Am I Too Sensitive or is He Too Critical?
Ask FreeloveMD | May 5, 2009
1 Comment
Am I too sensitive or is he too critical? This has been a constant issue in my relationship, My husband says something, and I get my feelings hurt, then he doesn’t believe me or care about what he said. He tells me I am too sensitive and that he can’t tell me a thing without me getting upset. He says all that, yet denies up and down that we need to see a couples therapist. When we are up, we are REALLY up, and I don’t feel like anyone knows me like he does. I know it stems from our families. Mine didn’t talk to each other rudely, and his family is very serious, straight forward, and even rude (by my standards) toward each other. I have also witnessed his father being highly disrespectful to his mother, which my husband agrees with me on. I worry about having children and spending my life with a man who I feel is constantly hurting my feelings. I also look at the other side and don’t want to lose a great man if I am the one with hyper-sensitive issues.
Been There says:
September 7, 2009 at 5:00 pm
My advice is: watch out. I dated a man like this once–thought very seriously about marrying him, in fact–until I realized I was crying an awful lot, and always trying to get him to stop being so critical, and that when I would let him know he had hurt me, he would tell me I was being “too sensitive”. These words are a red flag to me: the person is basically saying that it is your own fault that you were hurt by them. One way to judge whether you are, in fact, too sensitive would be to think about whether this is a message you have heard in many relationships, or whether it is mainly from him.
This man that I dated, when I met his parents, I was SHOCKED at how disrespectfully his father treated his mother. The mother was talking about how she was working with a personal trainer, etc., then the father made a crack about “not much good it’s doing her” or that you couldn’t even tell. This within 30 min of meeting me. The mother looked me straight in the eye and said something to the effect of “don’t let yourself end up like this.” All of this with a joking air, but looking back–wow. There was more, trust me. I think the father actually called the mother stupid at one point, in public. Of COURSE my boyfriend thought I was being too sensitive: look what he had seen his mother put up with daily for nearly 30 years!
There is a book entitled “Why does he do that?” which I found to be very helpful. I think at this point you have two options: leave him, or try, very diligently, to train him. Hey, I don’t like that word either, but if someone is this unaware of their actions, they are unable to meet it head-on intellectually. It is so deeply ingrained in them that you have to basically work with their subconscious, thus the word ‘train.’ This book talks about ways you can do that, ways you can snap them out of their behavior, or else present consequences extreme enough for them to register the problem. Even if they don’t agree with you, or think you are being too sensitive, they will begin to want to avoid those consequences. But as I said, diligence is required: it is just like training a child or a dog– you must be consistent. Humans are intelligent and will try anything to avoid changing a pattern, be it alcoholism, or anything else. In this case, to change would mean he has to admit, on some deep level, that what he is doing, has been doing, has seen his parents doing, is wrong. So, there needs to be no other option. I think it is a tough row to hoe, but if you are already married, perhaps it is in your best interest to try it.
What is your option? Wall yourself off to him? Cheat on him? Become completely submissive? Resort to payback: cutting buttons off his shirts? He is shutting you down when you are using a healthy outlet to express yourself (i.e., your words), so what are you supposed to do?