Headship, Anger and Intimacy in new Marriage

Verity

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My husband and I have been married less than a year. We dated over 2 years before marrying. Things seemed relatively normal until Covid lockdown. Then he changed, in ways I can best describe as an increase in anger, coldness, frustration and impatience. His words are cutting and harsh. He has increasingly rejected intimacy, peace, companionship and tenderness. My 22 year old lives with us for now, and despite my husband knowing my daily battle with the child's depression, laziness and refusal to strike out in life, my husband has become very hostile about the situation and delivered me some unexpected ultimatums about kicking the child out with no real job or place to go. We plan to move within the year, so I have told my child to find alternate plans when that happens. But, my husband wants a decade old problem solved now. His own adult child angers him greatly, because my husband feels his is ungrateful, foolish and doesnt listen to wise advice. Actually, based on his words, my husband seems to hate or at least criticize everyone right now except the dog. Aside from this, my husband is generous with his time and money, does not have addictions or get in any trouble. He tends to hoard things though. He left his job soon after I met him, with dreams of becomng something different, but between Covid, his hoarding possessions, and the financial and logistical constraints of moving all our stuff, we have achieved little on the path to building a business or new life together. I admit, it's frustrating, but I love my husband and seek his affection, approval and companionship daily. Sometimes I have nothing left to do but cry and implore him to have compassion. I advise him to make plans and steps we can follow to our goal, but he just gets angry and things I am trying to subvert his authority. He grows angrier and colder each day, and uses my child as the scapegoat. I expect he has some level of PTSD, but I doubt he will go for help. Our pastor retired in December, and Covid shutdown has prevented us from church except on TV. We need to be in a good church again soon. In the meantime, my counselor says I need to stand up to his angry outbursts, criticisms and unreasonable demands, but it only makes him angrier. I want to ask what I am doing wrong in this situation, but I feel my only fault is to want intimacy with my husband and companionship like we had a short time ago - amid the stress. I don't know how to retrieve that, and don't want to send my child onto the streets with no job, no drivers license, only a small income from online business ansd no life skills.
 

Gregory Thompson

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So since the lockdown happened, has he been able to meet with other Christians outside of the household?

Also, has there been a loss of income?

Just trying to understand why there was a change.
 
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Verity

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He has only met with a close friend of his, but that person is under his criticism now for being to Christian about things that are going on in the world. I think he means too gracious or forgiving of those who want to destroy things. He never had a large men's network through the church. I don't know if I could get him to start building one now, especially since our old chirch is almost an hour away and we can't just pop in on a new one due to Covid. There has not been a new loss of income. I even started a new job that covers all my prior expenses. He is running out of saved money though, and it is worrying him. He won't go back to work though.
 
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Brian Mcnamee

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Your son is like many others from his generation with no life skills and no ambition. The paying his way is enabling him to continue to do nothing. The reality is we are in the worst possible time for opportunities and yet if you are willing to work there is always a job. Your boy might need to join the military or something that will provide a boot in the rear and teach you a skill.
 
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Verity

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Somehow I think it would be easier if she was a boy. I would like to send her out of state to her father for a few months but he doesnt want her and she won't go anyhow. She barely knows him, and he has had another family for 17 years. Please tell me how to get this child motivated to grow up. She has had some counseling, some medication, but nothing changes because I feel she also has a spiritual problem. She spend so many hours in church but has rejected God for 8 yrs. She doesn't get in trouble, she just has zero motivation.
 
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NerdGirl

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Unfortunately, sometimes marriage changes people, and not for the better. You dated your husband for two years, so you probably felt secure that you knew each other very well before marrying. But now you've been married less than a year, and you're seeing this new, ugly, harsh side to him. I promise you, that side was there all along. It didn't just randomly spawn out of nowhere. You just never saw it until now. I would guess that the loss of the freedom he felt during your years of dating, along with having an adult daughter living at home, and then the immense stress of the Covid lockdown, has brought this all to light.

I think you should stop calling her a "child" immediately. She's an adult. A woman. Stop providing a free ride in every possible way. She needs to prepare all of her own meals. She needs to do all of her own laundry. She needs to be asked to help around the house with daily chores, and it is not negotiable, you wake her up at midnight and force her to do them if she's skipped out. She's going to open her own savings account if she doesn't have one already, and any money she gets from this online business, gifts at birthdays or holidays, goes straight into the bank. Once she's saved up enough for one month's rent and security deposit, she's going to look for an apartment. Laziness and apathy can't be cured with hopes and good intentions; it has to be forced out of a person with practical lessons. I have an adult son (19) still at home due to anxiety issues. I ride his butt daily on applying for jobs and working towards his online HS diploma. He has chores that he knows he has to do, he is responsible for his own meals, laundry, taking care of his cat, he handles the family dishes, trash, recycling, and yard work, because he isn't working outside the home yet.

Sadly, your husband reminds me a lot of mine. He quit his job to pursue his own small business shortly after we got married. The business has become tentatively successful, but it's still too small and insecure to provide a solid future. He is completely irresponsible with money and other things, but can't handle criticism or being held accountable for anything. We have no savings at all. And he's been harsh and impatient and unsympathetic towards my son for years. He was loving and tender and romantic and attentive and fun while we were dating; it was only after we got married and life's challenges became more real that the ugly side came out of him. I am preparing to go my own way as soon as I'm able.
 
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anewday

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I am so sorry you are going through this. What you said about your husband acting worse when you stand up to him stood out to me. I was a behavior therapist to children with autism a few years back. When I would "challenge" a client by reacting a certain way to change their behavior, sometimes the behavior I was trying to change would get worse. This was expected. I would keep standing up to your husband and if possible, react more aggressively than him.

I've noticed that when I match my husband's aggressive and dramatic outbursts, or become louder and more aggressive than him, he backs down. I pray your situation gets better soon.
 
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Verity

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Thank you, Nerdgirl123. I hope you're okay. Yes, you do sound like I do... Things have gotten worse. My "adult dependent daughter" is apparently the issue with my husband, or at least that's what he is saying. He is resentful of her parasitic behavior, which I guess he thought was going to change when we got married? He is blaming me for not kicking her out or coming down on her very hard for her laziness and victim mentality, and not getting better results from what I have done. So he is becoming increasingly angry with both of us, and has started saying he doesn't care, is done in the marriage and is leaving. He tells ME to get papers and I say no. Then sometimes he says he's staying, but when he does he acts hostile to me anyhow. He refuses any kind of counseling, and says I keep at him about things he doesn't want to hear. Then he goes silent to punish me. It's all very narcissistic and intended to hurt. He also says no one has ever driven him to this point. I doubt that, because I know how his son feels about him, and he no longer has a relationship with his father for this very sort of thing. So, it seems like my two are trying to force me to choose between them, while at other times they both act like I am garbage, and tell me I am the problem. I don't understand why everyone won't just do what they're supposed to do, act like the adults they are, and not expect me to pick or lose someone. I have asked my daughter's father to have her live there a while, but it is a cross country move, she refuses to go and he doesn't want an adult dependent of his own. I will send her on her way because it is good for her in the long run, however, I'm also not sure if this will solve my husband's anger toward me or if there will be another thing that makes him disgruntled. I also don't know how to keep loving someone who speaks so harshly about me. So, I try to remember Fod is the third party in this marriage and I answer to Him first.

Unfortunately, sometimes marriage changes people, and not for the better. You dated your husband for two years, so you probably felt secure that you knew each other very well before marrying. But now you've been married less than a year, and you're seeing this new, ugly, harsh side to him. I promise you, that side was there all along. It didn't just randomly spawn out of nowhere. You just never saw it until now. I would guess that the loss of the freedom he felt during your years of dating, along with having an adult daughter living at home, and then the immense stress of the Covid lockdown, has brought this all to light.

I think you should stop calling her a "child" immediately. She's an adult. A woman. Stop providing a free ride in every possible way. She needs to prepare all of her own meals. She needs to do all of her own laundry. She needs to be asked to help around the house with daily chores, and it is not negotiable, you wake her up at midnight and force her to do them if she's skipped out. She's going to open her own savings account if she doesn't have one already, and any money she gets from this online business, gifts at birthdays or holidays, goes straight into the bank. Once she's saved up enough for one month's rent and security deposit, she's going to look for an apartment. Laziness and apathy can't be cured with hopes and good intentions; it has to be forced out of a person with practical lessons. I have an adult son (19) still at home due to anxiety issues. I ride his butt daily on applying for jobs and working towards his online HS diploma. He has chores that he knows he has to do, he is responsible for his own meals, laundry, taking care of his cat, he handles the family dishes, trash, recycling, and yard work, because he isn't working outside the home yet.

Sadly, your husband reminds me a lot of mine. He quit his job to pursue his own small business shortly after we got married. The business has become tentatively successful, but it's still too small and insecure to provide a solid future. He is completely irresponsible with money and other things, but can't handle criticism or being held accountable for anything. We have no savings at all. And he's been harsh and impatient and unsympathetic towards my son for years. He was loving and tender and romantic and attentive and fun while we were dating; it was only after we got married and life's challenges became more real that the ugly side came out of him. I am preparing to go my own way as soon as I'm able.
Unfortunately, sometimes marriage changes people, and not for the better. You dated your husband for two years, so you probably felt secure that you knew each other very well before marrying. But now you've been married less than a year, and you're seeing this new, ugly, harsh side to him. I promise you, that side was there all along. It didn't just randomly spawn out of nowhere. You just never saw it until now. I would guess that the loss of the freedom he felt during your years of dating, along with having an adult daughter living at home, and then the immense stress of the Covid lockdown, has brought this all to light.

I think you should stop calling her a "child" immediately. She's an adult. A woman. Stop providing a free ride in every possible way. She needs to prepare all of her own meals. She needs to do all of her own laundry. She needs to be asked to help around the house with daily chores, and it is not negotiable, you wake her up at midnight and force her to do them if she's skipped out. She's going to open her own savings account if she doesn't have one already, and any money she gets from this online business, gifts at birthdays or holidays, goes straight into the bank. Once she's saved up enough for one month's rent and security deposit, she's going to look for an apartment. Laziness and apathy can't be cured with hopes and good intentions; it has to be forced out of a person with practical lessons. I have an adult son (19) still at home due to anxiety issues. I ride his butt daily on applying for jobs and working towards his online HS diploma. He has chores that he knows he has to do, he is responsible for his own meals, laundry, taking care of his cat, he handles the family dishes, trash, recycling, and yard work, because he isn't working outside the home yet.

Sadly, your husband reminds me a lot of mine. He quit his job to pursue his own small business shortly after we got married. The business has become tentatively successful, but it's still too small and insecure to provide a solid future. He is completely irresponsible with money and other things, but can't handle criticism or being held accountable for anything. We have no savings at all. And he's been harsh and impatient and unsympathetic towards my son for years. He was loving and tender and romantic and attentive and fun while we were dating; it was only after we got married and life's challenges became more real that the ugly side came out of him. I am preparing to go my own way as soon as I'm able.
 
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Verity

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Thank you, anewday. I was surprised the counselor I am seeing told me the same thing you did. It seems like I should be more obedient and act less like he does, otherwise I'm disrespectful. However, when I'm being spoken to in such critical and demeaning ways, when everything that is important to me is mocked to make me feel small, it would seem the right thing to do. When I say important to me, it is love and affection I ask for, and relaxation time together. He mocks that. Who would mock that? But, he doesn't take me standing up for myself well, and doesn't back down. Nor does he change how he speaks to me. I really can't see how 6 months of marriage can change a person so much. Little has changed in our daily lives, except oh...we are running to the end of his money and he will have to get a job (I have a job that covers some), and he is mad because the money is still carrying my daughter too. Understandable, but I can't see how hating me, demeaning me and punishing me is solving anything.
I am so sorry you are going through this. What you said about your husband acting worse when you stand up to him stood out to me. I was a behavior therapist to children with autism a few years back. When I would "challenge" a client by reacting a certain way to change their behavior, sometimes the behavior I was trying to change would get worse. This was expected. I would keep standing up to your husband and if possible, react more aggressively than him.

I've noticed that when I match my husband's aggressive and dramatic outbursts, or become louder and more aggressive than him, he backs down. I pray your situation gets better soon.
 
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Verity

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Things have gotten worse, or maybe this is just the state of them now. Yesterday things seemed to be resolved. He annouced he wasn't leaving, and later apologized for snapping at me and saying thing he shouldn't have said. He was affectionate and said nice things. So, after yesterday morning he announced he wasn't doing any more yardwork and mowing in this house (he is still cleaning up his own hoarder house - for which I get blamed but he came with) and that I and my daughter would have to mow this one for now on and finish his rock repair in the back. Perfect! I have been asking to do that for a year. I got up early, did not do the things that I had planned to in the cool, and sent her mowing, and I worked on the rocks following his directions from last year when he started tearing them up. My old dog fell on them multiple times last week so even though it's a rental, someone needs to fix what he tore up. I never wanted him to start it because it was that way when I moved in. He wouldn't listen to my request. When he got up today, after he professed his love to me last night, and told me today would always be our six month anniversary, I had started dinner and moved quite a lot of the rocks. She had actually mowed, walked the dog and she vacuumed one floor of the house. He took one look at the work and blew up. He lost it. We did it all wrong, even the vacuuming, I put dirty rocks with clean ones, she didn't ring the yard before mowing and the lawn was literally ruined, and she didn't get into the corners with the vacuum. He went on a tirade - to me only - about how I need to ask how to do things and that I constantly try to out-think him and that he spent a week on the rocks and now I had stolen all that time from him. I told him I'd fix it on my own time according to his expectations and just asked him to stop yelling and talk in a way how I could listen. My good intentions meant zero. He made an analogy about it being like someone using a dirty sponge on a well cared for car. He wanted me to see how inconsiderate I was and how I deserved to be berated. Honestly, I love people far more than material things. I don't idolize things, and mightin that analogy express disappointment, but it would have been fleeting because I would know it wasn't intentional. People are more important. He went on and on when we went for a drive, screaming for at least 20 minutes about how I am ungrateful, waste his time and money and don't listen. I have told him I am strong and can take quite a lot of his criticism, even if I disagree and don't like it, but it is now constant, loud and mean. I feel like my life, in our six months of marriage, has become a Lifetime movie... I love my husband for who he was before these six months, and he was never an angel. But since we married he has become flat out mean. I do not want a divorce, I just want him to stop blowing up at me. No matter how I say I will fix things or do it his way next time he is still furious. His narcissistic, condescending anger is akin to what someone might have if you cheated, lied or deceived them in a large way. He constantly goes on about how people have squandered his time and money (his son and ex-wife, and now me and my daughter) and how he's not letting anyone do that again. He refuses to go to any sort of therapy with or without me, and says his level of anger and volume is justified because I just don't get it and don't listen. He is like a cartoon at this point, but must be deeply upset for far more than anything I have ever done. He says he wouldn't be so mad if my freeloader daughter wasn't so lazy or would leave, and that if it was just the two of us he'd be fine. I am beginning to doubt that. Is there any hope here? He truly has nothing good to say about anyone. I am tired of being told I have mental issues. I really do not, if anything i try to push for solutions or conversations to solve our problems big or small. I am a faithful Christian and am not often depressed or jealous, petty or cruel. I may be somewhat downtrodden and negative at this point, but can you blame me? Today is 4th of July. I can hear my neighbors outside, even in the rain having fun. I've gone on two long walks in my neighborhood in the last day, just to escape, and see familiesand friends laughing and playing. We could be part of that, but he'll have none of it. He finds fault with all of them. I don't know who to talk to at this point. My next counseling appt is 10 days away, but I asked for cancellation list. My friends and family are either overburdened or too ill to be support.
 
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NerdGirl

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Verity - being yelled and screamed at and insulted and belittled is ABUSE. This man is abusing you. Please consider getting away from him with your daughter, whether that means going to rent a place or kicking him out and telling him that you refuse to live in a home with him again until he agrees to counseling. His behavior is NOT okay. I'm so sorry it's getting worse. Sending you a hug.
 
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