My husband (42 M) and I (34 F) have been married for 15 years. We had a moderate disagreement today, which lead to some arguments.
My husband and I are in a good spot to get a new car. He said we would be better off if the car was only in his name becuase his credit is slightly better than mine. I disagreed for many reasons and the arguments ensued.
Background: I interviewed for a new job today and the interview went well (yeah). The job would double my family income. The job is 40 mins or so away so I am looking to get a more reliable vehicle.
After a period of time, I tried to talk to him about it and it turned into another argument. He says he is tired of being the bad guy and that we always agree and everything is always his fault and he is soooo tired of arguing all the time.
Here is the deal, we get into argument I would say once a month or so. They start out as minor disagreement and turn i to full blown arguments. Every time, he goes to the “OMG everything is so horrible argument and it makes me feel like shit. I think we have a pretty damn good relationship after 15 years together.
Tomorrow, he will apologize, I will forgive him, until the next time this Happens again. I am sick of it. I don’t know how to fix it.-
TLDR: Every time my husband and I argue, he says he have a bad relationship.
Two words: marriage counseling.
You are stuck in a loop and the best way to get out of it is to get some outside perspective on how to communicate better so as to avoid arguing all the time.
If you’re having a full blown argument once a month, that’s a lot. I’ve been with my SO for around 15 years and we have a full blown argument maybe once a year. It sounds like your (both of you) perceptions of where the relationship is at and how good it is and the habits you’re settled in are not in line with each other.
You (you personally) are not an island. You don’t need to fix this. He also is not an island, whatever the issue is in your joint conflict approaches is unlikely to be caused by him alone.
You both need to admit you both have a problem with how you handle conflict together as a team, and get better at it.
Marriage counselling is the only option, but you need to go at it with the right goals. Counselling is NOT to identify which of you is “wrong” and which “right”, it’s to identify where the disconnects in how you communicate are, and to get the SAME toolkit of conflict management so that when you two hit a conflict, you’re both going to have the same approaches, language and structure to handle it without pushing each others buttons and getting stuck in hurtful spirals.
Right now, whatever approach you two are using is resulting in the feeling that conflicts have to have a “winner”, this means when there’s two of you someone ends up being the loser… and that’s pretty shitty. You’re supposed to be a team, teams that fight each other as individuals instead of solving a problem always end up losing overall. Teams that work together to solve external problems win together.
This issue with the car, it’s not personal, it isn’t some reflection on your or his worth as an individual, it’s solving a problem in the most reasonable way. So it should never get to a point that he can say “I feel like the bad guy” because it’s logistics, not personal. Something is happening in your conflict where it becomes personal. That’s where you two need a therapist, and that’s how you TWO will fix it together.
Good luck to you both.
Sometimes reality & perception are skewed, you feel the reality is,
- the fights really aren’t a big deal because they don’t happen that often
yet his perception is
- he can never seem to do anything right & he’s always in the wrong.
Later you say “Tomorrow he will apologise – & i will forgive him…”
I feel like there’s a subtle relationship imbalance here somewhere, when one person’s always seeking forgiveness, it’s hard not to feel like they’re doing something wrong, every time, that could get anyone down, even if this perception isn’t reality & you think he’s blowing it out of proportion, surely you can understand why he might blow those assumptions up in his mind.
Imagine constantly saying sorry to him for virtually every argument, right or wrong it would certainly make you feel like you’re not contributing anything of value to the partnership because you’re always in the wrong, there’s a possibility that it’s difficult to grasp his perspective because the person forgiving is generally seen to be faultless, if not having the upper hand, i’m not suggesting that you think you’re blameless, but he might see it as such.
As the first person commented, to deal with those times neither of you know how to communicate with one another, when things come to a frustrating head, on repeat, seek a relationship guidance professional, it will give you the tools to learn how to handle your feelings toward each other & better manage each issue as it arises.
Sounds like maybe he bites his tongue to avoid arguing more often and things build enough for him to have an all out fight once a month but he’s actually kind of thinking about it all month before it happens.
Does he tend to bottle his feelings a lot? Other than that I’d just continue asking why he feels the fights are “so bad” and chase that why down the rabbit hole, help both of you understand what feels too much for him so you can change the communication. If you’re fine with the status quo then it’ll be more you adapting to him in this situation since you’re not losing anything to accommodate him.
That’s how I’d view this if I were in the situation but another commenter pointed out that it’s rare for them to fight at all in their similarly long relationship so perhaps they have more insight into this topic.
You can get the car titled in both names and only have him on the loan/lease…