Passive Aggressive Behavior

Last night he got into bed and said that he loved me so very much and that he was sorry that I was depressed and that he wished he could make me happy and that I wouldn’t be sad and that things would be better for us.

I got really brave and told him that until he could see that he was passive aggressive and would admit it and would get help for it, things couldn’t be any better for us.

He said he wished that I would tell him when he was being passive aggressive.

So I told him that not telling me the night before when he needed our daughter to stay with his mom when he knew he would need her to stay was passive aggressive.  And then the next morning when  he did tell me and I asked him why he didn’t say anything the night before when he knew, he said I wasn’t available (which I was, because he talked about other things to me), I told him that was passive aggressive.  I told him that if he wasn’t passive aggressive, we wouldn’t live in a broken house.  I told him that if he wasn’t passive aggressive, he would have a relationship with his daughters.  I told him that if he wasn’t passive aggressive, I wouldn’t cry when we have sex.

He was quiet for a minute and then he said that he didn’t really consider most of those things passive aggressive; they were just being human.

I told him that he had a pattern of doing things this way.  He asked me how I knew.  And I said I had lived with him for many years and have seen it.

He was quiet and then he said that he wanted to say something but that I would just dump it back on him.  (This in a very sulky/pout-y tone.)

I debated about what I said next, but I said it anyway because he had said he wanted me to tell him when I thought he was being passive aggressive.   So I said, that was a very passive aggressive statement.

He said I just proved his point.  So I stopped saying anything and just let him go on and on.

He said that sometimes he just wants to hold me so badly and show me how much he loves me and wants to make me happy.  And then in the very next breath he said he could tell me what things I do that he thinks are passive aggressive.

He said he couldn’t fix the house because he didn’t have the money.

He said he tries very hard to give me what I need, to spend time with me.

He said that he was trying very hard not to be passive aggressive.  (I don’t think he even knows what passive aggression is!!!)  He said he prays and studies and asks God to help him to be a better husband.  He said it wasn’t fair that I wanted him to change but that I wasn’t trying to change, that I was expecting him to do all the work.  I told him that it wouldn’t matter what I did because he would just push me away.   He said that wasn’t true.  (It is true – study passive aggressive behavior!  In fact, in this whole “conversation,”  you can see evidence of that!)

He said that if I loved him, then I wouldn’t be depressed.

He said that I am not affectionate and that if I could just touch him more, then everything would be o.k.  He went on about that for a bit.

Finally I just said, thank you for talking to me, and then rolled over so I could go to sleep.

sweet co-workers

I had a rough morning before I went to work yesterday.  I ended up crying all the way to work and even though I got there on time, I sat in my van to try to calm down and stop crying.

One of my co-workers saw me in my van, crying, and he came over and asked me if I was o.k.  I told him not really and that I was so frustrated about my marriage.  He was really sweet and talked with me for about fifteen minutes.  It was really nice of him.

Then I went into the store and washed my face.  And when I went to go clock in, my manager asked me how I was and I said I was here.  He gave me a big hug and said, well, you are with people who love you, now.  It was so sweet!

In the afternoon, another co-worker, a young man who is getting married a month from now, shared his thoughts on marriage with me, trying to encourage me.  He is wise and thoughtful for such a young man.  And I agree with much of what he believes about marriage.   The only thing is, the paradigm shifts when it is a toxic relationship.  But he was still very sweet to try to encourage me.

Then at the end of the day, the guy who had talked with me in the morning brought me a rose!  (I work in a plant nursery and he had cut it off one of the bushes.)  He said that he hoped tomorrow would be better.

So I have some really nice co-workers.    :)

Self-Love

“‘I woke up this morning and I had a hard time for a while,’ said one recovering man.  ‘Then I realized it was because I wasn’t liking myself very much.’  Recovering people often say:  ‘I just don’t like myself.  When will I start liking myself?’

“The answer is:  start now.  We can learn to be gentle, loving, and nurturing to ourselves.  Of all the recovery behaviors we’re striving to attain, loving ourselves may be the most difficult, and the most important.  If we are habitually harsh and critical toward ourselves, learning to be gentle with ourselves may require dedicated effort.

“But what a valuable venture!

“By not liking ourselves, we may be perpetuating the discounting, neglect, or abuse we received in childhood from the important people in our life.  We didn’t like what happened then, but find ourselves copying those who mistreated us by treating ourselves poorly.

“We can stop the pattern.  We can begin giving ourselves the loving, respectful treatment we deserve.

“Instead of criticizing ourselves, we can tell ourselves we performed well enough.

“We can wake up in the morning and tell ourselves we deserve a good day.

“We can make a commitment to take good care of ourselves throughout the day.

“We can recognize that we’re deserving of love.

“We can do loving things for ourselves.

“We can love other people and let them love us.

“People who truly love themselves do not become destructively self-centered.  They do not abuse others.  They do not stop growing and changing.  People who love themselves well, learn to love others well too.  They continually grow into healthier people, learning that their love was appropriately placed.

“Today I will love myself.  If I get caught in the old pattern of not liking myself, I will find a way to get out.”

~from “The Language of Letting Go” by Melody Beattie

Any compassion?

So I came home from work today so depressed that I wanted to kill myself.  It was only thinking of my daughters that kept me from finding a way to do this.

My daughters were at the movies when I came home, so I had the house to myself to cry and cry and cry.

When my husband came home, cheerful as usual, he asked me how I was.  I told him that I was really depressed and he responded with “pobrecita.”  Then he asked if we got the trapped hummingbird out of the store today.  I told him that we didn’t, that it probably died overnight.  Then he said he was “whooped,” meaning really tired.  Then he asked me why I was depressed.  I told him that I hated my life.  He asked, what part.  I told him, all of it.  He asked, what can we do about it?  So, I asked him, what are you willing to do about it?  He said he didn’t know, except that he wouldn’t leave, saying that he wasn’t that bad and evil.  I didn’t say anything else and we went in the house.  (I had been on the deck, planting a plant in a container.)

When we got in the house, he wanted to know when our older daughter was going to pay him for the insurance on the car she drives.  He went on about that and then started into, why aren’t the dishes washed.  And why is the kitchen a mess.   And about how the girls spend all day on youtube.  (They don’t.)  Then he wanted to know what was for dinner and when dinner was.  I told him I didn’t know and that he would have to fend for himself.  So he got left-overs out of the fridge and sat down in front of the t.v.  I continued working on the laundry and cleaning the house and talking to my daughters when they came while he sat there watching t.v.

Then he told me about a tractor for sale.  Which was way out of his price range.  And the local gossip from the person who stopped by his shop today.

So much for having someone caring and compassionate actually be concerned about me.

Some day I will leave all of this. Not sure when yet, but someday I will leave.

Depression – again

I’m feeling depressed again.   Or maybe it should be – still.  It comes and goes.  Often coming more than going.  I usually wake up depressed.

I know that depression is technically a physio-chemical thing happening with the chemicals in your brain and how much of them your body produces and how well the receptors work and stuff like that.

I know that depression can be genetic, running in families.  I don’t know that either of my parents or any of my grandparents suffered from depression.

I also know that depression can be caused by a traumatic childhood experience.  That is my claim to how come I suffer from depression.

However, I think that living with a passive aggressive man greatly aggravates my depression.  On the rare occasions over the many years we have been together, when I actually felt like we were getting along well, I wasn’t depressed.  But those times are so few and so far between.  Mostly I have just felt empty – and then depressed – in my marriage.  I’m sure my co-dependence hasn’t helped this.

But, co-dependent or not, people need love.  Period.  People need love.  Babies will literally die if they are only given food, but not emotional and physical nurturing.  Adults somehow learn how to cope without that nurturing, but I believe that we also die in a way.

So often I feel more dead than alive.  I feel like I am just going through the motions of life:  sleeping, eating, shopping, working, laundry.  But I’m not alive;  I’m not living.  I’m walking around doing things, but it’s more like I am waiting for the sun to break through the clouds so I can dance.

But will that ever happen?  Will the clouds ever go away?  Do I have to walk away from the clouds?  And would leaving the marriage help the depression to get better?   I’m not usually depressed at work.  Sometime I am in a way, but I often think it’s more a hold-over from home that follows me to work.  I cry almost every day coming home from work.

My daughters are wonderful.  They gave me precious Mother’s Day gifts.  We had a house guest this week-end and I enjoy having house-guests.  This one was a young man who came for my daughter’s graduation on Friday from her two-year community college.  (I am SO proud of her, by the way!)   Even my husband gave me a nice gift:  a shelf that he built for me.  I told him I wanted it awhile back (maybe a couple of years ago?) and he finally made it for me.  So that was nice.   Now I have to get to sand it and paint it.  But at least I now have it.

But, despite the tolerable week-end, I’m sitting here, depressed.

If I leave, will I feel better?   Or will I find something else to be depressed about?  Like, not earning much money.   Or still not having a special someone in my life.  Or…..

On the blog, “P A Don’t Stand for Palo Alto,”  there is an article titled, Depression – A Side Effect of Passive Aggressive Relationships.  In the article, the author write:  “Lately I have really been missing the loving interaction that usually takes place between a man and a woman who supposedly love each other.”

That’s it.  That is exactly how I feel.

a conversation

Last night, lying in bed:

me:  Last night, I dreamed we got divorced.

him:  I don’t want to get divorced.

me:  The marriage is really empty to me.

him:  I try to give you what you need.  I’m trying to spend more time with you.

me:  All you do is talk about yourself.

him:  I like to hear about your day and what you did at work.

(End of conversation.)

Ugh!

So, last night, my younger daughter needed a little extra attention.  She often gets discouraged and depressed, which I know is not uncommon for teen-age girls.  But I do believe that this is made much worse when girls do not have good relationships with their daddies.

It is somewhat draining on me when I have to try to comfort her and so, when I am done, I always wish there was someone to comfort me.  There’s not.  Every time this happens, my husband has something completely unimportant to say when I come into our bedroom.  Last night, it was joke that Dave Ramsey made.  Cute, but, honestly, I wanted to scream.  I have this extra weight on me because of his lack and then he always seems to add insult to injury by his inaneness.

Then he said, the other week I bought those lightweight work shirts at Goodwill and I haven’t seen them since.  Where are they?  Well, I had just finished washing them, so I told him where they were.

I was already in my nightgown when I asked him if he put away my chickens.  Now, he usually puts away my chickens.  I’m not sure how much he does it to help me; sometimes I think he just likes my chickens.  Anyhow, he usually puts them away, but not always.   So I have to ask him every day if he put away my chickens, so if he didn’t put them away, I can go do it.  He’d already been in bed about forty-five minutes when I finally got there, so I put on my muck boots and put away my chickens.  I told them that I wished I could just sleep out there with them.  They like me and make soft little sounds to me when I come to tuck them in and pet them good night.

You know,  last night I came home from work so tired.  It was busy and somewhat stressful at the store and I haven’t been sleeping well and I was tired. Oh, and I have poison ivy. I was wondering what it would be like to come home and feel comforted and loved and cared for.  I can’t even imagine what that is like.  I’ve been doing this empty thing too long.

$8.77

So, for eight dollars, seventy-seven cents, and a trip to Lowe’s Home Center, I, single-handedly (o.k., so I used both hands) fixed the dripping water in the girls’ bathtub.

The hot water has been dripping continually through the spout for I don’t know how long.  Months ago, I told my husband that it leaked and he said that we would have to go into the wall to fix it.  (That, of course, would be too much work and, therefore, out of the question.)  This afternoon, I completely took apart the hot water faucet and took it all to Lowe’s.  I asked the guy in the plumbing department for help and he found for me what I needed:  a new washer.  The one in the faucet was about two-thirds worn away!   He said he would go ahead and put it in for me, but when he tried to unscrew the screw on the washer, the screw broke.  So he found a package with a screw in it and replaced it for me.  I came home and put the faucet back together.  And the spout doesn’t drip any more.   Yipee!

Maybe I should become a plumber.  They make lots of money, right?   And I like to fix things.  And people would hire a female plumber, right?  Hmmm…..

K measured how much the faucet was dripping.  She calculated sixty gallons every twenty-four hours!

Without it dripping, it should help a little with a few things.  Sixty fewer gallons a day will be going through my whole-house water filter, so maybe I’ll be able to replace the filter every three or four weeks instead of every other week.  (The well has some serious issues, so I have to replace the filter more often than I should have to.)  Next, the hot water heater will not be heating an extra sixty gallons of hot water a day.  And, sixty extra gallons a day won’t be going into the already-failing septic system.  So, maybe there will be fewer stinky puddles out there.

All for eight dollars, seventy-seven cents, and a trip to Lowe’s.

And the willingness to get it done.

feeling beaten

I feel beaten.  (My apologies to those of you who actually have been physically beaten; I never have.)  I feel belittled, stupid, worthless.  I feel the life sucked out of me.  I want to scream and kick and throw things.  I want to call my brother and cry.  I want to die.

Yeah.  I’m probably over-reacting.  I’ll give you that.  But this is my blog and this is how I feel right now.  And when you read it, you’ll think I’m crazy.  Well, you know what, maybe I am.

I didn’t get enough sleep last night.  My previous post was posted at about 2:00 a.m.  Then he woke me up at about 6:00 a.m. when I was so not ready to wake up.

Then when he’s getting ready to leave, he comes over to the bed and says, I have list.  [And he's standing there with a list on the back of an envelope.]  I want the dishes washed before I get home tonight.  I want the grass mowed.   I want K [oldest daughter] to pay me the car insurance money and car repair money that she owes me.  And she has to start paying for her cell phone.  And if she doesn’t have the money, she can come work for me.  The kitchen looks like a couple of single guys live here and the girls [our daughters] just sit around all day on the computer and do nothing.  [Not true.]   I got the mowers fixed and when K comes over to get the riding mower, I will pump up the tire for her.  I know it’s not as exciting as youtube, but they are too lazy.   I would do these things myself, but I don’t have time.  Do you have any questions?  Any comments?

I told him that just because he was mad at me, he didn’t have to take it out on my daughters.  He said that he wasn’t mad at me [oh, yeah?] and that he was reasonable to ask them to do these things.

O.K.  He wasn’t asking them.  He was lording over me, demanding that I tell them these things.  BECAUSE HE DOESN’T HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM AND CAN’T TALK TO THEM HIMSELF.   And I hate it when he criticizes me over his daughters when he has had nothing to do with raising them.

I felt so scummy.  I felt so horrible.  He sounded  like my dad, telling me I had to pay for my own school.  He sounded like my mom, telling me she was taking me to court for $45,000.

Then he told me he loved me.

Here, let me slap you around a little bit.  And then I’ll tell you I love you.

Oh, and then, he says, one more thing.  When you are driving the van and you take off from zero to sixty, and then speed, you are causing too much wear and tear on the van.  Then he proceeds to lecture me on how to drive the van slowly.  What am I, twelve???

I wanted to scream, just go away and leave me alone.

Then he wanted reassurance that he wasn’t being unfair in wanting these things done.  I told him I would tell the girls what he wanted done.

Then I felt like I was going to throw up.

Yeah.  Really.  I know.  I know I sound like I am over-reacting.

I just want to be loved so badly and I feel so uncared for and so disrespected.

After he left, I was thinking.  I have a list, too.  I want the leaky roof fixed.  I want the rotting floor fixed.  I want the termite situation fixed.  I want the dripping bathtub faucet fixed.  I want the stinking septic system fixed.  I want the well situation fixed.  But I guess those things really aren’t important.

I’m going to go eat chocolate now.

The sex thing again

When I got into bed tonight, he asked me if I ever wanted sex.  I was quiet for a minute and then I told him the truth:  pretty much all the time.

He told me that if I wanted sex, he could help me out.

I told him that whenever we had sex, it made me cry.  It made me want to die.  It made me want to kill myself.

He said it shouldn’t be that way.

I told him, well, it’s been that way for about ten, fifteen years now.

He said that he tries very hard to give me what I need.  (How many times have I heard that?)

I told him that I just don’t feel connected at all.  I just feel empty.

He said that is because I put up a barrier against him.  He said that I never was good enough for my dad and that is the way I treat him.  He said that nothing he ever does is good enough for me.  (Victim mentality going on here.)

I wanted to tell him I work with imperfect people.  I deal with imperfect people all the time.  In fact, I don’t know anyone who is perfect.  It’s not true that nothing is good enough for me.  I wanted to tell him he was just giving an excuse for not having an emotional connection with me because he is passive aggressive.  He is blaming me so he doesn’t have to address anything himself.

I’m sure he wants sex.  But he doesn’t want to make love.  He doesn’t want to have that emotional connection that I need.  So it works for him to tell me that it is my fault.

You know, I saw this coming.  We have been getting along “o.k.,” for us, the past couple of days.   Yesterday, I loaned him my van to take to his event and I drove his rattletrap truck.  I listened to him talk about his event.  I told him about my day.  I didn’t do anything to make him mad at me today.   He couldn’t let this last.

But he didn’t like it when I told him the truth about how I felt about sex.  So he had to “get back” at me.  By blaming it on me.

I am so stuck here.  Whether I had had sex with him tonight or not (or any other night, for that matter), he still would have pushed me away emotionally.   Passive aggressive men simply cannot make that emotional connection.   And I think it makes him mad that I am distant, that I am no longer chasing after him, trying to fix the marriage.  I think maybe it scares him and he doesn’t know how to deal with it, so he ignores the fact that the marriage is empty and I want to leave.  And every now and then, he gets back at me in some way.