I don’t know how to talk to my husband about what’s bothering me. I love him a lot. I’m sure I’d lose myself completely of he were to ever leave me but recently, I’ve been thinking about leaving myself.
The beginning of our relationship was amazing. We clicked so fast and we’ve been together for years now. I don’t know where it went wrong.
He always finds a way to invalidate my feelings. I’m pretty sensitive and cry easily so that’s how me trying to tell him my feelings always ends, he then asks if I’m purposely crying to upset him. He always says I’m mad. Always. If I any emotion other than being happy then I’m mad.
I can set something down a little too hard and that will set him off and yell at me or say i have no control over my emotions. I’ve tried so many times to talk to him about this. He doesn’t care.
If I stand my ground at all he will find ways to make everything my fault. He will tell others about our relationship issues but only his side so he is validated in his actions.
I just want him to hear me sometimes. I don’t want tobleave our relationship. How do I get him to listen to my feelings without him shutting me down again?
TL;DR Husband invalidates my feelings, I’m thinking of leaving, I want him to consider my feelings and make me feel heard.
9 comments
He would have to care about your happiness to want to listen and understand. But you say he yells at you, which is abusive. And it sounds like when you bring things up he responds with DARVO – deny, attack, reverse victim and offender which is generally abusive and always toxic. Not being okay with you expressing any emotion but positive is extremely toxic. It’s one of the toxic things some cults do, and I am most familiar with it from the BITE model for evaluating cults, but cults really just do abusive stuff on larger scales. So, I do not think you can fix this, because it doesn’t sound like he wants a healthy relationship with you. I am sorry.
For whatever reason your feelings make him feel defensive. You aren’t going to be heard while he is in that state.
There’s a level of emotional abuse going on here, and that’s why you feel like you’ve lost you. Therapy could work wonders, and if he won’t go with you, go for yourself so you can get control over how he makes you feel and decide what to do for yourself in the future. Not every rough patch needs to lead to divorce, but he’s going to have to agree on some changes if you are going to fix the marriage.
I only see this as salvageable if your husband is willing to do counseling with you. Because the problem is on his side. It’s not that you “don’t know how to talk to him”, it’s that he is manipulative, controlling, and mean. What you have is an unhealthy dynamic and it is not sustainable for your well being.
You should have left years ago. Don’t waste your life feeling this way.
You really can’t *make* someone else do anything they don’t want to do, and for whatever reason, he really doesn’t want to listen to you.
It’s honestly questionable as to whether or not this man actually *loves* you, honestly. He is clearly not interested in your inner world, and is determined to make you feel ashamed of expressing any emotion at all. There’s nothing *you* can do about that. You are the one person he is actively refusing to respect or take seriously. He would have to respect you and take you seriously *before* he’d be willing to hear your grievances.
I think you need to take some space and think hard about your marriage and your future. Right now, both are looking pretty bleak.
He is abusing you, he is invalidating your feelings, then he is making it your fault and also eliminating your possibility to reach up to friends by turning them against you.
He is going by the book into an abusive relationship and I wouldn’t stay to see his next step.
It is not possible for you to change your actions to communicate better with someone who is determined not to hear you.
>He always finds a way to invalidate my feelings. I’m pretty sensitive and cry easily so that’s how me trying to tell him my feelings always ends, he then asks if I’m purposely crying to upset him. He always says I’m mad. Always. If I any emotion other than being happy then I’m mad.
You’re the one choosing to live like this. Why?