Resentful Angry Wife

Resentful Angry Wife

Postby brooklyndad » Mon Apr 22, 2013 10:58 pm

just trying to write how many things ive screwed up with my wife makes me so frustrated.

it's no wonder she hates me and probably won't ever let these awful things go. i love her, work so very hard to show her, and our young daughter is the most perfect thing in the world.

we've know each other almost 3 years and our daughter is almost 2, so you can guess where we stand.

i cant even bring myself to type beyond that i feel so hopeless right now. confronting these things in words makes me understand how screwed we are.
brooklyndad
 
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Re: Resentful Angry Wife

Postby ThunderHorse » Thu Apr 25, 2013 3:46 am

There are many ways to define mistakes in marriage relationships. There are many different customs in many different cultures, so whatever you do, you are wrong by somebody's standards. So I would start by sorting out mistakes that seem to be important to your wife, and try to discipline yourself, to avoid those mistakes. Avoiding repitition of mistakes could be one ideal. Another ideal could be aviding bringing up past hurts.

I imagine that you and your wife are not aware of the most important mistake you can renew every day. That is listening to your wife vent, and giving her attention and compliments, 15 minutes per day, without expressing your own ideas. There are two chapters on listening in the Men's secrets book. Also see the "Listening Strategies for Men" thread in the Communications section of this forum. Also the Thread Compliments for Wives, further down. Please add some suggestions for compliments for wives.

The other mistake many spouses are not aware of making, is feeding into a cycle of increasing the expressing anger in the marriage. Many spouses think that silence, reasoning, withdrawing or arguing is the answer to Anger, but those increases the tendency to express anger. There is a thread, MY WIFE IS HYPER CRITICAL, PLEASE HELP, also under Communications. The books on Verbal Abuse by Suzette Elgin explain the Boring Baroque Response, as in a sing-song, mumbling, gibberish pleasant response.

"Yes dear, you are correct that I have let you down in that way, and I could have ovoided that by thinking ahead a little better, and it was unnecessary to neglect the fidelity to our relationship and as our daughter's parents. So I hope you can forgive me, but I realize that the hurt I have caused was unnecessary, and it is more hurtful because my mistake was unnecessary. While I was only thinking of myself, and not really thinking of you and I as a parenting team. Because you are intelligent and wise, it is difficult for you to see that there is any reason for me to have made this mistake. I see now that your perspective is the correct path to the future, and I need to look at things from your wise perspective. You have our daughter's furture in mind, and that should be my goal as well, to be saving for her college and grad school. etc etc."


Thank you for posting, let me know what I missed.


//
ThunderHorse
 
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Re: Resentful Angry Wife

Postby ThunderHorse » Thu Apr 25, 2013 6:09 pm

Dear BrooklynDad,

Some therapists feel they cannot help you, if you do not give them a lot of details of your problems. They may be right, but I am willing to respond to the clues you have provided.


As I expounded above, the man's job in a relationship is to provide the woman with encouragement to vent. It is best to give acknowledgement of the validiy of her ideas, but not totally agreeing with the ideas about which she is venting.

One of the challenges for a husband to encourage his wife to vent, is that a lot of what the wife wants to vent about, is complaints about the Husband. So one of your challenges is probably that your wife wants to complain about your mistakes, and this is unpleasant for us men, because we like to have our ego stroked, not run down. Let us assume that you make more than the average number of mistakes.

Your wife needs to decide whether to honor her relationship with you, or end the relationship, or some percentage inbetween.

For your wife to make her decision, she needs to have time to think through her pros and cons of staying with you, as well as other aspects of her life with you. The rule in ecouarging venting, is to avoid expressing your own beleifs. You may believe that you made a lot of mistakes. But your opinion is irrelevant to encourageing your woman to vent. She needs to think through your mistakes for HERSELF.

While encouraging your wife to vent, forget about your guilt or sorrow about the mistakes you have made. Couples lose houses, wreck cars, dishonor their families, have in-laws stop talking to them, etc, because of mistakes. Marriage continuing is not about making 0 mistakes. Forget about your own mistakes, when you are encouraging yoru wife to talk about her feelings/opinions.

Marriage is about the man encouraging his woman to vent, and for the woman to put things into a positive perspective.

Your job is also to ask for your wife's prayers and help. What can your wife do to help reduce the number of mistakes you make? When can you find a quiet time to ask her for the help? What about after you have encouraged your wife to vent for 15 minutes?

What other challenges do you have in getting your woman to vent?




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ThunderHorse
 
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Re: Resentful Angry Wife

Postby ThunderHorse » Sat Apr 27, 2013 7:50 am

To: Brooklyn Dad,

You mention that your wife is resentful and angry. From some perspectives, this would be considered an unsuccessful result.

Humans compartmentalize aspects of their mind. When we go to work, we have on presona, when we ride the bus, whe have another persona, and when we are at home, we have another approach. Sometimes we need to integrate somea spects of our life that we have had separated, and sometimes we need to improve our comparmentalization of aspects of our lives. Sometimes we need to build a window inbetween comparments, and sometimes we need to pull the blinds on a window.

I suggested that you might improve the aspect of your persona that encourages your woman to vent, some 15 minutes per day. From the perspective of your skills in getting your woman to express her pent-up emotions, the fact that your woman expresses Anger and Resentment, sometimes, is a success, in that you are encouraging her to think through her emotions and feelings on various issues,

Anger and Resentment are normal feelings that arise in life, and as a couple grows closer, you will often have the opportunity to discover your woman's inner feelings, that she ordinarily covers up to other friends and aquaintences.

You mention that you have made some mistakes. It is also important to recognize, what your are doing correctly, successfully. Many men who do not understand that the mental compartment for encouraging a woman to vent, is actually successful, when the woman expresses Anger and Resentment. If you respond to your woman's expressions of Anger and Resentment, with disappointment, then you are missing the opportunity to encourage your woman's expression of more of her thoughts, that would be helpful for her to think through.

It has taken me some effort to become better at encouraing my wife to vent, and to handle her expressions anger, fear and frustration, with the Boring Baroque Response.

I am currently trying to improve my distance telephone skills, when my wife is away visiting relatives. My wife often seems to want to keep the conversation short. Of course soemtimes she is in the middle of some activity with her family, when I call.


//
ThunderHorse
 
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