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I have been thinking about this for awhile. My husband doesn't always do this but when he does, I'm usually at a loss for what to say.

He will try to make me responsible for making him feel better. For instance, last night he said "You have to help me trust you". Now, I know that him trusting me is all about him and it has nothing to do with me. I usually just say ok honey I love you and he drops it eventually. He will do this on a lot of stuff though. He will tell me that I need to figure out how to make him feel less distant. Or he will ask me directly "why do I feel distant from you, what are you doing". Making me responsible for his mood. Since he feels distant to me, to him that means I am the one doing something to cause it. I know what to say to him when he feels distant to me. I just am not sure what to say when he directly tells me that I need to make him feel better somehow. Because I know that is impossible. When I ask him directly what would make him feel better or what is it that he would like me to do. He will say I don't know you need to figure that out.

I have on occasion told him I can't figure that out for him he has to do that himself because I can't make him trust me or love me. With mixed results.

I think just consistent, refusal to own his emotions.

Validate when it comes up.  Let the comments roll off your back.  But dont own them.

Its a lifetime of behavior on his part that he has to learn a new way to deal with, it might take some time.

Validation here might be something like "wow, that's got to be painful, feeling like you can't trust me. What's going on?"

It may be possible to ask some validating questions.

"This sounds pretty important to you. I'd like to understand a bit more about what is going on. In what way don't you trust me?"


You might not get anywhere that way. But you might.