he's only home for about 3 hours of their waking time.
The 'attitude' I copped is a bit over the top, but that's not really how I am. I would absolutely hear him out if he had a concern. I have many times called him for advice because I was at my wits end and his advice is good. I don't have an air about me of "I am the mother and you are a paeon". When the kids wake up in the middle of the night, it is him they go to. They are extremely close to him and, like I said, he's a nurturing guy. I don't 'guard' my time with them or my R with them. We operate very much as a team, when it comes to our kids. The kids don't automatically run to me--most of the time, but not always. They don't see their dad as a bumbling outsider. Quite the contrary! If he had ever uttered anything close to what you are saying, I may think differently. As it is, he is overwhelmed by them and, if anything, claims that he needs time away from them and their demands. He has always felt that his place in life is at home with us. He loves it here and loves being with..first of all, his wife and second of all, his wife and kids. I make it a welcome place to be.
It just isn't our issue, Cobra.
However, I think the passive aggressive stuff is right on and yet I haven't been able to discover what he might be resentful over, and it's not for lack of analyzation, LOL.
Oh and his sleep...he's always been this way. He is hyper during the day, never slows down, but the moment nightfall hits he cannot stay awake. The only time I've seen him forego sleep is in the last month when I checked out of this M. Then he stayed up late and couldn't fall asleep at night. I've seen him fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, while reading a book (crash! it falls onto his face), you name it. However, he's never done this during the day so I don't know about narcolepsy. He has no apnea (that I can hear anyway) but does have restless legs syndrome. So his sleep is probably not enough hours as well as not refreshing. He gets about 7 hours each night.
CIne, well spoken and well behaved. Yes, I agree and that matches with my observations, along with reflective, and well schooled. The socialization I was referring to is how they interact with their peers, especially those not in a homeschooled environment. The homeschooled kids I have contact with tend to be very awkward in situations where they have to resolve conflict. I've seen very few exceptions to this. Some of them just withdraw, others are overly agressive, but for the most part they do not possess finesse in their negotiation skills. Perhaps it is due to having very protective parents or not enough opportunities to resolve conflict on their own, I don't know. Anyway, it is simply an observation and something to be aware of. As far as the co-op, I think that is a vital part of home-schooling. All of the home-schoolers I know are members of a co-op and share the teaching like you described.
HP, Happy 1st birthday to babypot! Can you believe it's been a year? Hmm, about that anvil. Good to hear the loving feelings came rushing back, I know you were missing them. Big bummer that MrH also went right back too. I suspect it is more of a minor backslide. It was probably the first good night of sleep he's had in the last 2 months, KWIM?
If he does it again however, I think you should take that rope of yours (you know the one you can't put down) and tie it tightly around his nuts and give it a good yank (ouch!), LOL! Bet he wouldn't fall asleep on you after that! Don't be trying to stuff anything more in that TSBOR, you are supposed to be emptying it, not filling it. That means, talk to him, let him know your feelings, not jsut about the resentment for him falling asleep, but also that your loving feelings are coming back, and that you need his help to keep them in place.
You seem to get very defensive anytime I mention anything about you, and yet I am only trying to point out how I see things from his perspective and what role you play in that. I didn’t imply those things you just said, yet you did interpret my comments that way. I absolutely believe you when you state the things you did. My point is that even though you may feel that way, he may not. And he may not be telling you.
Your defensiveness is curious in that you seem to feel I am attacking you personally and criticizing all the efforts you do. Your efforts are not in question. But your tone and the aggressiveness in your response is at issue. What I hear is denial of what he feels. You are wanting to talk for him. This is a biggie for passive aggressive people. To others it is nothing since they have stronger boundaries, but for him, it can put him back into his shell quickly.
And I don’t think I am projecting my marriage onto you. I have been in his situation before. I have been passive aggressive. My wife never knew how she affected me, and did nothing intentional in that regard. Yet I felt it and I think your husband does too. If you respond to him in the manner you just did, then I can easily see him stepping back and wanting to make peace with you. He does not want the confrontation.
Your argument and reasoning is sound. He knows it, but he still feels that he needs to watch himself when you get angry. And note that your anger could go from 1 to 10. With him you may only get to a 4, so in your eyes, you hold your temper quite well and are very appropriate. I would agree. But to him a level 4 could be his level 8 (his different reality). If he is passive aggressive, he might not tell you.
Also, your husband sounds ADHD (not just ADD). Medication will help greatly with this.
Re the falling asleep lately-- It's almost as if during the time that you were pulling away, he went into crisis mode and had to kick into overdrive to make contact with you. When he spotted his "old honey" back, he could come down from Red Alert to Green and exhaustion took over. Sort of like after putting out an all-night fire, I'll bet firefighters just go back to the station and crash, being mentally, emotionally, and physically worn out. If this is the case, it is hardly good news...
cobra, I'm not meaning to get defensive. The sex addict stuff threw me for a loop, simply because I thought your logic was flawed: Woman wants sex 4 times per week, this is normal for man, but not for woman. Woman may be addicted.
I responded back that frequency preference alone did not indicate whether a person was addicted, so I was curious if it was something I wrote. You said it wasn't so off I went to look at the articles you posted. They did not resonate with me at all.
The SAHM stuff...well, I'm not meaning to get defensive. It's just that only parts of it apply to my sitch (imo) and yet I felt that you just kept coming at me, wanting it to apply. I do not mean to speak for MrH and if I've given that impression, I'm sorry. Whatever I have posted on this board as quotes are things that he has directly said. The others I'm paraphrasing. Rarely do I 'guess' because I've been wrong in the past and, boy, did that make him mad. You are 1000% right on that one. If I'm imagining what he would say to a certain situation (for instance if I was to ask him if he wanted more say wrt our kids), I am basing his imaginary response on things that he has actually said or did, wrt our kids.
I'll tell you what. I will broach this subject tonight and see what he says. The thing that is throwing me off is your statement about how you felt left out when the kids would do things with the neighbors and other people. MrH is not like that. He is *grateful* that he doesn't have to be involved with that stuff. He groans when I tell him, in perfect relief that he was at work and thereby exempt from the torture of play dates and trips to the zoo, etc.
Quote: He knows it, but he still feels that he needs to watch himself when you get angry. And note that your anger could go from 1 to 10. With him you may only get to a 4, so in your eyes, you hold your temper quite well and are very appropriate. I would agree. But to him a level 4 could be his level 8 (his different reality). If he is passive aggressive, he might not tell you.
No doubt you are correct on this one. Bulls eye.
The thing is.....over the years in which we've been fixing this R, I've gotten a handle on my anger. It's still there..I can still be a hothead, but I couldn't tell you the last time I 'blasted' him. He is proud of me for this transformation. There are times when I'm mad at him but I handle it much more maturely and it is over within minutes. This is a big leap from how it used to be! The only thing that causes resentment to stick in my craw these days is sex.
I see your point, though, that my pointed questions and inyerface delivery probably FEELS very aggressive to him. Even though he knows logically that no outsider would label me as aggressive, this is HIM we're talking about. Good point.
So answer me this: How *does* one handle conflict with a passive aggressive person?
It seems that no matter what tactic I take, the repercussions always fall back on me, HARD, and in some unrelated area.
Passive aggression is the control technique he uses on you. It is conscious, but can become second nature. One of my brother in laws, L, is like this to an extreme. His wife M is VERY controlling, and was told so by both her sisters. Yet she still has problems acknowledging or seeing this. We are all blind to our own issues.
I mentioned to my wife that L was complaining about all the animals (horses, dogs, cats, birds) they have, and about M’s controlling attitudes. When my wife asked M about theses things, M said L had no issues at all. HE was the one who wanted to buy the horses, who encouraged her to buy the birds, etc. So L was saying two things to different people. He cannot speak his mind to his wife since he knows he will either hurt her feelings (no I don’t want you to have those pets) or she will get angry (L, I have a right to buy those pets. Don’t tell me what to do!). So he says everything is OK to keep the peace. Yet he sulks and withdraws.
After my wife and her sister jumped all over M, she seems to have taken some of this in. L responded to M’s efforts and said he would do all he could to work on himself. He felt safer and was finally able to say this. You cannot grab a turtle by the nose and force him to come out of his shell. Just like the story of the competition between the wind and the sun about who could blow off the man’s coat. The harder the wind blew, the tighter the coat was held. When the warm, peaceful sun came out, the coat came off.
Which brings me to another point. Be careful what you ask for. Once you empower your husband, he could want more.
You may have come a long way from your angry days, but I think he is still hesitant and not fully trusting you yet. He says he trusts you on an intellectual level, but he may not realize that his emotional defenses are still up. I doubt he has done anything to process these feelings and understand what he is doing.
For now I would specifically try to talk through any issues to be sure you give him the full opportunity to express himself. Ask some questions to be sure he isn’t withholding anything, then mirror back to him what he has said and say “that makes sense to me”. This will let him know you are listening to him. If you see any contradictions in his comments, ask about them. Take the attitude you would in helping your child to learn to assert herself at school. Let him also know how his withholding hurts your feelings, as opposed to protecting your feelings (as he thinks).
We actually spoke about my temper just yesterday! He was re-living those days and I sheepishly validated him..Yes I was a bit over the top, wasn't I H?
Then after a while I reminded him how HE used to act--jealous, controlling, angry, hostile. He was amazed at the memory. You see, my H has totally changed his personality during the course of our M. So remembering that is a weird and strange memory for both of us. He said, Yeah I guess you had a reason for being angry at me! I quickly deflected this and changed the topic.
MrH tends to be a Blame Taker. He wants to take all the blame, gather it up and heap it on himself. Which sounds very nice but can actually border of selfishness. It's as if he's SO busy looking at himself and all the bad things he's done, that he's missing out on the good things that he could be doing in the meantime.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Lil, I have decided to treat the falling asleep episode as an anomoly. A weird bizarre thing that happened and has no bearing on what he's really like and how interested he is in me. I'm also going to talk to him a little tonight, not beat anything into the ground. He's really making a lot of progress in the last couple days. I hate to focus on the one (major) foulup, kwim.
Quote: Passive aggression is the control technique he uses on you.
I just don't see Mr HP as passive-aggressive. That's a term that gets bandied about quite a bit, usually in reference to someone who isn't given toward outbursts of anger, but who tends to hold back on strong emotions, including anger.
But that isn't what the term actually means. As you note, true passive-aggression is used as an attempt to control others.
Mr HP's control is an attempt to control *himself*. I strongly sense that he isn't attempting to disguise his anger or resentment or (insert strong emotion of choice here) so that he can stick it to Honey in a sneakier way at a later time.
If he attempts to control his anger or resentment, it is because he feels it is *wrong*. It is sin to him.
Your H falling asleep like that..... I agree with Lil when you checked out he ramped up to code red....
couple questions. How lean is your H? Is he a ectomorph (typical basketball player) or a mesomorph. (baseball player) I am guessing he is a ectomorph, from a few other comments you have made, and they typically need nine or 10 hours of sleep, for optimal performance. His falling asleep like that tells me that he is seriously sleep deprived, and it is not him putting you on the back burner HP, its not about you. Well rested people dont collapse like that. People who are well rested dont need alarms. Even a mesomorph typically needs 8. The temporary loss of you was sufficient to amp him up and he can keep it up for a long time, but it is an emergency mode driven by stress, if I am correct here. Technically that makes you very important to him, KNIM?
