Married and Confused

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I always knew my husband of 3 years didn’t have the best memory, but I feel he may be presenting some delusional behavior. He gets very aggravated if I suggest he has made a mistake. Sometimes it’s as simple as me asking, “I thought you said the party was this day?” for clarification, and he’ll reply, “No, don’t do this to me today!” or some other defensive response. If we differ on what we believe was said by either one of us, I always have to cede to him to avoid a lengthy argument. However, he believes he is the one giving into me all the time. Several family members and friends have picked up on this. Another example - I had asked my husband to be intimate with me 8 times over 6 weeks and he said no each time, which made me scared to initiate intimacy. We were not intimate during those 6 weeks. He asked me how to help me feel less scared, and he said he felt like I should be over it because it was only five times during one week, and he claimed we were intimate when he initiated. When I said I still felt scared because I remember it being 8 times over several weeks, and because the final time he turned me down I said, “I guess you don’t want to,” which he thought was manipulative, so he responded, “If you keep talking like that to me, I’ll never want to have an intimate experience with you again.” My husband’s response to my memory was, “See, you just keep making my sin appear bigger! It just keeps growing. It wasn’t like that.” I let the conversation drop because I didn’t know what to do.

Another delusion I think he has is he believes he knows better than doctors over the safety of our children. No matter how many times I have asked/begged, he will not stop giving our child giant bites of food and/or food she is not ready for. Our daughter is 22 months old, and she often gags when he feeds her. He has given her whole peanuts and walnuts since she was 19 months, has her tip her head back and pours handfuls of blueberries into her mouth, feeds her while she’s lying down, etc. When I tell him the dangers of choking, he says the reason that our daughter is different from kids who choke is that “she has good breeding.” He doesn’t think articles written by doctors or advice from our pediatrician applies to our daughter. If I confronted him about the “good breeding” comment, he would play it off like he was joking, so I feel like I’m going in circles. About a week ago, he let our 5 1/2 month old son chew on a cucumber, and he began gagging. I fished the piece out of his mouth only to see my husband’s father try to give my son another cucumber.

There is a history of delusions, compulsive lying, heavy exaggerating, and memory issues in his family (stories he has told me and events I have witnessed myself). I feel this is worth mentioning because of genetic and learned traits that may be affecting my husband’s behavior.

We are starting counseling, however, I’m afraid it may not help.

Let me finish by saying I know that I am human, not perfect, and can be forgetful too, but my husband seems to be stepping outside the norm of what I know how to handle.
 
In my house, we call that having a “convenient memory” and it isn’t tolerated well.

Unless he actually has a health condition, it sounds like he is manipulating you with the “memory” issues.

I would make it really clear that it isn’t going to work any more.

If you have two babies under the age of two, it may be a valid reason for his lack of interest in your intimacy. Especially if the youngest isn’t even 6 months. If math serves, that means at the oldest he was 3.5 months old when the 8 week hiatus began. I wouldn’t be willing to take that chance, either (assuming you aren’t using ABC). Sounds like something some honest conversations need to be held about.

I am glad you are starting counseling. Hopefully it will help. Best of luck.
 
The 6 week hiatus happened before we had children, and I don’t believe my husband has to say yes to me each time I ask - it was just an example of how our memory differed. We were having the discussion because he wants me to initiate more, and we were talking about how that event made me a little scared to try especially with him saying he may never want to be intimate again/the recent infidelity. He truly believes that he is remembering correctly.
 
Oh I see. I misunderstood.

My husband and I had to do a lot of work in the first few years of our marriage because we experienced similar issues with regards the the memory. A couple of things surfaced:
  1. As a kid and a young adult, he got away with a lot of things by claiming he "didn’t remember, or that he remembered differently. For example: “You said we were getting together with your family later this month, but you didn’t say what day. Now I am double-booked and I can’t go to MIL’s birthday”. The fact was that I had told him not only the date, but the time and that we had to get a gift to bring.
  2. It really didn’t matter if he forgot, or didn’t remember, or whatever else. He needed a strategy so that when I told him things that were important, he did remember. That meant that I would preceed what I told him by saying “This is important to me”, which was his signal to get it on his calendar or do whatever else he needed to do so he wouldn’t forgot. He is a smart man, so most of the time it was just doing the mental gymnastics to commit it to memory. Forgetting, or claiming to not know, aren’t acceptable excuses. Happy wife, happy life. Best believe, he rarely forgets much these days…30+ years later.
Counseling is good. It helps get it all out on the table with a neutral third party who can move the process a long.
 
It sounds like he should not feed the kids, until he learns how to. Mind you, I’m not saying your other issues are less valid, just, at the time, less urgent! Kids can and do choke,so please, have a consult with their pediatrician, and listen to what he tells you!

And see your own doctor, too! There seems to be some physical or mental health issues that have to be addressed…right away!
 
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I would very, very much advise to attend a Retrouvaille Weekend. It seems there is a great difference in your communication styles, and Retrouvaille will help learn how to communicate. Scheduling and making time to work on your marriage is as important as a medical procedure is when you are sick.

https://www.helpourmarriage.org/

To be honest, if my spouse kept score of how many times I did this or that, it would likely put me on the defensive. Remember, 1 Corinthians chapter 13 reminds us that love does not keep score, does not harbor grudges.

About feeding the child, we could get into medical advice, so I would just advise you to communicate differently. Gagging is a good thing, it is part of learning how to eat. When a child does not gag is the danger of choking! When it happens, do not react in a super “look at what you did!” manner, try saying “oh, let’s give Sally some blueberries and let her learn to pick them up with her fingers” letting a child feed themselves helps to build their fine motor skills, even if it is messy. Try to find a positive way that you can both help your kiddos learn to enjoy eating.

Maybe make simple changes, before you put out the blueberries, cut them into pieces. Chop the walnuts before you put them in the bowl, or, do not buy blueberries or walnuts.
 
Is there perhaps a cultural difference at play between you husband’s upbringing and yours?
 
I would encourage him to get checked in case he does have one.
I agree. Ruling out or finding out of any medical problems should be a priority here, especially since it seems to run in his family. I also second those advising you get marriage counselling to help with your communication.

These behaviours are not normal, and neither is the way you give in all the time. Please look after yourself, and your children.
 
You’re right about the children’s safety being urgent, this recent event with my son gagging is what made me seek advice.
 
Thank you for the reminder of not keeping score - I remembered the numbers only because I was afraid I was doing something wrong that made my husband want to keep his distance with me. I never intended to use them to make him feel like he was a bad husband.
 
Hello I worked with a psycopath who told me he did this to get the upper hand over his wife. Find something wrong and get mad. So people treated him with gloves.
 
Is there perhaps a cultural difference at play between you husband’s upbringing and yours?
Hey @TheLittleLady,

Some time ago (a lot of months) you asked me where JPII had said that telling your spouse a sin forgiven in confession could be a good thing. That it can strengthen the union and relationship enhancing love.

(This was in reponse to your normal advice that people shouldn’t [don’t have to] tell their partner. To which I replied the saints idea - because I have a feeling JPII’s answer is actually what young couples are looking for, and simply exempting through confession won’t provide them a deeper solution which frequently is what they are searching for…)

So here goes the complete quote, emphasis mine:
When the choice of a person is interiorly mature, when love
together with this is properly integrated in the interior life of the person,
then love acquires a new character both in its psychological respect
and, above all, in its affective one. For if not only sensuality but also
affectivity itself manifests a certain mobility and changeability—which
in turn always evokes a certain anxiety, even if subconscious—then
interiorly mature love frees itself from this anxiety by the choice of a
person. Affection becomes peaceful and certain, for it stops revolving
around and following itself, and instead follows its object, the person.
The purely subjective truth of affection yielded its place to the objective
truth of the person, who is the object of the choice and of love.
Thus, thanks to this, affection alone acquires new properties, as it were.
It becomes simple and, in a sense, sober. So, if this idealization (which
we spoke of in the psychological analysis) is characteristic of purely
affective love—affectivity, in a sense, itself creates various values and
bestows them on the person to whom it turns—then this love of the
person, a love that is mature with the interior act of choice and focused
on the value of the person himself, makes us affectively love the person
as he truly is—not our image of him but the real person.
We love him
along with his virtues and vices, in a sense independently of the virtues
and despite the vices. The greatness of this love is manifested the most
when this person falls
, when his weaknesses or even sins come to light.
One who truly loves does not then refuse his love, but in a sense loves
even more—he loves while being conscious of deficiencies and vices
without, however, approving of them. For the person himself never
loses his essential value. Affection, which follows the value of the person,
is faithful to man.


in “Love and Responsibility”, chapter II, part Three “Ethical analyses of love”, sub-chapter “Choice and Responsibility”, last paragraph.
 
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He gets very aggravated if I suggest he has made a mistake.
Simple pride. He hasn’t learned humility in the sense of recognizing a mistake. It hurts because he feels diminished in your eyes, hence it’s easier for him to bully his way out. That’s typical macho behavior and a form of immaturity he’ll come to regret latter.

It’s also common place both in families and society in general. People will go to great lengths to avoid admitting a mistake. (This is normally verified in families where the father will raise his voice and “cut off the word” of the mother when she’s speaking - which, again, is typical in macho societies that they cut each other’s speech short.) The importance of the family in this specific behavior is educating the man in the female ways of knowing when to yield and “hold one’s peace” - which is a form of wisdom for man also, as the bible teaches us.

The remainder are manifestations of the above mentioned state-of-affairs, which is how your husband (erroneously I might say) views himself and his social role. You’ll frequently see the better part of society promoting and encouraging that kind of behavior. It’s infantile -in a way- an nothing other than a way of maturity and wisdom he hasn’t acquired socially through experience and life’s lessons.

Now you know. You can verify this frequently in young males behavior.
 
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He doesn’t think articles written by doctors or advice from our pediatrician applies to our daughter
More of the same. He knows the articles are correct, he simply bullies his way out of it. (I don’t think it is “delusional” I think it’s the result of a very immature upbringing and family culture, mixed with lack of good healthy socializing during his teens.)

But a second behavior here emerges: he’s “obstinate” and “hardheaded”. That can be hard to change, it might be a direct derivation of his life experience put together with personality. The more “hardheaded” he is the more lesson’s he’ll reject the more he remains stuck in being wrong.

Do you know his MBTI??? My guess is ENFJ…
I’ll never want to have an
Don’t listen to that, such resolution isn’t strong nor true and changes with the wind if need be. It is, however, pretty clear your husband is going through an internal crises and turmoil since he probably finds himself married and father of a child lacking the necessary maturity and skills (what some modernly call “emotion intelligence”…) He’s currently trying to rationalize the situation he finds himself in, which can be a tough interior process of change and exterior adaptation to circumstances. He has to grow up, given his circumstances, the best you can do is not let things stress you out and help him by lending maturity in a nurturing way that has you cooperating -he’ll feel humiliated if you best him.

Ensure he knows you’re his best friend and don’t think lesser of him regardless. Ask him what maturity and humility is.
 
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Yes, we’re from different parts of the US, among other things. We are in the process of trying to discuss our cultural differences in a deeper way.
 
So your husband of 3 short years with whom you have 2 children under 2 has withheld sex from you and rebuffed you but has also been unfaithful and had sex with someone else, has delusional or manipulative/narcissistic behavior towards you, and does things that physically endanger your two small children.

Explain to me why you allow this man to continue to be in your life? Something is very wrong with him. And I don’t think you are going to fix it
 
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So your husband of 3 short years with whom you have 2 children under 2 has withheld sex from you and rebuffed you but has also been unfaithful and had sex with someone else, has delusional or manipulative/narcissistic behavior towards you, and does things that physically endanger your two small children.

Explain to me why you allow this man to continue to be in your life? Something is very wrong with him. And I don’t think you are going to fix it
@jmmjmp this is what you need to hear.
 
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