Lou, Lil, fearless and others....thanks for acknowledging my contributions to the BB. It really means a lot. I've always had issues with the BB format because of the lack of instant feedback as you get with a live convo. But, I'm putting out my thoughts, trying not to fret about them and how people perceive them, and stepping out of my comfort zone. The posters here are a great bunch of people.

Lou,

My issues weren't of the OCD variety as you describe, but pertained to things like division of labor in the house, being treated courteously, not being taken advantage of, being respected and so forth.

H and I are lucky to have very similar spending habits. In your sitch, you need to set boundaries and limits. Does BB have a set amount of $ that she can spend on whatever she wants? Or is she spending excessively and that spending is having repercussions on your finances/budget? If it's the former, I think you just need to let it go. You may think she is spending the $ on stupid things, but you really can't control it. It becomes a power struggle. If it's the latter, then you need to speak up and come to a compromise you both can live with.

Regarding talking, I used to get really upset with H when he would look at the TV while I talked to him. I always felt that he didn't really care what I had to say and that he was chosing the TV over me. Then one day he told me that he found it very uncomfortable to look me in the eye in a situation like this (talking about feelings, issues in the M, etc.) I began telling him I wanted to talk and then asking him to turn off the TV. He didn't have to look at me, but he had to give me his undivided attention.

We always would get off topic, go off on tangents, etc. Actually, it was me who did almost all the talking, so I would get off topic. Some marriage counselors advise shelving a convo that can't be resolved to be picked up at another mutually agreed-upon time, but I found that very hard to do. What I did find, though, was that each time H and I had one of our talks, I would get more insight into our R. I might go to bed after a talk/argument feeling hopeless, but within a couple of days I felt more determined and had more confidence to keep working at it.

Our biggest problem I think was that H was virtually unable to tell me his feelings about anything. When he did talk, what he said sounded so angry and defensive that it really threw me. It took some reading for me to figure out what we were doing. (One book that helped was "The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work" by John Gottman. This book gave me some insight into our communication patterns and why they weren't working.

Why do you think BB takes your compliments as criticism? Can you give examples?

H's self-protection mode was to be avoidant/dismissive. For a person like me who really likes to talk about my feelings, it was torture to be shut out like that. I took it personally for many years until I understood he was only self-protecting.

As H admitted on Cemar's thread, he hasn't really "done" anything proactive, other than buy Michele's book and post his thoughts here. But he has done one other thing, and that is to respond positively to my changes and efforts. That has made all the difference.