Communication breakdown, it's always the same. Havin' a nervous breakdown, a-drive me insane

[Elmac2899]

Hey everyone - first time poster and frankly new to the forums.   Was recommended by someone close to me so figured I'd give it a shot to maybe gain some clarity.

Overall Issue

A constant, recurring motif of arguments with the same core issue with varying contexts that go nowhere and lead to explosive fights and frankly an unhappy marriage.  

Some context

My wife and I have been together now for about 5 years, have 2 little girls and frankly our marriage has had it's periods of ups and downs as I suspect most do.   As of late (a few months now)  I've been unhappy and frankly frustrated with my wife and the arguments we've been constantly having.  We've share less and less in common and it often feels like we are running a business of managing our children.  We've been arguing over very petty and insignificant things once to twice a week with no real inkling of improvement.    

We've been seeing a behavioral / marriage therapist for a few weeks now (I know, its still early and all fresh), with each session ending on positive notes with each side having some form of an "Ahah" moment of self-introspection (at least I'd like to believe so).   We come out of each sessions with some form of an assignment to do and I've been sticking to them and really making an effort.   The feeling however is that my wife is not.   She takes the sessions seriously, but nothing seems to soak in or stick.  Almost as though she is comfortable with the status quo.    She doesn't make an effort to do her assignments and her excuse is that she doesn't remember (will reference this more later).   My wife is a successful woman in her job, very highly regarded and has managed teams of people before.  I know that when something is important to her she focuses in and remembers, if not makes the effort to write things down and take notes so she doesn't forget.   This does not happen here.   I've raised this to her and how important this is to me and the relationship, but there is a visible effort for a day or two and then drops off.     

Today's Context

I'll try to be as unbiased as possible here.   One kid is home with us and we've been alternating time between the kid (1.5 years old) and our own work.   There is never any issues on this as we managed to find a good balance here.   However today, after returning home with the little one, giving my wife 1.5 hours to get some work done, it was time for her nap and my wife said she would take care of getting her to bed.  I most notably said (see more later) to my wife that I would now take this time to take care of some tasks from clients.   After about 15 minutes the baby came whining to me with an empty bottle in her hand signifying that she wanted to eat.   I went to check where my wife was and she was laying in the kids bed on her phone and I calmly, directly, said that the kid was crying to me and looks like she wants a bottle and go to sleep and if she was said she was going to take care of the kid, then here she is and she needs a bottle.  

My wife snapped back with something along the lines of "why are you telling me what to do.  I'm just lying here and if the baby wants to go to sleep, she will come lay down".     She then goes off on a rant about how she is tired, sick, not feeling well and how she is stressed to take a nap as well.   I said that if she didn't feel up for putting the kid to sleep, she could have communicated to me that she was tired/sick etc. and I would have done so.   I feel honestly silly for having to relive moment by moment here so long story short, this spiraled into a 1.5 hour long argument of her saying that I didn't communicate to her that the kid wanted a bottle, but rather I communicated to her that the kid was whining and I need to work on my communication.  

What is recurring

1. My wife get's triggered by certain things that she perceives as judgement, criticism or any form of challenging her. 
2. She does not take things said for face value and translates them to contain a meaning far beyond what was communicated.
3. In addition to that, she interrupts mid sentence constantly as she already assumes the meaning / direction I am going in (this all ties in to the previous point) which is beyond frustrating as one can imagine.
4. She does not sit and actively listen in the conversation.   She constantly avoids direct questions by going off on tangents and I disappointedly so, often times get sucked down into them.
5. She will contradict and go back on things said when challenged.  Not sure quite why.   Either she is truly making it up as she goes or because she is also kind of figuring out what she really feels as the conversation progresses (good? bad?)
6. She will mirror the issues that I raise to her and will literally 30 seconds later, say that I am doing the same thing.   
7. She has this long standing belief that my word has no meaning. i.e. I can say something, but I don't mean what I say.   Yes of course there have been examples of this where I say I will take out the trash and forget to / become too tired to at the end of the night, but this should not be used as broad stroke to mean everything I do has no backing to it.   I believe this is just a form of mirroring / her word often has backing.

I find myself spending the 1.5 hours of our arguments trying to understand where her issue stemmed from, what was the trigger point and what can be done for next time to prevent this.   I go through each and every phase of the fight, sometimes even down to every sentence / message that was said to see what went wrong, but it often is talking in circles with her.   I play the logic and fact game and try to rationalize things, while she acts purely on emotion.   The end of the fight ended with her saying "It doesn't matter what was said and it doesn't matter that I don't remember, the only thing that matters is how I felt."   It's not that I don't know how to accept her emotions, its the fact that her emotions / reactions / triggers I am coming to believe more and more are not results of my actions.  They are just her insecurities manifesting.   

Where I need help

I don't know how to get through to her anymore.   I don't know how to stop having these pointless, repetitive arguments with her.   Frankly I wouldn't mind them nearly as much if I felt that something was going through.   Some form of understanding, empathy, desire to grow.   My approach of trying to do a "play by play" doesn't seem to work.   My approach of staying calm and addressing each and every thing she says does not work.   I'm no saint and today I exploded as well but this is a long time of just exhausting arguments.   

I also don't really know if this is just the surface level things that bubble up due to us just being unhappy.   We enjoy time together and find moments of fun when we are alone, but as I mentioned earlier, they are few and far between lately.    I could have written 3x what I wrote here but I'm trying to spare the kind soul that has gotten this far.   

Any help / advice / judgement / feedback is welcome here and truly appreciated.   

Thanks,

 

[HadMeOverABarrel]

Sorry my answer is a little light on advice for what you are seeking, but I want to encourage you to not feel silly, or any kind of self-judgement, for posting here. 

It really takes courage to post your issues on a forum. There are many good people here who will help you get the perspective you're seeking. 

Hang in there and keep coming back.  You will get the help you need. Best wishes!

[Wiseman2]

Sorry this is happening. Do you both work outside the house?

How old are the children? 

When did all the bickering begin?

Try to calm down and get out of her face. You're highly confrontational.

For example,rather than just give your child it's bottle, you launched Into another hours long war about who's right who's wrong.

You're arguing about arguing. You're arguing about who's right who's wrong regarding marriage therapy assignments.

Basically you're in a power struggle about everything. The sad part is you both don't want to take care of the kids so just argue about it.

Find some practical solutions. Get a nanny and babysitter. 

 

[mark clemson]

If I may ask, is there a particular reason you titled your post with lyrics from a Led Zeppelin song?

At any rate, it sounds like you need some serious marriage counseling. Your wife might have depression, or be starting to develop a personality disorder. There are "avoidant personalities" as well as those in the world who are unconsciously uncomfortable with functional situations and find ways to make them dysfunctional, in some cases even to the point of "blowing them up" completely via self-destructive behavior.

But all of that is very hard to disentangle and triply so over a forum post. It sounds like your situation needs genuine professional help.

[Wiseman2]

1 minute ago, mark clemson said:

it sounds like you need some serious marriage counseling. 

They are fighting about who is doing their 'homework' from their marriage therapist correctly.

[mark clemson]

^^  thanks. I have no further suggestions. They need to put a dent in the problems they have and both need to "work" on it IMO.

Of course we are only hearing one side of the story (as nearly always). However, if your wife's issue is such that she cannot concede there is a problem or is unwilling to make changes, there may be little you or a therapist can do. But definitely give it some time to work and see where you are in several months.

[spiderowl]

You seem to feel your wife is disengaged and doesn't care about things that she should be caring about.

She seems to find you critical and confrontational.

You both have reason to feel fed up with this situation but of course where did it start?  That is always hard to uncover.

I'd keep up with the marital counselling sessions and see if they help in the long run.  You cannot control whether your wife does her 'marriage counselling' homework or not.  If it involves spending time doing something with you, then she is letting you down if she does not do it.  Maybe she is avoiding this?

If your wife does not want to engage with you and can't be bothered any more, then I guess you'll need to think about separating.  It does not sound like a happy situation for either of you.

[hhy]

Elmac, 

I sit here reading your plight as I myself am in a jiffy with my own man. The communication curve never plateaus!

I paused at "Where I need help" because there is just too much going that I've read.

I generally reread what you and I have wrote so bear with me.

I am 52, 3 kids, 20, 18, & 16 and have been married 22 years this Oct. I've known him since 1992.

Relationships are hard. Raising toddlers even harder. Add work and no family or support system, forget it.

My guy and I made it work, but he is as patient as a saint and we both are work horses. Having kids is not an adjustment, it is a lifelong challenge. My first impression is that your wife is over worked.  You guys need help, even if its a babysitter once a week or two. Things are happening to her body, hormones, lack of sleep, pumping milk, etc that I, even now at my age, can not explain. The female body's arch is a dynamic one, more intricate than males. The trade off is and was for me, the enormously adorable babies who grow big in a blink of an eye, and for whom we count our lucky stars every day that they are healthy.

If I may, I breast fed each child so the only break I got was when I took naps, and when my husband came home.  I worked for a year at a new job, through my first pregnancy and took 8 weeks for maternity leave before I hung up my work hat to be home full-time.  In that time my oldest never once got sick again till he went to school.

What I am trying to tell you is: will it get easier YES. Will it get harder, more then you realize.  But I warn you now as I've been warned soooo many times b4 and after marriage:

1. You must take time for yourself. 2. You must time time to spoil your wife 3. And you must find the kind of work where it is conducive to family, both of you.  These kids will seem like they always need something, but when they are gone, you will never get that time back again.

I dedicated myself to them for 9 years. I still feel like I serve them hand and foot. But I know when they are grown I will miss them dearly.  And so often I wonder is it possible that my husband can just step outside of the box and surprise me with something I would absolutely love, but didn't even know I was missing. Or maybe something as simple as "Abby, you are an awesome mom" or "You're beautiful". In "Finding Forrestor", Sean Connery's character said, "The key to a woman's heart is an unexpected gift at an unexpected time."

I don't know what works for your wife, but I hope you both will enjoy finding out. 

For me, it is sad that my husband and I work so hard to achieve all that we have built just to feel empty inside, like "what was all this for", when no one acknowledges the sweat of the other.  Kids should not just respect and obey their parents/elders, but pitch in, give a damn. Now days adolescents are as self-centered as ever.  

It really takes a special person to model, exemplify this kind of affection/communication/regard and thoughtfulness. I believe it is why relationships fail...when no one is inspired to or are just too overworked to give a damn.

Re: work live balance...My mom was a single mom, who worked 6 days a week for 12 years. I don't envy the breadwinners out there. But trust me, the research you put into investigating other streams of income, ie. Roth brokerages, Real Estate, Short Term Rentals, will be the best value for your time. Then hopefully work and other people's demands, will not be a necessity but a choice.

The fighting will stop if you just give her a foot or neck rub, and run her a bubble bath. Start a conversation. I think love begins with words from the heart (one more suggestion "every breath" by Nicolas Sparks or "The wedding"). LMK if the fighting doesn't stop.

-H