Your description of your and your H’s background sounds like there were not good role models for either of you two to emulate. That just helps to confirm (at least in my mind) why your H acts as he does. I still see his stuff as trauma/attachment issue based, full of fusion, etc. Probably lots of shame somewhere in there too.
"You don't even worry about me out there do you?". The subtext clearly being "and therefore you don't love me."….. So what I said to my H was "I don't worry about you because I expect that you will do what you need to do to keep yourself safe.". Which, in the case of my H's job, means sometimes having to assert himself with his coworkers and his boss without losing his temper to the extent that he needs to quit.
I see nothing wrong in your reply, nor does it seem that anyone else does either, sine no one commented on this. However I can see how your H would not hear it like that. If we assume that he always feels like the outsider, like an abandoned kid with low self esteem and little to no sense of self worth, then your complimentary statement may not have much to build on. To someone more secure, your statement would be taken as an affirmation of that confidence. But your H cannot relate in that way since he has no confidence to relate to (or so I am guessing).
Maybe a better response for him would be something like “I don’t worry about your safety because I know that you are extremely good and competent at your job, and the security of that knowledge simply puts any thoughts of worry out of my mind.” The message I am trying to convey is one of making the presumption that he is competent, ignoring his implication that he is incompetent, and then boosting his esteem by telling him how much he protects you through that competence, thereby acknowledging that he really is a man’s man.
(sidenote: my children semi-jokingly tell me that they enjoy hanging out with my mother because it is very relaxing to be around someone who is "pure evil".)
You’ll have to explain this one to me. Why is it they like hanging around “pure evil” and how exactly does that make them relaxed? I’m not getting this.
I did have a loving Type 7 maternal grandmother. She was a hard-working on the Union line gorgeous in appearance with a high sex drive Rosie the Riveter, twice-divorced, Kool smoking, beer from the can drinking, owns her own house in a tough neighborhood in Detroit and fights the hoodlum who tries to snatch her purse when she's 75 years old, left her second husband because he objected to her spending her own money at the racetrack. Basically a pretty tough broad but she cuddled and babied me because I was her pet. The advice she gave me and my sister when she once caught us looking at a Playgirl magazine was "Those boys are alright, but you girls take care of yourselves.". So I have internalized her as sort of my own personal Judge Judy who is telling me to, as you put it, "put down my own stakes" and stop waiting for some man to do it for me.
Hmmm….yeah, I guess I can see that message from your grandmother, but I also get the message that your grandmother was very insecure, tried to pump herself up at the expense of men, and could have done so out of some FOO based anger toward a man somewhere down the line.
I am not sure that is the same as “putting down your own stake.” To me, this means not waiting on someone else to stay on your path or your journey. What I get from your description of your grandmother is not necessarily a devotion to a goal or purpose, but a subtle anger and frustration toward men. Such anger can be completely aimless, but just as consuming. I see that you have the purpose and goal in what you do career-wise, but you’ve also picked up the anger-toward-men part and then hidden it.
Your grandmother nurtured you, so you naturally admired her. But if she had that antagonism toward men, it also makes sense that you would side with her, seeing men as a source of pain and frustration, maybe even inferior to women in some way? I am sure she was smart enough not to make any overt, blatantly sexist comments about men in front of you, but I wonder of the vibes still came through, and that you are sending those same type of vibes to your H now?
Back to your H: He is turned on by being with a woman who has basically thrown up her hands and given him up as a hopeless case or to be more precise, he is turned on by the behavior/vibe that I manifest when I feel that way. Though, perhaps I am not being completely accurate when I say this either because my vibe would be more like "I give up on you. You are a hopeless case, yet I will continue working on this marriage as an exercise in personal growth if nothing else.".
I can see that his actions seem to send this message to you, but I wonder if he is really trying to say something different. In light of his poor modeling as a child, could it be that his childhood was filled with fighting and squabbling, with parents who only tried to get his/her way to the exclusion of the needs of the kids? If so (like in my family) then the only time your H ever had any attention was when he was being fussed at. To a child even negative attention is better than no attention at all. Kids gets used to this, so that when they get positive attention (which requires a good self of self in order for that attention to be well received), they feel very uncomfortable.
So could it be that your fussing at your H to the point of giving up on him, triggers the same feelings in him when he was a kid and at least getting some kind of attention, attention that he can relate to?
Regarding your appearance: He said "It is depressing to me to see my wife in shoes like that. It makes me feel like I am poor."
I can understand this. Remember, he needs affirmation and validation. That is why men have trophy wives. That is why the attention of a beautiful woman makes them feel so good (right Chrome?) Having a good looking woman on your arm makes you the envy of other men. Having a poorly dressed, unkempt woman makes you the laughing stock. I’m glad you bought the shoes. Now do your part to put together the rest of the package.
My response was "It is very unfair of you to complain miserably to me one day about how much you hate your job and then complain to me about not spending enough money on shoes. If you want more freedom to get a lower paying job, we need to lower our standard of living. If you want me to dress expensively that is doing the opposite.".
I’m not sure what you hoped to accomplish with this statement other than to put him on the spot and tick him off. Validating his esteem in the way I think he needs might be along the lines of “You are a highly capable man and one with more potential than you even realize. A man like you does not deserve to be seen with a poorly dressed woman. I intend to make myself worthy of you. Now go do your part to make me proud of you.”
His response was along the lines of "It makes me hate my job more if I feel like I'm poor so I really want you to buy new shoes.".
This is a VERY hard statement for a man to make. He really had to dig deep and beat down his own ego to make it. I think he does this WAY too much and needs to stop the self deprecation. But he does it because I think that HE thinks it is a way to placate and please you. Remember, you are the alpha, he is the beta. He is simply submitting to you with a statement like this. At the same time I can see him slipping into a self pity role, hoping you will rescue him and make him feel better.
I said something to him along the lines of "I just hope that you are aware that I would probably wear worn-down Ugg shoes even if I was a mult-millionaire. I just don't think about shoes.".
This statement denies his wants. He was honest, open and vulnerable to you in making his statement. You basically told him that you really don’t care, that you want what you want and will do what you will do, and that his wishes do not matter to you. I don’t think that is going to endear you to him.
Find a way to get him to read Dieda, whatever that might be. He needs to change his outlook on life and on what men are all about.
