Just bought the book. Will it help my situation?
I’ve read a brief summary of the book, and I definitely think it may help reduce conflict in my marriage. but will it help to do that and help me find my voice?
my husband is a Christian and has always been, but when we got married he wouldn’t know what to do in disagreements and would always concede. I would explain that I didn’t want him to just give me what I wanted, I wanted to have a real discussion about it so we can come to a conclusion together, even if that means I concede. in other words, I want us both to have real input and for my words to have real weight, but I’m okay if everuthing doesn’t go my way. however, he would accuse me of never being happy unless things going my way, all because I wanted a back and forth discussion. when he accuses me of this, things would escalate, my emotions would rise, i would say unkind things or yell out of feeling powerless. I know this is wrong, but has happened over and over again.
5 years into the marriage, he much to my suprise was contemplating leaving me because he was deeply unhappy. he felt I wasn’t contributing to the marriage because of how messy our house was all the time (i had a 3 yr old and chronic illness that makes me chronically tired). he felt that he couldnt “win” and that i wasn’t contributing selfish as every disagreement i would just nag until i got my way (that’s the way he sees it. i dont see it this way, I have always just wanted to discuss disagreements, and he has never once attempted to do so, getting defensive almost immediately and accusing me of needing to win and wanting to be in charge).
So I listened, I heard him. I got off my ass and spent all day cleaning our home, ignoring my toddler’s requests to play. my house has never been perfectly clean, but I make real attempts to show him that I’m trying. he appreciated that effort and told me it was the first time he felt like I really cared and wanted to be an asset to him. i also stopped nagging him over little things that I used to (imperfectly, but drastically reduced). and unless it was something very important to me, I tried to look past issues I saw. our sex life improved a little bit, but still was infrequent, but I did feel slightly more open to it.
after this, he felt like he had the secret to a successful marriage which is that the woman needs to let the man lead and then all will be well. this wasn’t my takeaway. my takeaway was that he was feeling criticized and taking advantage of, and once I pulled more of my weight and stopped nagging him, things improved.
fast forward a couple of years. the main arguments we are having is over disciplining our child. he wants to spank often, Id like him to drastically reduce the frequency and save it for major offenses (this is a compromise as I would have preferred to not use spanking at all). I tried expressing this and he wouldn’t listen. my anxiety was extremely high watching something happen to my son every day that i believed was unfair and harmful to his psych. I would express my disapproval when he would do it. sometimes I would physically block him from spanking. my husband told me i needed to not undermine him and speak to him another time.
so I would let it happen. I knew that the fighting was only making the discipline even more confusing for my child. so for months I would not say a word even though it hurt me deeply. I would bring it up calmly separately, but I never felt truly heard. he would say “okay, I will consider that” and essentially the conversation was over and he would continue doing exactly what he was. I would bring it up again, same thing. I explained to him that I would like to have a conversation about it, if I said more than 30 seconds worth of thoughts, he would state that he was in charge of discipline as the father, and accuse me of trying to be in charge etc. accuse me of being feminist because I wanted to have a say and make decisions together or wanted him to compromise. he stated he didn’t believe in compromise. after I said I couldn’t do this any longer, he stated that though he doesn’t like the word “compromise” he could try to do that sometimes.
I also found out during this period that he had been listening to something akin to red pill, masculinity content, but a christian version where they speak kindly of women, but also believe they are to submit to their husband in all things as the bible says (versus complementarimonism where the couple works together in decisions but the husvand has the tie breaker vote essentially).
luckily, eventually he came to my conclusion about spanking more rarely on his own which reduced my anxiety a lot. he also confessed his porn addiction to me around this time which humbled him in our relationship for a while and he also stopped using porn for a couple of months. we had the relationship of my dreams. we were in love, maybe more than on our wedding day. obsessed with each other. sex life better than ever.
that lasted a few months, but eventually he became more emotionally distant again. started watching porn regularly again. stopped going out of his way to date me. and eventually stopped being able to listen to my voice in arguments. once again our arguments have begun to escalate. even over small things, if I express disagreement over a decision of his, he acts like I am trying to rule over him. I will calmly tell him that I just want to discuss it, but even me discussing it is a sign of disrespect to his leadership. essentially the way he wants it to work is him: make decision, me most of the time: “yes sir”, on occasion if truly neccesary I can calmly and delicately come to him and say “hey, I just had a thought about x, have you considered y“ no more than one sentence. then he will make a decision (most likely the exact same decision he made before), and at that point i should not question any further but rather should say “yes sir“. these are disagreements about things that involve me and my children directly.
anyway, i am certainly anxiously attached. wait around for him like a little puppy dog. often have molded myself to be more agreeable to him. but I cannot walk on egg shells any longer. will the tips from the book help me? if I detach and become more attractive physically and emotionally will he be able to HEAR me? truly listen? value my insights?
if you read all of this, thank you so much.