I'm not a man, but I offer some steps and discuss reasons men act this way in Is His Stubborn Pride Hurting Your Relationship?.

 

Awesome! Going to read it right now. Thank you!

EDIT: Read it; this is EXACTLY what is happening, and exactly the area we need work on. I'm going to try those steps mentioned and see if it helps. THANK YOU

 

Are you in or have you tried MC?

Can you give us a few examples of when/how his pride gets hurt?

Since you've "almost been out the door on many occasions" and had many difficult years, it may just be that he has become over sensitive. But without more specifics, it is hard to say.

 

Are you in or have you tried MC?

No marriage counseling yet, before when things were really terrible, and I was in the process of distancing myself emotionally from him, we truly could not even afford the babysitting for going to those sessions.

Now money is better, and we agreed if things didn't keep getting better (which has truly been by leaps and bounds) then we would go to MC if things felt "stuck" again. So we're both open to it.

Since you've "almost been out the door on many occasions" and had many difficult years, it may just be that he has become over sensitive.

We've been together 7 years now, and I'd say 6 out of the 7 we've had these problems. The last 4 years have been the worst, and the last 6-ish months we've really flipped things around and things are getting a lot better.

Can you give us a few examples of when/how his pride gets hurt?

It's usually surrounding if I felt hurt by something he did. We both have problems communicating, and his big one was that he has an extreme difficultly listening to me objectively, and validating my my hurt feelings when I needed him to.

He's since become REALLY good at validating my feelings when it has nothing to do with him, but NOT when it comes to anything he may have done. I can mention as non critically/sweetly as possible that I felt hurt from something he said/did, and it will mean instant fight mode for him. He's instantly on the defensive, and says that I'm just wrong about the whole thing. I can even tell him that I understand he didn't mean to hurt my feelings, but it would mean a lot to me if he would care that I was hurt in the first place. He'll instantly start arguing my reasoning for being hurt.

Basically, it's like after all we've learned together, he cannot apply what he's learned when it's about HIM. He even admitted he thinks it's a pride issue, but cannot control his reactions.

I'll try to think of a more specific example and post it too!

Thank you!

 

Book Recommendation: How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It by Patricia Love

It's not simply pride, it's shame avoidance. Men will go to great lengths to avoid shame in any form.

 

Thank you, Drover. That's a new term I've never heard (shame avoidance). I truly don't want him to feel ashamed for anything. I just want us to be happy. So anything I can learn to help him in this area would be beneficial.

 

This may sound counter intuitive, it certainly was for me, but it was an on-going exercise our MC had us do. It is letting the other person express themselves and you just listen - you don't respond at all, except maybe to say "OK'. That's it.

As a man, this was EXTREMELY difficult. But it let her express herself - safely, with no backlash and let me listen without having to respond. I wasn't supposed to give a response, so she wasn't expecting one. This also gave me the time to process what she was saying instead of just reacting to it.

And it works both ways - I can express myself "safely" too. And although it sounds simple, it has been hard for me to put into practice - but practice I do. And it really helps both of us.

 

And stop trying to keep the peace. That's a lofty goal but I find that peacemakers generally tend to think of others before themselves and that is counterproductive. The more self love you have the more capacity you have to love others.

You need to know that your feelings matter just as much as his do. If he turns into Dr. Jekyl just because you've calmly stated how you feel without lecturing then that's his problem not yours. Just walk away if he starts that crap. If he gets no payoff for the behavior he will stop it.

 

Thanks, Mavash. Once again you are right on. I have difficulties in the self confidence department and feeling worthy of good treatment. It's a work in progress, but in the last 6 months I think I'm at least making progress (standing up for myself).

I do realize that he has work to do (and so does he) and I've seen him try SO HARD to get better these last few months, but on this issue he's "stuck" and seems clueless in how to improve in this area. It's incredibly easy to spark a defensive response in him, and once it's sparked, I may as well not exist (or as you suggested, I may as well walk away) because he'll only be out for an argument at that point. I just want to help him/us as much as I can to get past this.

As for walking away, I agree with you that is the best solution, but I have a deep rooted, personal issue in that area, which would take a long time to explain (but basically me walking away could cause us as much damage as me staying and trying to work things out with him) But often staying doesn't work either. In these instances I feel trapped with no way to resolve things happily.

Thanks for your wonderful advice!

 

CBL, I guess I am confused if you want validation that he is hurting you or if you would rather avoid the situation that causes you hurt to begin with.

I don't think my husband has ever admitted that he hurt my feelings. Lot's of "I was just joking", "Your too sensitive", and "Like I would ever do that." I tried the same thing you tried " I know you didn't mean to but.." and that didn't work in reducing the frequency. The trick with my husband is to make him mindful of what he is saying and doing. The line I recite to him over and over again is "I know that wasn't your intention, but it hurt my feelings. Now that you know it hurts my feelings if you continue to do/say xyz I will assume that you do mean it and I will react accordingly."

This doesn't give him the option of arguing whether or not my feelings are justifiable. They just become a thing that is. It also puts the onus on him to think about what he says and does before doing it. It forces him to think about his reasons and intentions by doing these certain things vs what the outcome may be (which he will often think is minor)

This has helped alot in my marriage although he does still struggle with it from time to time.

 

Thanks for all of that, Fledgling!! And I'll definitely try that line you use next time. He does have difficulty understanding that something he says to mean one way can sound completely different and hurtful to me. I often say "Please don't say ____ it hurts my feelings" But then he wants to know WHY it hurts my feelings, so I tell him, then he argues my reasoning (which is obviously not what I was looking for, lol).

In the last six months he's grown really good at validation, so I am confident in his abilities there, BUT he will only do it when he's not being "Mr. Hyde" (aka: when he feels his pride poked at) whichis REALLY easy to do.

So I need help 1) finding ways to better talk him down when he gets defensive; and 2) things I can suggest to him to try and temper his reactions from his side.

Once he's my normal honey-buns again he takes tremendous care of my feelings But I need the emotional damage caused to me (and our relationship) when he gets defensive/prideful to go away for us to be truly happy.

 

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. His intentions may be good but obviously it's not working.