My wife and I were discussing an upcoming doctor’s appointment for our son. Out of nowhere, she told me to ask questions about certain things relating to our son’s health because all I do is just sit there and let the doctors so all the talking.
I explained to her that given my job experience (ER nurse), there are some questions I dont ask because the answers are well known to me. I can see how this gives off the perception that I do not care for our sons health. I tell her that I feel as if she undermines my intelligence and work experience when it comes to our son’s health because this is a reoccurring situation.
She tells me she doesn’t care how I feel, and this is about the health of her son, I agreed. Normally, I just let it go, but this one stung, and I let her know that I didn’t appreciate what she said. She reiterated that she’s sorry I feel that way, but I shouldn’t be “getting in my feelings.”
I never tell my wife how I’m emotionally feeling because of this. Sometimes, I just want someone to acknowledge that I feel sad because I don’t feel comfortable telling anyone I know. But, it’s hard when I have to refrain from telling her something in fear of looking weak or sentimental. The only option I see from now on is to continue to remain distant and stoic when it comes to my emotions. Bottle it up, suck it up, and move forward when I feel like the world is against me. I’m just tired of doing this for all these years.
What can I tell my wife at this point? How do I move forward and maintain a happy marriage?
35 comments
Sounds like you and her needs counseling together and individual. Its not healthy to bottle things up and tuck it away. At some point all of that is gonna come out all at once. Letting out your emotions is not weak. If you can’t be honest about your feelings with your wife with who can you?
Your emotions and feelings are valid, and your wife should not be dismissing them. You know as a nurse that keeping them bottled up isn’t healthy physically or psychology , and maritally for that matter. Eventually, you will start to resent her over this. When is the world going to accept that strong, mature men have emotions, they show them, and can have them hurt by others. Seems like your wife lacks empathy for you. I also would suggest counseling.
Your wife is asking you to act like you care about your son and you’re on Reddit saying you’re too educated for that BS. Dude!
She wants you to be a partner. Does it not occur to you that she wants you to ask the questions she doesn’t know to ask?
You’re going to be back here complaining about dead bedroom and a divorce. She is giving you a chance now to prevent this. I strongly recommend therapy. What really jumped out at me is how you refer to your shared child as “her son”.
You have a shared child. You need to manage your feelings and be there for the child and your partner.
I don’t think this is just about the questions. Yeah it might seem redundant, but you could just ask so she can hear.
*She* could ask also, but ok
Your saying she “undermines your intelligence and experience” sounds like this goes way beyond that, and this is just a trigger.
I think you need to meditate on why you feel she doesn’t respect you *overall*, and talk to her about that
Focusing on this one thing is a lost cause because one, it’s a symptom and two, your sons health is involved which just ends the discussion immediately
> She tells me she **doesn’t care how I feel,** and this is about the health of **her** son, I agreed. Normally, I just let it go, but this one stung, and I let her know that I didn’t appreciate what she said. She reiterated that she’s sorry I feel that way, but **I shouldn’t be “getting in my feelings.”**
Your children’s health is indeed important, but is not the only important thing, and her invalidation of your feelings is not okay. Bringing your own expertise and knowledge to bear is not a failure of parenting. Her lack of trust in you is not really about you, but about her own anxiety and fears.
I’ve been in almost exactly this scenario, and it did not end well. Does your wife act like your feelings are a nuisance, obstacle, or distraction from her goals in general? Like she just wants to get on with things and gets impatient if you want to offer an opinion, thought, or feeling? Do you feel like you’re expected to be a robot? If so, you need to sit down with her and have a long talk about what relationships and marriages mean for each of you.
Why do I bring this up? Because, my ex was also chronically anxious and hyper-vigilant and used to invalidate my feelings and opinions just like in your example (she always had some reason why other things were more important, whether it be kids, financial security, familial obligation, etc.), and when I finally noticed the pattern of being pushed back into my family role every time I tried to be an individual with my own thoughts, opinions, desires, and needs, and I had enough with all the invalidation, I sat her down and asked her to define what marriage means to her. The response? She felt marriage was a financial contract focused on raising children and perpetuating the family line. She chose me because she thought I would be good at being that role. She didn’t want to waste energy with all that emotional support stuff because that’s not what marriage meant to her. She honestly thought that she could back off of all that husband/wife stuff after the kids came and i would just stick around being miserable and fulfilling that role out of duty and obligation. Furthermore, she really didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with that perspective. As far as I know, she never was able to grasp why I noped out of the marriage. Some people just have broken views about what life and relationships are all about.
In short, if she can’t acknowledge and treat you as a person with your own thoughts, feelings, needs, desires, dreams, etc. then your relationship isn’t going to work. Make sure that she and you are on the same page with your goals in life and marriage, and proceed accordingly. I’m not advocating immediate separation; have your talk, get couples’ counseling, try to make it work so that you can both compromise enough so that you’re both happy, and all that. But if you two just aren’t compatible, you’ll likely be better co-parents apart than being miserable together.
To me it sounds like she’s angry because she doesn’t think you care enough about your son (or as she puts it “my son”, which speaks volumes). So when you talk about your feelings she wants you to shift your attention to him and not be so self-involved. That’s my take anyway. Not that you should be stoic but you should be more concerned with him or put him first. And maybe it’s simply a communication issue or maybe she has bonded with “her son” and excluded you or maybe there’s some other dynamic happening but you need to talk about it., preferably with a trained professional.
Obviously, her dismissing your feelings is a problem–other comments have amply covered this. I want to focus on the doctor’s visits themselves. You say you don’t ask questions because you know the answers. That’s great . . . for you. But your wife doesn’t know what you know, and may have relevant follow-up questions. When the more-informed partner sits silent, it leaves the less-informed one to flounder around hoping they hit on what’s important. The two of you need to stop worrying so much about who is slighting whose intelligence and knowledge and who is appropriately emoting and start acting like a team. Your professional expertise should be a benefit for team-kid’s-health, not a barrier.
The best thing you can tell your wife at this point is “we need marriage counseling.”
Info: what do you suppose her reaction would be if you told her that you don’t care about her feelings?
You are entitled to your feelings and your wife minimizing and dismissing them doesn’t help. Your mental health will be affected by not acknowledging them. Seems like your wife doesn’t want you happy.
I think there are two separate issues here.
One is that you don’t actively appear engaged in your son’s health concerns because you already know everything the doctors know and you don’t bother asking questions you know the answers to. What kinds of conversations do the two of you have about your son’s health? Does she ever ask you medical questions and listen to your answers? If she tells you about a question she wants to ask a doctor, and you know the answer, do you tell her? Does she trust your expertise? How do you get to the point where you end up in a doctors office and your wife is the only person who doesn’t know what’s going on, and how can you help her get some more information before the appointment?
The second issue is a lot deeper. You have some pretty toxic ideas about masculinity. It’s unhealthy to equate having emotions with being weak or sentimental. Emotions are an important part of the human experience and it’s not good to bottle them up inside forever. This is something you need to fix before you raise your son to have those same toxic ideas. You should be teaching your child that it’s natural and normal for men to feel a wide range of emotions and express those emotions. I suggest you see a therapist to help you navigate that.
The thing that I can’t puzzle out is your wife’s comment about being “in your feelings.” I can read this two different ways and I don’t know which is accurate.
The first way I can read that is: your wife expressed to you that she wanted you to communicate more in a specific context and you told her that you already know everything and therefore it’s unnecessary for you to say anything. She interpreted this as an ego problem on your part and told you that she doesn’t care about your professional ego, she just needs to understand what’s going on with your child’s health, and your feelings are secondary to that goal.
The second way I can read that is: your wife constantly tells you that your feelings aren’t important and she laughs at you if you tell her you are upset or sad.
I’m guessing it’s closer to the first than the second. But either way, you need some help from a professional. You need to tell someone about your inner self; if you don’t feel comfortable with that person being your wife right now, get a therapist.
My first thought is that she doesn’t know what’s going on in your head sothere are questions and answers that she’s is not getting info on. Sounds to me like she feels left out of this information
“Sorry you feel that way” is the template of a non-apology. And I’m really hoping more people become aware of that.
My husband is a physician.
My son recently went through liver failure and a liver transplant.
He is like you, doesn’t let me ask questions, telling me that he looked stupid in front of the surgeons.
I do ask him but liver transplant is an area he doesn’t know much about. He cares deeply about our son but his ego gets in the way of a proper care. My husband ignored my concerns and our son lost his liver. He always calls me paranoid and ridiculous. I noticed that my son’s eyes were yellow. He, without even looking at him, said that I am acting insane again.
Without my husband, our son would have died. Hubby pulled huge connection for son to be seen immediately. However, he made some serious mistakes by undermining surgeons treatment.
I continue to ask questions, because I read a lot and I communicate with other patients online.
Please understand that as a mother, your wife is the primary caregiver for your son. She needs to feel comfortable and ask questions, she feels appropriate.
Put your ego aside. Your son’s health comes first.
I feel like a lot of people are missing the main point, this guy know his sons health is important and he’s not denying that but he saying this is an example of the how his wife treats him
You definitely need to tell your wife how you feel, and she needs to listen and care. However I’ll mention one thing – when talking about your child’s health and medical information, it sounds to me that she went into “Mamma bear” mode and said the child’s health is more important than anything else (including your feelings). It wasn’t the right thing to convey, but I read it as emphasizing the importance of the kids health, not that you should never share your feelings in any situation. Obviously that’s not desirable. Talk to her about sharing your feelings and not having to be stoic outside of the context of your kids health, in a calm moment, tell her this is important to you, ensure she supports that.
So many nurses are terrible about taking care of thier kids health issues. Let the doctors you are paying do their job. Pretend you AREN’T a nurse (and since you aren’t a doctor….you really don’t have roomt to diagnose etc) and ask everything your wife says.
Im on your wifes side with this
You don’t move forward, you talk about it. I has this issue in my relationship, except that my partner never told me how he felt. Five months down the line I’d get a catalog of all my failures and be absolutely destroyed. It’s going to come out somewhere.
You need to push yourself to be honest, and to tel her that she hurts you, and HOW she hurts you. Go to couples therapy if you need it, because plenty of times you need an objective third party to guide a conversation.
But as someone not far in age in a long term relationship, you can’t move forward without addressing this.
So her feelings are important and yours aren’t? Hmmm… well, that’s something you can either ignore and carry on as before, or address it.
As for the appointment, there’s a happy middle ground. The doctor says something, and you repeat it back with an explanation for your wife. Here’s a very basic example:
Doctor: “Your son is in the 85th percentile.”
You: “At our last appointment, he was in the 92nd percentile, which means that though he’s still larger than most boys his age, his growth has slowed down just a bit. This is perfectly normal for a child his age, correct?”
You help mom to understand. You come across as engaged. Easy fix.
How old is your son?
This sounds like the symptom of a larger problem that spans beyond doctor’s appointments. It sounds like your wife is trying to tell you that she doesn’t feel like you’re being actively involved in the care of your son. And that this upcoming doctor’s appointment is where that feeling is being channeled and she feels like she’s the only one keeping track of things and doing the emotional labor.
And that rather than hearing that you’re digging in about your competence at your job and your own ego and not truly getting her point.
Are you active in the care of your son in other ways? Are you helping with feeding/meal prep? On top of other necessary appointments? Schooling if old enough? Changing diapers if not?
Given that you’re both going to these appointments I’m guessing your son is quite young (newborn?). If that’s the case I’m sure she’s even more drained and under water right now and just really needs you to step up and support her and your son.
I never understood how anybody could marry somebody, say they love somebody, have a kid with somebody, and then they go and say they aren’t comfortable being slightly vulnerable with them. Like bro, that is a prerequisite of prerequisites for me. Obviously you didn’t take that into account or feel this way early enough to make the decision, so all you can do is work from here.
Go to couples therapy. Make sure she knows that feeling emotions, good and bad instead of being a stoic statue, is human and literally everybody will experience them.
Wow, I did not expect to get this much feedback. I appreciate everyone’s input.
I want to clear some things up:
1. The health two year old son is the number one priority. I have no problem asking questions that may seem common knowledge to me but not to her. When I stay quiet at doctors appointments, I’m following the medical process of care in my head and cocurr with everything his pediatrician says. I 100% agree that no experience of mine can be held at a higher regard than the level of care his pediatrician gives. The same goes for my wife’s concern for our son’s health. I’m thinking she doesn’t enjoy the fact that I’m quiet during appointments. In that regard, I will take an interdisciplinary team approach and ask clarification questions so that we are all in understanding of what should be done concerning the health of our son.
2. We both are actively engaged in our son’s well being. There are days where one parent does more for him than the other due to other factors, this has not been an issue for us. It’s all about him and we will do anything for him.
3. I believe a third party would be essential in meditating a conversation between us. First, I want to have a heart to heart conversation with my wife about how I feel and my expectations for her in that regard. If we cant find a solution, there’s two options:
Suck it up and let our relationship slowly dissolve, which is not a healthy representation of what a relationship should be to our son.
Or
Get counseling
I’m normally stoic in nature, calm under stress, and collective when there’s chaos. The gym and skydiving has been my outlet, I guess. However, I understand that as a human being, emotional homeostasis is an important part in being healthy. This is my attempt at being open with my emotions, something that is unfamiliar to me.
Have you communicated how she makes you feel when she does that? Maybe counselling could help you guys (her) improve on communication and empathy. Explain to her that this is important and that your marriage depends on you two being a team.
Bro, that’s one of the 2 things that caused my relationship to end. Because of that I spent 4+ years with someone I loved but was never happy with. You gotta talk, and and if she doesn’t want to listen or understand then idk, I’ve only been in one relationship🤷🏽♂️
I think this is an easy compromise. Even if you yourself know you should and shouldn’t ask your PCP about when you take your son in, just ask anyway. Think of it as putting directions in google maps to get somewhere you already know how to get to. Sure, you know how to get there, but so does google maps, and it doesn’t hurt to have the directions.
As for your wife, that is a whole different ballpark. In the words of my girlfriend, “you are always entitled to how you feel.” She needs to not only acknowledge your feelings but make sure you’re comfortable with sharing them with her. I think you should start a conversation by addressing the first issue, followed by sharing how you feel about the second issue. You got this, buddy.
You mean how do you move forward so your wife can be the only person happy in your relationship. You are allowed to have emotions and her being a backwards AH shouldn’t negate that. I’m so tired of men having to suck it up and not show emotions. It’s a BS cop out that society has put on men. There is a lot more strength in vulnerability than in being stoic and bottling up feelings. Scientifically it’s also been shown that not processing or allowing ourselves to feel our feels can cause physical and mental illness. So all that said I guess you just deal with it until you get sick or eventually have a mental breakdown. In the mean time she’s happy as a clam. Sounds awesomely awful.
Women sometimes punish men for expressing their feelings, despite all of the hype that men should express themselves more.
Stoicism is not about bottling it up, or sucking it up. This is a misconception. And it’s not about being distant. It is about resolving issues inside your mind, thinking them through, and applying the principles of stoicism. You really don’t need validation of your feelings bc people, even your wife, only applies her thoughts to what you’re saying, and she can’t get inside your head (and in her case, perhaps doesn’t want to).
You have to accept that your wife is not very empathic, and may never really be concerned with how you feel. You may need to learn to just ignore her when she says certain things. Acknowledge. ignore, and focus on the next thing. Not with everything ofc. You can’t change her, you can only train yourself to accept her as she is, and seek your validation elsewhere, or hopefully, from within.
You may want to seek an outside group of likeminded people to express yourself, perhaps online.
Is it possible that your wife wants you to ask certain questions because she doesn’t know exactly what to ask, and she’s relying on you to know what is important given your experience?
I don’t know how it all started, but being told she “doesn’t care how I feel” is brutal. No wonder you feel as if your only option is to remain distant and stoic.
Have you considered joint marital therapy? Perhaps a therapist could help navigate this. If she won’t go, then I suggest that you go for individual. A think sharing feelings and feeling safe is the bedrock of a health relationship.
I’m so sorry, it sounds like your feelings are being dismissed and invalidated. You should be able to talk about your feelings.
Is there any way to see a marriage counselor or even an individual therapist. You both need to really learn to communicate and right now it’s not working. You deserve to be able to discuss how you feel.
Tell her if she values your marriage at all, you guys need to start couples therapy. You guys are on a path, and I don’t think it’s a good/healthy one. (How will her son handle a divorce?)
> I can see how this gives off the perception that I do not care for our sons health
Who is she concerned about having this perception of you?? Does SHE think you don’t care because you don’t ask questions, or is she afraid of your son’s doctor thinking you don’t care? Is it your son that she’s afraid of perceiving you don’t care? Idk how old your son is but..
If she doesn’t think you care about your son just because you aren’t asking questions you already know the answer to, then why is she still with you? If it’s about the doc, why does she care? Doctors usually are informed anyway if a patient or a patient’s close family member is in the medical field (or at least in my past experiences). If he doesn’t know, tell him you’re a nurse and that you may not have many questions but your wife does and wants to discuss them. Couples aren’t expected to know all the same information as each other.
She’s struggling with dealing with whatever condition/prognosis your son has, but she needs to learn not to take that out on you and you both need therapy together if you want to get through this in a healthy way
Saying “I’m sorry you feel that way” is in a way, invalidating your feelings. Maybe explaining it to her and showing her an article, such as this [one here](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mental-health-revolution/202203/i-m-sorry-you-feel-way-and-other-gaslighting-tactics) will help her understand it better. I recently had to explain this to my husband during a disagreement.
When he said it, I remember telling him that’s not the way to apologize, and then broke it down for him WHY it was more harmful than good. He has since looked at it differently and approaches apologies in a better light.
As for the experience you have factoring in – I also have had this issue. I went to school for being an EMT, and when it comes to how the human body works and such, if he asks me something health related, he then tends to shut down seeing a doctor. (Swelling and itchiness on his ear, he had cellulitis, then refused to take the antibiotics saying he’d just grow immune to them if he took them this ONE time…I had to explain why infections so close to the brain can be bad if not treated, etc…)
I wound up sitting him down and letting him know that I don’t appreciate being treated like I don’t know what I’m talking about – I don’t know EVERYTHING health related, but I know enough. Having him ask me for help and such with health related issues only to be ignored..? I wound up telling him if he won’t take it and my education seriously, don’t ask me. While it’s not the SAME situation, I’d still let her know that her disregarding the education you paid for and the work you do everyday is hurtful. She can do better.
It sounds like OP is using this incident as an example of a larger problem, but most people are clinging onto the incident. What I’m getting is that when they’re at doctor appointments, OP doesn’t ask many questions because questions don’t occur to him – but they occur to his wife. His wife should ask the questions that occur to her because OP really can’t read her mind and make up random questions when the questions aren’t there. If he’s listening to the doctor and what the doctor is saying makes sense, what questions are there to ask?
When she takes his “silence” and projects an emotion onto him by telling him he doesn’t care about his child’s development, it’s now an *attack* on his character that he isn’t able to defend without it feeling fake or like theater. But when he attempts to communicate to her that this attack is hurtful, she tells him she doesn’t care about how he feels and to get out of feelings. This scenario, where he is put into a no-win situation, attacked, and then is beaten down when he tries to defend himself happens *so often,* that OP doesn’t even feel like he can be vulnerable or honest with his partner. Some people call that emotional abuse.
There are ways to have this conversation without attacking your partner’s character and disregarding their feelings around what they feel they know. “Honey, I understand that this is an area that you have a lot of experience, but I really want to appear as a United front and would like you to take an active role during appointments and have conversations with doctors. You might even be the better person to have those conversations and translate doctorspeak to me in momtalk. I just want you to participate and be a team.” Not “you don’t care.”
I understand there is general communication problems in this marriage- – but in the given scenario
Is the wife not going to the doctors appointments? If she has specific questions she should probably be the one who asks.
Do you both go to these appointments?