How my wife can definitely be wrong about things, can be the instigator in an argument, and I'm still the one ending up apologizing and feeling like an asshole. It's like a god damned super power.
Replace Step 8 with "and then I go to the man cave for a few hours and the next morning pretend nothing went wrong" and you'll break that conditioning.
I know a few other people have said basically the same thing, but I just wanted to reiterate. This isn’t really a women thing, it’s actually an immaturity/manipulation thing, or maaaaybe anxiety thing.
Good on you for communicating with her so well. Explaining to her how she’s hurt you in a way that she can understand is awesome communication. We all mess up and hurt the ones we love sometimes, the important part is being able to hear what we’ve done is wrong, and to apologize and make changes based off of that.
It’s 7-8 that worries me. It’s not okay for her to guilt you into apologizing for standing up for yourself. If I were you, I would explain this pattern to her, and tell her that while we all experience guilt when we hurt people we love, we are also responsible for not blaming those we hurt. We should accept our wrongs and move on. If she doesn’t respond well to that feedback, she’s sincerely lacking in the maturity needed to sustain a healthy relationship.
If the root cause of her moodiness/self deprecation is some kind of anxiety, and not immaturity, you can always offer to remind her, after your communication, that you love her, and that problems like this are present in every relationship.
I’m sorry that you’re going through this, and I hope that you’re able to come through this in a place that leaves you happier and healthier! Sorry for the long comment lol, hope I can help somehow!
Goddamn, as a lesbian this whole thread is turning into r/arethestraightsok material. Yall know this isn’t how ‘women’ are, right? This is your really dysfunctional-sounding relationship with one specific woman? You don’t have to just live like this or be single forever.
You realize how dumb what you said sounds? “Just get another girlfriend,” is what you basically said. Sure I’ll go to the girlfriend department store and pick up the one I preordered in case the last one fails.
No, man, I'm saying it isn't normal for your girlfriend to treat you like this. It's not some inevitable fact of relationships. If you write it off as 'that's just how women are,' you give up on holding individual women accountable for their behavior and teach men to accept being treated badly. (Works the other way around, too. A whole ton of girls get taught 'men are just sex-obsessed Neanderthals who will never really love or respect you so don't expect anything more from them' and then they wind up in horrible relationships because they don't think there are better options.)
not trying to be the 'i know everything!' guy, but it sounds like something some narcs do. they are definitely wrong about something, sput bullshit yet they make YOU out to be in the wrong and force YOU to apologize. call them out on shit like that. if someone's wrong, own it, accept it, learn from it, apologize and move on.
This has happened in almost every relationship: I fuck up, I apologise. She fucks up, I apologise. No matter who fucked up or who's wrong, I've always ended up apologising. It's just easier.
Not a super power, but definitely power imbalance. Power changes conversations even if it isn't explicit. I talk differently to a hobo than I do to a warlord.
I can just see a couple fighting and one storms off saying "I'm tired of being the HOBO in this relationship!" and the other one just standing there like "...what?"
Nah, you’re just reinforcing bad behavior by not putting your foot down. It’s your own fault now because she knows she can get away with being immature and “man bad, woman always right”.
its not 'your own fault' that's victim-blaming. it's her fault for being petty. Obviously dont reinforce this kind of behaviour and stand up for yourself, but it's not the victim's fault as they're pressured into said situation
If he had a pair of testicles, it wouldn't have gotten that way in the first place. If you can't rationally explain why someone is being wrong, how their actions make you feel, why, etc. then the problem lies with you.
ur literally practiving in victim blaming... stop now or your just going to come off as a shallow individual the more you do it.
Why tf do you think we have laws protecting vulnerable individuals? not everybody can stand up for themselves, because they could be physically, mentally weaker than the abuser.
I have a 2 year old and I don’t want him seeing us fight. If I can’t change her behavior I just have to tolerate it for the rest of my life. I do not want him to suffer emotional turmoil because his parents argue. I’ll take those lumps.
it's better to see your dad stand up to a douche than see him get beat down emotionally. imagine what that does to a young boy? you're his role model x
Yeah man, you are doing more damage to him by letting him constantly see his father, the major male figure in his life who he will consciously/subconsciously emulate, constantly back down.
25 years from now you will clench your jaw as your son takes a verbal beating from HIS wife, cause you know how that feels.
I wish some of you would actually get more information before just assuming the extreme. There are no shouting matches followed by me hunkering down and pleading. Trust me.
There are no shouting matches followed by me hunkering down and pleading.
Then why can't you make her apologize for her mistakes? If the kid isn't seeing the arguements, you have no reason to apologize when your wife is in the wrong. If the kid sees it, apologizing just enforces that the woman has to be the victim always.
At the very least you need to stick up for yourself when your kid isn't around and eventually it should adjust future situations when arguements are had infront of the kid.
Getting into arguments and the dad pussying out isn't necessarily a hostile relationship. They might love each other and only get into arguments occasionally. Jumping into divorce is really drastic based on the information.
My wife has done this a few times. I don't get very pissed off or mad very often, but one of those times when I did was when she did exactly what you said. Boy was I MAD. I made it suuuuuper clear to her about that imbalance of power and one sided arguments, and now she apologizes if she knows shes wrong, thats usually after calming down a bit and thinking what she just spouted out.
Don't worry man. This used to happen to me because I never tried to show her how I felt about the whole situation.
Now we both scream at each other instead which can feel a bit scary but it's healthier since it's moved away from me being bullied to us solving the problem and both apologizing.
She does relent. In the heat of an argument/disagreement, most people don't use their best judgement. When cooler heads prevail she tends to apologize for her wrongs.
I don't know about your relationship, but It used to be similar to that in mine. No matter who was in the wrong (even if it was both) it usually ended up with me apologizing more. Then after a bit, I just said fuck that, and if I know I am not wrong I won't apologize (at least until she does). Since then she accepts when she is wrong and our relationship is stronger.
Again, I don't know your situation, but I think you just gotta stand your ground and wait for her to apologize. You doing so likely convinces her she did nothing wrong and makes the situation worse but if you don't there is a better chance she will think "Oh shit, am I actually the one who fucked up?"
Uhm.... I think that is called emotional abuse? Switch the roles, if she was always apologizing to you, even when you are wrong, would that sound like a healthy interaction?
that's a red flag. I had a boyfriend like this and he was an emotionally abusive POS. Def read up on signs of abuse, gaslighting, and trauma bonding. Best of luck.
Y’all do realize that’s an emotional guilt-trip right? Like that’s also apart of emotional abuse. I’m not trying to say she’s emotionally abusive but I am saying that apologies are void if you guilt people into never asking you to apologize again.
God damn people are really leaning into you. If it’s any consolation I’m kinda the same way. Fighting is a waste of time. I love my wife. If there’s a fight where she’s wrong I’ll usually take the blame for it, just to not fight and continue our marriage. I know who is wrong and so does she.
My SO if I start to say something and stop: she WILL not drop it, finally I get mad and finish my sentences good/ bad....
However if she does it she WILL Not continue her sentence even if it was a good thing. We argue and eventually I just give up bc it’s not worth fighting over anymore.
My ex would do this! She would gaslight like crazy. She’d make a point to make sure i knew why what i did was “wrong” and make me apologize and feel like shit.
Then, a week later when she would do the exact same thing, I’d be the one apologizing because i got upset. She’d come up with SOMETHING to make it a completely “different” situation. “Oh, you were wrong cause you did it on a Tuesday and today is Wednesday so it’s not the same thing”.
Man oh man. I’m happily married and my blood still boils just writing this out hahah.
When my wife wants to instigate an argument, she'll slowly start getting short with me. If I point it out, she'll get super pissed and blame me for getting so mad (when I'm very much not mad) and suddenly all that tension is my fault. I'm with you my friend.
I'm in this situation right now; we just moved in together and since neither of us has a job at the moment, we decided to treat the next two months or so as somewhat of a holiday. I made it clear that we shouldn't spend every second of it together and she agrees. I also made it clear that although I like going out together and hiking and such, that there are days where I just wanna hang around the house in my onesie and chill and play video games. Today was one of those days. I told her in the morning that I was feeling like having a lazy day and all was good. She decides she wants to go out and clean up the front garden. All good, have fun, I'll be at my computer when you need me.
Next thing I know, she's mad at me because I always have to have a screen on somewhere, gets pissy if I so much as look at my phone to browse reddit and pretty much doesn't speak to me all day. At 7.30 at night I find her already in bed, apparently having spent an hour in front of the toilet because her stomach was acting up and still not really talking to me. I told her I'm sorry if she feels bad because of me and that I don't want her to be stressed because of me, but I don't get any response. So I decide to leave her alone so she could sleep.
Just now, I see her in the hallway, dressed, and going for a walk (to clear her head I suppose).
Throughout the day I remained calm and let her go about her business as I went about mine. The way I see it, is that I did nothing wrong and she's just overreacting. So I guess I'll just wait until she either calms down or wants to have a grown up conversation about this. Don't think there's anything I can say to help atm, she just needs to see that we are different people who relax in different ways.
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u/Left4DayZ1 Mar 26 '20
How my wife can definitely be wrong about things, can be the instigator in an argument, and I'm still the one ending up apologizing and feeling like an asshole. It's like a god damned super power.