Quote: Your question seems to me that you accept the premise that he has the right to make such a statement in the first place.
Well, first I should state for the record that my H wouldn't say anything as blatantly disrespectful as "Get out of my way you fat dog." to me. Let's consider one of the cr*ppy behaviors that actually happened on Wednesday morning. I walked into the family room where my H was already sitting and sat down to eat a bowl of grapenuts. He gave me a look of great disdain and got up and left the room. So the question becomes do I believe my H has the right to give me disdainful looks? As a free citizen of the U.S. who pays half the mortgage on the house in which he gave me the look I do think he has the right to behave in that way. I also believe he has the right to, for instance, not honor a sexual commitment to me. So I think what you really meant was that I was accepting the premise that he has the right to behave disrespectfully without any repercussion for his behavior from me. In a sense, I guess you are right because the fact that I had to check my mental list to figure out if I was deserving of such behavior means that I accept that there are some circumstances under which I would be deserving of disdainful looks from my H. This is obviously bad thinking on my part because I am giving my H too much power in determining whether I am worthy of being treated with respect. If I go back to my grocery shopping example. Let's say there are a hundred different ways in which my H has criticized my grocery shopping in the past. If I accept that getting any one of these 100 things wrong when I go to the store means that I am a f*ck-up and therefore worthy of disrespect or criticism then I am constantly going to be subject to disrespect or criticism. Therefore, I have to have boundaries with respect to disrespect or criticism that would apply even on occasions when I do really f*ck something up.
Quote: Tell him such a remark is disrespectful, you will not stand for it, he doesn’t like it when you make such remarks to him, that you think he is projecting his own frustrations onto you and you are not going to be his whipping boy any more, and that he needs to be a man and assert himself when needed at work and stop bringing the crap home.
I actually have said versions of this to him before except I left out the part about not liking it when I do it to him because I really never do or say disrespectful things to him. The only two exceptions to this I can come up with is when I got drunk a few weeks ago and told him he was a "fastidious pr*ck" and a while back when I told him I'd have to go get a "man" to help me carry my boxes because he wouldn't. Both of these outbursts were very unusual for me. However, in the situation Wednesday it didn't feel right for me to follow him out of the room and verbally nail him for the disdainful look. So I just gave him the cold shoulder for the rest of the morning and eventually he became quite huggy and placating so I guess my behavior/reaction "worked". Perhaps if I hadn't had to hesitate wrong-mindedly to figure out whether I was worthy of a disdainful look I could have just given him a disdainful look right back. In retrospect that seems like the appropriate response.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Does this help: it is NEVER right for your husband to treat you with disrespect. NEVER.
And even if you did do something where you think you "deserve" disrespect, it is still wrong for him to treat you with disrespect.
If you were sitting on the sofa at 300 lbs and working through your second box of Krispy Kremes, you would not "deserve" to be treated with disrespect.
You always deserve respect, no matter what-- I would venture to say there are no exceptions to that. Even murderers are treated with respect in the courtroom.
Yeah, any given spouse isn't always going to treat you with respect/kindness, but that's HIS/HER issue and HIS/HER rudeness. YOU do not make someone treat you abusively by your behavior.
Giving him the "cold shoulder" is not a good way to deal with it. And saying "you don't like it when I do it to you" is also deflecting, changing the subject, and a distraction.
Dealing with the p/a "looks" and "eyerolls" is really hard, because the offender usually denies them and accuses you of being "too sensitive." One can't argue with them. One simply has to say EVERY TIME: "Please do not treat me with disrespect. It hurts." And then do not get into a discussion about it. (And DON'T get into a discussion about how you're not going to get into a discussion if you kwim. Remember the mud pit and the chessboard-- simply leave the field.)
HD and LP- Thanks for your input regarding pulling the "divorce card" and respect.
Well, I had a very productive weekend. When my H got back from being away for two days Friday night I was in a fairly foul mood. He confronted me about it and I told him I was p*ssed off about his behavior Wednesday morning. He got angry and said it was juvenile of me to wait so long to confront him about it. I agreed. He said he gave me the look of "disdain" when I was eating because I "should know" that he doesn't like the sound of crunchy food. My response was along the lines of "Okay, I'll add it to my list of the other 500 things that cause you to be irritable.". He retreated into his emotional "man den" and instead of trying to lure him out and resolve the issue/fight like I usually would, I just thought "F*ck it. I'm sick of taking all the responsibility for this relationship." and didn't do/say anything. A few minutes later my H said "Why don't you make a pot of coffee and we'll discuss things.".
So we had a very long productive conversation. Here are some highlights:
1) We discussed his and my issues regarding his comments about my physical appearance. It went kind of like this:
Mojo: "I know what I look like. I am a collection of attractive and unattractive features like most people. However, I would like to believe that the sum of these features is attractive and I would like to be with a man who felt the same.
H: "Well there are women who have all the same features as you who would be sexier because they would be more confident.
Mojo: "Aaaargh...have you ever considered that any lack of confidence that I display might have something to do with the constant rejection I receive from you. I mean if you look at me and don't have any sexual feelings then by definition I am not sexy in your book whatever the objective reality of my appeal might be.
H: Well, maybe I resent being cast in the role of the man who makes women (note the plural) feel unsexy due to his lack of sex drive.
2) We discussed the fact that I have the tendency to regard his cranky behavior as a pre-emptive strike against sex. I told him that the frequency of sex was an issue but the unreliability of sex and the unresponsiveness to my requests made the frequency issue worse. I said "It's like you are dependent on somebody else to feed you and you aren't getting enough food. The fact that you don't know when you might be fed next and the lack of ability to affect the frequency with which you are fed makes it worse.". To which my H said sarcastically "Have you ever considered feeding yourself more often." to which I replied, honestly "Masturbation is the opposite of helpful for me because when I masturbate I fantasize and the fantasy doesn't go away. It's as though MB is just the way I warm up for the real thing.".
3) The discussion went on for quite a while and we touched on a number of topics but we kept on talking until we reached a mutual resolution. We discussed the fact that we both preferred that my H was the aggressor sexually and the difficulties surrounding that due to our drive disparities. In regards to our drive disparities my H at one point said "It's (sex)just not that important to me.". This was kind of an "a-ha" moment for me because the look on his face when he said this was sort of revealing. My thought was "If he could figure out why he is motivated to believe that sex isn't important then he could figure out why he has LD.". What I said was "Well, sex is important to me and you are in a relationship with me and therefore if you want to make our relationship a priority you need to make sex a priority.". He then said something about just being tired of stressed a lot of the time to which I replied "I don't think you can honestly say that I pressure you for sex at times when you are obviously stressed for obvious reasons. However, if you are choosing not to have sex with me and obviously engaging in other activities that take the same sort of energy then I am going to see that as a clear sign that you aren't making our relationship a priority.".
We also discussed the way the problem was compounded by lack of adequate communication. We decided that this was a huge issue for both of us and the agreement we finally came to took this into account. I definitely got the feeling that I wasn't coercing my H into this agreement. He acted like he was very motivated to come to an agreement, probably because he could sense that I wasn't in any way trying to manipulate or control the negotiations because instead of operating under my olden days mindset of "What can I do to get more sex in this relationship?", I was operating under my new mindset which is more along the lines of "What are you going to do to convince me that I shouldn't leave this relationship due to the lack of sex?". I don't quite understand it myself but I think the discussion felt different to me than previous discussions on the topic because by finally getting to the place where I was really willing to leave if I had to, I changed my perspective in a major way. It was as though I used to be improving things by just making myself into a tougher and tougher punching bag and now I actually have some muscle to flex in the relationship.
The agreement we came to was that my H will initiate sex every Wednesday and once every weekend. If anything interferes with his ability to meet this commitment he has to communicate with me directly about it. I think this is a good agreement because it will relieve much of my frustration but also take some pressure off my H. He can opt out but in order to do so he needs to "own" his reasons for opting out. Since he has to communicate with me if he isn't going to be able to "step up to the plate" I won't have to deal with the frustration of wondering whether or not I'm going to get laid. The best thing about this agreement, IMO, is that it takes the problem one step outside of the realm of sex. If my H doesn't stick to this agreement, if he doesn't initiate sex OR communicate clearly about why he won't be initiating sex then it is clear that the problem with our relationship is a basic lack of communication and accountability not a disparity in sex drive. Therefore, I will feel absolutely justified in divorcing him if he violates this agreement. However, I really am quite optimistic. Once we ironed out this agreement my H said "I am absolutely willing to commit to that.".
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Wow, Wow, Wow!! I think this is just great! Isn’t it amazing what straight talk and honesty can get you? And yet you’ve done this before, but because something inside you changed and you emitted a different vibe, things turned out differently. It seems he is also becoming less reactive.
People come away from such conversations feeling so much better for it. Why it’s so hard to get the other person to get to this step is so frustrating. The more frustrating part is that once you get there, the backslides occur and it’s another uphill battle to just get back to where you were. Hopefully that won’t happen.
Funny what he says about your physical appearance and attraction. It mimics what others on this board have been saying to you, that it is attitude, not so much appearance that counts. In this way, maybe you (and my wife too) have created your own self fulfilling prophecy of rejection out of thin air and lack of self confidence. Anyway, that’s in the past now, right?
Mojo, it's interesting that when he gave you That Look while you were eating cereal, you assumed he was thinking "there goes that fat girl stuffing her face again," but it was in fact the crunchiness that bugged him-- NOTHING about your calorie consumption. A lesson there, my dear.
BTW I also have that crunchy food thing. My late H used to sit and crunch ice and I could be three rooms away and the noise would make me tear my hair out. I read one time that in some movie some place a guy wanted to create the sound effect of bones breaking and that was the sound he recorded-- he put the mike up to his girlfriend's cheek while she was crunching ice. UGH! I HATE that sound-- worse than fingernails on a blackboard. Maybe it's a 4 thing.
Go to counseling. You alone if he won't go.
Also, did you ever get someone to clean your house like you said you were going to?
I am really hoping to see your H step up to this agreement. I'll bet it will be harder than he thinks. I'll bet, in fact, the hardest part will be the communicating directly. Does this agreement put him entirely in the driver's seat about sex or can you still negotiate for oral or a hj if he isn't interested? Whatever the agreement are you ok with it? Just wondering. It think it is a good thing to be aware of potential issues when hammering out an agreement. No agreement is perfect the first negotiation. That's for sure.
Here here!! On the noisy food thing. Although with my H it's not so much that the food he eats is noisy...it's the packaging. My H has a weakness for potato chips BIT TIME! He can make more noise than any human I've evern known with the chip bags too LOL.
Quote: The more frustrating part is that once you get there, the backslides occur and it’s another uphill battle to just get back to where you were. Hopefully that won’t happen.
If I consider the reasons why backsliding might happen it's clear to me that they would all be the direct or indirect result of me wimping out in some way, so I guess my main worry in that regard is that I'll discover yet another way in which I am a wimp and have to work through it.
Quote: Funny what he says about your physical appearance and attraction. It mimics what others on this board have been saying to you, that it is attitude, not so much appearance that counts.
This is true but it's also true that context does matter. I am 100% confident that if I was in the company of a man who was giving off "I am hot for you" vibes, I wouldn't be giving off any "lack of confidence about my appearance vibes". For instance, I am perfectly capable of smiling at a man who checks me out on the street. Also, I have frequently been bold as brass in my attempts to seduce my H. I must say I am mystified as to what sort of lack of confidence about my sexuality or appearance I am projecting when I do something like take my shirt off and start playing with my breasts in front of my H. Also, my H on occasion initiates sex himself by saying things like "I'm going to take a shower. When I come out I'd like to see you on your hands and knees playing with yourself and moaning.". Once again, I don't see how I could happily oblige with his request and yet still project lack of confidence about my sexuality and appearance.
Though I suppose I should try not to be defensive about this issue. I can see how there might be some truth there because I probably do hold myself back more than I would with a HD man in some semi-consious ways. For instance, a while back when I was discussing the issue with my H after I had had a couple drinks I did something that sort of through him for a loop. I was lying on bed and he was across the room. I said "I wish I had the kind of husband who would just cuddle up to me at night" and I wiggled my *ss as though there was a man next to me who I was snuggling into suggestively. This is the type of thing I don't do with my H because I've come to expect a sort of cuddly and responsive as an ironing board type response from him. Thus, I am confident enough to make bold moves when I am actively trying to get a sexual response from him but I am conditioned to be inhibited about making all the sort of natural little moves I might make with a HD man.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Quote: Go to counseling. You alone if he won't go.
Also, did you ever get someone to clean your house like you said you were going to?
Unfortunately, both these options are on hold for a couple monthes until I get my son's college tuition and some back business taxes paid. I had an interaction with my mother this weekend that made me think that I should get counseling to deal with my FOO issues no matter what is going on with my marriage.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Once again, I don't see how I could happily oblige with his request and yet still project lack of confidence about my sexuality and appearance.
Dunno, why don’t you just ask him?
This is true but it's also true that context does matter. I am 100% confident that if I was in the company of a man who was giving off "I am hot for you" vibes, I wouldn't be giving off any "lack of confidence about my appearance vibes".
… but I am conditioned to be inhibited about making all the sort of natural little moves I might make with a HD man.
And it sounds like he has the same inhibitions with you when you are not fully confident. Your insecurity seems to breed his insecurity. Conversely, like the Dog Whisperer claims, calm assertiveness in the owner creates calmness in the dog. But then, that makes sense within the understanding of relationship dynamics, doesn’t it? Maybe your H is really more tuned into your emotions than you realize?
