My wife's defences

Also - I am much happier if my wife is happy. Happy with me. Happy with life. As it is, if she is struggling, especially with things I've done then I am not happy at all. It's like I take the blame for it. It's my fault.

I'm much stronger than I used to be. I now recognise that, actually, it may not be me. Yes, I contributed, but the root cause of her anger, irritation, feeling upset is not me. It's her mum. It's still the pain from her mum. It's just that I press her buttons.

She asked me yesterday morning whether I found our relationship nourishing. She's asked me this before - or rather her therapist asked her the same question. When was the last time you felt nourishment from your relationship with Mark. She couldn't answer. She shut down..

We've talked a lot about this, and it lead onto a conversation about how she relates to the girls (she's used them as a defence against the pain inflicted on her by her mum). Every time I would go to discipline the girls she would react, defend the girls and be ultra reasonable. She would tell me that I was reacting like my father, and that was unacceptable. As a result, we've had issues with our youngest, who feels she owns the house. For the last week and a bit this has changed, once my wife realised that she was stepping in because when I used a certain tone or manner it pressed her button. Her realising this has meant a huge change, for now she feels she can leave me to it without her needing to get involved. And it's meant a HUGE change. I can now discipline my youngest without fearing that my wife will override me. and that's given me confidence.

If it was like that as it relates to disciplining the girls - what else does it relate to? Could it be that my wife is unable to really allow the soft intimacy she craves from me because when I show it she is incapable of receiving it? She instead reads it as if her mum is trying to do something nice - and she distrusts that deeply, for her mum would always have an ulterior motive. Her mum never did anything nice for her. So if I do - it presses a button.

So, the question of when she last felt nourished by our relationship is met with something deep within her she has yet to express. It comes out as irritation, anger, despondency, fear with me. How can I be me with that? If I am on the laptop in the morning, she feels rejected. In short, she feels that I am her mum. What complicates is is that at times I feel I need my space, or indeed have felt that she is my mum, wanting to entrap me.. so it's not easy stuff.

When she asked me the question ref nourishment yesterday, at first I feared it. For I believed she was asking from a place of "this isn't working". I have felt like that much of our marriage. That she continually is pointing out what is wrong, what is not working, what needs to change, that I have got it wrong, that I am mistreating her, that I am not intimate, won't show my feelings, am robotic and controlled. The thing is she is right. But now I believe she is right only in part. What she is not seeing is her contribution. If she reacts to me in a certain way, I will react to her in like spirit, unless I recognise what is going on.

But as I thought about the question, I realised that actually, there were a lot of things I found nourishing. Going out for walks, our intimacy together, the fact that we weer best friends, we could talk about anything together, we both wanted to move forward, we did want to support each other, we wanted to be there for each other. We like each other. Sex is, on the whole, wonderful, if not that frequent. She admitted that the actual physical sex is 8/10, consistently. I pointed that that there were women who would die for that kind of score. But she said emotionally, it was 3/10. Et voila - I feel that she places the blame on my shoulders for that. But as I though about it, I feel differently. Could it be, I said, that something else is going on? Much in the same way as my disciplining the girls?

Could it be that if I get close, you react because it presses the mum button? Could it be that I am reminding you of your mum? She countered that I was placing it all on her. My reply was that for the last twenty years she has placed the blame on me. It was my fault. And I felt it in my insides. Felt it cut my insides to mush. My fault. I got it wrong. I would listen to her, as she poured out her frustration and pain. And it was all my fault.

Well, a by product of therapy is that I feel, hang on, I'm not a bad lad (as my wife would say). I am sensitive, generous, affectionate, good in bed, caring, strong, providing, etc. etc. I have many excellent qualities. Sure I am not there, am not the finished article. There's more to develop and improve. BUT, the core thing is that actually I am ok. I am not a failure. I haven't failed my wife. Yes I've worked too many hours. Yes that didn't help. Yes I had a number of weird expectations from my childhood, and acted weirdly in certain situations. But, on the whole, I have been a father and husband, and I'm a better one now.

So. Nourishment. Caring. Empathy. Sympathy. Intimacy. Sure they are areas I need to continue to work on, but I'm not a spastic in this areas. So, maybe, just maybe, my wife may need to take some of the responsibility. Our relationship IS nourishing, yet she can't see it. Why not? I felt good when I explained how I felt. She felt emotional.

We went out last night, but before she did she wanted to get dressed up. She told me that she gets irritated when I tell her (once she's looking fab) that she looks sexy, in her black stockings, boots, dress. And boy she does look good too. Now why would she get irritated? When I asked her she said it's because she knows that she looks good for her age, and that blokes check her out, but that I wasn't interested in her ten years ago.. There's a perfect example. Another body blow to me. My fault that she feels the way she does. And of course, in part she's right. My girls were 5 and 2, and at the time she didn't look like this. She looked washed out, wore boring clothes, took on the responsibility of the girls herself, departed into a heavily defended position. What was I supposed to do? I was as lost as she was.

But still - the irritation is there. I think it's because I'm close. I'm inside many of her defences, and it scares her. She runs to her stronger defences, even more desperate as I get closer. As I get closer, she becomes more aware of the pain, and tries to push me away. She's always been great at constructing verbal (intellectual) defences. And they are very, very hard to come against, to dismantle.

last week, when she was telling me that when I say something nice to her she's hearing negativity, that I am telling her off or something (basically hearing her mum when I am being nice) I felt so much for her that tears welled up into my eyes. She saw it, it confused her immensely, and immediately she felt emotional and started to cry. It was as if by me being emotional with her (tears) she realised that her feelings about what I was saying couldn't possibly be true, and it broke through the defence.

Now what if she is feeling like that full time? I am nice, she sees spite. I try to encourage, she sees ulterior motives. I am me, she sees her mum.

And, I believe, that's what I have been living with for twenty years. She can't believe that someone would be nice to her without having ulterior motives. Without actually wanting to take away from her, be spiteful, vengeful, uncaring..

And it's been very, very tiring.