I apologize if this title seems loaded, i’m genuinely having trouble wording it. I hope my post helps to clarify, but please let me know if there’s anything I can expand on.
Over the past year, my partner and I have dealt with a number of stressful events in a short period of time; having to cut out part of his family after incessant harassment and abuse with no attempt to seek help on their part, having to get a new car when the one we share finally broke down on us, dealing with a horrifically toxic roommate situation, dealing with a natural disaster and the aftermath, etc. etc. On top of that, we both have a long, rough history with PTSD, childhood abuse, and abuse from a partner, as well as other traumatic events.
I mention all this to give the perspective that while we are both in couples counseling and consistently working to be better for ourselves and each other, we have dealt with a ton of crap past our respective thresholds, we both have some trouble determining who is trying to hurt us vs. who is just a human being making dumb mistakes, and tensions can be high at times.
The problem is, while I tend to let go of my husband’s missteps and mistakes, it feels like he lists and keeps track of every mistake I’ve ever made in our relationship. He will bring up jabs I’ve said in the heat of the moment of an argument weeks prior, he will recall mistakes from months to a year or more prior, etc., and he’ll bring them up in arguments and disagreements regardless of the fact that we’ve worked them out together, apologized, forgiven, moved on, everything.
And don’t get me wrong, they aren’t always small things. I did make a horrible mistake once of throwing a pillow at him as hard as I could out of anger when he decided to start ignoring me during a conversation.
On the night in question, we got into a disagreement that led to him giving me the silent treatment by getting in bed, covering himself up, and totally ignoring me. For context, this guy will HOUND you to solve an argument before even stopping long enough to take a piss. Don’t get me wrong, I love him for it, we never go to bed angry, but it is very important to him to solve arguments as soon as possible. Given this, I was pretty exasperated that he was able to just give me the cold shoulder like that and shut down a whole conversation.
This is where I made a multiple mistakes; regardless of my frustration with his apparent hypocrisy, he was asking for space, and I should have let him take that space, no matter how upset I felt. I continued to plead with him to continue the conversation, tried to pull the covers off of him, to no avail. Finally, in a moment of blind rage and frustration, I picked up a pillow/stuffed animal thing and threw it as hard as I could at him, and it ended up him on the side of his face. Yes, it was a very soft plush pillow animal thing, but it does have beads for eyes, so for all I know, it could have really hurt. It was embarrassing to have acted like that in frustration, and I felt horrible that it hit him in the face. Not to mention I was extremely bothered with how quick I was to react like that, it’s like I didn’t even have a moment to consider what I was doing.
I took responsibility for it as well as my other childish behavior during the situation and apologized. I let him have his space, and we eventually worked out that particular argument. I also made a point to immediately get to work with my own mental/emotional health work outside of couples counseling to better myself.
However, now anytime we are having a disagreement or I’m hurt by something he’s done or said, he’ll go straight to listing the things I’ve done and said, and now “hitting him” is at the top of his list. Every time, every argument, he reminds me that “I hit him”. I know it was a horrible thing to do, I’ve addressed it, apologized for it, and I’ve never done anything like it before or after that, but I’m still going to a professional therapist to work on it all.
I’m afraid to mention any details and issues in our communication or try to address ways that he’s hurt me and hasn’t taken responsibility for, for fear that he’ll continue to use it to discredit any of my concerns, whether I’m trying to tell him, my family, or our couples counselor.
I know hitting someone is a horrible thing to do, regardless if it’s with a pillow or a brick, the intention is the same. I will never not take responsibility for the fact that I hit him, and I’m currently in therapy, couples counseling, and seeing a psychiatrist, all to work on our relationship as well as my own mental/emotional help and how I am able to deal with stress and emotional thresholds. But at this point, I don’t even know what the reality is anymore.
I do want to mention all of this aside, I wouldn’t want to leave him. I care for him very much, and feel that ever since we started couples counseling, we’ve made incredible strides. It just seems the further down the road we get, the rockier things get, and I don’t want to get to ten years from now and realize that I might just not be a good person for my husband to be with, or vice versa.
Am I messed up and wrong, and just need to keep focusing on working on myself for a while? Or is my husband, in the course of trying to protect himself while operating off of his own trauma/childhood abuse, being manipulative towards me? Either way I do intend on bringing it up in counseling, I suppose I’m just trying to get an idea of what I want to say to avoid further disaster.
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TL;DR! Husband \[32m\] and I \[28f\] have been through quite a bit of trauma throughout our lives, and it’s become pretty tense recently with both of us being quite angry at hurt at times and acting out; I’ve learned to take responsibility for my actions and apologize, to forgive and forget, and to work towards breaking bad habits, but it feels like my husband would rather retreat into my wrongdoings and remind me of everything bad I’ve done in our relationship. It came to a head when during a particularly bad argument, I threw a stuffed pillow at him hard, and now it’s being used against me in every situation, causing me to not feel like I can address anything or defend myself in arguments anymore.
Am I a bad wife and need to just focus on my individual therapy and getting better, or is my husband being a bit manipulative in still bringing up something I’ve taken accountability for, apologized for, and worked on in order to avoid blame when he messes up?
6 comments
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IMO, your husband sounds like he’s being a bit of a twat, you should be mindful of things you say during arguments but he shouldn’t be as so petty as to throw every little thing back at you. Definitely keep working on yourself because self improvement is important even if it doesn’t matter to others it should matter to you.
If he wants to stay with you, he needs to stop bringing up the past in order to discredit the current situation. It’s manipulative and doesn’t get you anywhere. If he really can’t get over what you did, he needs to figure that out first instead of using it as leverage.
The transgressions you actually forgive you don’t bring it up. He likes having this leverage over you because it makes it easier for him to feel in control. This is unhealthy and no matter how much you love him you can’t fix him. It’s comparable to Sisyphus.
It might be helpful to try to map the cycle of these arguments and then focus on changing your role in the cycle to see how it affects things.
Something is happening that initiates the argument, triggers him, he responds to his trigger with the blame shifting, then you get triggered by his blame shifting, you respond to getting triggered by doing xyz, he does abc etc etc and the argument eventually ends.
So what does that cycle look like? I find once I figure out the cycle, identify my role in it, I automatically respond better in the moment because it’s like I can now predict the format of the argument so I don’t get sucked into the emotions around it as easily as before. And then on top of that I can put in the mental work of figuring out how to circumvent triggering their poor behavior, managing my trigger better, setting boundaries around their poor behavior etc.
Stonewalling during an argument like he did is a form of abusive behavior. Your reaction to that sounds a lot like reactive abuse. The fact that he riled you up and now holds your response over your head is deeply concerning. Does he act this way in other instances re: control?