I just wanted to get your feedback on a recurring argument I have with my wife and wanted to know if there is something I’m missing on the subject of eye-rolling.
It’s happened quite often in our marriage (of 15 years) where I’ll say something my wife doesn’t like and she’ll roll her eyes. The most recent time was earlier today when I was talking to my son that during his quiet time Daddy was going to take a (hard-earned) nap. I then looked to my wife and said “that means no tv or lights on in the room, please”. She then rolls her eyes.
I called her out on it, saying I need quiet rest (she can go downstairs in our guest room to watch tv, or the living room) and that it’s disrespectful to roll her eyes at me.
She first says she didn’t roll her eyes, “she just looked up” in exasperation”, then later on during the argument she starts to say that for her, rolling her eyes means she’s exhausted/in disagreement with me.
I asked her to get ten people to agree with her that eye rolling is NOT a sign of disrespect/contempt, and then she says I’m close-minded, hard-hearted and can’t accept anyone else’s point of view but my own.
What do you think? It’s really frustrating trying to get my point across, especially when I truly believe most people would agree with me.
Am I close-minded on the issue of eye-rolling and the non-verbal message it sends to the other person?
EDIT: I struggle with codependent issues and my wife has untreated ADD (and possibly bipolar). I realize that I need to be better with communication. I just wanted feedback on if eye-rolling is usually seen as disrespectful. I will try to get my wife to go to couple’s counseling.
37 comments
You married a 20 year-old as a 27 year-old. You sound controlling, and she’s probably fed up with 15 years of dealing with you. I’d consider finding ways of ACTUALLY LISTENING to your family. Without speaking. Without input. Without barking orders or “devils advocate”-ing. The problem isn’t your wife or kid here. It’s you.
Non-verbal communication can absolutely be disrespectful.
Eye rolling is rude, yes, but
> “that means no tv or lights on in the room, please”
This is super condescending. This is how you talk to a kid, not a partner. Something like “do you mind going downstairs while I nap?” would be better.
It’s not helpful or productive for her to roll her eyes, but I think you could stand to improve your own communication as well.
I think the problem is you’re disagreeing with her about what her own intent was when she rolled her eyes. You can’t win that argument and honestly it’s an obnoxious position to take. She said she her intent was to express exasperation and disagreement. Believe her. Reddit votes can’t override her knowledge of her own mind. However, intent and impact are different things. Her INTENT may have been to express exasperation and disagreement but the IMPACT was that you felt disrespected. So tell her that. She can and should feel apologetic about the negative impact of her behavior, even if that impact wasn’t her intent. But she’s not going to get there if you keep trying to engage her (and all of the internet?) in an argument about what her intent was.
If my H directed that comment to me, there would be a lot more than eyes rolling.
Do you think it has anything to do with the tone and your language?
I kinda think she laid it out for you that you are a bit of blow hard.
If you treat your wife like a child, then she’s bound to react with exacerbation. You sound like a teacher demanding respect from a pupil. Check your tone and wording to ensure you’re treating her as an equal.
I think I’d roll my eyes if you said that to me in that scenario.
YOU
ARE
THE
DISRESPECTFUL
ASSHOLE
Respectfully. Being concerned about eye rolls while ignoring your own behavior makes you sound like my ex wife. Too bad she hasn’t left you already.
“I then looked to my wife and said ‘that means no tv or lights on in the room, please.’”
Has she been disrespectful in the past when you’ve tried to take a nap? You seem like you’re patronizing her. Even if she needed reminded to be aware of your needs, communicate that respectfully. How would you respond if someone patronized you?
“It’s really frustrating trying to get my point across, especially when I truly believe most people would agree with me.”
You’re missing the whole picture and focusing on being “right”. Eye rolling is disrespectful and immature, but it’s probably a symptom of a bigger or different issue. How do you address and communicate with her in general? If she’s rolling her eyes, is there a reason why she reacts that way?
Also, why did you feel the need to point out that the nap was hard-earned?
Sometimes people say things that deserve an eye roll. If my husband tried to tell me how napping worked I’d probably roll my eyes at him.
I’m going to say no because
1) It was a response to the disrespect from you. So think of it like a mirror. If you feel you didn’t show any towards her, then you can’t say she showed it towards you, but because you absolutely did well…
2) You came on here to get validation to prove that you were wronged when your comment was completely uncalled for. Getting validation from strangers isn’t a way to fix a problem.
3) You’re trying to solve conflict by winning on a technicality with 10 votes from strangers and I’d rather be on the other side of that. You’re literally asking “Is eye-rolling disrespectful” which glosses over the fact that you provoked it and her reaction was 100% valid and much kinder than a lot of us would do. Own up to your own inappropriate behavior and stop creating a bigger issue because of how she reacted to you. Don’t treat your adult wife like a child and drop that ego because it’s pretty damn toxic.
You speak to your wife like she’s a child, and being concerned about her rolling her eyes at you indicates you think of her as a child. Adults are allowed to respond to one another, verbally and nonverbally, with how they really feel. If she disagrees with you and it makes her roll her eyes, at most you should take that as a cue that you’ve overstepped or done something obnoxious to her.
What would you prefer? Stepford smiles and passive agreement to everything you say? Rolling one’s eyes at someone can be “disrespectful” but it’s also just an involuntary reaction to frustration. She didn’t call you names, she didn’t throw things at you or kick you out of the house or talk shit about you to your kids or mock your needs. She rolled her eyes because you spoke to her like a child when you need to speak to her like an equal.
You should be paying more attention to what your wife’s verbal and non verbal communications mean about how you make her feel. You should pay less attention to whether every minute movement of her face makes you feel respected every second of the damn day. Did you try talking to her about her feelings, asking why she seems annoyed and if there’s something you did that offended her? Of course you didn’t…
When I got to the part where you switched from talking to your son, who I assume is pretty young, to talking to your wife in the same condescending tone I also rolled my eyes.
I think at 35 your wife understands how naps work. I agree with your wife that it was likely more out of frustration than disrespect. That being said, I don’t get the vibe *you* are super respectful of your wife, so there’s that.
Yeah dude you’re acting like a jerk, eye rolling is a natural consequence to you expecting obedience from other adults
You want someone to respect you?
Treat them with respect.
This whole post made me roll my eyes 🙄😒
I’m 46 and I just rolled my eyes hard. You don’t need to talk to your wife condescendingly to get your point across.
In general you seem to have a pretty authoritative attitude toward your wife. You don’t ask her not to roll her eyes or ask her to keep it down so you can sleep – you order her.
It’s pretty gross. You can’t really demand respect if you’re not offering it. Well, unless you’re fine with being abusive I guess.
I’m rolling my eyes right now.
Your ridiculousness is being acknowledged in the way you say things.
You deserve a nap? That means no TV or or lights in your room? I mean at least you said please.
You deserve eye rolls. When people say pick your battles, they don’t mean pick every battle.
OP, your partner should not be criticized for being quiet and having a facial expression. All she did was roll her eyes. Since when did facial expressions become a crime? As someone who has facial expressions, please do not be so critical of her. And then you diagnose ADD for her? 🤨
I’d say that whether or not it’s disrespectful is based on the situation. My husband’s favorite pastime is making me roll my eyes over some cheesy joke or terrible pun. For us it’s an expression of love and affection.
In the situation you described it does sound disrespectful…but I tend to agree with the other comments saying the way you describe speaking to her ALSO sounds disrespectful so it seems like she’s just responding in kind.
It can be disrespectful, but isn’t always. Sometimes it’s just a moment for me to take a breath and not say the disrespectful thing that popped into my head.
>What do you think?
I think you both have problems with how you communicate.
First to get the obvious one out of the way, eyerolling is clearly disrespectful. Hell, being disrespectful is the whole point. There’s no other reason to do it other than to convey to someone that your internal thought is “oh not this bullshit again.” So, yeah, she’s communicating that she’s exasperated with you via eyerolling but then refusing to elaborate on why and ridiculously trying to pretend it’s a neutral reaction.
BUT, frankly I’m not wild about the way you talk to her either. Lots of subtle indicators here that you talk AT her more than you talk TO her. Maybe it’s just this one instance, but I doubt it.
>It’s happened quite often in our marriage (of 15 years) where I’ll say something my wife doesn’t like and she’ll roll her eyes.
Instead of focusing on the eyerolling, focus on the fact that you frequently say things your wife doesn’t like. Does she say why? What sorts of things are you saying? Because if they’re things like this:
>The most recent time was earlier today when I was talking to my son that during his quiet time Daddy was going to take a (hard-earned) nap. **I then looked to my wife and said “that means no tv or lights on in the room, please”.**
…then I’d probably roll my eyes at you too. First of all, you phrased it like a command. Secondly, you phrased it like a command you were giving to an imbecile. “I demand quiet. I will now define ‘quiet’ for you, since clearly you’re not going to be able to piece that riddle together on your own.” That’s less a conversation and more an order with a little condescension thrown on for extra flavoring. Then there’s this:
>She first says she didn’t roll her eyes, “she just looked up” in exasperation”, then later on during the argument she starts to say that for her, rolling her eyes means she’s exhausted/in disagreement with me.
So this argument went on for a long time, and eventually she tells you that it’s her way of expressing disagreement or exhaustion with you. The normal thing to do here would be to say “ok, since this happens a lot it must mean we’re in disagreement a lot, let’s try to figure out why and about what.” That is not what you said. This is what you said:
>I asked her to get ten people to agree with her that eye rolling is NOT a sign of disrespect/contempt
…..seriously? That is the verbal equivalent of an eye roll, my man. You basically ignored the fact that she was telling you she’s frequently at odds with you in order to focus on the “disrespect” issue, and gave her a patronizing homework assignment before you would entertain her position any further. A faster way to communicate that level of disdain would be to just roll your eyes at her.
>and then she says I’m close-minded, hard-hearted and can’t accept anyone else’s point of view but my own.
That’s sounding pretty bang-on correct to me based on the evidence in front of us. You’re not even hearing her, you’re so focused on how you were disrespected that you either didn’t notice or didn’t care that she told you there are frequent disagreements that she doesn’t know any other way to communicate to you. And I can kind of see why she’s defaulted to eyerolling, now. Because she just tried talking to you about a problem and you were kind of…let’s see, how do I put this? Close-minded and hard-hearted about it.
It’s rude if you don’t deserve it, but in your case you deserve it, and based on the whole age gap at marriage (20F, to your 27M) you probably have a ton of issues that make her done with you. She’s not the only one in desperate need of therapy.
Eye rolling is not disrespectful… what’s disrespectful is you trying to impose your rules for taking a nap on others… why does she have to go? Why don’t you, a grown ass man, go sleep somewhere else like you suggested she did?
Go sleep in the guest room and leave the rest of your family to do as they please…
Rolling eyes is a form a disrespect but the way you approached the topic was surely less then respectful. I think you both need to work on your communication.
You’re treating her like a kid, of course you’re gonna get an eye roll. Stop being patronizing and then communicate about the eye roll. Yikes
I am an extremely anti-eye roll person. My husband and I don’t do that. If one of us did roll our eyes at the other, our marriage would likely be in danger. That being said, if my husband ever looked at me and said “that means don’t do X”, I would be upset and immediately demanding an explanation as to why he’s speaking to me like I’m a child. I would feel so disrespected and hurt.
And if it was because I’ve been ruining his naps in the past, he would then say “I’m sorry, you’ve done this behavior a few times and I’ve gotten frustrated. I shouldn’t have said it like that. I just really need you to respect my nap time.”
That’s how adults communicate.
Eye rolling is terrible. So is being condescending to your partner. You both need to learn how to communicate with each other, desperately. If you keep blaming everything on her untreated myriad of mental health issues (was your list a formal diagnosis from a Dr or are you diagnosing your wife bc she frustrates you???) your relationship is likely doomed.
Also, who watches the kid while you work all day making 6 figures? Is there a nanny doing all this work or are you disregarding that your wife does do stuff to help the family? It might not be as much as you like, but keeping a child alive is exhausting work, and for many people it’s exhausting enough that they can’t be cleaning the house, cooking meals, and could probably also use a hard earned nap.
She knows it’s rude. In the moment, she feels you deserve a bit of rudeness.
I mean it is, but you’re condescending and treating her like your kid not your partner. You two should probably get some couples therapy.
Sounds like you spoke to her condescendingly like she is also you child. You could have said “please don’t turn the TV or lights on in the room” rather than “tHaT mEaNs…” lmao. Should a grown ass adult who cares about their relationship openly roll their eyes at their partner? No. But I definitely would if I was reaching the end of my rope with a condescending partner.
Does she ever get to take a nap?
You sounded patronizing and passive aggressive and as others have noted this sounds like a symptoms of a much larger problem. You sounding off in the comments about how your wife probably has BPD without showing much concern or care is testament to this.
She’s not “denying your request for a restful nap”. She’s responding to your tone and attitude towards her which is evident just from your writing here. Must be clear as a bell IRL. I’d roll my eyes too. And then for the whole thing to be about whether rolling eyes is a rude behavior or not? Missing the point entirely.
If the eye roll is in response to a perfectly respectfully phrased comment with a casual tone, then yes. Eye rolling would be disrespectful in that case. If it’s it’s in response to condescending, petty, or otherwise rude comments, no it’s not. Your wife was justified in her reaction.
I’m a little surprised at these answers. Without going into your whole relationship dynamic, which yeah, sounds like it’s missing communication and has a bunch of unresolved resentment — on its own, eyerolling is disrespectful and a bad sign. In fact, it’s a big signal of Contempt, one of John Gottman’s “4 horsemen of the apocalypse” and the biggest predictor of divorce. [https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/](https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/)
In interviews, he has said that his researchers can predict divorce relatively accurately within minutes of interviewing a couple, in part by looking for eyerolls from one spouse while the other is speaking. Speaking personally – eyerolls are one of my biggest pet peeves, and I’d be hurt if a partner did that to me.
I have no way of knowing if you “deserve” contempt based on her response that you are hard-hearted or close-minded – ouch. I’d find counseling ASAP based on both her spoken response and body language, and your own admitted “parent-child dynamic” and “co-dependency”.
Do you frequently speak to your wife as if she were a child and scold her for reacting in ways you don’t like? Because I would also roll my eyes if you spoke to me that way.
I roll my eyes… a lot! (I also tend to smirk) But don’t view it as disrespectful in and of itself. It can be exasperation, humor, impatience… I’m sure others do it as well in various situations.