Hello. My feeling with my spouse is that he's having all these feelings and internal reactivity to things he doesn't understand or recognize... and I think it's about me, it's directed at me, but it's not really about me.
Ditto, ditto, and again ditto. My H so often directs "it" at me, and it is so hard not to take it personally. I am getting better at being non-reactive (i.e. don't JADE him), but it is a learning process. Today, I'm feeling down due to an interaction from this morning. Usually I work to "turn it around" and have a good day anyways, but I'm a bit tired, which makes it harder.
There have definitely been times when he's been triggered in the middle of sex and he doesn't have that history of abuse but he can just get triggered by a look on my face or something and I wish looking back I had understood that it wasn't me because I was left feeling rejected in a very vulnerable moment and deeply hurt. They want to merge and then they want to push away and it's all so unpredictable and confusing from my vantage point.
The look on my face has often bothered my H too. During sex, he often needs to see the appearance of total pleasure... any other, lesser facial expression could be perceived by him as a rejection. At times he thinks he sees a look of pain on my face, which upsets him. Also, if I fail to say the "right thing" or am not fast enough to pick up on his overtures that he wants sex, he will completely shut off and say angrily "that's it, you killed the mood".
In his case, he has told me he absolutely NEEDS me to initiate, and needs me to be insatiable. For a long time, I thought his need for sex was like an addiction. Now, I see that what he needs is to be accepted, never rejected sexually.
I think what he said was intended to provoke guilt, confusion, and rejection in you and push you away... I don't know him so I can only guess. But I've been made wrong 1000 times. Sometimes he had a point, sometimes it was just bullying. I'm glad you can talk it through here.
Assuming that your H is an otherwise good person, I doubt he "intended" to provoke guilt, confusion and rejection in you... but I think it's likely that he feels bad and is "giving you" his bad feelings.
It's like you, as the closest person to him, are a garbage can. When he feels intense feelings he can't control, he opens your lid and dumps them on you.
It is NOT RIGHT for him to do that.
Is that ringing true for you ladies at all?
