My wife and I have been married for around 10 years.
She’ll frequently give me unsolicited feedback on things, and it’s excessively negative. It could be about anything: Pictures I take, food I make, the way I drive, clothes, etc
Excessively negative basically means the frequency and sheer pettiness of the things she complains about.
It feels like to constructive criticism what micromanagement is to a workplace. Instead of inspiring me to improve, I don’t want to do anything with her.
I’ve tried to talk to her about these concerns before, but it seems to go nowhere. We avoid instead of addressing and working on fixing the underlying issue.
For this and other reasons, I’ve already checked out. But we have two young kids together (7 and 10). I don’t want her negativity to impact our children’s development (one example: My wife chooses what clothes for them to wear. If not, she always complains about what they choose themselves. I get this gut feeling it’s already causing them issues (they hesitate, lack confidence, etc) with getting dressed. It seems unhealthy to me).
I’m not sure how to talk to her about it because I think this is totally normal to her. My wife’s parents, for example, are extremely critical people themselves. I guess she must get it from them?
24 comments
“what if I spoke to you the way you spoke to me? Hey honey, the pictures you take are awful, your food tastes like sewer water, your driving is going to kill our kids, your clothes make you look like a fat cow, etc etc. How do you think I like being on the other end of that?”
I think it’s important to find out if this is her character or something she specifically/mostly does to you. If you can’t talk to her about it and she is unwilling to address it herself (for instance go to therapy to find out why she does this), then the only thing left is choosing how you deal with it.
If this is her character and if she does this to the children then you should also realize that you can’t really control that, even if you divorce. If this is something she does to you, it’s probably a symptom of her being unhappy in general or with the relationship and taking that all out on you.
One way I would probably deal with it is stopping doing things for/with her that she excessively criticizes. For instance, stop cooking if it always results in criticism. Refuse to drive more often. Basically make sure there are unpleasant consequences to her bahavior. Not as a revenge so much, but as in teaching her how you’ll allow yourself to be treated.
Another powerful tool might be for you to start logging everything she criticizes, maybe even openly (like whipping out your notebook). Just as an idea to force the issue and really confront her and make her think about what she says to you.
Mirror everything she says back at her. And then ask her how she thinks you and the children feel when all she does is criticize and put you down.
If that doesn’t work get yourself one of those small handheld recorders and record everything she says every time she’s critical with you or the children and sit her down and play it for her. Maybe if she actually hears what she sounds like it might wake her up. But you need to do whatever you can to mitigate any damage to your children from her and her negativity.
I told my wife that going forward if she criticizes something I’m in the midst of doing (a chore) that I would stop immediately and not complete it. Of course it still happened, but I would go to the other room, pick up my iPad, and be done. She would follow and harangue me. I would look at her and listen politely until she was done, then go back to my iPad. If she asked if I was going to complete said chore I would say no, I am not.
She got the picture. When she would never apologize before because we got into ww3 she would now come back in the next hour or two and provide a weak apology, but an apology nonetheless.
We don’t have too many of these rows anymore. She is insistent that I have learned her way. Perhaps I have started to do things more her way once I found my boundary, or perhaps she realizes if she gets upset she will pretty clearly be the asshole. Or, maybe a bit of both.
Good luck.
Sorry man, but your wife is not going to change.
Sounds like she was raised in an environment where the focus was likely on the things that are wrong, with little focus on what was right. Therefore, her immediate reaction to anything as an adult is to focus on what is incorrect or wrong. That is her base programming from childhood, and any changes she makes to her outward behavior will only be window dressing to hide what is really happening in her head. She may get better for a while, but she will drift back to old behaviors. It will be difficult for her to avoid without constant vigilance on her part.
I’d be willing to bet she doesn’t even realize she is doing it, and doesn’t realize how negatively you are receiving it.
Unless there are other areas of your relationship where you are displeased (i.e. sex life is bad, constant arguing, etc) that have caused you to question your love for your wife, I I’d recommend getting into couples therapy to improve your communication. She can get a really good perspective on how this type of communication impacts you, and you can gain some perspective on why she does what she does.
She does get it from her parents. She’s internalized her parents critical voice and now it’s become habit for her as well. Three concepts that can help, if she’s willing to hear it. Google “the problem with unsolicited advice.” “magic relationship ratio” and “how to turn complaints into requests.” If she can take these concepts to heart there’s real potential to turn things around. If not she’s potentially pushing you and her kids away with her criticism, regardless of how well meaning it’s suppose to be. Couples counseling, if that doesn’t work, but her high level of criticism is not healthy, and if it leads to divorce after you’ve tried everything you can to address it, no one will fault you for it.
Hey, family and marriage therapy or divorce and you seek full custody with supervisory visits because her mentally is negatively affecting the children.
I am the daughter of a mother like this and OP the only thing I’ll say is that at 24 I no longer have a relationship with her at all because I never felt comfortable telling her anything that was going on in my life or coming to her with any of my problems. therapy. therapy. therapy. for her, you, the kids. all together therapy, individual. try it all tbh you don’t realize the mental drain people like this have on the whole family
Relationships are all different but the successful ones have one thing in common: Their communication works. Because no matter what problem you run in to, you can talk about it and move forward together in most cases as long as you *communicate*. Shit gets hard when one person is utterly uninterested in your struggles and doesn’t have the will to do some basic self-reflection. I could sit here and advice how to speak to her but does it matter if she is by default not interested?
I’d record it. One time my friends and I recorded ourselves doing a “fake podcast” making all kinds of awful jokes. We played it back, realized how horrible our “good fun” sounded and decided to stop saying those things.
You need marriage counseling together and your wife needs therapy for her control issues.
As a side tip as i had a wife that “had” to dress the kids, to be fair that was a bloody good idea but i saw my ids wanted some freedom to choose.
whenever you get the chance, let them wear what the fuck they want to, mine loved it and still remember it in adulthood
My daughter chose all sorts of crazy shit and we sneaked off somewhere where neither of us gave a fuck if she was dressed right.
Normally that meant waiting she was out but i turned that into a mission impossible game “leave no clues for mom” as well.
Wasn’t a big deal in my marriage to force a change as i was too busy dealing with worse 🙂
Do you ever stop her in the actual negative moment and ask if she has anything nice to say?
I honestly had this problem with my. mother, and everytime she would tell me who got fat, ugly or became a loser I’d ask her why she was in touch with people she didn’t like or did she have anything nice to say. She actually got better, shockingly. I also told her I had a hard time being around her negativity it was impacting my well being and to not be surprised if I pulled away.
She doesn’t respect you and she isn’t afraid of losing you
You’re supposed to be the man and the head of the household, step up and be the leader. Part of that is firmly explaining to her that she’s being disrespectful and it will not be tolerated then backing up those words by fixing whatever is causing her to see you this way and overtly making her understand that you’re willing to walk away if this continues
The relationship with your wife is the primary example your children are learning from and if this continues then the two of you are teaching your kids that this is acceptable behaviour and your dooming them to repeat the cycle. You’re teaching them that’s it’s acceptable for a woman to disrespect her husband and that it’s acceptable to be a coward of a husband who allows this
Be prepared to walk
Don’t put up with this behavior. She’s too old to still act like her parents. The instant she complains or criticizes, call her out. Say, “that’s not nice”, or “what do you want me to do about this?” Be firm. Be serious. Don’t be afraid to do this in front of your children. She may be doing this subconsciously, as an expression of fear or insecurity.
The nuclear option: tell her she’s acting just like her mother.
I’m sorry you’ve been experiencing this, because it really sucks. I am glad you are able to both see and understand the deleterious effect it can and will have on your children.
At their ages, she’s got a head start, but for the benefit of your family, I would suggest family counseling. If she’s uninterested, I would suggest that you and the children go, so that they can obtain the necessary tools to combat the negativity and foster their self esteem. Although she likely has gotten it from her parents, it’s a cycle that needs to be broken.
Frame everything she’s doing around the negative impact for the kids. If she still doesn’t get it, push for family therapy. If that fails, she needs to be put on notice the marriage is unsustainable.
Is her family that way too?
This brings to mind , “The Taming of The Shrew “
When my partner starts to give his unsolicited opinion I always respond with “You do you.” He does the same to me. It shuts us up instantly.
Her continued criticism is extremely unhealthy for your children, she is setting them up for issues when they are adults, this behaviors can manifest into self esteem issues, eating disorders and addictions, OCD and the list goes on.
And for you, she is doing a number on your self esteem and sense of worth. She needs to have IC to examine why she is doing this, to learn to stop and to learn to repair the damage she has inflicted. Her parents did this to her and she is doing it to her family. Please get help as soon as possible for the three of you also. With what you post says they are already feeling the effects of her negativity.
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So, this can be bullying. Not great.
…Dad? /j
No, but seriously, the only thing I can see as a solution here is to take your wife to therapy *if* you two first have a talk on how those kind of comments are impacting you and she agrees that it is a problem. If it doesn’t work, getting a divorce is a good path, but also take the kids to therapy if they show signs of bad self-crticism so they can have tools to not feel like trash in the future because of someone else’s comments or their own perception.