Well a little history would be that him watching the ENTIRE game is how most of our nights are spent. Every other night it's just TV. That's basically it. And/or him playing this or that on his phone. SO I just wanted something a little different. And yes, I could talk him, I tried, but like I said, all it turned into was him badgering me for my response and zero acknowledgement of any of his actions whatsoever. Even saying I was "just picking a fight". I feel like I gave him every opportunity for this to be fine and he just didn't care. It makes me feel not worth being around.
Have you read this article? My husband and I read it together and discussed it a little while back. I think it's pretty spot-on in terms of communication in a marriage.
So if you guys are turning toward each other, the conversation could've gone something like this:
You: Could you turn the TV off for a minute? I'd like to talk to you. H: (turns TV off and looks at you) You: I was hoping we could do something from the date list that I left. Would you be up for that? H: Sure. What do you have in mind? You: Well I was hoping you'd pick something while I was out. Maybe we could pick something together now.
I love my H dearly, and I think he's basically the best ever, but there is no way he'd ever pick something from a list I left him. But if we went through it together, we could talk about it and decide on something as a couple. Picking something (anything: food for dinner, paint colors, a date, etc) is not his thing. It's not that he doesn't love me. And I'm sure it's not that your H doesn't love you. But you have to understand who he is, and help him understand what you need from him.
Just read this article and forwarded it on to FI, thanks for sharing! I really enjoyed it and hope to discuss it tonight. Sometimes its hard to step back and remember how important all the little things in communication are.
I would be pissed if my husband and I squandered a whole weekend without kids without having a date night so I'm sorry that happened.
I have tried to do the whole "I'm down for anything you pick" thing but I'm really NOT down for whatever he picks and he can't read my mind. Next time you need to plan something better. Get out your own list and say "I'll be back at 6 and then we are going to dinner. Wear pants."
This is excellent guidance. It sounds like your H didn't hear what you were really asking because you didn't ask him in the way he hears
I have had to learn that my H is simply not a planner - and therefore I'm now in charge of our calendar. I also realized that when I said "we should do x, y, z" he heard it as 'musings' whereas I meant it as "do x, y, z." On Mother's Day, I said I'd like to have relaxing, low key day where I wasn't 'in charge.' That translated to my being asked "what I wanted to do" the morning of in a very solicitous kind of way, having given no thought to ideas himself because he thought that's what I meant...(spoiler alert: no, no it wasn't)
Either establish the plan yourself and then share it, OR discuss it with him with full attention and narrow the list. "I'd like to do something tonight together - let's figure it out when I get home" and then present a "I thought we could either go see ABC movie or go down to the pub and grab a drink. Which would you prefer?"
I agree, of course, that if your H was truly refusing to engage that is not at all helpful.
either choose an activity OR let him watch the game
don't say he can watch an hour of the game. That's not normal! Either no game, or the full game. I mean I don't know much about sports but isn't the end part usually the exciting part?!
you can watch the first hour, then when it starts to get good we are going to go play mini golf!
Post by ninjabridemom on Jun 2, 2015 13:04:10 GMT -5
I get not wanting to be The Planner all the time.
So what I do is, in advance, not an hour before, I say to Jake "Hey, I'd love to do a date night/family day out/whatever but I don't want to plan it b/c I've planned all the others lately. So could you spearhead this? I honestly don't care what we do as long as we spend quality, non-TV non-phone time together." And he usually does it.
It's amazing that this is something we need to learn, but being direct and unemotional is usually the best way to find a compromise.
This could happen to us. My H has a tendency to get checked out and beg with all the electronics. The more stressed he is the worse it is. And crying wouldn't help the situation because he would want to ignore it all more. The more direct and unemotional I can be, the more likely that we can successfully communicate and draw him back in.
So yeah, this sort of thing is an issue for us. I also work on accepting who my H is, which is not a planner. That would be setting him up to fail.